Our government is failing us. Our government was meant to be run by representatives who left their personal lives for a term in office and then went back to their personal lives having served their country. It wasn’t meant to be run by career politicians hell-bent on staying in power and enriching themselves. So long as we fail to institute term limits and get rid of the rubbish we have – that American Politburo – we are destined to be subjugated and ruled rather than represented.
I wrote this last week. Seems to me it is still true today.
The Democrats have spent the last three plus years blaming President Trump for everything, everything, no matter what. The fact is that he has only been in government service for three years. How much blame can he actually get?
Pelosi: 31 years
Biden: 36 years as a senator, 8 years as VP
Schumer: House of Representatives from 81-99, Senate from 99 to now and ongoing.
So, how does this add up?
It’s the Democrat cities that are deep in financial debt and being burned up by the anarchists. They are not protesters.
23 trillion dollars has been spent on the war on poverty. We haven’t changed the demographics of poverty much or lessened the poverty rate significantly.
I could go on, and on, and on.
Isn’t it enough already? Aren’t you tired of the false narratives being pushed down our throats?
By Peter Weiss
The point is we are who we are and we get what we get. Most of it is not our choice. Most of it is the luck of the draw.
Then, if that’s accurate, and no matter how you slice it, it seems accurate to me, the bottom line is: what makes us who we are is what we do with what we get.
We get what we get. We know what we know. We do what we do.
And so it goes.
But of course there’s so much more.
So on top of being a first generation immigrant from Hungary, my father was born poor, dirt poor is the old expression. He was an Orthodox Jew born to a very learned father whom I never met. He was Orthodox until he went into the service. He was dealt the depression and left school in eighth grade to go to work to help support his family.
He got what he got.
Then came the war. He did what he did. Like so many other true Americans, he enlisted and went to that war. In between, he met my mother. That’s a whole other story for another time. Short version for here and now is that his sister married my maternal grandmother’s brother (or my aunt on my father’s side was married to my great uncle on my mother’s side) and somewhere in there my father and mother met, and for whatever else there was, in 1942 they married before he went overseas.
And so it goes.
Although my mother had the still-born twin and two miscarriages physically, my father got them as well, as well as the sickly baby deemed not likely to survive, but who did survive, and then later the baby with the lazy eye, me.
We all got what we got.
It was different back then. And this is important to understanding how it is now. Back then, and we’re not talking so long ago, only about roughly seventy years, and really all the time before then too, people had a work ethic. I’m not talking about whether or not they wanted to work or if they liked working. I’m talking about a work ethic, plain and simple. Life was simple. You went to school, you graduated (or not) and you went to work. A few people back then went to college and became professionals. You were taught as a matter of fact that there was no such thing as a free ride.
As a point of history, welfare in the US starts during the Great Depression in the 1930s. But welfare as we know it today, where a person who is not elderly or disabled can receive aid from the federal government, does not start until the 1960s, after the Great Society Legislation passed by LBJ in 1964-5, right after and in the wake of the assassination of President Kennedy.
And by the way, as a pure aside, LBJ was probably more crass and vulgar than Donald Trump, but he was a Democrat so… And JFK purportedly had more than 500 women while he was in the White House, but he was a Democrat too, so…
Anyway, it was different back then. Back then you might have bitched about it, but no one was helping you in any way, so you went to work. As a parent, you taught your kids that no one was going to give you anything and nothing is free. You were taught that after you were done with school you had to go to work.
It is what it is and that’s what it was.
More. You were taught to be a responsible person and a responsible citizen. You were taught to learn to take care of yourself and be responsible for doing just that, and you were taught to be proud of being able to do that. You were taught to take pride in who you were, but more, you were taught to be responsible for who you are.
That was then, and now, except for our older generation, people like me, then is gone and if the Democrats have their way, they will make sure it is dead, wholly gone, and they will bury it forever and all of us too.
And so it goes.
(To be continued)
By Peter Weiss
by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News
link to article on Medical Kidnap
Imagine a day where every child born in a hospital gets ranked on whether or not their parents will be good enough parents to take care of them, and a risk score is attached to that child based on how the government views the child’s parents.
If the risk score is too low, the parents do not get to take their child home. The child is seized by the government and assigned new parents through the multi-billion dollar foster care system.
Does this sound like something terrible from a science fiction movie? Or something that might happen in other tyrannical countries where parents have little or no choice over how their children are raised?
