This came upon your Lady Yokel’s inbox this evening, and while we are very much on board with this message (just type human trafficking into our search engine) we also have very long memories.
Once upon a time…let’s say about 4 years ago…Councilwoman Jessica Fitzwater put forth a bill to form a committee to study and address human trafficking in Frederick County. The usual characters were against this, and Billy went so far as to say there were people for and against human trafficking! Well, we also remember the new owner of the Tentacle, one Cindy Rose, was not on board with all of this human trafficking hullabaloo. In fact she said that it wasn’t even a local issue. Behold exhibit one:
Oh the conspiracies!
So back in the day (4 short years ago) any effort to combat human trafficking was part of some nefarious teacher union ploy. What has changed Cindy’s tune?! Could it be?…..
Just asking questions!
It is nice to see Cindy coming around to Jessica’s POV, especially after some of the nasty things she’s written about her on the noodlely appendage lately. (We are not going to link to that garbage.) We also do not want to disparage anyone for coming to the right side of an issue. However, given her past reluctance to treat this as a serious issue AND the recent Qanon conspiracies we can only assume that this really has more to do with baseless conspiracies than it does with actual human trafficking victims. Stay vigilant folks, and don’t forget to vote!
We have become accustomed to thinking of our local Trumpkinclowns as ridiculous hayseeds, but what ifnits worse’n that? Did it raise the hairs on the backs of any other Yokelnecks to hear of the arrest of a person who attempted to engage in sex trafficking of children? Honestly, we have had a hard time writing about this whole matter, because the stomach turning nature of it makes it impossible to want to sit with. Then matters felt even more alarming with the realization that this individual shares the surname of one Former (woot!) Councilmembers. This would have merely come across as an unfortunate coincidence were it not for the next stage in processing the news, when we recall that was the same member who voted against forming a human trafficking task force while stating that “not everyone is opposed to that…” It does set a mind in motion when such a series of awful coincidences occur.
It’s been awhile. We did not remember the exact wording, but we do have a blog to refresh our memory …and holy hell it is worse than we remembered! He basically had a variation on the good ol’ MAGAtheme that there are good people on both sides of this issue. Why does that keep coming up when it is patently false? In case you are in need of a logic based tutorial: Selling people is slavery. Enslaving people for sex is rape. (Doing that to children is rape of a child, but that doesn’t seem to be so often misunderstood as the former point is; only recently law enforcement has kind of started to figure out that not all people involved in prostitution are willingly participating.)
At the time all of this occurred our basic assumption was that he was talking about his friend, and our muse. His name makes us gag sometimes, so we will call him Middle Aged Sk8r Hair. We also figured we were talking about the sex trafficking of adults and he didn’t want to run afoul of Frederick’s Youngest Good ‘Ol Boy with the Black Book Scandal History, and the more recent prostitution solicitation, and that he just kind of worded it poorly. Things were often worded so poorly. Disgusting, nonetheless. But now. Now our wondering has become much darker and ickier and sadder.
Now we are asking ourselves a lot of questions (in the Glenn Beck speculative sense, perhaps, but still)! It is ODD, isn’t it? In a sour stomach kind of way.
Furthermore, the High Shire of Our Reve has been lately on Fox news with some cherry picked statisticals about y number of sex crimes committed by undocumented immigrants in some timeframe x he selected.
Here’s what we do know. “Alex Nowrasteh, a senior immigration policy analyst with the libertarian Cato Institute, points to Texas as an example, since it’s the state with the best data on crimes committed and counted by immigration status and was the subject of a recent report he wrote showing that criminal conviction and arrest rates for immigrants were “well below” those of native-born Americans.” (ABC News, Jan. 15, 2019, Cheyenne Haslett “Fact Check: Trump’s claims on undocumented immigrant crime rates. Here’s what the numbers show)
“Undocumented immigrants make up just over 6 percent of the state’s population, legal immigrants made up over 10 percent, and native-born Americans make up over 80 percent…Meanwhile, undocumented immigrants were convicted of 5.9 percent of all the homicides in Texas, legal immigrants were convicted of 3.8 percent of homicides, and native-born Americans were convicted of about 90 percent of all the homicides in Texas, according an analysis of 2015 Texas state data by Nowrasteh.” (NB: When you sort the math, that’s the 80% native born citizens doing 90% of the murdering…you don’t have to be Archimedes to see where this is going, do you? OTOH, there’s the 6% undocumented residents doing just slightly less than their “fair share” of the killing by .1%, making the legal immigrants the clear winners here in the “human decency” category.)
