Same Song, Second Verse

ERIC NICHOLS

I just read some newspaper articles about Michael Emack's appeal.  Emack is serving a seven-year sentence for having a teenage plural wife.  He pleaded no contest (perhaps in order to avoid a bad trial).  His appeal appears to have made its way to the Texas district appeals court (this week) faster than the other convicts' appeals because in his case there was no trial record to review.

The appeal centers on the assertion that the April 2008 YFZ Ranch raid was improperly conducted - that the search warrant must be suppressed because it was improperly executed.  In a Salt Lake Tribune article, prosecutor Eric Nichols said the raid was - 

 . . . .  'reasonable in the approximately 1,600-acre ranch, which has no street names or house numbers. 

“You have a situation in which there are no street names, no house numbers,” he said. “It was reasonable under those circumstances for those officers to ... look for her wherever she might be found.”' 

I'm no lawyer, but I wonder how powerful that argument would be for the Supreme Court.  Nichols seems to want to impale himself on the same old sword.  I read the pleadings prepared in the suppression hearing before Barbarous Warthog, and it is evident to me that the State of Texas botched several key steps in the raid - they violated several key Constitutional principles.  Their conduct was so cavalier - they didn't really care.  There was simply no excuse for not using the readily available technology to find the location of the phone that Rosacea Swinetown was using to make her hoax calls.  I don't care whether the Sheriff was "convinced" that something weird was going on in the ranch.  Why do we even bother to have a Fourth Amendment?  Why have rules about proper searches and seizures? 

I wonder if this district court is the same one that returned the confiscated children back in 2008.  That was the court that scoffed at the whole "single household" argument.  When the state frantically scrambled to prevent the return of the children by complaining to the Texas Supreme Court, the court roundly upheld the lower court's insistence that the state had acted improperly.  

I guess I have a hard time thinking that a court which ruled so adamantly that the communal, "single-household" rationalization was spurious would suddenly contradict itself and condone such an argument in connection with the search.

I think, however, that when the situation involves polygamists, fairness sometimes goes out the window.  A successful suppression of the search would be a monumental embarrassment (all over again) for Texas.  Surely MANY public officials don't want the convictions overturned, when they would rather see all polygamists imprisoned for life (AND keep their precious JOBS !!!).

I prefer to remain optimistic that the district court will soberly agree that the whole raid was long orchestrated and was in extreme bad faith.  What is more fascinating is the possibility that Warren Jeffs could have his charges dropped as a result of the suppression.  Is that why Utah is clinging so desperately to the hope of a re-trial in the Elissa Wall phantasy rape case?  Does Utah secretly believe that the search is doomed to be overturned?

Somebody (probably Snortlick) must have riled Texas up to going after the Frankenstein polygs.  Maybe Texas got too caught up in the drunken, torches-and-pitchforks hunt for the peculiar, and lost command of its senses.

We shall see.
 - - - - - - - - - 

Waco - Eldorado - Short Creek

I watched a CNN documentary tonight about the destruction of the Branch Davidian community in Waco, Texas, (in 1993).  I was (predictably) disappointed with CNN's portrayal, since it failed to tell much of the real truth.  I found a YouTube video which gives an alternative narrative of some of the events surrounding the horrific deaths of at least 76 Branch Davidians.  I have looked at similar material before, and it is beyond compelling.  Two items which have perpetually stood out in my mind are as follows:

1.  In the first ATF attack, three agents climbed on to the building's roof and entered David Koresh's bedroom.  A fourth agent fired automatic gunfire into the bedroom shortly thereafter.  The three agents inside all died.  It was later learned that all three had been bodyguards for Bill Clinton during his presidential election campaign.  Some of those bodyguards were preparing to give testimony in court against Clinton.

2.  There are (easily available) videos showing clearly how the tanks which poked holes in the building on the day of the fire were shooting out a stream of flames as they pulled out of the holes in the walls, setting fire intentionally.

The raid on the Davidians had been planned and rehearsed for months, despite government claims to the contrary.  Watch this video, too.  The extent of the official cover-up is astonishing.  The FBI ran the whole show.

Similarly, despite claims to the contrary, the May 2008 raid on the YFZ ranch in Eldorado, Texas, was also planned for many months.  Detractors such as Flora Jessflop and Prannon Shice were intimately involved in the preparations and the aftermath.  The government was apparently sufficiently prepared for the invasion, that it enlisted ATF sharpshooters and the "Midland County" tank (see photo) to be at the ready - ready to shoot and kill.

The FBI was sufficiently involved that it had placed Warren Jeffs on America's "Top Ten Most Wanted list"!  One would almost wonder if there might be truth to the suggestion that the FBI is partly an arm of the LDS Church as it strives to put down its adversaries.  I have also heard that the FBI recently doubled the size of its offices in St. George, Utah.  What does the FBI have planned next?  There have already been a string of raids and invasions in the sleepy little towns of Hildale and Colorado City.