This system is actually already in place and is already being used in many states all across the U.S.
Richard Wexler from the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform published an excellent piece last week on the topic of “Predictive Analysis” in child welfare, and how Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh and surrounding suburbs, is now using a system like this to label every child born in the county with a “risk score” which supposedly tells Child Protective Services how likely parents are to abuse their newborn children.
From Pittsburgh’s child welfare agency goes full Orwell:
It is perhaps the ultimate Orwellian nightmare: From the moment your child is born, the child and family are labeled with a “risk score” – a number that supposedly tells authorities how likely you are to abuse your newborn. The big government agency that slaps this invisible scarlet number on you and your newborn promises it will be used only to decide if you need extra help to raise your child, and the help will be voluntary.
But once you’re in the database, that score stays there forever. And if, someday, the same big government agency wants to use the score to help decide you’re too much of a risk to be allowed to keep your child, there is nothing to stop them. The scarlet number may haunt your family for generations. The fact that your child was supposedly born into a “high risk” family may be used against the child when s/he has children.
Welcome to the dystopian future of child welfare – and childbirth – in metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pa.
As we have reported in previous articles, in places where Predictive Analysis software is used for risk assessment for child abuse, poor minorities are targeted as more likely to have a high risk score.
From Wexler’s article
For a couple of years now, Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh and surrounding suburbs, has been using something called the Allegheny Family Screening Tool (AFST), a predictive analytics algorithm, to help decide which families should be investigated as alleged child abusers.
The algorithm is weighted heavily toward punishing parents for being poor. In her brilliant book, Automating Inequality, Prof. Virginia Eubanks calls it “poverty profiling.” In her review of Automating Inequality, Prof. Dorothy Roberts (a member of NCCPR’s Board of Directors) extends the analysis to show how predictive analytics reinforces racial bias.
County Starts “Hello Baby” Program in January 2020
According to Wexler, starting in January, 2020, the county plans to start a program it calls “Hello Baby” which will assist them in getting newborn babies into their database. To NOT have your baby included in the database, one has to “opt out,” but how to opt out is apparently not clearly defined yet.
Here’s how the county says it will work.
During some of the most chaotic hours of a family’s life, those hours in the hospital after a baby is born, when one medical professional, volunteer or other hospital-affiliated person after another is traipsing in and out of the room, the family will be handed a packet of information about the help available through “Hello Baby.” A nurse may also discuss the program with the family.
The program offers three tiers of services. Tier 1 is automatically available to everyone without having to surrender their data. That tier is simply information about help that’s already out there. Tiers two and three provide more intensive help to individual families. But to get that help you must accept having the child labeled by an algorithm as at moderate or high risk of abuse.
The program automatically assumes you have given permission for this massive invasion of family privacy – it’s the equivalent of a “default setting” on an app you may download without realizing how much data you surrender in return. (Or just think of all the data you may have given to Facebook to share at will because you didn’t find the right button among the settings.)
The “Hello Baby” document is vague about the whole opt-out process. You get one notice – in the form of a postcard mailed to your home a few days after the child is born. Along with a reminder of the benefits of “Hello Baby” somewhere on that postcard will be a notification that you must specifically opt out of being run through the database – otherwise you and your child are slapped with that risk score whether you really wanted to participate or not.
The material made available by Allegheny County does not mention how much time you have to opt out before your name is run through the database. Nor does it say anything about expunging a risk score if you choose to opt out after the county has already done it.
Can We Trust Government with “Risk” Data?
In his article Wexler points out how government officials are dancing around ethic problems and trying to assure the public that the system will be voluntary, and that they will never misuse the data.
The biggest problem with this promise, of course, is that it depends on health officials and CPS to police themselves.
As an example of how this kind of data can be misused to take children away from their parents, Wexler mentions a case in New York earlier this year where a mother had her children rated as “at risk” simply because she disclosed that during her pregnancy with twins, she used cannabis for medical purposes.
Shakira Kennedy wrote about her experiences in the New York Daily News:
I am a 28-year-old loving mother and a taxpaying citizen. I have a beautiful 7-year-old daughter in a gifted and talented program and two beautiful twin baby boys. I would do anything for my children.
Unfortunately, during my pregnancy with the twins, I suffered from extreme morning sickness and could not keep food or water down. I sought the best medical care, and my doctors told me I needed to gain weight for the health of my babies.
