A conversion therapist in Utah who pled guilty to charges related to sexually abusing clients he had promised to help turn straight received three sentences of five years to life in prison for three felony charges of forcible sodomy. He also pled no contest to sexually abusing an underage girl.
Scott Dale Owen was once a Mormon bishop who became a mental health counselor in Provo, Utah, where he ran a “person-centered” therapy practice where he treated men for their “same-sex attraction,” a term often used by conversion therapy proponents to describe being gay.
Police found over a dozen clients who said that they were sexually abused by Owen after seeking treatment from him.
“Dr. Owen during his therapy would tell the victims that their relationships with men were broken and his therapy could help them be able to have ‘normal’ relationships with men and eventually women,” a police booking affidavit said. He “used his position as a therapist to coerce the victims into engaging in kissing, cuddling and sexual touching during therapy session.”
One of the victims said that Owen became “increasingly physical,” would assure him that they were “making progress,” and warned him not to talk about the therapy with others because they “may not understand the treatment.” He said that Owen told him that he had to trust him completely to be “cured.”
The same pattern was revealed in another victim’s recollection of his time as Owen’s client and ecclesiastical follower.
The man told investigators that Owen explained that “they were going to focus on developing an intimate and spiritual relationship.” Owen told the victim that “he was unique” and that Owen “had been spiritually prompted” to work with him.
Alex Bollinger's report? It's obvious. To those who follow this topic, this is not a surprise. Conversion isn't real and it doesn't work. But for a bunch of gay men who loathe themselves, it lets them be around men and boys and trick them.
There is no such thing as 'conversion' therapy.
I wonder if Mike Johnson still believes in it. I mean privately. Like when he's in the motel room with one of his hook ups and he's got their cock in his mouth, does he still believe in conversion therapy? Or does he, at least then, get honest with himself and admit that he's gay?
Gay people are not a danger. Gay people out of the closet. The danger is these sickos who can't accept that they're gay for whatever reason and go around attacking gay people to try to make themselves feel better and so they can pass as straight.
Or try to. I don't think anyone believes Mike Johnson is straight at this late date.
Elaine covered this in "Conversion Queen Mike Johnson" earlier this week.
Here's C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"
The tariffs, part of Trump's so-called "Liberation Day," tax foreign goods from 10 to 49 percent from just about every other country — but, Maddow noted, they also apply to a few places that don't seem to have much trade with the U.S., or even many people at all, for that matter.
"May I introduce you to Jan Mayen Island?" said Maddow. "It is a volcano, volcanic island, mostly covered in glaciers, hundreds of miles from anything else in the Arctic Ocean ... it does have an airstrip, but nobody lives there. Population: zero humans — many polar bears."
On Monday and Tuesday, the stock market, an indicator of investor confidence or anxiety, actually rose slightly. This was the result of high-level administration leaks to Wall Street players that today’s announcement won’t be as damaging as you might think and will finally clarify U.S. policy. But today the market is down again, probably because of the wildly different stories out there from Trump’s own economic advisers.
White House trade czar Peter Navarro says the new tariffs would raise $600 billion annually, the largest tax increase since World War II. This would presumably offset other Trump tax cuts, but at massive economic costs.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, more of a dove on the issue, has told lawmakers that the tariffs would be capped and could be negotiated downward. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has been trying to reassure Wall Street, but others in the administration find the loudmouth Lutnick irritating, blame him for reinforcing Trump’s tariff obsession, and are setting him up to be the scapegoat. Politico has made a big deal of this (“Trump World Turns on Lutnick”), but its story, widely picked up elsewhere, is based on just two anonymous sources with their own axes to grind.
***TODAY: Senate to vote on a resolution to reverse Trump’s tariffs on Canada—Trump’s trade war with Canada, which has resulted in severe, 25 percent retaliatory tariffs on nearly all goods, is already seriously hurting WA businesses and agriculture industry***
Washington state is one of the most trade-dependent states in the U.S., with 40 percent of WA jobs tied to international commerce
Senator Murray: “Trump’s refusal to accept basic economic realities or listen to the desperate pleas of American businesses, farmers, and families who can’t afford his costly tariffs is risking serious economic catastrophe and pushing our country toward a Republican recession.”
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, released the following statement on President Trump’s reckless and sweeping new tariffs, which are expected to go into effect later today and will raise costs, and severely harm Washington state businesses, agriculture, and our overall economy. A recent analysis found that Trump’s tariffs could raise costs on the average American household by $5,200 a year—and these price hikes on working families are coming at the very same time that Republicans are forcing through Congress massive new tax cuts for billionaires.
The Senate will also vote today on a resolution from Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) that would reverse Trump’s tariffs on Canada by nullifying the emergency declaration issued by President Trump that underpins them. The resolution requires a simple majority to pass in the Senate and would also need to be brought up and passed in the Republican-controlled House in order to go into effect.
“Trump’s ham-fisted, utterly pointless tariffs are a tax that families in Washington state will pay on nearly everything they buy—whether at the grocery store, the car dealership, or your neighborhood coffee shop.
