Book Review: VIOLATED, by Paula Lavigne and Mark Schlabach

"However, he would not heed her voice; and being stronger than she, he forced her and lay with her."
2 Samuel 13:14

"Me, being a Christian myself, I was just appalled at the level of violence taking place so rampantly at the institution."
- Former Baylor Title IX investigator Gabrielle Lyons (p. 194)

We attended Paula Lavigne and Mark Schlabach's talk last fall at the Texas Book Festival.  C-SPAN's website doesn't permit video embedding, but you can see our question is at the 39 minute mark here.  We recommend watching it.

Over the past couple years, American society has learned about of predatory sexual activity that's occurred in previously reputable institutions.  From media, to politics, to tech, to entertainment, to various Christian denominations, we're all a little less naive.  As these stories have come to light sports, specifically college sports, has seen  its fair share.  This is a very healthy reckoning.

Even amidst all that, Baylor stands out.

Why?!?

• The Widespread Brutality -- In most "Me Too" cases, there's one or two bad actors surrounded by a network of enablers.  At Baylor, there were at least 10 to 12 bad actors, and it might have reached into the dozens,  The reason it's called gang rape is because there's a gang.

• The Cover-ups and/or GROTESQUE incompetence -- In a best case scenario, Baylor's coaching staff and athletic department ran interference with local law enforcement over violent, but non-sexual, activity.  Even if one believes that's the extent of the Baylor athletic department's deliberate misconduct, for so much additional bad behavior to have gone unnoticed represents disqualifying negligence.  Don't get us started on Ken Starr.

• The lack of support for survivors at an allegedly "Christian" institution (What else is new?!?) -- The Bible discusses "widows and orphans" at least 100 times.

• The Denial -- The most shocking part of the whole affair were the number of people who believed "that can't happen here" because Baylor was an allegedly "Christian" institution.  Of course it can.  Biblical sexual values are a good thing, but they need to be accompanied by a sense of reality.

• The lack of Repentance from an allegedly "Christian" institution -- The Bible talks a lot about forgiveness.  But forgiveness requires confession followed by repentance (ie. an apology).  Instead, Baylor continues to hide behind lawyers and P.R. firms.  The Pepper-Hamilton report was, at best, inadequate.

• The World View Challenge -- Like it or not, in this case some good came from the Obama administration's Title IX policy.

• A Personal Story -- We've never discussed it, but a chance encounter this author had in 2013 illustrates how widespread the circle of knowledge must have been.

It's icky.  But it's real.  Read on.

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The first half of the book tells the story of four players: Tevin Elliot, Sam Ukwachu, Tre'von Armstead, and Myke Chatman.  Elliot and Ukwachu have each recieved criminal convictions.  Armstead and Chatman have been indicted and are currently awaiting trial.  Armstead was arrested a second time shortly after his 2017 indictment.

Those four cases led to investigations of Baylor's football program and university culture.

It's impossible to do justice to these accounts online.  A small sample will have to suffice.  We're leaving the most gruesome parts out, but you'll get the picture.

Elliot:

"As Tevin led her out of the house, Jasmin asked him where they were going, and he insisted they were looking for her friends.  Jasmin became defiant and demanded he take her back in.  She tried to pull her wrist away, but Tevin wouldn't let go.  Instead he picked her up and started to carry her, cradled like a child and gripping her tight.  He kept walking away from the house, across the parking lot and street that ran along the back of the complex, and toward a grassy sloped area by a set of stairs near the clubhouse and volleyball court.

....

She kept her focus on Tevin. She'd said no, shouldn't that be enough? Then she clawed at him, trying to get him to let her go. She pleaded with him, thinking if she convinced him this wasn't a good idea, he would take her back: She wasn't interested in him. He was dating her friend. If he put her down now, they could go back to the party and he could find someone who was interested in him. No. No. No. No.

....

There was a single yellow bulb on a storage shed casting a dim light on the muddy slope where Tevin put her down. For Jasmin, that's when the reality of what was about to happen to her hit her, that despite her protests, her belief that "no means no," she was being overpowered by a six-foot-three, 250-pound football player. Instead of becoming frantic or fighting or screaming for help, she shut down. She remembered what a girl she had met at a Baylor orientation camp told her about being raped: If you stop resisting, it hurts less.

(Pages 9-10)

[Note: Emphasis in original.]

[Note II: Seriously, this is the cleaned up version.]

We'll spare you details, but several other women credibly accused Tevin Elliot of doing similar things (61-68, 104-111).

Fun fact: We learn on page 200 (three years later in the real world) that there was a separate brutal gang rape at that same party.

Ukwuachu:

Once Nicole was inside Sam's apartment, she told police, he became agitated while talking with his roommate and a friend on the phone and screamed at his dog.  She became worried and and texted a couple friends to come get her.  No one responded.  Nicole told police that she resisted Sam's initial sexual advances.  She pulled down her dress as he tried to pull it up and repeatedly told him no.  But then Sam grabbed her and forced her onto her stomach, according to Nicole, pushing her head against the wall.  "He was using all of his strength to pull up my dress and do stuff to me," Nicole would later testify to a jury.  "He had me on my stomach on the bed, and he was on top of me."  Nicole told the jury that Sam pulled up her dress, forced her legs open, and then raped her from behind.  After Sam was finished, according to Nicole, he told her, "This isn't rape."  Then he asked if she was going to call the police.

(Page 136)

Armstead and Chatman:

Emily remembered Mary heading upstairs to her bedroom, and Tre'Von following her. Emily noticed that Tre'Von moved sluggishly and had bloodshot eyes, while Myke appeared not to be imparied at all. After a while, Emily felt uncomfortable about leaving Mary upstairs alone with Tre'Von, so she went up to check on them and found the two clothed and sitting on Mary's bed. Still, she told them it was time to get out of the bedroom. Tre'Von resisted,but Myke encouraged him to leave, so Emily thought they were on their way out. She and her friends left the house -- a decision Emily would later say she regretted.

....

