Rev. Lora Young of Unitarian Universalism’s Willingness to Help a Freshly Out Transgender Woman Didn’t Jive With Her Actual Availability, As Seen on Her Calendly

Why is Rev. Lora Young, a minister affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association, in ministry?

I ask because she drove me to suicidality.

Young is the minister of the South Valley Unitarian Universalist Society, a congregation in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. (That’s in the Salt Lake valley.) I was a member of South Valley in recent years. After I came out as a woman who is transgender, another member recommended to me that I sit down and talk with her.

However, despite plenty of available times on Young’s calendar, she refused to meet more than three times in six months.

Young’s website says that she provides “spiritual direction” and that “Kindness is her primary theology.”

Rev. Lora Young (photo credit: South Valley Unitarian Universalist Society)

On Feb. 3, Young wrote, “My offer is to meet with you once in March and once in May of this church year. Then we can meet in August if you still desire support at that time.”

What’s funny, though, is that not long before that, Young said this in a newsletter to email subscribers: “I am also available for support during the week by appointment here: www.calendly.com/revlora

Many times in a week were available.

How was that compatible with Young’s offer? (She said I could talk with her after services. However, I would have hoped so since it’s a mingling time. And I probably would have needed to do most services online.)

As I told Young, because of her amount of availability on her Calendly, I struggled to reconcile that with support she offered.

Rev. John Cooper, the congregation’s affiliated minister, also was opposed to providing the help I needed fresh out as a transgender woman.

Young was even though I told her that hate speech was sent directly to me and that I am being cut off from in-person visits with my children after coming out.

Young didn’t even want to provide the help I needed after Young got back from her family emergency. (And she didn’t.)

Cooper knew about the hate speech and that I was alone for Thanksgiving.

Rev. John Cooper (photo credit: South Valley Unitarian Universalist Society)

The matter was even worse is that Young chastised the congregation in relatively recent months, prior to this problem between me and her, for how they regarded folks. Given my familiarity with people in the congregation —and thus, the goodness of so many members of the congregation — Young probably is as bad at this as anyone in the congregation.

Young and Cooper were against providing the help I need in this season of my life despite becoming ministers in a tradition with the values like those that Unitarian Universalism has. Which includes love in action.

That is also a problem since they are at the head of a congregation that strives to be really LGBTQIA+ supportive, specifically.

And to my understanding, in the ballpark of the time frame where these issues occurred, there wasn’t even a minister for more than on a rare occasion for more than a few weeks.

I don’t even know how capable Young is at her job. She didn’t even get my name right after I told her it several times four to seven days earlier.

Young was a key reason why I moved from Utah to the Los Angeles area.

(Prior to meeting Young, I resigned from the congregation because Scott Renshaw, a SVUUS board member, said a handful of years ago that I should resign if I wasn’t going to attend regularly. So I resigned not relatively long thereafter.)

One of Two Reasons I Moved to Los Angeles Was for Better Mental Healthcare Access. However, Even This Area Has a Ways to Go.

As big a reason as any and just one of two reasons I moved from Utah to the Los Angeles area? I ran into issues of accessing mental healthcare in Utah. For instance, in Utah, I wasn’t granted insurance coverage of a fairly basic hormone to treat a mental health condition called gender dysphoria. In California, I will be granted insurance coverage for body contouring.

However, that is all the extent of ease there has been for me in accessing mental healthcare in the City of Angels.

That has been a major letdown.

(Illustration by Chanelle Nibbelink for CalMatters)

And I’ve been even more surprised.

Even a gender clinic doesn’t take Medi-Cal, a state of California government program that covers healthcare for folks. And a pricing option beyond that is hardly affordable.

There have been problems regarding UCLA Health as well in terms of seeking mental health through receiving gender-affirming care.

Ronald Reagan UCLA Health Medical Center (photo credit: Daanish Bhatti)

Also, four therapists in the Los Angeles area have been difficult. It’s left me without the ability to access mental healthcare in a way that many seem to regard as a silver bullet.

