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.

Our Enemy, The State

Allow me to excerpt some prophetic wisdom penned in 1935 by Albert Nock.  I found this material on the following webpage - http://www.barefootsworld.net/nockoets1.html

Nock was witnessing the Democrats' "New Deal" power grab during Roosevelt's presidency.

Part of the world bankers' plan was to bankrupt the States and the other Western countries.  In a bankruptcy, you are beholden to the demands of the trustee.  Our republic and sovereignty were destroyed through a series of deceits commencing even before the ratification of the Constitution.  The Constitution itself was a bankruptcy compact.  The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments were both ramrodded through fraudulently, and are void - except for the fact that we have capitulated and gone along with them.  The Matrix movie was an exquisite metaphor for our current condition.

In the Mormon temple ceremony, we are taught that Satan will buy up armies and navies and rule with blood and horror on the earth.  Throughout history, the traditional model has one nation attacking and plundering another, raping its women and confiscating its resources. The American military cannot operate - - - - without money it borrows from the banker trustee.  If the bank wants a war, we have a war.  Today, all nations are conquered.  we are ALL in bondage.  Remember, however, that when you are in prison, throwing your food in the jailer's face is not a good idea.

This is a Telestial (i.e. fallen) world.  By being in it, you and I are corrupt.  We are strangers in a strange land.  This is not our home.  The banks use you as collateral as soon as you are born.  Look in the bottom right hand corner of your children's Certificate of Live Birth.  There is a nine-digit number (not your SSN).  This is your serial number. 

What I find most fascinating is the realization that in the Mormon model of ascension to godhood, those of us who attain that station will form worlds just like this one.  We will establish three races.  Some of our cunning, miscegenated offspring will find precious metals and lend against them to unwitting families and nations.  They will create fractional reserve banking and hand out worthless paper certificates as a substitute for real currency.  They will lend and foreclose, lend and foreclose until the entire world is bankrupt and enslaved.  This is what has been being done on worlds throughout the universe for billions of years.  This is the proving ground.  This is where you show your inclinations and true colors.  This is where we find out if you belong with the wheat or the tares.  If what I am saying resonates with you, then read also - -

http://www.barefootsworld.net/admiralty.html 

and

http://www.barefootsworld.net/usfraud.html 

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I

IF WE look beneath the surface of our public affairs, we can discern one fundamental fact, namely: a great redistribution of power between society and the State. This is the fact that interests the student of civilization. He has only a secondary or derived interest in matters like price-fixing, wage-fixing, inflation, political banking, "agricultural adjustment," and similar items of State policy that fill the pages of newspapers and the mouths of publicists and politicians. All these can be run up under one head. They have an immediate and temporary importance, and for this reason they monopolize public attention, but they all come to the same thing; which is, an increase of State power and a corresponding decrease of social power.

 

It is unfortunately none too well understood that, just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its own. All the power it has is what society gives it, plus what it confiscates from time to time on one pretext or another; there is no other source from which State power can be drawn. Therefore every assumption of State power, whether by gift or seizure, leaves society with so much less power. There is never, nor can there be, any strengthening of State power without a corresponding and roughly equivalent depletion of social power.

 

Moreover, it follows that with any exercise of State power, not only the exercise of social power in the same direction, but the disposition to exercise it in that direction, tends to dwindle. Mayor Gaynor astonished the whole of New York when he pointed out to a correspondent who had been complaining about the inefficiency of the police, that any citizen has the right to arrest a malefactor and bring him before a magistrate. "The law of England and of this country," he wrote, "has been very careful to confer no more right in that respect upon policemen and constables than it confers on every citizen." State exercise of that right through a police force had gone on so steadily that not only were citizens indisposed to exercise it, but probably not one in ten thousand knew he had it. 

Heretofore in this country sudden crises of misfortune have been met by a mobilization of social power. In fact (except for certain institutional enterprises like the home for the aged, the lunatic-asylum, city-hospital and county-poorhouse) destitution, unemployment, "depression"and similar ills, have been no concern of the State, but have been relieved by the application of social power. Under Mr. Roosevelt, however, the State assumed this function, publicly announcing the doctrine, brand-new in our history, that the State owes its citizens a living. Students of politics, of course, saw in this merely an astute proposal for a prodigious enhancement of State power; merely what, as long ago as 1794, James Madison called "the old trick of turning every contingency into a resource for accumulating force in the government"; and the passage of time has proved that they were right. The effect of this upon the balance between State power and social power is clear, and also its effect of a general indoctrination with the idea that an exercise of social power upon such matters is no longer called for. 

