Sound of Freedom

[n_huffhines]

LOL, the church can't be wrong and neither can Ballard, so a church employee must've been hacked:



This thread is so funny. Full of people scrambling.

 

[n_huffhines]

Damn it, it's private, but the comments are mix of "Duh, he's shady" and "I don't trust the media on this." and even "This is a smear campaign because he's thinking about running for senator." and stuff like that.

 

[n_huffhines]

If it is an email hack, it's also a website hack because the church took down articles about Ballard and OUR.

Ballard's response:

Tim Ballard responds to allegations that he is using president M Russell Ballard‘s name for financial and business gain… vice news put out a hit piece. The LDS church allegedly responded “condemning“ Ballard for saying he has been “morally unacceptab

Tim Ballard responds to allegations that he is using president M Russell Ballard‘s name for financial and business gain… vice news put out a hit piece. The LDS church allegedly responded “condemning“...

www.facebook.com

 

[n_huffhines]

Salt Lake Tribune has confirmed the email is real.

 

[n_huffhines]

OK, this comes from anonymous sources, so TIFWIW:

"Sources familiar with the situation said that the self-styled anti-slavery activist, who appears to be preparing for a Senate run, 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. Ballard, who was played by Jim Caviezel in the hit film Sound of Freedom, 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. These sources requested anonymity because they fear retaliation.

The total number of women involved is believed to be higher than seven, as that would only account for employees, not contractors or volunteers. One source close to OUR has detailed knowledge of Ballard making sexual advances to a volunteer using methods similar to those he allegedly used with OUR employees. Those methods are also consistent with his conduct toward another former volunteer who spoke to VICE News."

Tim Ballard’s Departure From Operation Underground Railroad Followed Sexual Misconduct Investigation

“O.U.R. is dedicated to combatting sexual abuse, and does not tolerate sexual harassment or discrimination by anyone in its organization,” the organization tells VICE News.

www.vice.com

But this is from OUR:

Tim Ballard resigned from O.U.R. on June 22, 2023. He has permanently separated from O.U.R.

O.U.R. is dedicated to combatting sexual abuse, and does not tolerate sexual harassment or discrimination by anyone in its organization.

 

[n_huffhines]

So putting the pieces together, this is what I think happened:

- Ballard grooms and sexually harasses women in his org
- the women come forward
- OUR gets him to quiet quit, and the women agree to stay quiet until the movie has run its course in theaters, because they rightly believe it's good for a good cause
- Mormon church gets a tip from OUR that they are going to give more specifics on why Ballard stepped down
- Mormon church gets out in front and denounces Ballard
- OUR and anonymous victims give specifics

 

[n_huffhines]

Comments on The Blaze's post. Predictable. Blame it on the left, even tho OUR and the Mormon church have nothing to do with the left. Ballard means so much to OUR and they would not turn on him unless these allegations are 100% credible.

 

[n_huffhines]

 

[BenGrimm]

Comments on The Blaze's post. Predictable. Blame it on the left, even tho OUR and the Mormon church have nothing to do with the left. Ballard means so much to OUR and they would not turn on him unless these allegations are 100% credible.

View attachment 580471

How pathetic. I especially like the comment from Lee Rhodes as if the political strategy of the radical right isn’t to call everyone pedos and groomers.

 

[n_huffhines]

There is a very real chance this all causes a schism in the Mormon church. Ballard is so popular. I have family that is probably more tapped into OUR than they are the church, even though they are lifelong members. The funny thing is OUR is not getting any heat. OUR's statement is the most incriminating of all because they are the ones closest to Ballard, know the most, and explicitly denounced sexual harassment in their statement. I guess people just want to ignore that because it's the most difficult piece of evidence to refute. All the anger out there is directed at the media or the church. It is a very serious offense to say anything against the church, and here are some Twitter quotes aggregated by the Salt Lake Tribune:

“I will support and sustain you in your calling, but I don’t respect you,” one commenter wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “Hiding behind your calling to punch down at a man fighting trafficking makes you a suspect.”

Addressing the senior [Apostle], another remarked: “You need to make a public apology for your benighted behavior towards Tim Ballard. Your behavior is ‘morally unacceptable.’ You are a hypocrite! As I’ve said before, I uphold you as a prophet, seer and revelator, but I despise you as a man.”

On Saturday, Latter-day Saint conservative radio host Glenn Beck complained online that the church had effectively “excommunicated” Ballard in public statements in hostile media outlets.

Those now-deleted comments “are evidence of how conservative Latter-day Saints are renegotiating their religious and political identities,” said Shiloh Logan, a Mormon studies doctoral student at Claremont Graduate University in Southern California.

To such people, the church’s “seeming attack on Tim Ballard is not just viewed as an attack on his work with Operation Underground Railroad but also as a rejection of Ballard’s political beliefs and connection with former President [Donald] Trump,” Logan wrote in an email. “Beck’s comment implies that people are ‘struggling with their [religious] faith’ due to the church’s statement directed at a potential rising political figure.”