While the three were upstairs in Mary's bedroom, one of her other roommates, Caroline, came home with her boyfriend Jeff. They had been at a Christian-based event on campus as part of the Diadelosos celebration. Mary figured out later that Caroline and Jeff arrived about forty-five minutes after Emily left. Jeff and Caroline found the front door open and heard footsteps upstairs, which alarmed them. Jeff, who was a concealed-handgun owner, searched the house, at one point taking his gun and holding it behind his back. He called out for Mary, but no one responded. He heard noises, like people wrestling, coming from the bedroom Mary shared with Emily. He didn't open the door at first, thinking maybe Emily had a 'guest.'

When Jeff went downstairs to tell Caroline, the two heard a "big bang" and "slap" sound, and they clearly heard Mary loudly say, "NO." To Jeff, the sound was like a body being thrown to the floor or a piece of furniture being overturned. He told Caroline, "I don't think everything is okay." He headed back upstairs and knocked on the door, asking if Mary was all right, and he received a response from a male voice that everything was fine. The door had opened and Jeff saw what he described as a very large, shirtless man -- whom they later identified as Tre'Von -- standing in the doorway. The room was dark and he could barely make out another person, possibly Mary, lying on the floor with at least some of her clothes off. No, she's not okay, Jeff said, while still holding the gun behind his back. "Send her out. I want to see her downstairs."

As soon as Jeff went downstairs, Mary came running out of the bedroom. She was out of breath and shaking, her eyes were bloodshot, and it appeared she had been crying. Her clothes were on inside out. She told Jeff and Caroline that the two were leaving, and then she ran up into the bedroom. Jeff yelled upstairs, "You have ten seconds to come out of that room." Another man, shorter than the first and one they later believed to be Myke, walked downstairs. Jeff recalled him saying, "They are almost done up there," and then upon leaving the house, saying something to the effect of "That was whacked" or "That was crazy."

There's some difference in the sequence of events between what Waco police officers recorded in their report and what a longer, more detailed narrative from Baylor's Title IX office revealed. But at some point after Mary went back upstairs, Jeff and Caroline heard a large bang and what they described as "fist-hitting noises" and Mary saying, "No, no, please stop." With Mary alone in the room with Tre'Von, Jeff ran back upstairs, demanding that he leave or he was calling the police. Mary came running downstairs, collapsed at the base of the steps, and said "I told them to leave but they wouldn't." The Waco police report indicates Jeff then carried Mary to the garage, where he told Caroline to wait with her. Baylor's Title IX report says Jeff gave Caroline his gun, telling her to take Mary into the garage and hide and call 911. Either way, after the women were in the garage, Jeff recalled Tre'Von coming down the stairs acting "big and tough" and trying to stare him down as he left the house.

(Pages 117 - 119)

These are only the incidents over which criminal charges were filed; there were countless others.

Eventually (two years later in real time), we learn that gang rapes really did happen (199 - 207).  Another year after that, we learn that gang rapes were considered a bonding experience among the team (295).  It's even alleged that recruiting women for gang rapes was considered part of the freshman hazing (295).

We'll spare the gruesome details from those incidents, except for one: The only reason we don't know the total number of bad actors is because it's difficult to tell how many football players "went once" as opposed to taking "multiple turns." (204)

From the index:

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Which bring us to the subject of cover-ups, and their sister issue, grotesque incompetence.

In many cases, it's difficult to establish who knew what at exactly what time.  Facts are in dispute.  But even if you take the "I didn't know(s)" at face value, in most cases they should have known.

That being said, a few undisputed FACTS:

• Art Briles acknowledged in a text message that he knew about Tevin Elliot raping Jasmin Hernandez two days after it happened. (24)

• Former Athletic Director Ian McCaw acknowledged to a woman who had been raped by Tevin Elliot that "you're the sixth girl to come in and tell me this." (67)

• Briles and McCaw frequently ran interference with Waco PD and the McClennan County DA over non-sexual violent activity. (244)

• According to a text message, in response to one of these non-sexual incidents, McCaw told Briles "That would be great if they kept it quiet." (253)

Beyond that, it's difficult to establish facts.  Personally, we believe that where there's smoke, there's fire.  We smell an awful lot of smoke.

Briles during the Board of Regents investigation:

When Briles came in, he seemed nervous.  He apologized for what happened.  He said he delegated down when it came to rules and punishment and he knew he shouldn't have.  He said he set up a system where he was the last to know about players' off field problems when he should have been the first to know.  He said the football team's system for discipline was in house, not open house. [Note: WTF does that even mean?!?]  At one point, he started to cry.  He promised to do better.  But there was something about Briles's response, unlike McCaw's, that didn't sit right with some regents.  When Briles was asked what he would do to change things, he responded, "Tell me what you want me to do, and I'll do it."  He admitted his failings, but didn't provide a solution, other than promising to do better next time, the regents told us.  One compared that comment to coaches saying after a bad game, "Next time we're going to pass the ball, we're going to run the ball, we're going to score some points."  "I don't think that he really got it," one regent said.  (256)

Negligent at best.

This 2016 quote from Briles is choice:

The way the chain of command usually works is that the head coach is last to know.  Head coaches are sometimes protected, in certain instances, from minor issues.  Now, major issues I was always made aware of.... (301)

As for Ken Starr: At best, he was out to lunch (50-54), and remained clueless long after he should have been clued in (259).

As to the ongoing Briles/McCaw/Starr assertion that the Football team was  "scapegoated": We'll address it in more detail later, but those claims would ring less hollow if any of those three were contrite about their own actions.

And don't get us started on that prick "Vice President for Operations" Reagan Ramsower, who routinely ran interference during investigations (18 different page citations in the index).

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As to lack of institutional support for survivors, one detail stands out: Baylor police cited women reporting rapes for alcohol violations (2).  The Judicial Affairs office did something similar (179).  So did Waco PD.

You can't stop bad things from happening.  At least, you can't all the time.  Once something bad occurs, however, the community must to help the survivor rebound.

This is where Baylor's true failures emerge.

