Pastor Andy Anderson was where?

This is the kind of thing you always get accused of wearing a tin hat for mentioning. Nevertheless it's worth pointing to the strangeness of Pastor Andy Anderson's destination, when he dodged his subpoena over the weekend.

Andy took off for Pagosa Springs, CO. It would be interesting to know how many times he has been there before. What, might you ask is just down the road from quiet Pagosa Springs? 85 miles down the road, on US Highway 160, turning neither to the right, or to the left, is Mancos, CO. What's in Mancos you ask? The FLDS.

It of course could be nothing. It is noteworthy though that Andy Anderson who was going to be asked when it was that he was informed buses were going to be needed to pick up kids from YFZ, skipped town. He may have made trips to Pagosa Springs before, and that is where he was, when he skipped town. Barbara Walther DID NOT issue a bench warrant to bring him back, and she went from having a hearing about having a hearing to declaring the hearing about a hearing to be the hearing and limiting testimony time and cutting off witnesses and denying the defense other witnesses so that she could get it all wrapped up, before Andy Anderson got back. At least that's the way I understand it.

I suppose the record could come out in the next few days and it will show Andy did make it back and testified. From where I sit though, I have seen no report of Andy showing up, and he just skipped without answering the subpoena. And Walther stayed until 10:30pm Friday night, and worked an 11 hour Saturday, 8:30am until 7:30pm and changed the proceedings into an evidentiary hearing and wrapped up everything and told the attorneys to "mail it in" and Andy did not testify. It would seem.

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Misconceptions Still Abound about the FLDS in the Media

The Rocky Mountain News gets on board with coverage of the FLDS and shows a lack of research on the subject which it replaces with assumptions, the most glaring of which is this;

"You might recall FLDS as the pro-polygamy order at the center of a raid on an Eldorado, Texas, compound earlier this year, in which 439 children were taken from their parents and put into protective custody. Most were later returned."

Most? Try ALL. Since ALL of the children have been returned, one has since been retaken into CPS custody, crying and distressed. That would be Merrianne Jessop, who bawled quite understandably "Only ME?" when Texas came to get her.

Evidence of the bias continues of the watching media continues;

"The women are canning fruit as (Rick) Sallinger talks to them about their lives in the church and in Colorado. They deny allegations that the church sanctions abuse of women and children. Mostly (the women) seem(ed) astonished by the perceptions of the outside world, though several of the women readily admit to having been part of polygamist marriages."

Keep in mind that Rick Sallinger is a friend to the FLDS when it comes to reporting on this story. For the most part his involvement has resulted in accurate reporting. This is also a story about a story written by Rick Sallinger, not a story BY Rick Sallinger. Rick says;

"(The FLDS are) walking a fine line between what they see as God's law and man's law. And God's law takes precedence."

As it ALWAYS would with religion. That is what freedom of religion is all about. When the chips are down, do you obey man, or God? The trick is that God very rarely puts you in a spot where it is REQUIRED that you defy your government. The FLDS belief that polygyny is integral to a place in heaven pretty much CAN'T give it up, that is why the government is out to destroy them.

Rick's reports will be on CBS 4 TV, tonight through Wednesday. More →

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Colorado Police search FLDS property.

I really don't like it when things seem like a coincidence in this case, because they usually aren't. This suggests cross talk between states. Oddly, Texas can encourage (it would seem) Colorado to go to the FLDS property there and search high and low, but they can't seem to remember to find out anything about the woman who made the calls. Rozita? Rozita Swinton? Seems to me that there was something important about her, never mind...

A Colorado sheriff used a search warrant to accompany zoning officials on a search of property tied to the Fundamentalist LDS Church.

The Deseret News -"Custer County Sheriff Fred Jobe obtained the warrant after FLDS members initially denied them entry to the property near Westcliffe, Colo., on July 3. Custer County zoning director Jackie Hobby told the Deseret News she was investigating a zoning complaint about property owned by a member of the polygamous sect.

'We have to follow up on complaints,' she said Friday."

Yes, yes of course, let's have ourselves a "witch hunt." I've heard there are witches out there.

"Hobby said she had concerns about venturing onto the property alone and asked to have a police escort.

'They (the FLDS) said no, I could come by myself but I couldn't bring the cops in,' she said."

Aww, are we afraid that the FLDS might react like they did in Eldorado and form a human cordon around, um, a, concrete pad?

"'Jobe obtained a warrant that allowed him and another deputy to escort Hobby onto the property, she said. Jobe didn't return a call seeking comment on Friday, but he told Westcliffe's Wet Mountain Tribune newspaper the warrant did not allow them to search anything for signs of criminal activity.

'Had we seen any criminal activity in plain sight we could have taken action. But that was not the case. We saw no criminal activity,' he told the newspaper."

My guess is the building inspection and the warrant for Jobe to bring a deputy was really to get the deputy on site so if there was some "criminal activity" they could "see it." They did cite the FLDS in Colorado with a couple of building code violations.

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