  • One, a Cristina Rodriguez, didn’t want to meet any often for more than 2.5 weeks and would not talk about me having gender dysphoria. I also had to wait for six weeks to get into talk therapy with her. She also violated a boundary. And is that terribly ironic for a therapist to do?
  • Another, a Katy Hammer, didn’t attend work twice two weeks apart. And I learned about her not being there only when I arrived there once and was just a couple of blocks away another time. (Both times, I drove 30 minutes one way.) I’ve seen many therapists over the past eight years. None have even canceled twice. And only a few canceled even once.
  • Another, whose name I don’t know— we never met — asked to reschedule to the next day, only to then cancel the morning of that day.
  • Another, a Renato Perez, seemed to have deleted a message thread after I sent him the following message 12.5 hours after he sent a message at 2 p.m.:

“I am sorry — I just got your reply. (Usually, I check my email at the start and end of my work day, which ends at midnight PST.) I welcome the telehealth options!”

Perez claimed that “I don’t have the capacity to delete messages.” The problem with his claim is that I could see that the messages were deleted. Also, he ignored the thread and replied only after I asked in another email if he had blocked me. It seemed like he was not going to respond to my message quoted above. Especially since he replied fast to other messages.

I don’t know how much quality of work is in the Los Angeles area other than in entertainment and media.

Medical transition care is 100% essential to treat gender dysphoria.

Ironically, difficulties in accessing such care have negatively impacted my mental health.

After all, not only could I not be treated, but I couldn’t when I was seeking the care.

The author makes about $6 per article on one of three platforms on which she writes. Through the others, she doesn’t make a cent. Please support the author via her Patreon.

Blake Wilkinson: Class A Shunner

Since more than six years ago, Blake Wilkinson, a Utah native who currently lives and works in southern California, has rejected family.

A little background. Wilkinson, my brother, was headed to Brown University for college. Before he did, around the late summer of 2016, he told me that he said he was going in with the beliefs he held. I don’t know why he told me this since I already had said that I didn’t share his beliefs in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (Also, the institution is not just a religion. It’s also a culture and a lifestyle, in which he and I were raised.)

One thing that has been on my mind a lot since then is that he perhaps could not accept yet that I didn’t believe in the Latter-day Saint church. Because it’s possible that he was talking with me as though at least deep down, I shared his beliefs. The least-likely reason I find is that he wanted to talk with me about what was on his heart regardless of what I believed.

Blake Wilkinson (photo credit: Brown University)

Wilkinson played for the Brown basketball team. During the 2016–17 season, there was a Pride game. Wilkinson refused to wear a Pride shirt that the players were required to wear in shootaround, while warming up. (After doing that, he was bumped from the B team in practice. I defended him to his coach. I told the coach that I support queer people and that I am queer. But I also told him that at the same time, the coach’s reaction was wrong. However, when I told Wilkinson that I did that, he expressed that he didn’t like that I did.)

In March or April of 2017, I posted on Facebook a Mormon Stories Podcast interview of an Alaska couple, Jake and Amy Malouf. They were excommunicated from the LDS church for publicly questioning it. My understanding is that as a result, Wilkinson asked my birth father to leave me without shelter. And my birth father, one surprising Sunday night as I checked out Utah Jazz-Portland Trail Blazers game highlights, did ask me to leave.

Later that year, Wilkinson unfriended me on Facebook. I made a comment to him on the social network that I regret. And I apologized and 100% meant it. However, he didn’t want to re-connect on the platform.

Since, Wilkinson has said that he will not associate with me due to my conflicts with my birth parents. One time, in April of last year, I was able to talk with him in person, which I asked him to do. We were in the same location because we were participating in a luncheon after one of our grandmothers’ funeral.

I talked heart with heart to him. It was about a year-and-a-half after he told my parents he was done with me. (I posted on reddit that my birth father, the mayor of his Utah town, posted signs in favor of police. The timing was what was key for me. He did that rather shortly after Minneapolis officers were charged with multiple felonies, including murder, in the death of George Floyd.) And I told Wilkinson at the luncheon location that if he still wanted space, OK.

I don’t know why I did that since he is at fault for the wedge between us. And sure enough, he seized on that, to say that he wanted space.