A few examples:

• Jasmin Hernandez got a hospital bill for her rape kit. (15)

• Baylor to Jasmin Hernandez' mother: "Even if a plane fell on your daughter, there's nothing we can do to help her." (21)

• No one at Baylor reached out to Jasmine. (23)

• "One woman, upon reporting her rape to campus medical staff, received only an external stomach evaluation." (41)

• Baylor PD didn't report a single sexual assault to the McClennan County DA between 2002 and at least 2011. (81)

• Gaslighting witness reports (120).

• The university cut off counseling to survivors. (180 ?!?)

• We don't have the page citations handy, but on multiple occasions they either threatened to pull, or pulled, scholarships from rape survivors whose grades had dropped.

• They also failed to accommodate survivors who had to routinely see their assailants in class or elsewhere on campus. (262)

• In one case, not involving a football player, they asked the survivor if it would be ok for her assailant to work on campus during the investigation.

These are just a few examples, and these are just the ones we know about.

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Next, the denial:

Baylor was in such denial that students drank, and [Baylor leaders] did not like things that were against their mission so they were just in denial about it," the former female student said. "The more you ignore it and the more you pretend it doesn't happen the more people think they can get away with things.

Patty Crawford, Baylor's former Title IX coordinator, who would leave the university in the wake of the scandal that would break months later, described what she saw as the university's pervasive silence on controversial issues.

"Baylor administrators were mainly older [Baptists] who had historically not discussed or openly chose to listen to the real issues at Baylor, including drugs, alcohol, and sex, not to mention any violence related to these three factors," she said. "To sum it up, the Baylor way was to look the other way until the media may expose something and then have a PR firm write a statement asking for prayers and deny knowledge of such cases." (179)

The book cites other examples we won't detail, but the pattern is apparent: Because the university's "Baptist values" discouraged certain activities, its bureaucracy wasn't prepared for issues that might arise from those activities.

Biblical sexual values are a good thing.  But they need to operate within reality.  Bad things will inevitably happen (fallen, sinful, world and whatnot).  When those bad things happen, that's a time for GRACE.

In chapter 8 of John, Jesus spends one verse not condoning the woman's sin.  He spends 57 verses rebuking the mean-spirited religious people.  And, furthermore, that woman hadn't been raped.

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Flowing naturally from the denial is the lack of repentance.

The Bible states what a believer is supposed to do following something wrong:

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:9

Instead of confession, Baylor gave us the Pepper-Hamilton report.  We suppose that it's better than nothing.  But to call the Pepper-Hamilton report "lacking" would put it very politely.

Reagan Ramsower, Spring 2016:

[T]he possibility of a “mea culpa moment” was off the table. The reason: “The lawyers are pushing back on it for legal-liability reasons and loss of insurance coverage.”

Instead of falling on their face and repenting of their sins before almighty God, "Baptist" Baylor University hid behind lawyers.

-------

As you read the book, one conclusion becomes apparent: Patty Crawford is a friggin' hero.

Crawford is the former Baylor Title IX coordinator quoted above.  She's the only reason why any of this saw the light of day.  She claims Reagan Rawsower told her, "some people might say that we would not be in the mess we're in if you hadn't been doing your job so well." (280)

But the only reason Crawford had leverage over the rest of the Baylor administration was because of the Obama-era Title IX rules.  (172; 188-198)

That being said, the section on national trends on campus assault and Title IX (26-42) were the weakest part of the book.  The authors uncritically pass-along the discredited "one-in-five" statistic.  They also uncritically report several other questionable pieces of conventional wisdom.

But none of that changes the fact that the Obama era Title IX rules were the only reason Patty Crawford was able to do her job.

We're still not a fan of Obama era Title IX.  We still think it yielded a hot mess of unintended consequences.  But we must admit, at least at Baylor, some good came out of them.

Talk about a curveball....

------

So, what was the relationship between the problems in the Football program and the rest of the university?!?

According to Patty Crawford:

Crawford said football player cases comprised about 10 percent of her work.  That's a small percentage, but it's still an overrepresentation when you consider that male student athletes make up about 4 percent of the undergraduate male population at Baylor.  Crawford found that even though football player cases were in the minority, they stood out -- and not only because they received more attention from administrators and media.

"The cases that I've adjudicated have been terribly violent related to Football players," she said. "From that 2012 time period, it was a real culture of gang rape. I never heard of such terribly explicit allegations. (295)

In other words, with all due respect to Art Briles and Ian McCaw, nobody's "scapegoating" them.

See what we said above about, at best, grotesque incompetence.

That being said, this author has anecdotally heard similar stories to the fraternity incidents listed in the book (303).  But the chosen extra-cirricular activities of an assailant doesn't excuse the lack of support listed above.  And it CERTAINLY doesn't excuse the denial.

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Finally, we'll close with a personal story.

Five years ago, in either late October or early November 2013, this author was at a happy hour in Austin.  We don't remember the exact date or occasion.  We do remember that it was at the Little Woodrow's on West 6th.

During the event, we ended up talking with a group of strangers.  It was a mostly male group with one female.  Lighthearted bar talk.  Eventually, the conversation turned to Big 12 Football.

This was during the 2013 season, when Texas and Baylor were battling for the Big 12 championship.  That was the topic.  As the conversation continued, however, the young woman grew increasingly agitated.  Finally, she said it:

Whatever dude.  My roommate was RAPED by a Baylor football player.  I DO NOT GIVE A FUCK.

Then she walked off.

The rest of us we so stunned that we didn't process it.  We just kinda went about our day.  Not flattering, but true.

We cannot tell you how many times we've thought back to that conversation since.  We don't think we could've done anything.  But, given subsequent events, it's a question we've pondered many, many times.

But here's the iron-clad takeaway from that night: If rapes by Baylor football players were widespread enough that they became the subject of random happy hour talk in Austin, the people whose job it was to know must have known.

We've never seen this young woman again, but wow has she been proven right.

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Bottom Line: Baylor University needs to get down on it's face and repent before almighty GOD; until that happens, none of this will go away.

