Saturday, October 31, 2009

For Immediate Release

AMERICANS AGAINST ABUSES OF POLYGAMY
*********PRESS RELEASE*********
Media Contact:
K. Dee Ignatin, Executive Director
928-897-9335
TripleAP@gmail.com
www.TripleAP.org


AAAP RESPONDS TO PLEA AGREEMENT WITH YISRAEL HAWKINS OF THE HOUSE OF YAHWEH

Austin, Texas - October 30, 2009 – Board members and the executive director at Americans Against Abuses of polygamy wish to express both shock and disappointment that the Bigamy charges against Yisrael Hawkins have been dropped and a plea agreement reached in the case.

Citing the estimated costs of a trial and issues with the statute of limitations, Callahan County District Attorney Shane Deel cut a deal with the 74 year old leader of the House of Yahweh cult, in which he must pay a $2,000 fine and serve 15 months of probation in each misdemeanor child-labor case.

Although we understand that the investigation resulting in the Bigamy charges predated the Texas legislature making Bigamy a felony crime, this news is still quite disturbing for the future of women's rights in the state of Texas.

Hawkins' sect is still currently, flagrantly, flaunting the Texas Bigamy/Polygamy laws and in the process endangering Texas women and children. There is no religious exemption provided to allow men to abuse women and endanger children in Texas.

Although the United Nations has clearly defined polygamy as a human rights abuse of women, worldwide, it continues to flourish here. We encourage the governor and the Texas attorney general to continue investigating the crime of polygamy being committed on Texas soil by this sect located in West Texas.

In almost every instance where the crime of polygamy is identified, religion is used to either force or coerce women into the practice. There is no constitutionally protected right in the United States to intimidate women into the practice of polygamy using either the threat of an eternal fiery damnation, or the promise of glorification or reward in the afterlife.

Reynolds v. United States has not been overturned and, indeed, the Supreme Court of the United States has refused to hear arguments against that ruling as recently as 2007.

We encourage elected leaders and law enforcement to consider the felony crime of polygamy a serious offense, and to take immediate action to prevent spread of this human rights abuse in Texas.
Abuse of any kind is not a recognized religious freedom in America.

Americans Against Abuses of Polygamy is a non-profit, conservative feminist, human rights organization, based in Texas. The AAAP is dedicated to educating the public on the human rights abuses inherent within the cultural practice of polygamy, worldwide and within the United States, and the potential dangers of decriminalization of the felony practice. www.TripleAP.org

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

A Re-Boot

AMERICANS AGAINST ABUSES OF POLYGAMY
*********PRESS RELEASE*********
Media Contact: For Immediate Release
K. Dee Ignatin October 28, 2009
Executive Director
928-897-9335
TripleAP@gmail.com
www.TripleAP.org

AAAP ANNOUNCES NEW BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Austin, Texas - October 28, 2009 – Americans Against Abuses of Polygamy is pleased to announce the results of its recent election for the Board of Directors.
Traceye Jones of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, has been elected President. Ms. Jones is the general manager of radio stations KJJJ and KNTR, located in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Ms. Jones has had the distinction of serving on many nonprofit boards in Mohave County, Arizona, the northern portion of which is the traditional home of the largest concentration of practicing polygamists in the U.S., comprised of members of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints, still loyal to convicted sex offender Warren Jeffs, currently in custody in the city of Kingman, Arizona.


Susan Stickevers, MD, of Long Island, New York has been elected Vice President. Dr. Stickevers is an assistant clinical professor at SUNY Stony Brook School of Medicine. She received her MD degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, and her Bachelors Degree in Biology summa cum laude from Queens College. She completed her residency training and served as chief resident at Columbia University Medical Center in NY City. She developed an interest in the study of polygamy while treating Muslim women in polygynous relationships in New York City.

Connie Reece of Austin, Texas has been elected Treasurer. She is an author, speaker, and a marketing and communications consultant who specializes in online media and social networks. She is currently working on a novel about a teenage runaway from a polygamist cult. Ms. Reece has many years of experience consulting with nonprofit organizations.