As a writer, I am always seeking to be sensitive. Wilkinson is a certified financial fiduciary. Which is great. Though not when it comes to sensitivity, perhaps.

Blake Wilkinson (photo credit: Salt Lake Community College)

When I came out as a transgender woman to my parents and siblings, Wilkinson’s response made me think that he was OK with it. He added that he still would not be associating with me.

Does that in a strong sense nullify his tolerance of me being queer?

He said that he doesn’t want to associate with me because I am at odds with my birth parents due to them having different religious and political views than I do.

It would be silly if that were the reason.

The reason why is because one of them first abused me in Oct. 2015. And since, they have each either abused me more. Or my birth father has enabled my birth mother’s behavior in this regard. I even went to a domestic abuse shelter because the therapist I was seeing recognized that I was in an abusive situation. (My birth parents have their moments. However, the tapestry here has been to be emotionally, verbally and psychologically abusive since I have been public about the church in a way that brings it negativity. And now, for being a transgender woman.)

Wilkinson also seems inconsistent about my criticism of me being at adds with my birth parents simply over religion and politics. My sister wrote an Instagram post that suggests that I made a “heartbreaking” decision. (And seems clear to anyone who knows us.) Which seems to be a reference mostly if not entirely to departing from the church.

I know that sibling relationships are different than parent-child relationships. However, when I asked Wilkinson if he was going to get on my sister given his reasons for getting on me, he ignored me.

Also, when I asked in 2019 if he would be willing to financially help me in some way, he started promoting the LDS church to me.

It’s amazing that while Wilkinson and I both are roughly in the Los Angeles area now, it doesn’t matter. That’s because we could not be further apart.

I did tell him that I care 0% about him and would not attend his funeral. And something else — I can’t remember what — expressing that I don’t care about him.

Scorched earth, to be sure. But now, four months later, I realized I don’t mean it. (I added that last sentence in Jan. 2024.) But only after years of shunning from him.

And he is one of just three reasons why my last name, legally, no longer is Wilkinson.

Blake Wilkinson (photo credit: University of Utah)

Wilkinson has a personality to act strongly when confronted with a problem. He was a Div. I athlete, always got astounding grades and today, seems to do relatively elite work. Or at least, he has made quick flights for work from southern California to northern Utah. He also demonstrates utmost loyalty. (The issue at hand results from his devotion to my birth parents.) His personality serves him well in various aspects of his life, I am sure.

But let’s just say that it hasn’t served me well.

And me lacking loyalty isn’t a moral shortcoming.

Wilkinson’s view of the church also likely is quite complex given that he met his wife through the church. He met her on his church mission and enjoys her and his in-law’s company today where he met her on his mission.

I still think fondly of times where I was Peter Pan and made him Captain Hook. And I wore a moth-eaten hat like Pan’s and a green polo. And made him wear a black, curly wig and a red bathrobe. And hold a hanger (the hook stand-in). And I think fondly of the many times we faced off in sports, despite the bounteous amounts of contention that accompanied it. (He is such a good athlete that the outcome of our sports games were always uncertain even though he is three-and-a-half years younger than me.) And he was beyond sweet to not start getting into basketball until around adolescence (and perhaps early teenage-hood) because he considered it to be my thing. He also was beyond sweet to replace “chicken” with “spaghetti” as his favorite food on a VIP board as a child.

And many times since, I have wondered what happened to that sensitivity.

The Transgender Health and Wellness Center Wanted to Get Funding Through at Least One Individual They Didn’t Serve

Thomi Clinton is the head of the Transgender Health and Wellness Center, which has a handful of clinics in southern California. She is followed on Facebook by 11,000 people.

I, a woman who is transgender, tried to get resources through her organization. After a few months — months! — passed, nothing happened.

Yet, the center wanted to get funding through me.

The Transgender Health and Wellness Center wanted to get funding through me even though they didn’t provide any resources at all to me. (graphic credit: Transgender Health and Wellness Center via TheHollywoodTimes.today)

Because of their lack of help, you can imagine how shocked I was to get a call from a THWC representative. A representative who said that she wanted me to complete a survey for the sake of funding for the clinic.