BOOK REVIEW: Dancing for the Devil, by Anny Donnewald

"There is a way that seems right to a man,
But its end is the way of death."
Proverbs 14:12

Eve's Angels is a Michigan-based ministry that works with women in the sex industry.  We've followed their work for several years.  Dancing for the Devil: One Woman's Dramatic and Divine Rescue from the Sex Industry tells the story of their founder, Anny Donewald.

Anny is the daughter of a well known NCAA basketball coach.  She grew up in a home shaped by the culture of the NCAA and her parents' Faith in Christ (6).  As she explains, "[M]y parents were God-fearing, private people who didn't talk about adult things with their children and tried to keep a protective bubble around each one of us" (11).  Describing her father, Anny notes "[T]he qualities that kept him successful at IU are perhaps what kept him from giving up on me despite how very uncomfortable I made him" (15).  She attended Sunday school where "I was sent to the basement and taught that the way out of the hole was to climb up the good-deed ladder and follow the teachings of the Lord Almighty" (25).

At age 13, Anny was molested by one of her father's players: "I stood there like a puppy stands for a groomer combing out its tangles.  I could not scream or make a sound....My body was never the same and my spirit was crushed" (55).  That began a downward spiral that became worse following a rape during her sophomore year at boarding school (94).  The rape produced a pregnancy that ended in a miscarriage (102).  In college, Anny got pregnant and had an abortion: "My soul felt as barren as my womb.  I walked out of the building and got into my car and put my seat back.  I cried in my seat until I fell asleep" (130).

"I took the stage for the first time at age nineteen" (133).  Some girlfriends convinced Anny to do an amateur night at a Michigan Strip club, where "[T]hey knew I was a coach's daughter and if lured into their lair, would be the ultimate crown jewel in their female dig for dancers" (133).  The descriptions of the interactions with the male clientele will make any normal person shudder.  As one of the tamer examples, "You'll be sweaty and wan the guys saliva smell off your skin" (148).  The money and the hustle eventually became addictive, and it didn't hurt that the money could be used to buy drugs (151).

Anny subsequently moved onto clubs in Chicago, followed by Vegas.  Eventually, 'dating' customers moved into full-on prostitution.  After several years, she bottomed out in Los Angeles where "[T]his isn't a scene out of Pretty Woman, Mr. X is no Richard Gere.  He's overweight, bald, sweaty, and oily.  He grinds his teeth.  He's an especially lonely pervert....When the morning light finally pierced through the corners of the heavy drapes, I saw my beautiful, luxurious hotel room for the dungeon that it was.  A wretched smell of stale cigar smoke and body odor clung to the sheets, and a sourness filled the air" (3-4).  Narratively, this part of the book felt rushed, but that helped keep the lurid voyeurism to a minimum.

To their credit, Anny's parents never abandoned her.  During her worst days, they would watch her daughter for weeks at a time.  Describing her mother, "[T]here was something about her unmovable reply.  She wasn't fazed by how messed up my life was.  Having nothing else, I clung to her faith in me and the innocence of my daughter" (254).  Her parents' steadfast and unconditional love gave Anny a place to go when she was ready to leave.  The final third of the book details her recovery from the sex industry and the subsequent founding of her ministry.

This book lays bare the squalid truth behind the sex industry.  What seems light and carefee brings gruesome consequences if practiced for any length of time.  Fortunately, the mistakes one makes need not be permanent.  With Christ, healing and escape exist for any situation, including this one.  Dancing for the Devil makes both the fall and the subsequent rise accessible to the average person without having to live those experiences.

Revelation 2:12-17 -- The COMPROMISING Church (Part 1)

“And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write,

‘These things says He who has the sharp two-edged sword: “I know your works, and where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is. And you hold fast to My name, and did not deny My faith even in the days in which Antipas was My faithful martyr, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality. Thus you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate. Repent, or else I will come to you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of My mouth.

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it.”’
Revelation 2:12-17

Pastor Danny Forshee.  Great Hills Baptist Church.  April 13, 2014:



Outline:

1. Identification (v. 12)
   A. The City -- Pergamos
                       - Lots of Pagan Temples; 3 for emperor worship alone!
                       - Capital City
                       - Similar to Austin
   B. Christ -- Self- Revelation.
2. Commendation (v. 13)
   A. Works -- Good Deeds.
   B. Dwelling -- Hostile, Pagan place.
   C. Christ-centeredness
        i. "You hold fast to MY name."
       ii. "Did not deny MY faith."

Highlights:

• This sermon was originally preached on Palm Sunday.

• John pre-supposes you know your Old Testament.

• "Them demonic spiders come out of the wood work whenever you preach on Revelation."

• Church at Pergamos had people in the congregation they refused to discipline.

• During the middle ages, the Church became VERY compromised.

• If God does a Good Work in your life, gossip about the gospel.

• "The things that have God in them are the things that last."

• Jesus is attracted to commitment and endurance.

• Don't quit; keep doing the right thing until God intervenes.

• "Our greatest challenge in the Church in America today is theological heresy and sexual promiscuity."

Roger Stone discusses "The Clinton's War on Women" in Austin

"Though his hatred is covered by deceit,
His wickedness will be revealed before the assembly."
Proverbs 26:26

Brave New Books -- Two weeks ago, Roger Stone came through Austin on the book-tour for his and Robert Morrow's recent release The Clinton's War on Women; Stone's remarks below:



Highlights:

• The Clintons are: "career criminals in a dysfunctional marriage that is really an unending quest for money and power."

• "I spent 40 years in the corroded rectum of the two party system."

• In D.C. "everything is for sale."

• "Both parties have morphed into one party; it's the part of endless war, it's the party of the erosion of our civil liberties...it's the party of massive debt and borrowing, its the party that puts higher and more oppressive taxes on working people while hedge fund managers on Wall St. pay almost nothing, it is the party of massive spending, it is the party run by the special interests for the special interests at the behest of the special interests."

• "Bill Clinton is a Bill Cosby style sexual predator."

• Bill Clinton has raped or sexually assaulted "at least 27 women.

• Clinton "shouldn't have been impeached for the Monica Lewinsky affair, he should have been impeached for selling military secrets to the Chinese."