But the medicine they prescribed didn’t work. Nothing did, until I tried cannabis.
Making sure to tell my doctor everything, I disclosed that I smoked cannabis and it helped me eat normally. That’s when I became a victim of circumstance. When my children were born, they tested negative for marijuana. But still the hospital called ACS.
I made clear to ACS that I had to use marijuana under unique circumstances — but that I would not continue to use it. I asked to schedule a drug test to prove that it would no longer be in my system.
They made me go to court or face the loss all three of my children. Then, instead of ongoing drug-testing, I was compelled to go to an outpatient rehab program three days a week for an addiction I don’t have.
Now, I have complete strangers from ACS coming into my home and telling me what to do as a parent.
Unless I am able to win my case in Family Court and get my record sealed at a later hearing, I will be blacklisted for alleged child neglect — and unable to get any job near children until my twins turn 28. (Source.)
With a long history of CPS using whatever means they can to abduct children, Wexler has a healthy skepticism when it comes to trusting government sources who say they will never misuse risk assessment data.
County officials solemnly promise not to use the data that way – they say they’ll use it only to target help, and won’t make it a part of child abuse investigations. But even the promise has a loophole:
As the county’s “Hello Baby” overview puts it:
The County pledges that this Hello Baby analytic model will only be used to provide voluntary supportive services as described here and updated over time. [Emphasis added.]
But there is no institutional safeguard in place. There is nothing to stop the leaders of the agency that created “Hello Baby” and crave having data on every child from birth from changing their minds whenever they damn well feel like it.
When might that be? How about the first time there’s a child abuse tragedy and word leaks out that the family had been labeled “high risk” at the time of the child’s birth? That’s when the demands will come to make this information available immediately to child protective services and to use it to immediately trigger a CPS investigation – or worse.
Read the full article at the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform blog.
By Peter Weiss
Please note: This article is reprinted directly from MedicalKidnap.com. It is being presented here in four installments due to length. This is the 4th and final installment. The article in its entirety can be found here: link to complete article
by Health Impact News/MedicalKidnap.com Staff
The Destruction of the American Family: Federal Funds Available for Foster and Adoptive Parents, but NOT Birth Parents
Nev Moore explains how federal money is available to help foster and adoptive parents, but not the birth parents:
After the adoption is finalized, the State and federal subsidies continue. The adoptive parents may collect cash subsidies until the child is 18. If the child stays in school, subsidies continue to the age of 22. There are State funded subsidies as well as federal funds through the Title IV-E section of the Social Security Act. The daily rate for State funds is the same as the foster care payments, which range from $410-$486 per month per child. Unless the child can be designated “special needs,” which of course, they all can.
The adoptive parents also receive Medicaid for the child, a clothing allowance and reimbursement for adoption costs such as adoption fees, court and attorney fees, cost of adoption home study, and “reasonable costs of food and lodging for the child and adoptive parents when necessary to complete the adoption process.” Under Title XX of the Social Security Act adoptive parents are also entitled to post adoption services “that may be helpful in keeping the family intact,” including “daycare, specialized daycare, respite care, in-house support services such as housekeeping, and personal care, counseling, and other child welfare services.
According to Cornell University, about 68% of all child protective cases “do not involve child maltreatment.” The largest percentage of CPS/DSS cases are for “deprivation of necessities” due to poverty. So, if the natural parents were given the incredible incentives and services listed above that are provided to the adoptive parents, wouldn’t it stand to reason that the causes for removing children in the first place would be eliminated? How many less children would enter foster care in the first place? The child protective budget would be reduced from $12 billion to around $4 billion. Granted, tens of thousands of social workers, administrators, lawyers, juvenile court personnel, therapists, and foster parents would be out of business, but we would have safe, healthy, intact families, which are the foundation of any society. (Source Adoption Bonuses: The Money Behind the Madness)
As shown in the chart from page 57 of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ Child Maltreatment 2014 Manual, three-quarters (75.0%) of victims were neglected, 17.0 percent were physically abused, and 8.3 percent were sexually abused.