It is largely in this way that the progressive conversion of social power into State power becomes acceptable and gets itself accepted. When the Johnstown flood occurred, social power was immediately mobilized and applied with intelligence and vigour. Its abundance, measured by money alone, was so great that when everything was finally put in order, something like a million dollars remained. If such a catastrophe happened now, not only is social power perhaps too depleted for the like exercise, but the general instinct would be to let the State see to it. Not only has social power atrophied to that extent, but the disposition to exercise it in that particular direction has atrophied with it. If the State has made such matters its business, and has confiscated the social power necessary to deal with them, why, let it deal with them. We can get some kind of rough measure of this general atrophy by our own disposition when approached by a beggar. Two years ago we might have been moved to give him something; today we are moved to refer him to the State's relief-agency. The State has said to society, You are either not exercising enough power to meet the emergency, or are exercising it in what I think is an incompetent way, so I shall confiscate your power, and exercise it to suit myself. Hence when a beggar asks us for a quarter, our instinct is to say that the State has already confiscated our quarter for his benefit, and he should go to the State about it.

Crooked

Obama's pick for A.G.

Attorney General Eric Holder has not been a paragon of ethical integrity.  No wonder Obama picked him and has covered for him since the two of them took office in 2009.

Since that time, Holder has had his finger in a lot of dirty matters.  He dodged congressional scrutiny in the "Fast and Furious" gun-running debacle that resulted in the murder of a border patrol agent.  He squirmed out of accountability in the scandal involving his eavesdropping into the personal communications of Fox News reporter, James Rosen.  The list of Holder's transgressions is long and pathetic.  If Holder is the best our nation can come up with to oversee justice in America, then America is corrupt beyond repair (you knew that!).

In the George Zimmerman murder trial farce, the Florida state prosecutor and the Sanford chief of police elected not to proceed with a prosecution of Zimmerman, because there was not sufficient evidence for a jury to convict him of guilt beyond reasonable doubt.  The details of the altercation between Trayvon Martin and Zimmerman are sufficiently unclear, that a guilty verdict was a virtual impossibility. Subsequent to the decision not to prosecute, the media published misleading information about the events surrounding the teenager's death.  Predictably, there followed a huge public outcry, with racial outrage, and thousands calling for the lynching of Zimmerman.

Under pressure from civil rights pundits and Eric Holder's crooked justice department, Florida's Governor Scott dismissed the prosecutor and the chief of police.  He then brought in Angela Corey as a Special Prosecutor to revive the prosecution of Zimmerman - sufficient evidence or not.  A grand jury was set to hear the case to review the wisdom of proceeding, and Corey summarily canceled the grand jury.  A new D.A. and chief of police were installed, and the prosecution proceeded.  Despite the fact that even a successful manslaughter conviction would be unlikely, Corey pushed for "Second-Degree Murder".  I think ousted police chief Chris Serino took wicked delight in skewering the prosecuting attorneys who called him as a state witness.  He told the jury that Zimmerman's account of the events was entirely credible.

What followed is now history.  Last night, a jury of six women fully acquitted Zimmerman of all charges.  Yesterday, the IT manager (who had recently disclosed the fact that Corey and her prosecution team had failed to share important, potentially exculpatory evidence with the defense team) WAS FIRED !!!!

Just like the Benghazi disaster and cover up, this travesty is again highlighting the corruption of Eric Holder's Justice Department.  He deliberately incited fury in certain racial populations, so now with Zimmerman's acquittal, there is fresh outrage.  Thousands are incensed that Zimmerman is now free.  I am gratified that he and justice were vindicated.  Faith and trust in the integrity of our federal government is further eroded.  Alan Dershowitz called for Angela Corey's disbarment in this article.  Al Sharpton is pushing for a civil rights indictment against Zimmerman.  Good luck!

Thanks Eric.

Breitbart Agrees

I have been saying for some time that the 14th Amendment doctrine of equal protection spawned the current arguments in favor of gay marriage.  All states are now on a slippery slope to approving it.  The Supreme Court may soon insist.

I have also long been saying that the arguments endorsing gay marriage must equally be applied to American polygamists (see my THREE TIERS post -  http://fallofreynolds.blogspot.com/2011/08/three-tiers.html).