Even if there may have been some maltreatment of some underage girls in the community, do we really want another catastrophic showdown?  Is it not time for cooler heads to prevail?  I appeal to all of those who in a position of power or influence to find ways to collaborate, to sit down together and work out peaceful solutions.  Thinking back to the Ruby Ridge murders and the Singer-Swapp siege, I sense that our government has a profound allergy to isolated religious communities.  Two phenomena become apparent - 1.) the government ALWAYS runs out of patience; and 2.) the government ALWAYS cooks up some fraudulent pretext to justify storming in and acting like a murderous bull in a china shop.

Somebody must have been saying his prayers during the YFZ invasion because, in that disaster, nobody was shot.  The young men sang hymns, and the itchy ATF trigger fingers went unsatisfied that day. 439 innocent children were kidnapped but (thanks to God and two angels [Balovich and Chisholm]) were later returned.

So, my prayer tonight is that true principle and righteousness will win out in this tense and crazy, border-town situation and that the lessons of Waco and Eldorado will have been learned by BOTH sides. I ask every one of you to offer the same prayer.

Rozita Swinton - More Sleaze

I have to give praise to Modern Pharisee for his impassioned indignation over the recent Rozita Swinetown shenanigans. Follow this link -

http://hughmcbryde.blogspot.com/2010/01/rozita-swinton-pleads-guilty.html

Not unlike the PR machinery of the Mother Church, the sleazy West Texas legal machinery is in heightened panic management mode, trying to head off the enemy at every turn. The enemy in this case is the highly questionable conduct of Rozita Swinebag and the potentially embarrassing fallout from a revelation that she was, in fact, a co-conspiratrice. Maybe they just don't want her to start "singing". Just think of the tales she could tell. Dirty, dirty, dirty!

This is sticky for Texas. You would think that Texas would view the equation like this -

Rozita master-minded this vicious anti-FLDS allegation and and single-handedly triggered the uncontrolled wasting of twenty million dollars of Tex-payer money. So let's throw the book at her !!! Put her away for twenty (or 99) years !!! It seems, however, that Texas and Colorado are doing everything they can do to help Rozita to ride off into her blissful, twisted sunset.

Here's the problem as I see it -

If Rozita is just a poor, innocent, mentally unbalanced retard, then WHO REALLY DID THE MASTER-MINDING of the YFZ invasion? You can't have it both ways, Texas.

If Rozita was just an unwitting pawn, then was it Intestinal Flora who set things in motion? or Brooks Long?, Sheriff Doran?, Barbara Walther?, Hildy Harferbrain?, Marleigh Meisner?, Carey Cockroach?, Diversity Foundation?, or all of the above?

I quote from an article in today's Salt Lake Tribune -

Lawyer: No Colorado crime in Texas polygamy calls:
--
* * * * * "Kemp [Texas Ranger Philip -] also said that a review of Swinton's phone records showed she made numerous calls to the NewBridge crisis center in late March [2008]. That review also showed Swinton placed several calls to anti-polygamy activist Flora Jessop and a Washington state shelter around the same time. "

What creature runs for cover when the sun is starting to shine?

Fox Guards Hen House

MORE ABSURDITY FROM BARBARA WALTHER !!!!!!!!!!

I am confident that my esteemed fellow bloggers will do more justice to this topic than I ever could, but I cannot hold my tongue (pen ? - keyboard ?) about this farce. I never let a day go by without thanking God that I don't live in California, but I think I am equally jubilant not to live in Texas.

Judge Barbara Walther was either hoodwinked into signing that search warrant for the YFZ raid, or she colluded in the fraud. Either way, why does she get to be the judge who is tasked with reviewing the legitimacy of the search? What happened to "checks and balances"?

Tell me she doesn't despise the FLDS with every ounce of her gentile (?) flesh. Tell me she isn't seething with rage over being overruled by the Texas Supreme Court. Tell me she wants to impeach the validity of the search she helped to set in motion.

International waters commence at the three-mile line (from our shores). When foreign admirals come ashore and assume authority over us natives, then we come under admiralty or maritime jurisdiction. A common law (de jure) court operates under the principle that "Land plus labor equals substance". Admiralty, maritime (ocean-going) (or de facto) courts have a gold fringe around the flag, and operate under the principle of "contracts over time for profit". If you don't think we are subject to a maritime jurisdiction, then why is there a sign at the state line that reads "PORT OF ENTRY"?

There is no possible way that Baba Wawa is following Constitutional principles in her courtroom. Her behavior is reminiscent of the behavior of the judges who ruled in the cases of the displaced residents of Short Creek in the 1950s (prejudice, bias, and utter violation of neutrality and impartiality).

I pray that she will remember the shaming she already got, and do the right thing ("Let my people go . . . ") or that, after she rules that her reprehensible April 2008 search and seizure was perfectly lawful, she will find herself once again impaled on the swords of the Texas appeals courts.

I rejoice nonetheless in the fact that now, as a result of real personal harm from bogus bigamy charges, the absurd 1879 Reynolds decision will be vigorously tested in the bright (?) 14th Amendment light of the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision.

Idiots !!!