Image Source: page 57 of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ Child Maltreatment 2014 Manual
The System is Beyond Repair – Federal Funding Must Stop
I have witnessed such injustice and harm brought to these families that I am not sure if I even believe reform of the system is possible! The system cannot be trusted. It does not serve the people. It obliterates families and children simply because it has the power to do so. Children deserve better. Families deserve better. It’s time to pull back the curtain and set our children and families free. – The Late Congresswoman Nancy Schaefer of Georgia
Many assert that CPS has become a business based on moving children from one home (the birth home) and into another (state custody foster care, group home, or adoptive home) in order to turn on the tap to get the federal funds flowing, and is not a system concerned with protecting children from abuse. Brian Shilhavy, editor of Health Impact News, refers to this as state-sponsored “child trafficking.”
Nancy Schaefer summarizes:
I am convinced there is no responsibility and no accountability in Child Protective Services system. I have come to the conclusion:
- that parenting classes, anger management classes, counseling referrals, therapy classes and on and on are demanded of parents with no compassion by the system even while the parents are at work and while their children are separated from them. (sometimes parents are required to pay for the programs) This can take months or even years and it emotionally devastates both children and parents. Parents are victimized by “the system” that makes a profit for holding children longer and “bonuses” for not returning children to their parents;
- that caseworkers and social workers are very often guilty of fraud. They withhold and destroy evidence. They fabricate evidence and they seek to terminate parental rights unnecessarily. However, when charges are made against Child Protective Services, the charges are ignored;
- that Child Protective Services and Juvenile Court can always hide behind a confidentiality clause in order to protect their decisions and keep the funds flowing. There should be open records and “court watches”! Look who is being paid! There are state employees, lawyers, court investigators, guardian ad litems, court personnel, and judges. There are psychologists, and psychiatrists, counselors, caseworkers, therapists, foster parents, adoptive parents, and on and on. All are looking to the children in state custody to provide job security. Parents do not realize that the social workers are the glue that hold “the system” together that funds the court, funds the court appointed attorneys, and the multiple other jobs including the “system’s” psychiatrists, therapists, their own attorneys and others.
- that if the lives of children were improved by removing them from their homes, there might be a greater need for protective services, but today children are not safer. Children, of whom I am aware, have been raped and impregnated in foster care;
- it is a known fact that children are in much more danger in foster care than they are in their own home even though home may not be perfect; (Source: The Corrupt Business of Child Protective Service
See:
Senator Nancy Schaefer: Did her Fight Against CPS Child Kidnapping Cause her Murder?
Nev Moore argues:
Although CPS has always tried to buffalo the media and the public that they are involved with families due to some sort of horrific child abuse or neglect, there has never been any debate among national policy makers, researchers, and federal agencies that the vast majority of CPS cases are due to poverty or frivolous/social reasons and do not contain elements of real child abuse. If the cases did actually involve acts of abuse they would be criminal, identified and investigated by law enforcement, rather than social workers, and would be prosecuted as such. P.L. 96-272 came into effect partly because Congress determined that a large number of children were being unnecessarily removed from their homes, and, once removed, they were lost in the limbo of foster care for years, many until they just grew too old, when they were then put on the streets at the age of 18.
By seizing children illegally in violation of the Title IV-E requirements, then filing false documents in secrecy through the courts to obtain federal funding, CPS is defrauding the federal government with intent. CPS should be subject to investigation and prosecution by the U.S. Attorneys Office. They should be held liable for the restitution of all illegally obtained funds, and prosecuted for perjury, obstruction of justice, and the fraudulent collection of federal funds under the False Statements and Accountability Act of 1996, P.L. 104-292 110 stat 3459, 42 U.S.C.S. 670-679a; P.L. 96-272; C.F.R. part 1356; and Title IV-E. I have discussed this issue with the Inspector Generals Office and they felt it could possible be prosecuted under RICO, yet they have also failed to act, possibly because it isn’t just CPS/DSS who is committing federal fraud, but also the judges who are signing the documents.
In 1988 George Miller, the original architect of P.L. 96-272, and Chairman of the congressionally appointed Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families, recognized the fraud being committed in the name of child “protection,” and stated:
“What has been demonstrated here is that you have a system that is simply in contempt. This system has been sued and sued and orders have been issued and they just continue on their merry way. And HHS just continues to look the other way. You have a system that is not only out of control, it’s illegal at this point. What you are really engaged in is state sponsored child abuse.” (Source. State’s Child Protection Agencies Collude with Judges to Defraud Federal Government)
According to Jim Barrus of Constitutional Concepts Foundation:
EVERY CHILD WHO HAS EVER BEEN REMOVED FROM THE HOME OF ITS PARENTS HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED UNDER THE COLOR OF LAW.