 

[n_huffhines]

Paul Hutchinson—an executive producer of Sound of Freedom, the film focused on the heavily fictionalized exploits of anti-trafficking activist Tim Ballard—touched the naked breasts of an apparently underage trafficking victim during a 2016 undercover operation in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Footage of the incident and its aftermath was captured by videographers working with Operation Underground Railroad, or OUR, the private anti-trafficking group Ballard founded. An investigator with the Davis County Attorney’s Office obtained the footage and wrote detailed descriptions of it as part of a criminal investigation into Ballard and OUR carried out with the FBI. That investigation was closed this year without any charges being brought. The descriptions were included among documents obtained by VICE News through a public-records request, and make clear that the trafficking victim appeared to be—and was believed at the time by Hutchinson and OUR operatives to be—about 16 years old. They also assert that OUR believed the footage had been destroyed.

A description of one of the videos, written by an investigator, shows Hutchinson expressing concerns over whether he could be prosecuted by Mexican authorities over the incident. He was speaking to Matt Osborne, an OUR operative, who dismissed his worries while making clear he didn’t think the video should be shown to the U.S. government. Osborne is currently the president and chief operating officer of OUR, as he has been since Ballard resigned from the organization earlier this year following an internal investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct.

‘Sound of Freedom’ Producer Felt the Naked Breasts of Apparently Underage Trafficking Victim

Files from a joint local and federal criminal investigation released to VICE News describe video evidence of the incident, which took place in Mexico on an Operation Underground Railroad mission.

www.vice.com

 

[n_huffhines]

I've felt halfway bad taking a victory lap on all this, because it means bad **** happened, but the silver lining was that maybe OUR could be much better without Ballard...but maybe it's just all the way wack.

 

[VolinMichigan]

Turns out the movie was about the groomers all along

 

[n_huffhines]

Utah AG's investigation contains records supporting the allegations that Tim Ballard was using a psychic medium to communicate with the dead Mormon prophet Nephi in order to locate missing children.

This is why the church issued a statement. Mormons are weird, but not this weird. VICE reached out for many comments on many occasions from the church, and they finally responded because they were asked about whether or not the apostle Ballard was aware of the Tim Ballard/psychic/Nephi stuff.

 

[615vols]

Dear god… obsessed much?
This dudes in here talking to himself, literally the only one posting.

 

[joevol33]

Dear god… obsessed much?
This dudes in here talking to himself, literally the only one posting.

He'll never stop as long as certain people like the movie

 

[n_huffhines]

Dear god… obsessed much?
This dudes in here talking to himself, literally the only one posting.

You have no idea how big this story is in my community.

This is typically what happens. I say something y'all don't like. Y'all give me **** about it. Then it's time to collect when I'm proven right and somebody invariably plays this card. Who fkn cares if I'm still interested in talking about it and y'all no longer are? You're still reading it. Your butts are still puckering.

 

[Behr]

You have no idea how big this story is in my community.

This is typically what happens. I say something y'all don't like. Y'all give me **** about it. Then it's time to collect when I'm proven right and somebody invariably plays this card. Who fkn cares if I'm still interested in talking about it and y'all no longer are? You're still reading it. Your butts are still puckering.

What were you proven right about? I mean, Im not going back through every post but I don't remember anyone actually saying you were wrong about whatever you were rambling about. I only remember you bitching about a movie that you hadn't seen.

 

[joevol33]

You have no idea how big this story is in my community.

This is typically what happens. I say something y'all don't like. Y'all give me **** about it. Then it's time to collect when I'm proven right and somebody invariably plays this card. Who fkn cares if I'm still interested in talking about it and y'all no longer are? You're still reading it. Your butts are still puckering.

It wouldn't be all about you if you weren't such a hypocrite. If you want to be honest, I'll be honest. It literally has nothing to do with your community, and anybody who has ever read a post from you knows it. You're butt hurt because conservatives like it, period, and use "your community" as a reason to hate on it. Just like your obsession with Twitter. Anybody can go read that thread, see how you loved conservatives being censored, then since it got bought and conservatives were allowed to post again, you've been pitching a fit in that thread just like this one. You, nothing else, you are what we are laughing about. Anybody that knows you're posting knows that's the truth. It'd go a lot better if you'd just man up, have some nads, and say you don't like it because conservatives support it. We all know it, despite what you're crying about, you just don't have enough in you to admit it. Get mad, cry, give a 309 word rebuttal, but as an independent, you bring your hate for conservatives into every thread you can. Peace out bud.

*Sorry, but it needed said

 

[butchna]

It wouldn't be all about you if you weren't such a hypocrite. If you want to be honest, I'll be honest. It literally has nothing to do with your community, and anybody who has ever read a post from you knows it. You're butt hurt because conservatives like it, period, and use "your community" as a reason to hate on it. Just like your obsession with Twitter. Anybody can go read that thread, see how you loved conservatives being censored, then since it got bought and conservatives were allowed to post again, you've been pitching a fit in that thread just like this one. You, nothing else, you are what we are laughing about. Anybody that knows you're posting knows that's the truth. It'd go a lot better if you'd just man up, have some nads, and say you don't like it because conservatives support it. We all know it, despite what you're crying about, you just don't have enough in you to admit it. Get mad, cry, give a 309 word rebuttal, but as an independent, you bring your hate for conservatives into every thread you can. Peace out bud.