Kim Silvia of Amarillo, Texas has been elected Secretary. She is a successful real estate professional with a history of activism for the human rights of women and children. Following her own investigation, she was instrumental in assisting the FBI to apprehend the organizers of a human trafficking ring in West Texas. Ms. Silvia has served on the boards of several charitable organizations in the Amarillo area.
Note to Reporters: Photos are available upon request.


Americans Against Abuses of Polygamy is a non-profit, conservative feminist, human rights organization, based in Texas. The AAAP is dedicated to educating the public on the human rights abuses inherent within the cultural practice of polygamy, worldwide and within the United States, and the potential dangers of decriminalization of the felony practice. www.TripleAP.org

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

A Free Pass


I was sitting here today wondering what it must look like.
I've wondered who issued it, too?
The free pass that allows thousands of men to raise women and children, like veal in stalls, convincing them through fear that they must participate in a felony crime once they have reached puberty.
What exactly does it look like?
What do you have to do to get one?
What other felony crimes do men in this country get a free pass to practice, without fear of prosecution? And where do the women who participate in the same crime get theirs?
Why has Nurse Sally (Ann) Wayman (maiden name) Jeffs (first husband's name, "married" till he was excommunicated) Nielsen (reassigned to Nielsen after Jeffs was excommunicated)not been charged with anything?
She is, as you know, the mother of Janet and the nurse/midwife who went along with the plan to leave the 16 year old girl in heavy labor for three days on the YFZ Ranch. Where did she get her free pass? Does she have a license to practice as a midwife in Texas? If not, why is she not being prosecuted for this? Does she have a current Texas Nursing license? If so, why is it not under review?
Exactly where did she get her free pass to endanger the life of two human beings for the explicit purpose of covering up the illegal sexual assault of her 16 year old patient?
There is so much I admit I don't understand about all of this.
I don't understand how 439 children, over 200 of whom have been identified as abused, could be given back to abusers who are known to be practicing a felony crime, which the U.N. clearly defines as a human rights abuse.
So let me get this straight: None of the carebear colored mothers on the YFZ Ranch were brought before the grand jury, even though at least an estimated 50 of them ended up being identified as "abusers", right?
Every single last child was returned to their abuser, and not one woman was charged?
Why?
For Pete's sake, this is the state that put Carla Faye Tucker down! What the heck is going on in Austin?
What are they thinking? Are they thinking they cannot withstand the bad PR of the Carebear colored mothers on the stand in front of a jury attempting to explain how, 'Yes, I understand that polygamy is a crime [that's why we isolate ourselves, so you won't see us doing it] but I choose to do it anyway, because the men have convinced me from birth I will go to eternal burning Hell if I don't'?
So she is a VICTIM? Okay, so you think she is just a victim and should not be held responsible to the laws of our country, because she cannot help being a victim.
So why in the Hell would you send the children back so they can make MORE of these victims?
I can guarantee you that if I had a nursing license in this state and I had left a 16 year old in hard child labor for three days, and refused to take her to the hospital, because I knew it would get the father in trouble with the law, I would be in BIG trouble. So why isn't Sally in any trouble?
Abuse is a cycle. One may start out as a victim. Once you have moved from victim to abuser, I think your free pass should be yanked.
This is the most ridiculous misogynistic bunch of bologna I have ever seen. The women are victims and cannot help it, so we will allow them to breed more and more of them, and what, just hope no one notices when the homeless abused boys start getting dumped along the roads in Texas?
Then, just like Utah and Arizona they can say, "We will not prosecute the crime of polygamy in Texas, because there are just too many to prosecute".
Never mind that right now that is NOT the case.
If you care anything about the future of human rights for the women and children of the state of Texas, I'd suggest you start contacting every elected official you know, as well as those who plan to run for office in 2012. Let them know you want abusers, regardless of whether they started life as victims, and regardless of their gender, prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Tell them you want a mother, any mother, who willingly hands her 12 year old over to a 50 year old man for SEX, to be prosecuted for it, just like YOU would be if you had done it!
I've about decided that the women of the FLDS are the fundie equivalent of bad pop icons, like Paris Hilton. There just seems to be a strange, easier, kind of justice set aside for them.
Just say NO to the free abuser passes being handed out in Texas.
Being a "dumb woman, incapable of being responsible for the protection of your children is NOT a legal defense.
Abuse is not a religion.
Do we really want to allow "religious freedom" to trump U.S. law?
Well, do we?