Eventually the people will reach the point our Founders Fathers described and demand redress for the unconstitutional actions that have been perpetrated against them by the government.
There isn’t enough money in the world to pay for the pain and suffering. And, it’s not just the parents and the kids who have suffered, it’s the grandparents, the aunts, the uncles, and the cousins. (Source: Kidnapping for Profit by Child Protective Services)
(end of article)
Pick up a copy of all my works here: By Peter Weiss
Do you really think they care? Talking about Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and Elijah Cummings and most of those Despicable Democrats from Adam Schiff on over to Jerry Nadler.
Honestly now, you think any of them care about you? Care about us?
What about these people: Whoopi Goldberg, Robert DeNiro, ALSharpton? Madonna, Cher, Taylor Swift, George Clooney?
Huh!
How about all those multi-millionaire media figures on CNN, MSNBC, NBC, etc.?
More huh!
If they cared about us… If they really cared about us… On some level things wouldn’t be the way they are.
It’s easy for them, the uber-rich liberal politicians, especially the Despicable Democrat presidential candidates, to offer us all that “free” stuff and all that garbage-talk about how we’re all equal [talking about “as citizens” here] , even the illegal aliens from all over, many of them coming here not to work in America but for the free ride, when they are clearly talking down at us from up-high.
It’s even easier for the non-politician but lefty political advocate Hollywood-types and media moguls to act as spokespeople for the Despicable Dems and in many cases act like shills for them — to wit Pravda USA, the mainstream media/social media. First, they don’t have to use and/or depend upon what they’re offering us for “free” stuff if they get elected and they don’t have to live by the laws they want you/us to follow either.
And that’s what it really is.
So an anecdote by way of example.
A couple of years ago, the state I live in, a very Democratic sanctuary state, changed its “free lunch” certification qualifications. Used to be simply if you or your child were eligible for or on Medicaid you were automatically eligible for free lunch. But the state added an income element to it. So even if you are on Medicaid, free lunch eligibility now depends upon your income.
Hello! Many low, hard-working American citizens’ children were forced off free-lunch programs throughout the state.
Why?
It was virtually impossible to find out why the certification requirements were changed, literally virtually impossible. First, because they, the liberal politicians, don’t want us to know why. Second because the liberal-biased slants used by Google and social media make a search of such issues extremely obscure and difficult. Third, because the liberal politicians and their lawyers make the laws and such certification requirements overly complex so as to obscure the real reasons for being what they are, so as to obscure what they are. Remember Obamacare? 2200 pages — they didn’t have time to read it — why?
It’s like the paper-dump. At one point, when asked for discovery in a simple case, one city’s DOE dumped twenty-six cartons of paper at the lawyers door, twenty-five and a half of which were meaningless unrelated documents duplicated multiple times.
So one politician wholly anonymously admitted that the influx of illegal aliens into the state swelled the welfare rolls so high they had to make the change. And one public school principal reluctantly said their free-lunch rolls more than doubled virtually overnight. (Two weeks after the principal admitted this, six kids were removed from their school — all illegals, all using a false address, all who lived in the next town over and wanted to attend a better school.
Get the idea?
Real hard-working American citizens just getting by got their assistance taken away, were not only forced to pay for their children to eat lunch in school , but were also forced to pay for those kids who shouldn’t be here in the first place to eat too.
So… Do you really think they care about you, about us? Do you think, if you are one of those people just getting by, they, the Despicable Dems and their uber-rich Hollywood and Pravda USA shills, “feel your pain?” Even worse, you really think they don’t already know and have not foreseen what the consequences are of their promising us free stuff?
Let’s be real. That’s why they voted themselves off Obamacare.
Pick up a copy of all my works here: By Peter Weiss
see story on Arizona Republic here
MARY JO PITZL | ARIZONA REPUBLIC
9:00 a.m. EDT May 29, 2019
Sloppy work, lack of evidence and outright lies caused a father to lose parental rights to his daughter, the Court of Appeals argued in an opinion that criticizes the work of nearly everyone involved in the four-year-long case.
The Department of Child Safety, not the father, is to blame for circumstances that led to a juvenile-court decision last year to sever the father’s parental rights, the appeals court wrote.
“(A)ny perceived lack of a bond between Melody and Father was not because of Father’s lack of effort, but because of DCS’s delay, contact restrictions and substantial failure to try to unify Melody with Father,” the three-judge panel wrote.