Recent Supreme Court decisions have prompted more commentators to acknowledge these realities.  I quote in full below a brilliant article from Breitbart.com.
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http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/06/30/The-road-to-polygamy

The road to polygamy

by John Hayward 30 Jun 2013

Proponents of gay marriage often make light of the slippery-slope argument that same-sex marriage will lead to legalized polygamy.  I can see why they want to dismiss that argument, but they're being silly.  Of course same-sex marriage will lead to polygamy.  It is inevitable.  It'll take a little while, but it's coming.

Simple common sense tells us that every argument deployed in support of same-sex marriage is readily available to the polygamy activists.  Who are we to tell three women and one man that they can't be in love?  Who are we to deny official recognition, and government benefits, to their loving union?

This isn't just a rhetorical trick.  The essence of the gay marriage argument is that the sex of the participants is absolutely irrelevant.  If that's the case, then how can the number of participants be essential?  Everything except the exchange of vows between legal adults in a committed relationship is being stripped from marriage.  The sense that society has a deep and abiding interest in promotion the union between a man and a woman has been lost.  The question is now framed purely as one of unfair exclusion: hidebound traditionalists, religious zealots, and generally mean people are trying to keep gay people from getting married, but the forces of enlightened tolerance are riding to the rescue.  Read Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion in the Defense of Marriage Act decision; he spends a great deal of time thundering that no person of good will could possibly advance a logical reason to prevent the federal government from extending benefits to same-sex couples.  The polygamists will simply take him at his word, and read his decision right back to the Supreme Court, when it's their turn to make a bid for "tolerance."

I don't think the legal concept of "consenting adults" is necessarily voided by same-sex marriage, although it's under attack from other directions.  For that reason, slippery-slope warnings about legalized bestiality and pedophilia are going too far.  But polygamists are consenting adults.  And, as a report at BuzzFeed indicates, they were very, very pleased with the Supreme Court's DOMA decison:

The Supreme Court’s rulings in favor of same-sex marriage Wednesday were greeted with excitement by polygamists across the country, who viewed the gay rights victory as a crucial step toward the country’s inevitable acceptance of plural marriage.

Anne Wilde, a vocal advocate for polygamist rights who practiced the lifestyle herself until her husband died in 2003, praised the court’s decision as a sign that society’s stringent attachment to traditional “family values” is evolving.

“I was very glad… The nuclear family, with a dad and a mom and two or three kids, is not the majority anymore,” said Wilde. “Now it’s grandparents taking care of kids, single parents, gay parents. I think people are more and more understanding that as consenting adults, we should be able to raise a family however we choose.”

“We’re very happy with it,” said Joe Darger, a Utah-based polygamist who has three wives. “I think [the court] has taken a step in correcting some inequality, and that’s certainly something that’s going to trickle down and impact us.”

Noting that the court found the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional because the law denied marriage rights to a specific class of people, Darger said, “Our very existence has been classified as criminal… and I think the government needs to now recognize that we have a right to live free as much as anyone else.”

There's nothing illogical about what Darger is saying.  The same-sex marriage movement is predicated on the notion that nuclear families are nothing special - they're just one of many alternative lifestyle arrangements, worthy of no special recognition from government or society.  And the argument has indeed been framed as "denying marriage rights" to classes of people, rather than insisting upon the unique value of "traditional" marriage.  (I find myself using that phrase when I write on this topic, to distinguish the traditionally understood definition of marriage from the same-sex variety, but I've heard it said that qualifying the term "marriage" in any way is conceding vital intellectual ground to those who wish to re-define it.)  Why should the polygamist "class of people" be "denied" these "rights?"

It might be a forlorn hope at this point in the discussion, but I think we should re-examine the vital importance of marriage between men and women to society.  We never should have stopped emphasizing this unique value, and assumed the defensive crouch that lets activist Supreme Court judges sneer that no one can make a reasoned argument against gay marriage any longer.  It won't be much of a consolation watching the polygamists bludgeon Justice Kennedy with his own words in a few years.

Dear Judge Waddoups

Dear Judge Waddoups,

Did you notice today that the Supreme Court (ten years to the day after the June 26, 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas) just struck down DOMA (the federal defense of marriage act)?

I know you have been working for some months now on your decision in the Kody Brown bigamy crime case.  I wonder if you have been waiting for the Supreme Court to share its wisdom regarding gay marriage prohibitions with you.