• We know Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey, we don't know Christie Zercher, Carolyn Moffett, Becky Brown, Eileen Wellstone, Liz Ward Grayson, Dorthy Kyle Browning....

• Bill's 'signature move' -- Biting the upper lip of his victim.

• "Hillary's running the cover up."
• Nuts and sluts campaign.

• Ken Starr: "Frankly, he was in the tank."

• Hillary has never paid women as much as men.

• Janet Reno was Hillary's personal hire.

• Clinton Foundation tax documents: "Permeated with fraud."

• Clinton Foundation: "A slush fund for grifters."
• Vehicle for the facilitation of bribes.

• "Their partners in this endeavor are the Bushes."

• Jeb was supposed to be "designated loser" to Hillary this cycle.

• Haiti earthquake relief fraud.

• Danney Williams -- Bill's son via Arkansas prostitute.
• Bill Clinton is a deadbeat dad and grandfather.

• Clinton aided massive drug smuggling through Arkansas in the 1980's and gave pardons to drug traffickers after they hired Hillary as their attorney.

• Chelsea "is not the biological daughter of Bill Clinton."
• "Bill learned Hillary was pregnant by reading it in the newspaper."
• Webb Hubbell is Chelsea's real father.

Documentary Review: Hot Girls Wanted

"While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage."
2 Peter 2:19

[Author's Note: The Documentary is moderately graphic; there's definitely worse stuff out there, but it's not for the faint of heart.]

The Sexual Revolution, which begat the culture of promiscuity, begat numerous pathologies; modern pornography is among the most malignant.

NETFLIX exclusive documentary, Hot Girls Wanted, takes viewers through the AWFUL world of "amateur" pornography in Miami.  The girls who are there have responded to Craig's List ads in their hometown with headlines like "Hot Girl Wanted" or "Free trip to Miami."  What could POSSIBLY go wrong?!?

Hot Girls Wanted follows 4 girls from across the United States who've responded to one agent's ads.  None of these girls are old enough to drink legally.  They're oblivious to consequences that will shortly ensue.  Due to these consequences, a male performer explains how the shelf life of a girl tends to be between one month and one year.  This doesn't faze the agent who informs us the supply of girls willing to 'perform' is essentially limitless: "I only work with amateur girls brand new to the industry."

The first half of the film follows the girls' upward arc.  We see their entrance into the industry and it's allegedly 'exciting' nature.  The girls go shopping, get their hair and makeup done, and have their first shoots (both solo and with other performers).  In one scene, the girls reveal how EXTREMELY rude comments from men are a "boost of confidence" and discuss their favorite place to have male performers...ahem...finish their business.  While it seems like this half of the film glamorizes the industry, it's setting up the fall in the second half.

As the male performer foreshadowed, after a month or so the obvious and predictable consequences emerge.  Once a girl has appeared in a dozen or two scenes (yes, over the course of a MONTH), she's no longer new.  Production companies then lose interest.  In order to continue working, girls have to branch out to harder core material.  One girl does a scene for a website called "Latina Abuse" that lives up to it's name.  There was a borderline rape at another.  The regular STD testing is creepy enough, but we learn that one of them develops a "golf-ball sized" cyst on her...well...lady bits (Author's Note: Thankfully, no pictures).

Naturally, their families find out.  Ex-boyfriends from real life follow their "Porn Star" twitter accounts.  We see one girl attempt to discuss what's happening with her obviously heartbroken mother.  She couldn't even tell her father, who found out anyway.  The final indignity: Despite having grossed over $25k during four months in the industry, after expenses she nets $2k.

Pornography is a gruesome industry.  It's frequently mixed up with human trafficking.  Even when the performance is 'consensual', however, the reality of the industry is still AWFUL.  NETFLIX documentary Hot Girls Wanted details this morass of exploitation and myopia.  It's not pretty, but people should know the truth behind the images they consume over the internet.

-----

Revolutions run amok, Victims, and Body Counts

"And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death."
Romans 7:10

Fantastic article about the predictable consequences of the Sexual Revolution:

It is inevitable that advocates for the Sexual Revolution will say all we need is a bit more of it. More orgasms. More sex-ed. More abortion. More contraception. Less guilt. More freedom, man.

But they will never acknowledge that their revolution has been tried and found wanting, wanting being a fairly benign way of saying murderous.

Their revolution has been murderous indeed and the body count grows ever higher. Yet still they want more, just a little bit more.

....

Many revolutions have impressive body counts. But the Sexual Revolution is far and away the most impressive and it shows no sign of abating, only metastasizing. Well, maybe Plato’s Retreat closed in ’85 but Ashley Madison is alive and well, as are the sex ads at Craig’s List and Backpage.com. Maybe the gay bathhouses closed, but check out the website Grindr. Actually, don’t.

Gay writer Jeffrey Escoffier says, “Central to the Sexual Revolution was the growing acceptance of sexual encounters between unmarried adults.” He says sexual debut came earlier and earlier and that increasing divorce “provided another opportunity for men and women (to a lesser degree) to engage in non-monogamous sexual activity.”

....

It is a wonder to see sexual revolutionaries, just like the communists before them, insist that all we need is just a little bit more. At least the communists thought the breaking of a few eggs might be regrettable but in the long run was beneficial to the omelet. The sexual revolutionaries deny the eggs.

The litany of broken eggs is tedious, certainly, but we must continue to recite it and in the recitation lay it all at the doorstep of the revolutionaries: more than 50 million dead babies in this country alone; almost one million deaths due to AIDS; 19 million new cases of STDs every single year in the United States; millions addicted to pornography; sex trafficking; galloping pedophilia; forty percent of children born without a father in the home. Your mother never heard of chlamydia. Now teen girls get shots to prevent it.

....

Roback Morse describes the modern view of sex as “a recreational activity with no moral or social significance. The freedom we have come to value is to be completely unencumbered by human relationships. We are entitled to end or walk away from any relationship with a person who might legitimately make demands upon us that we don’t want to fulfill. And the reproductive freedom in particular is the right to unlimited sexual activity without a live baby resulting.”

