Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

How stupid are these people?

Republicans do not trust women.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Stay strong, because they are weak.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

Petty moves from a petty man.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

You would normally have to try pretty hard to self-incriminate this badly.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

In after Baud. Damn.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / NSFW Open Thread: Jerry Falwell Jr’s Body Is A Temple

NSFW Open Thread: Jerry Falwell Jr’s Body Is A Temple

by | 54 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

And he is fanatical about the maintenance thereof, per Reuters:

Evangelical leader and prominent Donald Trump backer Jerry Falwell Jr personally approved real estate transactions by his nonprofit Christian university that helped his personal fitness trainer obtain valuable university property, according to real estate records, internal university emails and interviews.

Around 2011, Falwell, president of Liberty University in Virginia, and his wife, Rebecca, began personal fitness training sessions with Benjamin Crosswhite, then a 23-year-old recent Liberty graduate. Now, after a series of university real estate transactions signed by Falwell, Crosswhite owns a sprawling 18-acre racquet sports and fitness facility on former Liberty property. Last year, a local bank approved a line of credit allowing Crosswhite’s business to borrow as much as $2 million against the property…

… U.S. President Trump’s now-jailed fixer, Michael Cohen, has said he helped the Falwells suppress racy personal photos, as Reuters reported this May, in the months before Cohen persuaded Falwell to endorse Trump’s 2016 White House bid. There is no evidence that Cohen’s efforts to suppress the photos were a quid pro quo for Falwell’s vital political backing.

… When Falwell helped Crosswhite, he used the assets of Liberty, the tax-exempt university he has led since 2008. Among the largest Christian universities in the world, Liberty depends on hundreds of millions of dollars its students receive in federally backed student loans and Pell grants.

In 2016, Falwell signed a real estate deal transferring the sports facility, complete with tennis courts and a fitness center owned by Liberty, to Crosswhite. Under the terms, Crosswhite wasn’t required to put any of his own money down toward the purchase price, a confidential sales contract obtained by Reuters shows.

Liberty committed nearly $650,000 up front to lease back tennis courts from Crosswhite at the site for nine years. The school also offered Crosswhite financing, at a low 3% interest rate, to cover the rest of the $1.2 million transaction, the contract shows.

Crosswhite declined to answer questions about the deal. “All I will say is that my wife and I consult each other before every major business deal and we bought the complex from Liberty together,” he said in an email. “My wife and I both work around the clock to make our business succeed.” …

As Liberty’s leader, Falwell draws an annual salary of nearly $1 million, and is obligated to put the university’s financial interests before his own personal interests when conducting Liberty business.

“The concern is whether the university’s president wanted to do his personal trainer a favor and used Liberty assets to do it,” said Douglas Anderson, a governance specialist and former internal audit chief at Dow Chemical Co, who reviewed both the transaction and Liberty’s explanation of it at Reuters’ request. That would be bad governance, he said. “At a minimum, the terms suggest the buyer got a great deal and Liberty got very little.”…

During a visit by a reporter in August, Crosswhite, a muscular 31-year-old with short blond hair, was training a client in the well-equipped facility, running him through kettlebell swings and dumbbell presses. On a wall: A sign for “Crosswhite Fitness,” with a cross where the T should be, and a citation to a verse from the New Testament’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians.

Falwell has publicly credited Crosswhite with helping him lose 75 pounds. “That’s the kind of guy he is,” Crosswhite told Reuters. He asked Reuters to submit written questions about his dealings with Liberty and Falwell, but did not respond to them…

The Falwells brought the trainer along on Liberty’s private jet during a 2012 trip to Miami. Later, Falwell sent an email directing Liberty to lease its gym space to Crosswhite’s fitness business, which began a five year lease in 2013. The cost, according to a lease document: $2,300 per month.

Liberty said Falwell uses the university-chartered jet to fly every year to his annual physical in Miami. Crosswhite joined him in 2012 “to explain to the doctors Mr. Falwell’s diet and exercise program and help document the results,” the university said. Because Liberty’s board requires an annual physical for Falwell, the president doesn’t have to reimburse the university for the corporate jet travel to Miami, the statement said…

Sex and money, every domineering primate’s two most engrossing pastimes. I wish it could be assumed that Mrs. Falwell was a consenting partner to these shenanigans, because then she could be congratulated as the Queen of the Ladies’ Auxiliary…

Reader Interactions

54Comments

  1. 1.

    hells littlest angel

    A muscular 31-year-old with short blond hair, named Crosswhite. Sounds like good Aryan stock.

  9. 9.

    Anne Laurie

    @Yarrow: I prefer the suggestion that the Repubs, as usual, are projecting:


    I’m just hoping his wife is actually enjoying her role, and not just being the good Christianist helpmate…

  12. 12.

    Yarrow

    @Anne Laurie: i’ve read that about the term ‘cuck’ being projection. Said to apply to Ivanka and Jared too. Whatever is going on, so long as everyone is a consenting adult I don’t really care. Just don’t like the hypocrisy.

  13. 13.

    cynthia ackerman

    Even if there’s no kink involved, this is just too weird. And in the era of Trump, it goes largely unnoticed.

  15. 15.

    SRW1

    So, ahem, he gets the gym rat and she gets the pool boy?

    And there I had the impression the open marriage stance of the Old Testament was way more one-sided. Gender-wise, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

    Or is it him, who is hogging all of the young dudes?

  20. 20.

    Patricia Kayden

    It’s good that Falwell is being exposed for the Christianist fraud that he has always been. I wish those pool boy photos had been released to the public. That would have finished him.