Monday, October 26, 2009

Raymond Jessop's First Day of Texas Justice

The Schleicher County makeshift courthouse was most definitely not a media circus this morning for the first day of Raymond Jessop’s trial. Both journalists and live camera crews were sparse. I attribute most of the lack of interest to two things, no cameras are allowed in the courtroom for any part of this trial, and the media doesn’t think the county can really seat a jury anyway.

Brook Adams of the Salt Lake Tribune was right behind me as I pulled into the parking lot. Soon afterwards a friend informed me that she had just Tweeted “The Triplap lady is here, smoking furiously”.

People wonder why some question her journalistic integrity. She knows my name. The only story she ever covered regarding the AAAP was our initial incorporation as an organization last February, and check out the language she used for the title of that particular blog entry, “New Group Attacks Polygamy”.

Polygamy is a felony in all 50 states of our union. I wonder when the last time an organization was formed to bring attention to criminal activity they got a headline like that, from an objective reporter.

I saw Willie Jessop try to go in but they were only allowing potential jurors and legal staff. Latter they admitted some print journalists.

The jury pool reporting to the courthouse was comprised of 153 potential jurors. In my estimation, fully 25% of those who showed up were FLDS members. After the raid their self declared spokesperson, Willie Jessop made the comment, “I don’t want to have to vote but if I have to I will”.

Soon after the rescue the residents of the YFZ Ranch requested 400 voters’ registration cards from the county and it showed today.

As long as the AG is asking questions of all these potential jurors, how about a few of these:

Were you a resident of the YFZ Ranch at the time of the rescue?

Do you know Raymond Jessop?

Are you in any way related to Raymond Jessop?

Are you, any of your relatives or acquaintances in Schleicher County currently committing the felony crime of Bigamy, which is the anti-polygamy statute within the state of Texas?

Were you, anyone you are related to or personally acquainted with one of the 124 designated perpetrators of child abuse on the YFZ Ranch, as identified by the final Texas CPS report?




I figure the potential jury pool should be down to about 100 jurors if the AG asks any of those questions.


Can a jury of 14 [12 jurors and 2 alternates] be seated in the county?

I have no doubt that 14 people who would give the case a fair hearing can be identified from the pool but I am unsure what standards will be in place as to how much media exposure either side will tolerate.

If no jury is seated, it will likely be December before another jury pool in adjoining Tom Green County can be called, since a notice for jury duty must be sent out 30 days in advance.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Welcome to Texas Raymond Jessop, Let's Rodeo!


I can hear the wind whisper my name
Tellin' me it's time to head out again
My horses are trailered and the lights are shutdown
I'm long overdue for headin' outta town
Gotta fever that they call the rodeo
Just enough winners and make the next show
Sometimes you make eight sometimes you hit dirt
Go on pin another number to the back of my shirt!

~Radney Foster
Like Texas in 1880


Americans Against Abuses of Polygamy is a non-profit, conservative feminist, human rights organization, based in Texas. The AAAP is dedicated to educating the public on the human rights abuses inherent within the cultural practice of polygamy, worldwide and within the United States, and the potential dangers of decriminalization of the felony practice. www.TripleAP.org

Polygamy is Abuse

Friday, October 23, 2009

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Ladies Be Counted

Anyone interested in wearing the latest in Texas Anti-Polygamy fashion should contact Mandy at 830-329-6358 or Pisslejane@gmail.com.