“We have all the data in the world that tells us exactly how these tariffs will hurt American businesses and push up prices—that’s not an opinion, it’s a fact. Trump and his cabinet are choosing to ignore the mountains of evidence we have that tariffs do not work and push ahead because they simply don’t care. They don’t care if small businesses have to close their doors, if farmers lose access to markets, or if prices go up—because it won’t affect Trump and his cabinet full of billionaires.
“Trump’s trade war is an especially deep cut to farmers, fishers, and producers in Washington state—I’ve talked to so many who are absolutely furious that Trump is putting their livelihoods at risk because he cannot seem to grasp the basic fact that they actually rely on international markets to sell their goods. Trump doesn’t have a clue—and businesses in Washington state are already paying the price for his ignorance.
“Today I will vote for Senator Kaine’s resolution to reverse
Trump’s disastrous tariffs on Washington state’s largest trading
partner, Canada—Trump’s trade war has already forced businesses in
Washington state who rely on imported materials and business from Canada
to lay off employees and close their doors, and is upending supply
chains across the Pacific Northwest.
“Trump’s refusal to accept basic economic realities or listen to the desperate pleas of American businesses, farmers, and families who can’t afford his costly tariffs is risking serious economic catastrophe and pushing our country toward a Republican recession.”
Washington state has one of the most trade-dependent economies of any state in the country, with 40 percent of jobs tied to international commerce and approximately $60 billion in annual exports. Washington is the top U.S. producer of apples, blueberries, hops, pears, spearmint oil, and sweet cherries—all of which risk losing vital export markets due to retaliatory tariffs from key trading partners including Canada. Additionally, more than 12,000 small and medium-sized companies in Washington state export goods and will struggle to absorb the impact of retaliatory tariffs. Trump’s tariffs during his first term were extremely costly for Washington state—as one example, India imposed a 20 percent retaliatory tariff on U.S. apples, causing Washington apple shipments to India to fall by 99 percent and growers to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in exports.
###
ICYMI: Murray Statement on Trump & Elon Plans to Decimate VA, Firing 80,000 Employees and Putting Veterans’ Care in Grave Danger
ICYMI: Senator Murray, VA Researchers, Employees, Contractors in WA State Slam Trump & Elon’s Plans to Decimate VA With Further Mass Layoffs, Harm Services Veterans Rely On
***Report HERE***
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, released a new report detailing how President Trump and Elon Musk’s reckless mass firings at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) are already harming veterans’ services and health care in Washington state and across the country.
Senator Murray has been outspoken in standing up for veterans, VA employees, and VA researchers against Trump and Elon Musk’s indiscriminate mass layoffs that will undermine critical services our nation’s veterans rely on every day. Senator Murray, a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, was among the first to raise the alarm about the layoffs of VA researchers and called on President Trump to immediately reverse the firings. She pressed VA Deputy Secretary nominee Dr. Paul Lawrence on the firings of VA researchers at the hearing on his nomination last week, held a press conference with a VA employee and veteran in Seattle who was abruptly laid off as part of the mass firings with zero justification, and put out a fact sheet on how the indiscriminate mass firings were hurting workers in Washington state, including VA researchers. In January, Murray and others called on President Trump to exempt all VA employees from the hiring freeze issued as part of his Day One Executive Orders.
The full report is available HERE and below:
National View: The Department of Veterans Affairs
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs serves approximately nine million enrolled veterans every year. Washington state alone has around 232,000 veterans enrolled in the VA health care system. Its mission is to provide comprehensive care, support, and benefits to veterans of the United States military and their families. Core VA benefits and services include: health care including medical, mental health, and rehabilitation care; benefits and compensation including disability compensation, pensions, educational assistance, and housing loans; and burial and memorial services, including access to national cemeteries.
Like the rest of the federal government, VA employs high numbers of veterans and military spouses compared to private sector employers. Veterans make up 30% of the federal workforce, and the federal government is the largest single employer of veterans in the country.
On February 13, 2024, VA Secretary Collins terminated 1,000 VA employees, including a substantial number of veterans and military spouses, without cause.Then on February 24, Secretary Collins carried out another round of illegal terminations of VA employees. This mass firing brought the total number of fired VA employees to 2,400. Of those fired, a large proportion were themselves veterans and military spouses. On March 4, a leaked internal VA memo showed that Secretary Collins planned to terminate an estimated 83,000 employees – likely including an estimated 20,000 veterans – by the end of September of this year. This plan to reduce the VA workforce to September 2019 levels, coupled with the ongoing hiring freeze and illegal terminations of probationary employees, will be catastrophic for the agency, its workforce, and for the veterans, caregivers, and survivors it serves.
These measures will reverse the progress made by the previous Administration, during which VA was able to deliver more care and benefits to more veterans than ever before. It would roll back the progress and massive expansion of care and benefits from the bipartisan PACT Act, the largest expansion of VA health care and benefits in decades. These mass firings also threaten to erode recent progress in lowering the veteran unemployment rate, which has been a longstanding, bipartisan priority.