Meanwhile INDEED! Because meanwhile we seem to have not just this character who (although we will insist as well that he deserves a fair trial) sure seems like he is allegedly both a true local and a totally disgusting monster. If you missed the details, he arranged with an undercover FBI agent to have sex with a 2 year old child. In addition to this particularly horrifying tale, there seem to have been a spate of localsexcrimes, (by our count that’s 5 local sex crimes *where children are the victims* in the same time frame Jenkins gave out for all sex crimes against everyone in the state of Maryland by *just undocumented immigrant* people.
Another bee in our bonnet: none of the activities in these recent news stories seem at all connected to the Sheriff’s legitimate but unrelated concerns over MS-13. None of these people appear to be detained in the Sheriff’s prize pet program. You may have heard a lot about that program just lately, since it was suggested that it may need an audit, and he’s been so defensive about why taxpayers should know how his rounding up “the illegals” program is doing, analyzing it according to the math. Since math seems hard for him, as we have just demonstrated above, maybe a closer look would be a good idea.
Are we really addressing our largest problems here in Fredneck, Maryland? It sure does not seem like it. Just who is turning a blind eye to what around here?
Don’t worry Fluffy, the good voters took care of this in the primary!
It’s really hard to imagine a discussion in which you are going to hear arguments against preventing human trafficking. What kind of person do you have to be to not want to fight this terrible problem? Well, that’s exactly what a couple of county council members did last night.
It’s a short 47 minutes, so if you have the time go ahead and listen for yourself. Jessica used this workshop to discuss some changes to the three bills she introduced in a previous meeting. The first bill further defined what a bodyworks establishment is and defined exactly what sexual activity is considered to be. What does Billy have to say about this? NOTHING GOOD! He wants to know what is going to happen to all those peeps who want to privately have sex in their place of business. Both Jessica and the county lawyer have the extreme displeasure of telling Billy that has nothing to do with what is going on here! We sure hope that isn’t what’s happening down at Winchester Hall, Billy! Do we need Jan to appoint independent counsel to investigate?
The next bill concerns landlords who KNOWINGLY allow human trafficking on their property. Jessica begins the discussion by saying the amended bill further defines KNOWINGLY. Well, for some reason Kirby can’t get that concept down. He wants to know why we are making the landlords criminals when they can’t keep track of what’s going on at their properties. Jessica: KNOWINGLY. Kirby: Well it isn’t the landlord’s business and the police will take care of it. M.C. : KNOWINGLY. Kirby: You need to have evidence. KNOWINGLY, KNOWINGLY, KNOWINGLY!! Kirby agrees to disagree.
The last bill has to do with training front end hotel employees. Jessica asks a representative from the hotel industry and guess what? Most hotels already require this training! This bill will NOT require hotels to provide another training, should one already exist! Who’s going to muck this part up? Billy of course. Now he saw the disturbing video/quiz that PG county requires and he wants to see the Marriott one. However, all Billy wants to discuss is COST, COST, COST. The nice representative tells him there is no added cost because this is just a part of training and doing business. Billy says maybe for Marriott, but what about the Clarion Inn? (Wonder why he chose that specific example?) Billy is told that the Clarion has this training as well. Bud interjects to say that if you have this kind of activity going on at your hotel it damages your brand, so why wouldn’t you want to do everything you can to prevent it? Billy: COST! It is astounding to know that Billy is more concerned with the hotel industries bottom line over the safety of those being trafficked. Think of the children Billy!
And normal! A massage is a massage and that’s it, people!
You may want to keep the youngins out of earshot of today’s workshop, as there is a very sensitive discussion to be had. Just click on over to the proposed bill and pay attention to the last section! We imagine the debate (remember Billy wants us all to know there are people on both sides of this issue!) could cause some of our more pious council members to get a little squirmy. We also can’t wait to hear the arguments over how this bill will oppress our local businesses! Wonder if our favorite local “Silver Linings Playbook” star will be at the future public hearing to give his viewpoint! This may be one of the more exciting council meetings we’ve had in awhile!
This evening the county will be holding a workshop on the following items:
That’s some good stuff! Thankfully we don’t really need to draw attention to the fact that Billy said there are people on the other side of the human trafficking debate since he was so humiliatingly trounced in the primary. We’ll hold on to all that good stuff in case he tries to run for anything ever again.
Never fear Billy! We will be here to remind voters of all you’ve done if you ever try to run for public office again!
We saw this articleand guess what? A study has found that one fifth of human trafficking victims are homeless youth. Please read the article, and remember that our very own Billy Shreve once said there are people for human trafficking as if both sides was a valid arguement. If you don’t remember, it is a good thing we are here and we will #neverforget. Read about it here and here.