In a 5-4 decision today, the Court told you that DOMA must fall because government must not single out a specific class of people for favorable or unfavorable treatment.  In his 1996 dissent in Romer v. Evans, Justice Antonin Scalia noted that the polygamists in Utah are singled out for unfavorable treatment.  Three-tiered framework be damned, polygamists do fall into a discrete minority class.  They ARE treated as second-class citizens.  Their EXISTENCE is seen as a crime (as was gay people's existence before 2003).

What is the appropriate prison term for a polygamous person?

 - - - Life in prison.

Why? - - - Because he will still be a polygamist when you let him out of prison.

Clearly, today, the Supreme Court acknowledged the absurdity of this, and now so must you, Judge Waddoups.

Jonathan Turley told you that Utah's ridiculous bigamy statute violates no fewer than six of Kody Brown's Constitutional protections - more than enough justification for strictly scrutinizing this dumb law.  Now you can finish your master-work. If gay people can now marry and enjoy all of the benefits accorded to heterosexual spouses, will you let us thrive and walk the streets without fearing imprisonment?

I am holding my breath now, waiting for you to rule that Utah's bigamy statute constitutes IMPERMISSIBLE TARGETING of a religious minority.  Can you have the ruling finished by 5 pm this afternoon?

Sincerely,

Renn Oldsbuster

Drones

There has been discussion for months now about whether Obama should have authorization to use drones to kill American citizens on U.S. soil.  After all, he has already used drones to assassinate Americans abroad.

Several secret Justice Department memos were written to justify this type of drone use, but they have not been released, so the public cannot challenge them.

Today, A.G., Eric Holder, responded to Congress that he would not rule out the use of drones to kill Americans (see article).  He was asked if the Constitution forbids it, and he did not answer directly.

What have I been telling you?  The government is not necessarily your friend.  Yesterday he said that the President has "no intention" of using drones to kill citizens here at home.  That is just code for "until he changes his mind".  The Department of Homeland Security is spending $$-BILLIONS to buy drones for domestic use.  If they don't "INTEND" to use them, then why are they buying them?

Do you smell the scent of totalitarianism yet?  I do.  Will you pretend that it really is no big deal?

Silliness

In the wake of the recent tragic mass shootings in Colorado and Connecticut, the liberal mob is clamoring for more limits on the availability of firearms and ammunition.  You would assume that these bleeding hearts are genuinely hoping to prevent future massacres by reducing the number of bullets in circulation.  Proposed regulations include the enforcement of background check guidelines.

I don't have exact statistics, but one news report noted that nearly as many people are murdered each year by blows from hammers.  I don't believe that Obama and his posse seriously want to outlaw hammers (or knives for that matter).

Cook County (Chicago-land), Illinois, has some of the strictest gun prohibitions in the nation, yet the number of murders there has increased steadily over the last two years.

Let's be honest.  This push to get guns (or automatic weapons) out of the hands of Americans has little do to with preventing massacres.  You know that liberals want bigger government.  For them government is inherently benevolent - especially if they are running it.  They want it to grow if only so that more of them can enjoy the security of recurring revenue.

Think about it.  What is government?  It is just other folks like you and me who now have the power to make collective decisions for you and me - power which we accorded to them, or power that they seized through duress.  That is why we vote - so that we can get rid of power-hungry tyrants.

Problem is - through devious, cunning manipulation, the government/banker types in America have voided the Constitution, diluted the Bill of Rights, mortgaged our land to our enemies, and plotted to utterly dismantle our republican form of government.  We are more closely resembling ancient Rome and ancient Babylon.

The Framers created the Second Amendment because they had watched European governments seize the citizens' guns and oppress and brutalize them for personal gain.  Their goal was to arm the American citizenry so that tyrannical scum like our current "leaders" wouldn't be able to storm into our homes and take our guns, food and daughters.  That's the whole point.  The regular folks need to have guns so that the enemy - be it foreign or domestic - cannot overwhelm them when our social infrastructure collapses.

In pre-war Nazi Germany, gun ownership was virtually eradicated.  No wonder Hitler met with little resistance in his campaign for total national control.  We, the People, are asleep because we are not the ones making the plans for the devastation of our land.  The least we can do is be prepared and be armed.

Why does Obama want you to give up your assault rifles?  Because he doesn't want you to be able to defend yourself when he comes to take your gas and food.  He wants your protests to fall on deaf government ears - just like they do now.

Silliness !!!

I'm Confused

Race discrimination is a delicate topic in the U.S. (and in other parts of the western world).  If you want to preserve your reputation, you simply do not bash members of non-white races.

