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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023

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I have no dog in this fight. Ballard could be the hero he is made out to be or a grifter. I have no idea and don't really care, but there is nothing in the world that I loathe more than:

Vice reports

My heuristic with Vice and most other "progressive" news outlets is that when it comes to reporting on non-progressive topics, I'm more likely to be closer to the truth by believing the opposite of what is reported. I view every part of the article as presenting the available evidence in the least charitable and most misleading light possible.

So, let's look at who the authors of this piece are, Tim Marchman, a "sports journalist" formerly of Deadspin with a lot of articles about Q-Anon and Anna Merlan, author of Republic of Lies, a book about Q-Anon. So we have two Q-Anon obsessed progressives focusing their little part of the eye of Sauron on an organization that works against child human trafficking. They have written 12 articles critical of OUR since December of 2020. The linked article is pretty much a rehash of their last article on the subject in July. It's surprising there is any axe left here after all that grinding.

So, let's check on the sourcing here:

  1. "according to sources with direct knowledge of the organization." Anonymous sources not within the organization
  2. "Sources familiar with the situation" Anonymous source not within the organization
  3. "These sources requested anonymity because they fear retaliation." Okay, more anonymous, and retaliation from who?
  4. "One source close to OUR" Yet another anonymous source with an alleged link to the organization
  5. OUR official statement in response to a request from VICE - okay, an official nonconfirmation of any allegations.
  6. "sources with direct knowledge of OUR corroborates an anonymous letter that’s been circulating in the Utah philanthropic community for the past several months" anonymous source confirming an anonymous letter circulating in "the Utah philanthropic community".
  7. "Women believed to be at the center of the investigation have not responded to requests for comment, or have declined to comment." Other possible direct sources would not confirm.
  8. "Ballard did not respond to requests for comment submitted through his personal website; that of his new organization, the SPEAR Fund; and through a spokesperson whom OUR previously told VICE News is his personal representative." Crazy that the guy you had written 11 hit pieces about previously didn't want to engage with you.
  9. "Last week, a spokesperson for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a statement to VICE News that contained a pointed rebuke of Ballard." Hrmm, an anonymous Church spokesperson who issued the pointed rebuke directly to VICE, but did not make it public or official statement from the Church's press office. Links to the statement from Utah news sources return a 404 statement not found. The quotes I could find of the rebuke are as follows

“President Ballard and Tim Ballard (no relation) established a friendship a number of years ago. That friendship was built on a shared interest in looking after God’s children wherever they are and without regard to their circumstance. However, that relationship is in the past. For many months, President Ballard has had no contact with the founder of Operation Underground Railroad (OUR). The nature of that relationship was always in support of vulnerable children being abused, trafficked, and otherwise neglected. Once it became clear Tim Ballard had betrayed their friendship, through the unauthorized use of President Ballard’s name for Tim Ballard’s personal advantage and activity regarded as morally unacceptable, President Ballard withdrew his association. President Ballard never authorized his name, or the name of the Church, to be used for Tim’s personal or financial interests.

In addition, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints never endorsed, supported or represented OUR, Tim Ballard or any projects associated with them.

President Ballard loves children, all over the world. It has been his mission and life’s work to look after them, care for them, and point them to their Savior.”

So, presumably there was a public statement that is no longer available online, was withdrawn without comment by the Mormon church, and what we have left is some citogenesis where the Salt Lake media sources cite Vice citing the Salt Lake media sources. I'll chalk this up as having existed at some point, but perhaps no longer representing the official position of the Mormon church.

So, out of 9 sources, only one partially confirmable source even sort of supports the allegations and even that is now offline less than a week after it was created.