Guess what else this research found?
The research also highlights the connection between sex trafficking and online advertising, including Backpage.com, which has recently been shut down by the FBI with federal indictments against the online marketplace. Researchers found that 44 percent of the sex trafficking victims were subjects of an online ad, with half of them reporting that they were advertised on Backpage.
Why is Backpage so familiar??? Have we heard about that website in Frederick for some local reason? Hmmm. Oh, yeah. We read about when abastion scourge of our community was arrested. Human trafficking is a real issue. Neither Frederick, nor Maryland needs leaders who are unwilling and unable to understand there are no pros to this issue.
Use your vote wisely and we can make sure Billy Shreve is not elected. Tell your friends.
Bud starts off the meeting reassuring us that he supports any actions the council can take to stop human trafficking, so he still has that going for him! County Executive candidate Kirby Delauter is absent…again. We have to say we were so impressed with the presentation this evening. Kudos must go out to Jessica Fitzwater for brining this to everyone’s attention. So many knowledgable, articulate folks came in front of the council to give us information about this sickening problem. You can read the entire report here or just look at our highlights:
This is a heat map. What is shows are where the hotline calls regarding human trafficking are coming from. Notice that Frederick is in the red. That means there’s a lot of activity going on in our area.
This nice lady works for the State Prosecutor’s Office. She made us aware of the fact that many agencies do not have good information to pass on to victims of human trafficking. Something that this task force wants to remedy.
Oh, why oh why can’t our High Sheriff be more like Frederick Police Chief Hargis?(PSST, our High Sheriff was not in attendance this evening, probably because he was NOT in support of this task force, he believed that everything that could be done was already being done—VOTE KARL BICKEL!)
Frederick mayor Michael O’Connor told us some of the recommendations of the committee:
Mandatory training for lodging employees to help identify human trafficking victims.
Making sure all bodyworks establishments are properly licensed. (This is the only time Billy pipes up this evening-he wants to have a definition of bodyworks, we can only imagine what must have been going through that mind of his.)
Penalties for landlords and tenants who knowingly allow human traffickers to operate.
The creation of a survivor services fund created from the confiscated property of the human trafficker(s).
Creation of signs that alert the public to what human trafficking looks like, both sex and labor trafficking. In other words: “If you see something, say something”!
Chief Hargis likened this problem to domestic violence 30 years ago. 30 years ago (and this is really hard to stomach folks), domestic violence wasn’t on anyone’s radar. It wasn’t seen as a law enforcement problem. That’s how the issue of human trafficking has been treated..as someone else’s problem. But it isn’t, its a human problem that all humans should be concerned about. Contrary to what the High Sheriff or Billy or Kirby would lead us to believe, this isn’t just a problem for the federal government to solve. If a victim is found in Frederick County, and there have been numerous cases here, it’s a Frederick County problem. If you want more information about human trafficking visit the Polaris site. And after you read that, don’t ever, ever forget that Billy Shreve said that there are groups in favor of this. We don’t need a voice like that representing us in Annapolis.
Late in the day, the council agenda was changed to reflect this addition:
There was no clickable link, so we didn’t have any other information to go on. When it came time to vote we get this breakdown:
Yay-Jessica, M.C., Bud, Tony, Jerry
Abstain-Billy
Partying it up in Punta Cana-Kirby
Now, we have no idea what in the world is going on with this! Anyone who can enlighten us please send us a line!
This afternoon the council will convene to discuss the final report from the Frederick County Human Trafficking Task Force. Billy has told us that there are groups for human trafficking, and we’ll just let Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo handle this one for us this time:
To those that say prostitution is a victimless crime please read & pay attention. To the John’s that create the demand which leads to this inhumane activity, you deserve public shaming that is to follow when we catch you & out you. People deserve better. https://t.co/HglQNdG5EV
We almost forgot about this dingbat, who is seemingly threatening would be donors to her county executive campaign. “I am a witch. Give me money, or I will torment you with evil conjurings!”
She really does need help.
What is with this clown show we are treated to by a too large number of local Republicans, anyway?
Bud Otis, for the love of Pete. Why, oh why, have you seemingly realigned with team dingleberry and the darlings of developers?
His sidekick DeploraBilly Shreve, who is consistently and appallingly incompetent on a vast range of subjects, and is running for Maryland Senate.