I made clear to her two, perhaps three, times that I wasn’t serviced. Still, after that, she pressed. And after the first or second time, when I said that I had to find services on my own, she acted as though the THWC was justified in seeking funding. That I should do the survey. However, I found other resources because of my efforts and because there are other, competing clinics serving the transgender population. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the THWC.

Another clinic, the Trans Wellness Center, started helping me the moment I told them I was seeking resources.

The Trans Wellness Center started helping me the moment I told them I was seeking resources. (graphic credit: Trans Wellness Center)

Also, the communication that did exist from an employee named Sedera Vargas was really poor. And another THWC employee, Chloe Bryant, was difficult. I don’t even know if she passed along information I sent, at least once — I had to touch base.

I also spent a few hours to do more intake paperwork that I’ve ever encountered with one organization. It was for naught.

Shame on the THWC for trying to get funding through at least one individual who they didn’t even service.

The author makes about $6 per article on one of three platforms on which she writes. Through the others, she doesn’t make a cent. Please support the author via her Patreon.

U.S. Media’s Legal Standing May Be on ‘Shaky Ground’ Given How U.S. Supreme Court Now Views the Press — Study Co-Author

We know the immediate former United States president’s characterizations of the press. We may have a good idea of U.S. Congress’ as well. But what about the other branch of the U.S. federal government, the U.S. Supreme Court?

RonNell Andersen Jones and Sonja R. West have studied the court’s writings going back to 1784 to understand that.

The professors found that given the court’s recent opinions of the news media, the press’ legal standing may be on “shaky ground,” Jones told the audience at “Free Speech in the 21st Century,” an international freedom-of-speech conference held virtually July 3–4, 2020.

The U.S. Supreme Court building (photo credit: Susan Walsh/AP Photo)

As it is in the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, confidence in the media is also “waning” in the Supreme Court, Jones said.

Jones and West are from the University of Utah and University of Georgia colleges of law, respectively. They divided all references by the court to the press into categories or “frames” of characterization. Then, they coded whether it was depicting that frame positively, negatively, or neutrally, Jones explained while giving a slideshow titled “United States Supreme Court characterizations of the press,” a presentation of the academics’ study. Jones and West mapped their data featuring the most and least friendly justices and their ideology and attitudes toward the press.

The New York Times reports on the Pentagon Papers. (photo credit: Real News Network)

Their mapping also captured positive terminology regarding the press — references like it being a check on the powerful, as a “watchdog,” that creates accountability and helps the public make decisions. The professors’ mapping also showed that the court spoke positively of the press during the media’s “glory days,” when it reported on the Pentagon Papers and there was a view of “heroism within journalism,” Jones said.

While the court is not saying the press is “bad for democracy” — at least not yet — the court is not lauding the media like it once did, Jones said.

Then there was “a wave of constitutional jurisprudence … known as originalism” that conservatives on the court abide by “to this day,” Jones said. But they haven’t abode by that philosophy when it comes to press freedom, Jones said. This means that the court has shown huge recent interest in the intent of the framers in constitutional areas like gun rights or police searches. But, “in these recent time periods where we might expect a lot of reference to the framers, we are not seeing originalist references to the intent of the framers on questions related to the press,” Jones said.

Prof. RonNell Andersen Jones (photo credit: University of Utah)

The court’s support of the press has “decreased” and “starkly so,” Jones said.

When the court speaks in certain “framings” — particularly the “trustworthiness frame” and the “impact-on-people frame” — it spells “bad news for the media,” Jones said.

The press has been framed by the court “as having an impact on people,” Jones said.

In the past, “negative references (by the court) were tempered by neutral ones,” Jones said.

The court isn’t doing such tempering currently for the “impact-on-people frame,” Jones said.

“They used to say some neutral things and some negative things, and now say almost exclusively negative things,” Jones said.

“The benefit of the doubt (from the court), basically, is essentially gone,” Jones said.

Jones noted that in the “glory days” of the press, there was a “much more mixed bag on tone” from the court. While previous courts had a “mix” of tones — “sometimes depicting the press as being unethical, dishonest, or inaccurate, but other times depicting it as being ethical, honest, and accurate” — the courts with William Rehnquist and John Roberts as the chief justices, when they employ this frame, are more exclusively using the negative tone, Jones said.