The unanimous opinion overturned the July 2018 decision and sent the case back to juvenile court.
Parent attorneys hailed the opinion as a much-needed blow for accountability in a system that often is cloaked in privacy.
But it also raises questions for the people most intimately involved in the matter: The father, who lives in California, and the Valley-based foster mother who has parented the child, now 4½ years old, since soon after her birth. (The child’s mother had her rights terminated years ago and was not an issue in this case.)
The father is identified only as “Donald W.” in the court filing, making it impossible to locate him. Calls to the father’s attorney were not returned.
The foster mother said she’s struggling with what to do next. She was prepared to adopt Melody in light of the now-overturned court ruling that cut off the father’s rights. She and the girl’s father have been in regular contact and developed a civil, cooperative relationship over the years, she said.
“I don’t want to have this conversation with him yet because I’m too emotional,” she said when asked what’s next for the child. But, she added, she needs to ask the father if he thinks it would be in Melody’s best interest to move to California to live with him after spending her life so far living with her.
She wouldn’t answer when asked if she thinks remaining with her would be in the girl’s best interest. “I’m trying to take myself out of the equation,” she said.
‘Devoid of evidence’
Judge Paul J. McMurdie dissected the case that started in January 2015, when the father contacted DCS after learning a woman with whom he had had a brief relationship had given birth to a child in Arizona. Donald heard the child had been promptly taken into DCS custody. He offered to take a paternity test, as he rightly suspected he was the father.
From there, everything went downhill, according to the appeals court’s account. DCS added the father to the case that put the child in DCS custody, writing that he was unable to parent the child due to neglect, an inability to care for her basic needs, and abandonment. The juvenile court accepted DCS’ filing and directed the child to be placed in foster care.
But, McMurdie wrote, DCS’ allegations of neglect and abandonment were done “without any investigation,” and were not backed up by any facts. He called the allegations “generic assertions” that started a long process that denied the father the ability to establish a bond with his child.
“The record is devoid of any evidence supporting the unfitness allegations in the petition, a fact DCS acknowledged at oral argument before this (appeals) court,” McMurdie wrote.
AG, judges also at fault
Filing a petition to remove a child from her parent when there is no factual basis also raises questions of legal ethics, the court also noted. That pointed a finger at the Attorney General’s office, which represents DCS in court cases. The opinion did not name the assistant attorney general who filed the original petition.
The opinion also criticized the conduct of some of the four juvenile-court judges who handled the case over its four-year duration. DCS’ original move to remove Melody from her father was accepted by the court based on a “preponderance of evidence” — evidence that didn’t exist, the appeals court concluded.
When the girl was 1½ years old, DCS asked the juvenile court to sever the father’s rights. By then, the child had been in state care for more than the 15 months that state law sets as the threshold for beginning severance of parental rights. DCS also stated that the father had abandoned his child.
However, the record showed there was little basis for this, the appeals court found. The father had been investigated by California’s child-welfare agency through an interstate process that governs movement of children from one state to another. The California report concluded that he was an excellent parent to his other children, and he had been diligent in seeking custody of Melody from Arizona DCS.
He also had traveled from California to visit his daughter as his limited expenses allowed, and had been exchanging pictures and videos via a messaging platform to maintain communication with Melody.
Review board flags problems
The Foster Care Review Board threw up a red flag on DCS’ position that the father was an unfit parent when the case came before it. There wasn’t enough information to properly review the case, the board reported.
Review board members said they were concerned about a lack of communication from DCS: Case worker Lucero Garcia did not show up for the review hearing and did not provide the father’s case plan for the board to review. Additionally, review-board efforts to contact the case manager and her supervisor were unsuccessful.
It wasn’t until Melody was 2½ years old, with limited contact with her father, that DCS hired a doctor to determine if there was a parental bond between father and child.
A few months later, DCS was in court, pressing to have father’s rights terminated. Among other things, he had not kept to the regular visitation schedule DCS wanted for him and his daughter, reducing opportunities to form a bond.
Punishment for being poor
At trial, the juvenile-court judge then assigned to the case asked why DCS didn’t send Melody to California. The record showed the father had money issues that kept him from making regular trips from his Sacramento home. The case worker said she wasn’t aware the state had financial assistance to offer the father.
That judge concluded the court “could not sever rights because people are poor, rejected the DCS motion and ordered the state to finance the father’s transportation costs to Arizona to visit his daughter.