Plus, we will forever have Billy and Kirby’s fascinating friend who shall not be named (who we are worried/thrilled to consider, based upon rubbernecking over his not subtle enough Facebook musings, that he may be considering a don’t-call-it a-comeback return to public life with the launch of a sexxxpert advise [sic] podcast in honor of Human Trafficking Workshop Weeknext week). Gross. #partyoffamilyvalues
Added bonus. Also running for CE, we have Regina “The Bullshit Stops Here” Williams. We would tell you more, but her website reveals no official positions on anything. Gracious. Afzali has issues. Kirby has issues. We know you have issues, too. Yousued the county.
It’s rather sad to note that Afzali seems like the most serious contender here, having at least had the forethought to think about the issues, and she really is a hot mess. Remember the time she had a spat with the sheriff, and was texting him that he was a wimp and a phony?
Go ahead, madam. Align yourself with the wicked witch. It’s a perfect accompaniment to your Pay No Attention to that Man Behind the Curtain president. This clownshow is a plague.
You’re sure no Ephelba. We’ll be over here defying gravity, thankyouverymuch.
Monumental whatthef*#@ery. Also, if you can’t see it because the images are being cranky it is a Twitter tweety that has a bunch of statistics about men being mentally ill and prone to violence, and concludes that women have it better for sharing the planet with the violent and troubled other half of the population. Ahem. Also, let’s femsplain it to you: you know that women have been asking to be included equally in all aspects of the military and are not trying to place the responsibility of public safety on y’all men? The holdup has been a cocktail of “you’re not wanted here screwing up our camaraderie” and “we can’t stop you from getting raped, for some reason.” Ugh. Gah.
As you may or may not be able to tell from the image above, there is some rando on the internet who apparently does not have a social science background at all (and in all likelihood is some Russian poseur stimulating Billy’s antifeminist leanings). Billy Shreve is propagating his thoughts about how high statistics about suicide and homicide and warfare impacting men means that feminism is ridiculous. First of all, the way it is explained in sociology 101–where youngsters first learn about Émile Durkheim’s first ever study of the concept, self-evidently titled Suicide—women are less prone to suicide because they have all the responsibilities of keeping a brood of offspring alive and cared for resting on their shoulders, because they are likely married to Papa Berenstain Bear, who is insultingly idiotic and has no idea how to feed or clothe his cubs or stay up all night nursing them back to health or figure out where their doctor or orthodontist’s office is or what their teacher’s name is, or like know offhand the location of a grocery store to pick up bread on the way home after six months of living in this city. So maybe the big dumdum part has some realism on occasion. #notallmen, yes, we know…we know. We do like our husbands.
Michelle Wolf has a super fantastic special on HBO right now called Nice Lady where she covers the important subject, “actually you can’t have it all,” and that’s really well worth watching. ***SPOILER ALERT: she talks about how it is impossible to be a good mom, and so she isn’t going to try, but also how she wishes she could be a good dad because the bar is so much lower and you get to avoid the issues presented with the absolutely unrealistic expectations placed on women in a judgmental country with no public policy to support working women and their families. This is because as a woman you have to have the kid, feed the kid, better be by breast but for goodness sake not in public; also go back to work (like yesterday), you can pump in the bathroom, and don’t take time off to take care of the kid that is constantly in need of both well visits and sick visits especially for a couple of years, and why are you distracted from your performance at work this week, and hurry up go have sex with your husband he’s going to find it elsewhere if you don’t, “And honey, why don’t you smile??????” (We don’t smile because people like Billy Shreve exist; also sometimes we do smile because people like Billy Shreve exist, but he does seem to become increasingly infuriating according to duration of exposure.)
Did Mark Twain really say this? Who the heck knows. We would Google it, but we don’t care. We didn’t even Google to see if the statistics in the original tweet were correct; odds are high that they aren’t.
Dare we suggest it might actually be better for men, too, if women weren’t so stressed out? And no doubt for their children as well.
Furthermore, we think it is super rich that this is coming from Billy “victim of sexual harassment” Shreve. You know, sometimes sexual harassment isn’t a snide remark, but a thing that happens to everyone from auto workers to actresses where they have to actually have sex with the boss if they want to keep their job. For Pete’s Sake! Read a flipping newspaper once in awhile. You might even learn from reading that 55% of women victims of homicide are killed by a domestic partner, where this is only true of about 5-7% of men. Isn’t that fascinating? Isn’t this mysterious information? Men are violent, and (according to Billy and co.) women are lucky to be murdered by men rather than the ones doing the murdering. What weird logic.
You know what else, Billy Shreve once said people are in favor of human trafficking, most likely because his bestest good buddy is a big ol fan of hookers. Don’t ever forget that one.
Man, this turned into a long rant. Yeah, we do have a bug up our asses, actually. Thank you for reading installment eleventybajillion in, “Do not reelect Billy Shreve to anything.”
frederick local yokel 