*Sorry, but it needed said

Speaking of “receipts”, let’s honor his stance on Kellen Winslow Jr. This poster once innocently revisited his “I’m a soldier!” rant after the U lost to UT and he went on a sanctimonious diatribe about that maligning his character. Same CHARACTER they busted for raping old ladies shortly thereafter. That old, reliable Huff sticktuitiveness went radio silent.

 

[n_huffhines]

What were you proven right about? I mean, Im not going back through every post but I don't remember anyone actually saying you were wrong about whatever you were rambling about. I only remember you bitching about a movie that you hadn't seen.

In my OP, I said Ballard was FOS and a scam artist. I never once bitched about the movie. It was always about Ballard and OUR. I guess I took exception to the guy saying naysayers are "almost assuredly a pedophile or pedophile apologist themselves." and all the conspiracies about people trying to keep this movie down. I also had a problem with the guy hitting me with "facts" that he wouldn't verify when I sincerely asked for support, and then telling me he wasn't going to do my homework for me.

You're fine. We were on different sides of the conversation but you're always cool.

 

[n_huffhines]

It wouldn't be all about you if you weren't such a hypocrite. If you want to be honest, I'll be honest. It literally has nothing to do with your community, and anybody who has ever read a post from you knows it. You're butt hurt because conservatives like it, period, and use "your community" as a reason to hate on it. Just like your obsession with Twitter. Anybody can go read that thread, see how you loved conservatives being censored, then since it got bought and conservatives were allowed to post again, you've been pitching a fit in that thread just like this one. You, nothing else, you are what we are laughing about. Anybody that knows you're posting knows that's the truth. It'd go a lot better if you'd just man up, have some nads, and say you don't like it because conservatives support it. We all know it, despite what you're crying about, you just don't have enough in you to admit it. Get mad, cry, give a 309 word rebuttal, but as an independent, you bring your hate for conservatives into every thread you can. Peace out bud.

*Sorry, but it needed said

Bro, you've said this same **** before and I refuted you. You cannot produce one post that demonstrates that I loved when conservatives were being censored. I deleted Twitter from my phone because of Twitter's behavior pre-Musk. I came back after Musk bought it. I can prove this with posts. You've been told this before. You don't care because you want to believe what you want to believe about me. Who is the hypocrite?

RIP Twitter

Is pretending to be someone else to produce misinformation “free speech”? Has anybody said that it is?

www.volnation.com

 

[joevol33]

Bro, you've said this same **** before and I refuted you. You cannot produce one post that demonstrates that I loved when conservatives were being censored. I deleted Twitter from my phone because of Twitter's behavior pre-Musk. I came back after Musk bought it. I can prove this with posts. You've been told this before. You don't care because you want to believe what you want to believe about me. Who is the hypocrite?

RIP Twitter

Is pretending to be someone else to produce misinformation “free speech”? Has anybody said that it is?

www.volnation.com

Like I said, anybody who reads this thread, or the Twitter thread can see it. I sincerely don't care about the twitter, just think it's funny. You've spent this whole thread fussing, like you couldn't point out hypocrisy in almost any movie, or the actors, writers etc in them. You just picked a movie that brings attention to a horribly bad thing in the world to find something to pitch a fit about, and it's not a good look

 

[n_huffhines]

Like I said, anybody who reads this thread, or the Twitter thread can see it. I sincerely don't care about the twitter, just think it's funny. You've spent this whole thread fussing, like you couldn't point out hypocrisy in almost any movie, or the actors, writers etc in them. You just picked a movie that brings attention to a horribly bad thing in the world to find something to pitch a fit about, and it's not a good look

None of this is the problem for you. The problem is that I brought real information that you didn't want to know about. You keep making up **** about me. I didn't just pick a movie. I've been following this story closely for years. Been posting about Ballard on VN for 4 years. You have no idea what you're talking about.

Find one fkn post in the Twitter thread that demonstrates I loved when conservatives were censored and I'll never go in that thread again. Or kick rocks.

Here's a thread I started 2.5 years ago

Operation Underground Railroad Is a Circus

This is crazy. This highly publicized and well-supported operation (they raised $21m in 2019) is involved in questionable tactics like using psychics to try to find missing kids. It seems standard procedure for Ballard to misrepresent their accomplishments, their qualifications, and their intel...

volnation.com

 

[n_huffhines]

Speaking of “receipts”, let’s honor his stance on Kellen Winslow Jr. This poster once innocently revisited his “I’m a soldier!” rant after the U lost to UT and he went on a sanctimonious diatribe about that maligning his character. Same CHARACTER they busted for raping old ladies shortly thereafter. That old, reliable Huff sticktuitiveness went radio silent.

Wait, what? Because I didn't think it was a big deal that he said "I'm a soldier" I'm somehow accountable to comment about him raping old ladies years later? WTF is the point of this?