Now let's look at the nature of the allegations:

  1. "investigation into claims of sexual misconduct involving seven women" What is "sexual misconduct" precious?
  2. "invited women to act as his “wife” on undercover overseas missions ostensibly aimed at rescuing victims of sex trafficking. He would then allegedly coerce those women into sharing a bed or showering together, claiming that it was necessary to fool traffickers." So, no actual sex then.
  3. "is said to have sent at least one woman a photo of himself in his underwear, festooned with fake tattoos, and to have asked another “how far she was willing to go,” in the words of a source, to save children." Oh, so still no sex.
  4. "The total number of women involved is believed to be higher than seven, as that would only account for employees, not contractors or volunteers." That's quite an inferential leap, and believed by whom? The authors of this article?
  5. "anonymous letter that’s been circulating in the Utah philanthropic community for the past several months, which accuses Ballard of sexual harassment." Still no sex? Man, this guy really sucks at sexual harrassment if he's not actually getting any. And what the fuck is the "Utah philanthropic community." Is it, maybe, composed of other organizations that are competing for donation dollars with OUR?
  6. "It was ultimately revealed through disturbingly specific and parallel accounts, that Tim has been deceitfully and extensively grooming and manipulating multiple women for the past few years with the ultimate intent of coercing them to participate in sexual acts with him, under the premise of going where it takes and doing ‘whatever it takes’ to save a child." Here we go - grooming them with the ultimate intent of participating in sexual acts. So, did they actually do sex, or were we just in the grooming phase? I know which one Vice wants me to believe, so I'll go the other direction.
  7. "Ballard, an ally of Donald Trump" Would it be uncharitable for me to think that this is the real accusation here?

So, a bunch of anonymous sources saying that a guy may have inappropriately conducted himself in ways that did not lead to actually having sex with women, but with maximum innuendo of massive misconduct and multiple cover-ups in ways that can't clearly be proven as actual malice in a defamation case. Also known as a Tuesday in Vice-land. If anything in this article turns out to be true, it will be in spite of the reporting on it.

The church statement was confirmed by Deseret News, and KUTV. It originated from an employee named Doug Anderson, and at least I'm tapped into rumors in LDS-land that yeah, it's bad and the Church is pissed at Ballard. If the Church would like to make a statement disavowing the Vice article, they have had 5 days to do so and have not.

Do they have a history of making statements disavowing tabloid hit pieces against laypeople of the church? Also they are pissed at him about what? His alleged sexual misconduct, which makes up the majority of the piece, or his inappropriately using the name of an elder? They aren't even in the same ball park crime wise, but they are listed together so the legitimacy of the church rebuke can be tied to the allegations of sexual misconduct.

This is certainly somewhat unprecendented (hence why it's sticking around), but there's no reason to assume malfeasance here, a rogue PR agent. It's been out long enough that someone would have corrected the record by now. Usually the Church responds to things through its newsroom portal, in this case they just responded to a request for comment. Not sure why, but also not sure why it matters.

we don't know specifically why the Church viewed his actions as morally unacceptable, but it is true that he has repeatedly invoked Elder Ballards name and the Church is trying very hard to tamp down on various forms of affinity fraud that sadly take in many of our more guileless members. If the sexual allegations are true it's even worse - but for now it's all based on anonymous accounts so idk. But at minimum, using an apostles name to make money is, to me, bad enough.

I don't think the statement was falsified, I think it's unlikely the church will say anything about the vice article. I thought you were falling for a false dichotomy - 'they commented on the elder stolen valor thing, so not commenting on the vice article implies they agree with it'. It kind of looks like you are falling for it again here -

we don't know specifically why the Church viewed his actions as morally unacceptable, but it is true that he has repeatedly invoked Elder Ballards name and the Church is trying very hard to tamp down on various forms of affinity fraud that sadly take in many of our more guileless members.

Because it's true we don't know exactly why the church rebuked him, because they took down the statement they made (which implies they don't fully support it imo, but let's assume they do support it for this argument regardless), but we can be pretty damn sure they were rebuking him for claiming he was good friends with elder Ballard and not the allegations of sexual misconduct, because they speak at length about the elder thing and never say anything about allegations of sexual misconduct. Based on the evidence in this article, there is zero reason to think the church were rebuking him for the sexual misconduct.

To be clear, I don't think anyone in the church has done anything shady at all (except younger Ballard). But I trust vice about as far as I can kick them, and this article only reinforces that.