She says the major tenets of the Sexual Revolution are that every person is entitled to unlimited sexual activity, contraception will cure all negative consequences including conception and disease, no one is required to give birth and therefore abortion is an absolute entitlement, any consequences not handled by contraception and abortion are not worth talking about, no one ever gets attached to an inappropriate sex partner, no one ever regrets a consensual sexual encounter, and teen depression linked to hooking up doesn’t exist.

Such tenets are awfully expensive, both in terms of the individuals who live by them and those who are merely collateral damage. The cost to society runs to the hundreds of billions of dollars even if you just look at Federal money spent on the underclass whose problems have been exacerbated exponentially by internalizing the Sexual Revolution.

....

Roback Morse thinks we are fighting the symptoms—abortion, gay marriage—and not the disease. She proposes something of an Inchon landing. The sexual revolutionaries have been attacking from the front for going on 50 years, their victims strewn out behind them. She proposes a landing behind their front lines, striking at the heart of their movement, counting on the victims of contraception, divorce, abortion, pornography, and promiscuity to assist us.

She is not suggesting that the individual battles cease, only that we open a new front.

As we wait, the body count rises ever higher and all the while the revolutionaries insist the revolution hasn’t really been tried, not yet anyway. All we need is a little bit more: more orgasms, more pills, more sex-ed, more abortion, more freedom man, and then you’ll see the beautiful things we can do for humanity.

Read the whole thing here.

#RefusetoClick: How Pornography tends to beget Trafficking

"I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness."
Romans 6:19

Whether you like it or not, when you generate traffic for an online pornographic video, this is what you are helping to financially support:



Highlightx:

• 85% of young men watch porn.

• "Your fantasy is Anna's nightmare."

• "Chances are she faces STD's and HIV."

• "Fighting Human Trafficking then watching porn is like protesting a corrupt politician then donating to his campaign."

• Anna's still stuck in your fantasy after you click away.

• You can take away the demand.

• You can simple refuse to click.

Vegas' former top prostitute describes fall and redemption in Christ

"And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”
John 8:11 (b)

Annie Lobert is the founder of Hookers for Jesus and a former prostitute; she shares her testimony below:



Highlights:

• She was "embraced by the Devil and his false love...and I became the harlot."

• "I met this boy in school who took my heart."

• Started looking for a guy with money.
• "I just wanted revenge."
• "Money was going to be the answer."

• Took a vacation to Hawaii where she first sold herself as a prostitute.

• First night in Vegas, turned two tricks, then 'boyfriend' beat her and took her money.

• "Every time he hit me, and choked me, and raped me, and put guns to my head and made me do things I just never wanted to do, I just did it because I loved him and out of fear because I knew if I didn't, I would not live to see another day."

• "When you leave a pimp, you leave with nothing."

• Next got cancer and got addicted to painkillers and coke.

• Went on calls bald with wig.
• Clients called her "cancer bitch."

• Cried out to Jesus in the middle of a massive O.D. AND SURVIVED!!!
• "I laid there and I had this peace come over me that was nothing like I had felt in my entire life."
• "God gave me a second chance."

• Felt nervous going to Church.

• Made whole by the healing of the Holy Spirit.

• "I want you to go back down to that strip, and I want you to tell the girls that are still in slavery that I love them."
• "That's what I'm called to do.

LifeSiteNews has more here.

Russell Brand's Monologue about Pornography

"For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved."
John 3:17

This author isn't usually a fan of Russell Brand, but Amen on this:



(h/t Fight the new drug)

Highlights:

• Our attitude towards sex has become warped.

• Pornography reduces the spectacle of sex to some sort of "extracted physical act."

• Consequences: Exaggerated perception of sexual activity in society, diminished trust between intimate partners, abandonment of hope for sexual monogamy, belief that promiscuity is the natural state....

• His own relationship with pornography: "Is kind of the hub of my feelings of inner conflict and doubt."

• "There's a general feeling, in your core, if you look at pornography that it isn't the best thing for me.

• "I feel like if I had total dominion over myself that I would never look at porn again."

• 50 shades of Grey is softcore porn.

Incest now "Genetic Sexual Attraction" (WARNING: Graphic)

"But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived."
2 Timothy 3:13

Sigh:

There were a lot of red flags over the course of those two years, moments I'm only now able to recognize as such. But being the daughter of a let's-look-at-our-vaginas-together feminist who is also a sex historian with a specialization in pedophilia and sex offenders—topics that were often openly discussed around me as a kid—I found that the boundaries that existed in other families simply did not exist in mine. So when my dad started talking to me openly about his past sexual encounters, it felt fairly normal. When he told me he was cheating on his current girlfriend, I was not bothered by it. I was 19, and my mother had always spoken to me like an adult. I felt he was speaking to me the same way. I felt included in his club, and I was flattered.

On my second trip to Jamaica, I started sleeping in my dad's bed. It was, in retrospect, yet another thing that might seem inappropriate to other kids. But I came from a kiss-on-the-lips relationship with both my mother and grandmother, and growing up, it was normal for us to cuddle and be affectionate together. I enjoyed it. I also had no idea what was normal in a father-daughter relationship. We held each other and I felt safe. When I started feeling sexually attracted to him—as well as shocked and horrified to realize it—I spoke of it to no one, least of all him. I hoped I would go home and the feeling would go away. But it didn't. Instead, it grew.

During that final visit to Jamaica, I discovered our sexual attraction to be mutual. It was August 2009, and one day, my dad did something that deeply upset me. The heat outside was deadly, and we stayed cooped up in his bedroom, where there was air conditioning. We were watching TV to pass the time when he put on a porn channel. Sex workers were being interviewed and he told me which of them he would most like to fuck.

I fled from the room in anger and confusion. I shut myself up in the other bedroom, which was oppressively hot, until he coaxed me to come out, apologizing repeatedly. I wanted to love him. I felt I needed him in my otherwise broken life. But things were starting to feel wrong between us. He was crossing boundaries; I was doing my best to suppress my sexual attraction to him. But despite my sense of impending doom, it was there. And then, we became sexually involved.