Prof. Sonja R. West (photo credit: University of Georgia)

“They don’t characterize the press much at all, but when they do speak to us about its trustworthiness, it is in the negative,” Jones said.

Findings from the public opinion pollster Gallup have revealed a “similar downward trend” of a lack of trust in the “institution” of the media, Jones said.

The results “might offer some important insights,” Jones said.

“The trends in this space are quite clear,” Jones said, saying that while some may believe the Supreme Court to be the last savior of the press, “they may find that their hopes are displaced,” Jones said.

Jones and West, each former journalists and Supreme Court clerks, are “bearers of bad news” given what they have learned in their “deep dive,” Jones said.

After taking a question from law professor Jurij Toplak, who moderated Jones’ presentation, Jones said there has been a “more general shift in the way we speak about the press and characterize the press.”

Jones said she was one of a “very small” number of scholars researching media law and press freedom issues. “He-who-won’t-be-named on this panel (former President Donald Trump) shifted all of that,” Jones said, noting he wrought a shift from more of a respect for “democratic institutions” like the press.

Prof. Jurij Toplak (photo credit: Jurij Toplak)

A change in the presidency in November to “somebody who flouted press norms instead of annihilated them” could change the public attitude toward the media, Jones said.

***

Gavin Phillipson of Bristol University asked Jones if Trump’s executive order targeting critical protections for online platforms given under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act was “playing to his base.” Jones said Trump has been “conveying to his base a particular set of values” and believes he has “victim status.”

“My view is that the president’s Section 230 reform proposals are largely designed to signal to his followers that he feels victimized by certain social media companies and intends to fight back,” Jones said.

She further asked if Trump was “trying to do something symbolic” and “PR theatrics.”

But it unintentionally does something else — the bottom line. “The point,” Jones said, “is it spurs conversations.”

“Free Speech in the 21st Century” featured talks from academics on the subject. (photo credit: Jurij Toplak)

“I have been invited to three conversations in the past month for section 230,” Jones said before saying that she has gotten media calls and invitations to write op-eds on the subject.

The order “skews conversations to force us to talk,” Jones said. “I do think it has created a moment, which is important.”

“Free Speech in the 21st Century” was organized by Alma Mater Europaea and the International Association of International Law. The event overall was also moderated by Toplak, a law professor at AME and University of Maribor in Slovenia.

I’m Self-Employed

I was a staff writer for a newspaper but had been doing side work in communications for five years. It built up to where it could be full-time work. Thus, things came to a head: I could keep doing the newspaper job or I could enjoy self-employment.

I chose self-employment.

And I’m glad to say that I have actually been able to help with really great things. (And I’ve rejected doing publicity for a company that feeds war and for a public figure who wanted me to publicize a frivolous lawsuit. I won’t abet things that are harmful.)

… if you can do it without abetting things that are harmful.

Since going out on my own and in doing the side work that enabled that opportunity, I have publicized Sony Pictures Television, Silicon Valley companies, a golf Instagram influencer, and the world’s leading advocate for a democratic, non-nuclear Iran, and I’ve done content marketing for Microsoft.

I have written for Vuukle, which is responsible for the option to click on emojis at the end of articles. (Vuukle is contracted with more than 400 publications to provide those emojis.) I’ve also covered a board trustee who, “by all accounts,” violated law for a check she cut, ghostwritten pieces about social issues like racial inequality and women’s rights in the Middle East, and copyedited for a tech startup. I was also able to write a letter to the European Human Rights Commission about press freedom.

Additionally, I have been able to promote a local organization that has built an affordable housing complex, an addiction recovery event, a boxing non-profit that helps youth, an initiative to help the still-innocent vote, the first transgender candidate for mayor in Utah history, a man who opposed the GOP nomination of Donald Trump for president at the 2016 Republican National Convention and was the plaintiff in the lawsuit that unbound national delegates under state law, a mass resignation from the Latter-day Saint church, a Nashville singer, a book warning of violence following a presidential election, an op-ed about a scientific/tech finding, a conference about free speech, a law firm that fights for consumers, a book about a man who developed bipolar disorder while arguably wrongly incarcerated, a small business enabling flutes to be played in wind for the first time in history, that is being trademark bullied, an artist who started a magazine promoting women artists, and a film at the Toronto Film Festival.