Mark E. Petersen

The Mormon Church came under fire in the 1970's because it denied priesthood ordinations to black men.  Its longstanding policy was articulated by Mark E. Petersen in this speech. 

Spencer W. Kimball

The hue and cry reached a fever pitch in 1978, and the Church's Council of the Twelve saw no other option but to surrender to public sentiment and alter its policy.  The Church was facing immense pressure regarding its new temple in Sao Paolo, Brazil.  Church president, Spencer W. Kimball, had been confronting criticism for several years.  In June, of 1978, Kimball announced that through "revelation" he (and the Twelve) had been directed by God to start ordaining negroes.  You can read about these events here, but I have been unable to find a copy of the alleged revelation to Kimball.  Perhaps he considered it too personal and not for general publication.

Last week the Church announced a batch of changes it has recently made to its canon of holy writ - the four "Standard Works" (read this article in the Salt Lake Tribune).  Among the recent edits are "tweaks" to the portions of the scriptures that address race.  Part of Peggy Fletcher Stack's article reads:

 - - - The lead-in to Official Declaration 2, which describes the church’s 1978 announcement to lift its ban on black males holding the faith’s priesthood, makes clear that Mormon founder Joseph Smith had previously ordained several black men.

Subsequent LDS officials "stopped conferring the priesthood on black males of African descent," the new introduction says. "Church records offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice."

The new edition does not dispel any of the theological myths that arose to defend the practice, saying only that Mormon leaders believed it would take a revelation to undo the ban. 

"I am thrilled by the new statement regarding blacks," says Darius Gray, former president of the Genesis Group, a support organization for black Mormons. "The language is more forthcoming than anything we’ve previously had on the past priesthood restriction, so I take great pleasure in seeing the changes." - - -

So, as an external observer, I find my self confused by the mixed arguments made by the Church regarding its policies towards negroes and the priesthood.  The Church's two contrasting explanations can be summed up by the following:

1.  Blacks were denied priesthood throughout and since Bible times.  Joseph Smith eventually came to understand this proscription and retracted the ordination of Elijah Abel (a negro) after having given him the priesthood in error.  Negroes remained ineligible to receive priesthood until 1978, when God deemed them finally worthy (lifting the "Curse of Cain"), and He directed Spencer Kimball to start ordaining them, admitting them to the temples, and sealing them to white people. 

2.  Blacks have been worthy to hold priesthood since the days of their first ancestor.  Joseph Smith ordained them rightfully.  Joseph Smith's successors INEXPLICABLY suspended the ordination of negroes, - - - - and, no matter how hard we look, we cannot find a single treatise in the "records" of the Church to help us understand why blacks were refused priesthood.  So, when we woke up in the 1970's, we realized what a silly oversight this was, and we hurried and corrected it (especially in light of the huge international outcry against our doctrines).

Aren't you just as confused as I am?  Do you get the impression that the Church's doctrines have a half-life of about 20 years, and depend wholly on the prevailing tide of fashion and public sentiment?

The Finish Line

Judge Clark Waddoups

Jonathan Turley

Sorry I haven't posted in a long while.  Too much going on.

From friendly observers who attended the Federal District Court hearing in the Kody Brown case last month, I learned that our ol' buddy, Jerryold Jensen, was obliterated by Judge Waddoups.  Turley barely needed to stand up.

Here's what I gather from the various reports:

There were several anti-polygamy harpies there, and they went largely unnoticed.  I think they wanted to stir the emotions of other polygamy haters, but this hearing wasn't about emotions - it was about the violation of the Browns' rights.

Jerrold Jensen

AG Deputy Jensen wanted Waddoups to summarily judge that the case should be thrown out because the Browns don't have standing and haven't been harmed.  Jonathan Turley wants the judge to rule in the Browns' favor because they have been abused by the State.

When the hearing started, Waddoups noted that Turley had alleged that no fewer than SEVEN of the Browns' constitutional liberties have been violated - including -

Freedom of religion
Freedom of speech
Due process
Equal protection
Freedom of association
Free exercise

He asked Jensen to explain which degree of judicial review/scrutiny should be applied by the Court to Turley's constitutional claims against the statute.  Instead of answering intelligently, Jensen said either that the standard of review should be merely "rational basis" (the lowest), or that there need be no review at all because the Browns' claim is merely a "facial" challenge (i.e. that they are simply complaining unjustifiably about the wording of Utah's anti-bigamy statute).