  24. 24.

    Amir Khalid

    @Patricia Kayden:

    I wish those pool boy photos had been released to the public. That would have finished him.

    Would it have, though? It seems to me that the Falwells’ — Believers? Congregation? Marks? — would be easily fobbed off with a big tearful show of contrition and a “suitable” penance

  27. 27.

    Tony Jay

    Crosswhite declined to answer questions about the deal. “All I will say is that my wife and I consult each other before every major business deal and we bought the complex from Liberty together,” he said in an email. “My wife and I both work around the clock to make our business succeed.” …

    1) I’m married, dude!

    2) Bitch, you knew all about it.

    On a wall: A sign for “Crosswhite Fitness,” with a cross where the T should be, and a citation to a verse from the New Testament’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians.

    I know that one. “Yeah verily, and The Lord didst say. As thou doth give, thou shall receive thirtyfold in the Kingdom of the Righteous, but only if thou keepest thine receipts.“

  28. 28.

    sukabi

    @Patricia Kayden: photos will drop…eventually. I expect that if drumpf has access to a photo or two he’ll have his folks leak them as a distraction when the focus oh him gets too intense.

  29. 29.

    Mary G

    Are Mr. and/or Mrs. Falwell so bad at sexy times that they have to give these dudes millions of dollars in real estate?

  31. 31.

    Tony Jay

    OT – The Brexit Wars

    The Johnson Regime is about to make its big move to force through a No-Deal Brexit and crash the UK economy. Basically they’re going to try and put Parliament on recess from early September until mid-October, claiming it’s nothing to do with denying the Opposition, minor parties and Tory rebels any time to legislate against a No-Deal and/or hold a No Confidence vote that will lead to an interim Government before October 31st.

    It’s shitty, anti-democratic and totally in keeping with the far-Right character of the modern Tory Party. On the plus side, this leaves the non-insane Tories and the likes of the Liberal Democrats very little wiggle room if they really want to stop a cataclysmic crash-out. If there’s no time for legislation, then backing a No Confidence vote ASAP might be the only way to go.

    The first week of September should be…. uh… eventful.

  36. 36.

    Amir Khalid

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:
    James Tiberius Kirk used this very argument to discombobulate (I think that’s the technical term) an entity that thought it was God. Like any good Star Trek fan, I have remembered it in case I too encounter such an entity.

  37. 37.

    Gvg

    I am afraid that I think this is a more common kind of financial fraud, and that youngster is just a front. I think Falwell is transferring University assets to himself. It’s just too much money. I’d also like a look at Liberty’s books because now I would suspect it’s on shaky ground.

  39. 39.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @Tony Jay: It’s usually the (tele)evangelist who owns the jet as his personal property. See Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, and Jesse DuPlantis.

  41. 41.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @Ladyraxterinok: And, how many Evangelical leaders now have a university connected to their ministry?–eg, Perry Stone, Ron Paisley (sp?), James MacArther (his uni is in big trouble– unreported sexual assaults –and maybe rapes, etc)

  42. 42.

    Ken

    Let he who has not diverted millions of dollars in corporate property to young men cast the first stone.

  43. 43.

    artem1s

    It’s enjoyable to make fun of Falwell’s hypocrisy and sexual adventures but there is a lot here that should be investigated as misuse of donor funds. This sort of conflict of interest and not properly documenting whether the board was aware and consented can lead to some pretty serious penalties, fees, excise taxes and possibly criminal charges. If we had a healthy DOJ that wasn’t terrified of offending the Christian Taliban, Liberty would have been under investigation a long time ago. The quid pro quo here with the Dolt45 administration is pretty clear. You get your AG to look the other way and I’ll deliver votes and money. It will be interesting to see what the student body and alumni reactions to this will be. Also, If the CEO is doing this out in the open, I’m betting they have massive Title IX issues they have swept under the rug- Penn St. level stuff x100.

  44. 44.

    kindness

    You can’t tell me this isn’t another case of sex with younguns with the Falwells. I don’t know or care if it was with him, her or both but there isn’t any other real explaination.

  45. 45.

    Emma

    @A Ghost To Most: no. One more example of how crooks and con men use religion as a fraud and a scam. Religion is a structure. Millions of people every day work within their chosen structure to do good and help other people. It becomes a problem when the structure is subverted out of its original purpose.

    (added) what should be investigated here is not sexual high-jinks but criminal use of funds.

  46. 46.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @artem1s: It’s Evangelism, Farwel is merely marking himself a good Evangelical pastor with this.

    There is a reason they all love Trump and don’t care about his serial rapes.

  47. 47.

    laura

    Power bottom Jerry Falwell jr. is as good a reason to end tax exemptions to religious organizations as I can think of. Looking foward to the inevitable reports with photos of the roadside motel, meth, and underage young man arrested with Falwell for trashing the room, and causing a ruckus…in his name.

  48. 48.

    Yutsano

    @artem1s: If only the TE/GE department of the IRS wasn’t a tiny fragile shell that has been withered to a nearly harmless husk by the Republicans. You have NO IDEA how many megachurches abuse their non-tax status like this. Liberty U pays zero taxes and gets away with shit like this because any possible tax enforcement just doesn’t exist. It’s been their dream con job since at least 2010. Nine years of destroying the IRS by neglect and attrition has taken fruit for the evangelical movement nicely.

  53. 53.

    MoxieM

    Guy’s really named “CrossWhite”? Are we sure he didn’t change it from “WhiteCross?”

Comments are closed.