I imagine that, unless you have experienced genetic sexual attraction yourself, this is going to sound entirely unbelievable. But trust me: it is as real and intense as anything. The sexual feelings I had for my father felt like a dark spell that had been cast over me—a description that a therapist told me had been used almost verbatim by another client who had experienced father-daughter GSA. In general, my guiding principle in life is being in control. But in that moment I had absolutely none. It was like those nightmares in which you scream and no one hears you: you are powerless and you know it. I was not only a victim of my father's two-year seduction; I also felt a victim of my own sexual feelings. I didn't know then what GSA was, or how common it is. (The incidence rate of GSA is unquantified due to the difficulty involved in reporting or researching it; a commonly cited, if disputed, figure puts it at 50% of relatives who meet as adults.) I felt ashamed of myself, and I had no one to talk to about it. I wasn't equipped to understand or handle my feelings.

....

So here's a new story to throw into the mix: genetic sexual attraction is normal, and very real. If it is a parent-child relationship, the parent, whether male or female, is always responsible for establishing and maintaining boundaries. Failing that, they are sexual abusers. And to the victims of their abuse, I want to say what I have finally been able to understand myself: that my attraction, and what it led to, was not my fault.

The rest of the article details the author's (obvious and predictable) emotional trauma this decision produced while castigating normal father/daughter relationships; read the whole depressing thing here.

Come quickly Jesus....

#HAILSATANTX: Original "Bro-Choice" Blogger calls unborn Texans "property"

"You also took up the tabernacle of Moloch, And the star of your god Remphan, Images which you made to worship; And I will carry you away beyond Babylon."
Acts 7:34

Remember Ben Sherman?!?  When last we saw him, he coined the phrase "bro-choice" to rally men to support late term abortion to protect "consequence free" casual sex.  Well, he's back.

In a hyperbolic post about difficult end of life cases, Sherman writes:

"A fetus is not a person. It doesn’t matter whether you think it is or not; a fetus by definition is not a person in America. Here in the land of the civilized and free, except towards the very end of pregnancy, a fetus is federally considered the property of the woman whose body contains it. See Roe v. Wade. Thus, it’s definitional insanity to pit a woman’s interests against something inside her own body. Even if that “something” could eventually turn into something else: a baby entitled to the same exact rights, including court representation, as the rest of us."

[Author's Note: Emphasis added.]

The party of Dred Scott; always classy....

"So you're NOT Dead (yet)": An Open Letter to Hugh Hefner

"And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil."
John 3:19

Hugh,

Congratulations on cheating the reaper again AND making people look like fools on Facebook as part of the process.

But that means we need to talk.

Once again, in HIS Grace, God the Father has given you the opportunity to accept Jesus Christ as your personal LORD and SAVIOR.

I strongly suggest you take him up on the offer.

You and I both know that your bizarre sex life isn't all it's cracked up to be.  Furthermore, we also both know that the Playboy Mansion hasn't been properly maintained in 40 years.  And I knew that before Kendra spoke.

But you have one more chance: REPENT and accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior.

If you fail to do so, you will have no one to blame but yourself, and eternity is a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time.

Sincerely,
Adam Cahn
Austin, TX
December 29, 2014

Obamacare failing Austin's HIV+ Community

"Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need."
Ephesians 4:28

Sigh.  On the one hand, this is tragic.  On the other hand, it's amusing to see a group of people counting on big government to subsidize treatment for the consequences of their freely chosen activity disappointed:

A bartender at one of Austin’s gay nightclubs recently decided to donate all tips he and his fellow drink pourers received one night to a local group dedicated to helping people with HIV and AIDS.

Ripped, shirtless and offering plenty of flirty smiles, 26-year-old Bradley Franklin, who is HIV positive, wanted to give something back to AIDS Services of Austin, the group that shepherded him through the treacherous health insurance landscape that has emerged since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

....

Franklin learned that the plans on the federally created health insurance exchange, the Internet-based marketplace where consumers can compare and buy health plans, didn’t offer affordable ways to buy the life-saving medications he needs or allow him to see a physician with expertise in HIV and AIDS, he said.

....

One of the most significant issues is that many HIV patients who bought plans on the exchange can’t afford medications, which often run as high as $2,000 a month, he said. In most exchange plans, policyholders must pay a percentage of the cost of their drugs, not an affordable co-pay. Also, expensive and frequent lab tests for HIV and AIDS patients can run upwards of $1,700 a test.

“For a lot of patients, it actually created more barriers,” Wright said. “It’s kind of overwhelming.”

In the days before the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, only about 30 percent to 40 percent of HIV patients in Central Texas had private insurance. The percentage remains the same today, Wright said.

....

Peter Pitts, a former U.S. Food and Drug Administration official and current president of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, echoed Wright’s assessment. He said before the law’s rollout, the standard talking point of proponents was that people shouldn’t have to choose between food or medicine.

“Unfortunately not only did the ACA not solve that problem, it made it worse,” Pitts said. “That’s shameful.”

[Author's Note: Emphasis added.]

Read the whole thing here.

Bottom Line: This website has no desire to stop anyone from engaging in whatever behavior they choose to engage.  But, in the event you choose to engage in risky behavior, you need to be prepared to accept the full financial consequences of your actions.  And those consequences can get very, VERY expensive....

Becoming Belle Knox (Part 5): Knowing when to Quit Porn (WARNING: GRAPHIC)

"While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage.
2 Peter 2:19

[Author's Note: Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here]

The final installment of the documentary series, this entry deals with some of the dangers Miriam deals with working in the industry.  She doesn't show any of the false bravado and "no regrets" attitude we've seen in previous episode.  Before watching, this website warns readers that this video is, BY FAR, the most graphic in the series (and the others weren't exactly subtle):



Highlights:

• "A lot of shit in my life has been ruined because of sex."

• "A lot of my family doesn't fucking talk to me anymore."

• "I lost my best freinds because I joined the sex industry and decided to become a Porn Star."