Waddoups mentioned each claim one by one, and, each time, Jensen shouted, "Your honor, I have THOUSANDS OF STORIES of women and children who have been abused by polygamy and compounds." I found it amusing that at the end of the hearing Waddoups asked Jensen why he had not included even ONE of these THOUSAND STORIES in his briefs.  He also reminded Jensen that these 'stories' have NO RELEVANCE to the Browns' case.

But here is where it gets good.  I can only think that Judge Waddoups has been reading Yours Truly, because he proceeded to ask Jensen (in Renn-Oldsbuster-style) what exactly a person must do to fall afoul of Utah's bigamy statute.  I'm paraphrasing, but here's how it was narrated to me:

Waddoups said, "Okay, Mr. Jensen,  . . . . . . 

 . . . . . . let's take the example of an unmarried man who has three girl-friends whom he feeds, clothes and houses, and with whom he makes a permanent commitment and has children.  Does that trigger a prosecution under the statute?"

Jensen said, "No."

" . . . . . . okay, let's take the example of an man who has one legal wife and two girl-friends whom he feeds, clothes and houses, and with whom he makes a permanent commitment and has children.  Does that trigger a prosecution under the statute?"

Jensen said, "No."

" . . . . . . okay, let's take the example of an man who has one legal wife and two other partners whom he calls "wives", and whom he feeds, clothes and houses, and with whom he makes a permanent commitment and has children.  Does that trigger a prosecution under the statute?"

Jensen said, "No."

" . . . . . . okay, let's take the example of an man who has one legal wife and two other partners whom he calls "wives" and with whom he has a spiritual commitment ceremony performed by his Jewish rabbi, and whom he feeds, clothes and houses, and with whom he makes a permanent commitment and has children.  Does that trigger a prosecution under the statute?"

Jensen answered that it was the act of "MARRYING" that constitutes the felony (all this notwithstanding the fact that in Utah it is legally impossible to "MARRY" more than one person !!).

Waddoups retorted that the only thing he could conclude from Jensen's answers was that Utah's application of the statute is a form of religious discrimination.  Despite Jensen's argument that the Browns' claim is purely "facial" ( - i.e. statute is worded in a manner which impermissibly targets Fundamentalist Mormons - ), the judge demonstrated that the claim is an "as-applied" claim - namely that the statute violates constitutional liberties in the way in which it is applied - i.e. that the language of the statute seems fair and of general applicability in the innocuous way it is worded ("don't cohabit" and "don't purport"), but when law enforcement gets its teeth into folks, it is always ONLY EVER Fundamentalist Mormons who get ensnared in the net.  When Lehi's bumbling Kops went on TV to proclaim the Browns felons on the heels of their "televised confessions", the wire was tripped.  The Supreme Court doubtless understands this, and so did Mark Shurtleff.

Think about this, folks, can you remember a single Utahn in the last 100 years who was prosecuted for cohabiting and purporting ('code' for religious plural marriage) who WAS NOT a Fundamentalist Mormon?  This is the very epitome of impermissible targeting of a 'discrete, insular minority'.

From what I learned about the hearing, EVERYBODY in the courtroom cringed with pathos over the drubbing administered to Jensen by the judge.  Jensen was heard to tell the judge on more than one occasion, "Okay, you got me on that one."  Utah's media, though present, was remarkably kind to Jensen, in no case disclosing that Jensen got pummeled and made a virtual fool of himself.

Why am I so hard on Jensen?  After all, wasn't it cruel for the AG's office to send him to the (inevitable) slaughter?  Truth is - it wouldn't have mattered whom they sent.  There was no sane answer to Waddoups' questions.  I secretly wish it had been Laura DuPaix.  Jensen fell on his sword.  I will bet my life that Waddoups is getting ready to rule in the Browns' favor.

We know that, whatever the ruling, the losing side is bound to appeal to the 10th Circuit.  For this reason, I believe that Waddoups is authoring a veritable volume of jurisprudence to support his finding in favor of the Browns.  None of the facts of the case is in dispute.  All that matters is the constitutionality of a statute that was already eviscerated by the Lawrence decision on June 26, 2003.  The 10th Circuit has squirmed its way out of addressing Reynolds on the merits more than once.  I'd like to see it try this time.  Jonathan Turley is no dog-meat.  You know he is ITCHING to get this case in front of SCOTUS.  If the the 10th Circuit concurs with Waddoups, Reynolds is cooked.

I smell the finish line. You can also read Jonathan Turley's general comments here.