A $20 donation includes shipping in the contiguous states, and anyone in the Texas Hill Country can arrange for pick up.

The back reads "Polygamy is Abuse Triple AP. Org"

Friday, October 2, 2009

Texas Women and San Jacinto

The Battle Flag of San Jacinto

I am humoring myself, lately, with pondering the Battle Flag of San Jacinto.

When I returned to Texas in 2008, I met in Austin with the assistant to Representative Hilderbran. I remember showing the documentation I'd returned with and saying, "Eldorado was like an Alamo for the future of women's rights in Texas, and if we don't get a San Jacinto we're going to be in trouble".

Over a year later, I took the time to look up the San Jacinto Battle Flag, and found myself amazed at the prescience of the characters of the women who were behind it, and their remarkable story.




http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/sylvesterjames.htm

"Thousands are said to have waved the company off as they departed by steamer from Cincinnati on the Ohio River. Legend says that Private James A. Sylvester was given a long red glove (a white glove in some accounts) by the daughter of the host at a departure dance just before leaving for Texas which he tied on the flag staff. It was said to be a "talisman" and inspired the ranks at San Jacinto."


"I take it as a pledge of victory, and shall die before I surrender it to a foe."
~Private James A. Sylvester

As I ponder this revealing historical information I wonder about things.

I wonder what a group of officer's ladies in Kentucky in 1836 would have thought of a religious leader who proclaimed the color red to be completely banned from all public or private settings.

Would this have been a case of the ladies of Kentucky Vs. The Grinch?

The Grinch is, after all, the only other character in recent history who has successfully banned the color red from the sight of children. Even if it was only a bad fairy tale, and not the stuff of every day life, as it is for FLDS children, one has to wonder about this person's genuine spirituality...

The battle flag has captured more than my imagination since taking a good long look at it, and the history, which brought it to the field in Texas where our liberty as Texans was so decisively won. It was here the stage was set for the Mexican-American war and gave The United States the northern half of Mexico. This area later became the U.S. states of California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

And there was our gift back.

Everything about the Battle Flag of San Jacinto is the ultimate antithesis of Warren Jeffs, and indeed, polygamy.

After all, if someone can document, historically, one incidence of an FLDS lady presenting a long red glove to her man as a talisman of good luck, or designing a flag for him to carry into battle, which features a bare breasted woman wearing a red skirt, raising a sabre, and holding a banner that says "Liberty or Death"...well, I will be glad to eat my hat for anyone who can produce such historical evidence.

She was called by the women who sent it to us, "The Goddess of Liberty".
Only Texas women have the pleasure of such a history.

We do not come from Utah and Arizona where the liberty of their women is so lightly removed in the criminal practice of the human rights abuse of polygamy.

We are free women.



It was gift from our sisters in Kentucky and Ohio, who seemed to understand their own liberty was a gift from the creator, and no man could take it way from them in a civilization where human liberty was to flourish as prolifically as wildflowers.

We are free women.

Someone else can tell my Cherokee or Hillbilly friends in Tennessee, that Texas has decided to lay down the power to protect its women and children.

I will deliver my sisters there no such message.

Someone else can go tell the Mississippi Girls that we have laid the banner down and will be quiet now that we have a group lobbying our legislature, hoping to form a "Safety Net" style Committee here in Texas.

I will not.

Someone else can go tell the Alabama women, where they are proud to declare "We dare defend our rights", that polygamy will be normalized and accepted here in Texas as long as the children here are raised to believe doing it is their only means to eternal salvation.

I won't be making that call to Alabama either.

Nope, I don't plan to pick up the phone and make any such report to anyone in any state.

We are free women.

When we take a husband he is our only living equal. The law supports us and protects us in this right. We will be appealing to our laws.

After all, aren't our laws what make us civilized?

Men are good at killing people and breaking things but only women can build a culture worth living in on top of the ruins.

I like my civilization, here in Texas, just as it is right now, thank you very much.

I should really go get a copy of this flag.

Eldorado needs this flag.