And I’m happier. Even being able to be on my own sleep schedule is a major benefit.

I Am Now a Book Author, of ”Star Wars’ Is Still Intact: Re-finding Yourself in the Age of Trump’

What if there is a particular day when you fall out of faith?
There was at least that for me: July 12, 2015.
I didn’t expect that that would launch an existential crisis, though the departure of my wife and rejection by family didn’t help.
But I had to get out of a cult, and that came during an extraordinary cultural time in the United States. “Star Wars” returned to the big screen and Donald Trump was elected president, resulting in a public questioning of institutions.
Along the way came insights, narratives, or thoughts I had that I may not have thought otherwise.

Here’s the link for the publisher.

Here’s the link for Amazon.

Here’s the link for Apple.

Image result for ‘Star Wars’ Is Still Intact: Re-Finding Yourself in the Age of Trump

(Thought Catalog)

Robert Mueller Report: The Department of Justice Broke Law in Reply to Freedom of Information Act Request of Report— and This Happens in Federal Government to No Consequence, Open Government Expert Says

A man whose career is to promote government transparency confirmed that the U.S. Department of Justice violated federal public-information law when it failed to respond to a media outlet’s Freedom of Information Act for the report of special counsel Robert Mueller within the time frame the statute requires. Federal government agencies break the timeliness law often, but “neither agencies nor courts give a f — -,” said Sai (the only reported name), owner of Fiat Fiendum, which seeks more government transparency through efforts like first-release FOIA disclosures.

“Imagine if the government actually obeyed its own laws,” Sai said when asked for verification that the Justice Department Office of Information Policy broke 5 U.S. Code § 552(a)(6)(E)(ii)(I) after Law & Transparency studied it along with 5 U.S.C. § 552 in general.

The particular provision of law mentioned says that government agencies must notify a person requesting public information “within 10 days after the date of the request.” But Douglas Hibbard’s OIP responded to the San Francisco Public Press’ request for the report of the Mueller investigation 13 days after the date of the Press’ request (on April 4 after a March 22 request).

5 U.S.C. § 552 concerns “public information; agency rules, opinions, orders, records, and proceedings,” according to the title of the law.

“Simple answer: yeah they broke the law,” Sai wrote. “The government gets to do that without consequences; you don’t.”

The American Civil Liberties Union did not return a request for comment.

“A tiny handful of agencies” will not treat deadline statutes like the one in the particular provision of law mentioned wildly differently as mandated — “that seem to believe that ‘10 days’ and ‘20 days’ do mean ‘days’ and not ‘months,’” Sai said.

Those are “mainly the ones whose FOIA ‘department’ is the in-house (lawyer’s) part-time job,” he wrote.

“Also, cities like (San Francisco) treat it legitimately seriously, and due respect to them,” Sai said. “But that’s very much the exception, not the rule.”

Aside from a pattern and practice injunction, “there’s no remedy” for the Justice Department’s transgression, Sai said. A pattern and practice injunction is a distinctive court order that makes a party have to do keep from doing a particular thing, citing a systematic practice of it previously.

But “no court” will grant that, Sai wrote.

“They universally view the time periods in the statute as a wildly aspirational joke that Congress made when writing the law so … they’re not going to enforce it,” he said.

“I don’t know of any FOIA case that has treated any deadline in the statute as anything but a standing issue or a technicality for fees and costs award basis,” Sai added. “They don’t even give it lip service, textualism be damned.”

“There’s nothing you can do” about agencies nor courts caring for “timeliness violations,” “except treat it as the day you get to file your lawsuit,” Sai wrote.

The Mueller investigation looked into Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. elections and whether President Donald Trump sought to obstruct justice, according to The Washington Post. The “basic function of the Freedom of Information Act is to ensure informed citizens, vital to the functioning of a democratic society,” according to the same Justice Department.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr, who is over the Justice Department, is anticipated to put out a redacted Mueller report to Congress and the public on Thursday morning, Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said, according to CNN.