The Department of Veterans Affairs Provides Necessary Services and Has Ripple Effects Across Washington State
Before these mass firings, the VA was already experiencing staff shortages. The recent additional staffing and funding cuts will exacerbate these shortages and negatively impact the care veterans receive.
Former VA employees describe likely irreversible damage to the VA system, including loss of innovation and increased strain on already scarce staff time and resources.
- Future Zhou, a disabled Army veteran who worked as an Inventory
Manager at the Puget Sound VA Medical Center in Washington state, was
abruptly let go due to recent workforce cuts imposed by the Trump
Administration. By eliminating inventory management positions,
understaffed nurses will now be burdened with additional
responsibilities as they work to provide top-notch care with already
limited time. Veteran patients will need to wait longer for medication
and equipment they need while they are receiving care.
- “Unfortunately, I was not alone. Five other logistics personnel in our probationary phase were dismissed within hours of me, two mail clerks and three supply techs. The unprofessional manner in which these decisions were executed was incredibly disrespectful. I have since visited my office—because I still receive my care at the Seattle VA—and witnessed firsthand the undue stress and devastation that these indiscriminate firings have caused. Our supply team is now more than seven days behind on placing critical supply requests for medication and equipment in our hospital, and our supply techs have had to cut their night shifts, limiting deliveries to our clinics. I saw nurses going down to the warehouse to collect their own supplies in order to continue to provide quality care to our veterans. I am not confident that the hospital can remain open under these conditions.”
- Christian Helfrich, who served twenty years with the Puget Sound VA
Medical Center as a research investigator, was one of seven research
employees laid off because their research terms were not renewed due to
the hiring freeze.
- “In terms of what the effect will be on veterans… it’s not having innovative care developed in the VA, like pulmonary teams using the Electronic Health Record to identify problems for veterans before they happen, preventing things like pneumonia, and it’s not doing things like having people systematically identifying problems with the new Oracle Electronic Health Record… Research is an investment in the future—and if we don’t invest in research today, we are not investing in the future of the VA. And I’ll just add, what’s going on right now isn’t a two-way door where you can tear down the VA and then see what happens, and if you don’t like it, go back to the way it was. This is a one-way door —if we tear it down now, it is going to take years or decades to build back.”
- Raphael Garcia, a 100% disabled Army veteran and combat engineer,
was abruptly fired from his role as a management analyst with the U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs by the current administration.
- “I swore an oath to serve our country—first in the U.S. Army and then at the VA—only to be suddenly terminated by the very institution that promised to care for those who have served … Removing key personnel, not only delays claim processing, it erodes the institutional knowledge built over years of service, and sacrifices the care and compassion our veterans deserve.”
All three of these VA employees provided essential services to improve the health and lives of veterans. Without these staff and the other dedicated VA employees who were unduly fired, health care access and disability claim decisions will be delayed, services will be eliminated, and overall care for veterans will be negatively impacted.
One veteran, who is a prominent member and advocate in his local veteran service organization, confirmed that these cuts will further stress these systems that veterans rely on.
- Joshua Schrek is an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran who now lives in
Renton, Washington and serves as a Judge Advocate General of the
Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). He’s been active in the VFW for over 15
years, previously serving at the post, district, and department levels,
including previously being the Department of Washington VFW state Chief
of Staff. His comments represent his own views and not those of VFW.
- “I have received information directly from an employee at the Seattle VA who expressed serious concerns. He shared that his department is responsible for overseeing 46 veteran-facing products and services, including My HealtheVet, Community Care Billing, Enrollment & Eligibility, and the Veterans Crisis Line. Out of 140 authorized positions, only 65 are filled – expected to drop to 59. He also noted that they rely on over 700 contractors, and with contract cancellations happening centrally and without local input, there’s a risk these systems could go offline with no available staff to restore them.”
- “The situation has the potential to affect not only veterans but also the families who rely on VA support systems. If services like benefits processing, crisis response, and access to medical care are interrupted, it creates stress and instability for those trying to navigate an already complex system. One particularly alarming note shared with me was that if some systems break, they may ‘stay down indefinitely’ due to a lack of technical staff to fix them.”
The Trump Administration is Damaging Veterans’ Access to Care for Years to Come
Trump and Musk are putting the health care and benefits veterans have earned in grave danger. They are firing tens of thousands of people responsible for administering the services and care that over nine million veterans enrolled in VA health care across the country count on—and it’s a breach of the sacred commitment we make to our veterans to take care of them when they return home. These arbitrary mass layoffs, at the very least, are going to mean longer processing times for disability or education claims veterans are desperately waiting on and longer wait times for veterans to see a healthcare provider—to say nothing of the serious threat to patient safety or the threat of VA medical centers closing. For example, the Puget Sound VA already has 40 mental health position vacancies, 14 of which are psychology positions. Firing additional employees will only further decrease access to mental health care. The consequences will reverberate for generations—more veterans sick and unable to get their benefits, more veterans out of a job, and fewer men and women willing to sign up to serve a nation that shows it will not keep their promises to them.
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