• "Being in the sex industry has a way of making you very cynical and very bitter....and I feel like I've become a bit cynical and a bit bitter."

• "I'm always on the lookout for scammers and people trying to pimp me out or traffic me."
• Author's Note: Think about that.

•  "If you work too much or have sex with guys with big dicks all the time, you get tears in your vagina."
• Author's Note: Again, just think about that.

• It's not 20 minutes, one and done; you're having sex for HOURS on end.

• One time, had to "work with" a 50 year old dude and "I felt like crying the whole time."

• "I miss my Mom and Dad so much right now."

Becoming Belle Knox (Part 4): How to Hustle in the Porn Industry (Warning: GRAPHIC)

"While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage."
2 Peter 2:19

[Author's Note: View Part 1 here; Part 2 here; Part 3 here.]

Episode 4 of Miriam Weeks' saga follows her to the Porn convention.  There, we get to meet her oh so classy fans.  Like part 3, understand that there are images in this video that don't leave a lot to the imagination:



Highlights:

• When she won her award, other girls screamed at her and called her a slut.

• "I thought this was a part-time job, that I could compartmentalize Miriam and Belle...but I was naive to think I could do that..because it becomes you like it's own identity and you can't just take that identity out whenever you want to, you have to constantly be your porn alter ego."

• Signing graphic pictures of yourself for strangers.
• Author's Note: Think about that.... 

• She's barely been doing porn for a year.

• A crap-ton of her money goes to expenses.

Becoming Belle Knox (Part 3): From Student to Porn Star (WARNING: GRAPHIC)

"While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage."
2 Peter 2:19

[Author's Note: View Part 1 here; Part 2 here.]

Episode 3 of Miriam Weeks' saga.  In this installment, we learn more more about her background, coupled with her unconvincing 'no regrets' storyline.  Before watching this video, understand that this is BY FAR the most graphic one in the series so far.



Highlights:

• "I have no idea who I'm going to be working with yet, I don't even know if it's a girl or guy."

• "When I was in 8th grade, I cut myself; I had a hand mirror and I punched it and took one of the shards and wrote 'FAT' in my thigh."

• "I'm a Porn Star, ex-Cutter, rape victim; that's a lot of baggage for one person to carry."

• "Now that I've done Porn, it's so much easier to detach emotions from sex...which I think is a good skill to have in life."
• Author's Note: NO, it's NOT.

• Spiritual but not religious.

Becoming Belle Knox (Part 2): #PornstarProblems

"While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage."
2 Peter 2:19

The saga of Miriam Weeks continues; once again, though she claims to be a-ok about what's going on in her life, the truth about the life of performers in the industry is impossible to ignore:



Highlights:

• People online encouraging her to commit suicide.

• The night she admitted to a male friend that she was doing porn, "he got super wasted and tried to make out with me."
• "Within days the entire campus had found out."
• "I remember thinking to myself: My life is over, I can never go to Duke again."

• Mother bought her "panties, for when I strip."

• "I like the assertive, passionate, person I'm becoming because of porn."
• "Sexually in control, empowered, porn star."
• Author's Note: She says that at 18, we'll she if she's singing the same tune at 25 or 30.

• "Every two weeks, you have to get tested for the full panel of STD's."
• Author's Note: Seriously, think about that one.

Dirty Little Details of Americans with STD's

"Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh."
Genesis 2:24

ATLANTA (CBS Atlanta) – While the national media focus on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and the patient in Dallas, the CDC is reminding Americans that sexually transmitted diseases are an ongoing but hidden epidemic.

In the United States, nearly 20 million cases of new STD infections are reported each year, reports Live Science. Since infections can persist for a long time, and because some victims are not even aware they have a disease and can easily spread it to others.

Based on data from 2008, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the eight most common sexually transmitted diseases are: chlamydia, gonorrhea, hepatitis B virus (HBV), genital herpes, HIV, human papillomavirus (HPV), syphilis and trichomoniasis.

About 50.5 million current infections are in men while 59.5 million are in women, for a total of 110 million Americans with STDs at any given time.

Fifty percent of new infections occur in young people from ages 15-24 and gonorrhea is the most commonly reported STD in that age group.

Gonorrhea is the second most commonly reported STD in the United States.

The most commonly reported infection is chlamydia. But since many who are infected don’t show symptoms, the number could be far higher than the 1.4 million in 2012, a rate of 457 cases per 100,000 people.

New infections with HIV and hepatitis B occur in less than 50,000 people each year.

New cases of STDs cost nearly $16 billion a year in direct medical costs, according to the CDC

Yah, not sure what else to say....

Cosmo Magazine Juxtaposes Masturbation and Wendy Davis

"Then he said, “Throw her down.” So they threw her down, and some of her blood spattered on the wall and on the horses; and he trampled her underfoot. 34 And when he had gone in, he ate and drank. Then he said, “Go now, see to this accursed woman, and bury her, for she was a king’s daughter.” 35 So they went to bury her, but they found no more of her than the skull and the feet and the palms of her hands. 36 Therefore they came back and told him. And he said, “This is the word of the Lord, which He spoke by His servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, ‘On the plot of ground at Jezreel dogs shall eat the flesh of Jezebel"
2 Kings 9:33

Worth 1000 words:

Becoming Belle Knox (Part 1): I Googled How to Be a Porn Star

"While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage."
2 Peter 2:19

Last week, we said we would review the documentary Becoming Belle Knox.  We've watched the first episode and feel it's safe to share (although some of the blurred out porn images allow you to figure out what's going on).  Miram's unconvincing 'no regrets' attitude notwithstanding, the truth about the industry is impossible to conceal:



Highlights:

• "Every dollar I make goes to tuition."

• Porn industry has "given me back my sense of self."
• Author's Note: You say that at 18, we'll see if you're singing the same tune at 25....

• $4,300 in bills each month.

• First website was called 'Facial Abuse'...Producer: "Kinda like talked me into it."

• Her first scene: "It was like a really, really, really rough scene.  Like, I wasn't prepared for how rough it was.  And it was weird, like , having some random photographer basically watch me get my ass kicked on camera."