Department of Justice Puts Off Responding to FOIA Requests of the Mueller Investigation Report, Claiming Law is Behind Them (link to document)

In this letter, the U.S. Department of Justice says they are delaying responding to Freedom of Information Act requests of the report of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III.


The United States Department of Justice has delayed responding to Freedom of Information Act requests of the report of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III. The DoJ appears to have done this as allowed by federal law on public information.

“We will need to extend the time limit to respond to your request beyond the 10 additional days provided by the statute,” reads a DoJ letter signed by DoJ Chief of Initial Request Staff Douglas Hibbard and addressed to me. A subsection of the law says that “if agency (dealing with a FOIA request) has determined that unusual circumstances apply … a failure … is excused for an additional 10 days.”

The request, reads the letter, fits the criteria of “unusual circumstances” as defined in another subsection of the law, 5 U.S.C. 552, which was assessed by me as it applies to the letter. Those circumstances, the DoJ says, are that the request “requires a search in another office, consultations with other department components or another agency, and/or involves a voluminous amount of material.”

The report was the result of an investigation led by Mueller that concerned Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election and if U.S. President Donald Trump sought to obstruct justice. The “basic function of the Freedom of Information Act is to ensure informed citizens, vital to the functioning of a democratic society,” according to the same DoJ.

The Mueller report is reportedly nearly 400 pages.

The DoJ is “processing other requests seeking records similar to those you have requested,” the DoJ wrote in the letter.

The letter appears to be a form letter sent to at least one other media outlet, the San Francisco Public Press.

“At this time we have assigned your request to the complex track,” the letter reads. A subsection of the law says that “each agency (dealing with a FOIA request) shall … provide to each person making a request the tracking number assigned to the request.”

“We use multiple tracks to process requests,” the letter reads. “The time needed to complete our work on your request will necessarily depend on a variety of factors, including the complexity of our records search, the volume and complexity of any material located, and the order of receipt of your request.”

I sent the request on March 25 and got its letter April 2. Press Senior Editor Michael Winter sent his request on March 22, he wrote, and got his letter April 4.

Regarding a possible cost of the report, “Any decision with regard to the application of fees will be made only after we determine whether fees will be implicated for this request,” the letter read.

The DoJ is led by U.S. Attorney General William Barr, who provided a four-page letter summary of the report on March 24 to congressional committee leaders.

Along with mine and the Press’, the DOJ has granted processing of other requests “on an expedited basis.” The DOJ is granting the expedition at least for me and the Press’ because of the other requests for “similar” documents, the letter read. A subsection of the law says that “each agency (dealing with a FOIA request) shall promulgate regulations … providing for expedited processing of requests for records.”

I got carpal tunnel since I did that much speak-truth-to-power journalism

I had to wear a brace because I got carpal tunnel, as the doctor said, in an effort to do speak-truth-to-power journalism (samples below).

Also, I did that work mostly for free.

Then, I had to leave my apartment early.

I am not asking even for a livable wage, but just a stipend (link: https://www.gofundme.com/keep-on-with-truth-to-power-stipend).

Hopefully, this is a reasonable request because I am not simply asking for money, but for even recompense for hundreds of hours of research, interviews, writing and past-midnight (and overnight) labor.

Thank you,

Alysha

Stories that won awards for last year:
What do town halls in the wake of Trump say about Utah politicians?”: I attended many functions throughout Utah that were held shortly after the election, besides researching for the most-appropriate links.
Heard of a ‘dry Mormon?’ Turns out, there are quite a few dry Mormon … transhumanists: I held a conference call with the board of the organization and traveled to attend their meetings.


The Inquisitr profile: Includes stories on the rise of Democratic candidates in Utah, a breaking report of the Mormon church ending its home teaching program and aggregates of Robert Mueller’s investigation of Trump.
portfolio: Includes descriptions and links to nine stories that got awards from the Society of Professional Journalists or Religion Newswriters Association.
Daily Herald profile: Includes a report of the county attorney’s decision on rape by a Mormon leader and another about a case about a filmed assisted suicide which hearing was covered by CBS.