In the following months, DCS dragged its feet in providing that aid, and later got court approval to reimburse the father for his expenses. However, those reimbursements were slow to arrive, further hampering the ability of the father to visit and bond with his daughter.
Rights cut off
By the time the girl was more than 3 years old, DCS again moved to sever the father’s rights, based in part on the fact that he had made limited visits to her. In July 2018, a new juvenile-court judge who inherited the case granted the motion.
It is unclear from the appeals court opinion which of the four judges over the duration of the case declined to sever the father’s rights and which judge ultimately granted the motion. The court record lists Karen A. Mullins, Jacki Ireland (a pro-tem judge), William Brotherton (now retired) and Joan A. Sinclair.
The foster mother filed a petition to adopt Melody, but it was put on hold because the father appealed the decision.
In the appeals-court opinion, McMurdie wrote that DCS’s actions—from slow-walking financial assistance for father-child visits, to poor communication, to lying about the father missing most of his telephone contacts with his daughter—led the juvenile court to wrongly cut off his parental rights.
Judges Randall Howe and Jennifer Campbell joined in the decision.
Pick up a copy of Bill Wynn: The Second Hundred and all my works here:
By Peter Weiss
Really, they’ve unearthed a big, international buy-your-way-into-college scheme. It’s been all over the news for the last week, hours and hours and hours and hours. And now the nation is outraged.
Privilege is nothing new. But now with the narrative being spewed at us day after day, moment after moment on some networks, it fits right into their context. Actually, this one fits into everyone’s context.
Once again, privilege is nothing new. What’s new is that we’re being told that it’s evil, that the privileged are evil, that they must be eradicated.
Newsflash! Most socialist/communist countries have only two classes, the rich and the poor. You might call it, if you wanted to, the privileged and the non-privileged. No matter how you classify it, if you are born into the non-privileged class, there is no way in socialist/communist countries to move up into the wealthy class.
Upward mobility, the promise that with hard work and perseverance someone can move up in economic class, is one of the promises of capitalism or certainly capitalism here in America.
Somewhere along the line, and it’s been happening for a very long time although it seems to have escalated since Obama was elected president, we’ve lost sight of the upward-mobility promise. Somewhere along this line we’ve begun being taught, and again this has been happening for a while, that things must be evened out, that it’s not opportunity that must be equal but wealth.
The notion of Distribution of Wealth in order to equalize things is a fallacy, an illusion, part of the false narrative some of the leaders here in America would want us to buy into.
It fits in along with the idea that there are no winners and no losers in the sports games among children, that we can’t keep score in such games, that we can’t have winners and losers because the losers feel bad. It fits in with the notion that we can’t say certain things, can’t wear certain things (like a MAGA hat) because someone is offended. It fits in with the idea that we should scrap the concepts of integration and freedom of speech so that the “offended” people or groups can have a safe space.
It also fits in with the narrative that that boy wearing the MAGA hat was the aggressor because he stood his ground when he was approached by the man who was beating the drum. Of course it was just the opposite. We’ve seen such ridiculousness before, you know, the-you-have-to-sign-it-to-see-what’s-in-it-concept lauded by Nancy Pelosi about Obamacare.
So let’s get real! We’ve lost all sense of logic. We’ve lost all sense of perspective. The Trump administration is not evil and President Trump is not an inherently evil man. President Obama’s administration was not without scandal, no matter what the media wants to tell you. President Obama was not Pollyanna, an all-wonderful, all-perfect, all-good man.
The college scandal that’s been unearthed is just another one of the scandals plaguing our times. There are many worse things going on such as human trafficking, child abuse and not taking care of our elderly or our veterans. If one really wants to see the abuse of privilege all one really has to do is look at our Senators and Congressmen and what they’ve been doing probably forever.
What’s real is that here in America everyone should have equal opportunity. That is the goal we should be striving toward. But our corrupt leaders are most likely not the ones to get us to that.
By Peter Weiss
Man is by nature selfish and greedy. My first father-in-law used to say this when I was a kid, just in my early twenties. He also used to say that when the National Debt exceeds the Gross National Product the government will be bankrupt.
Well, the first part of what he said is so absolutely true that it is almost incontrovertible. But because I was an English teacher for more than thirty years and because I taught Forensics (Debate) for about eleven years and coached my high school debate team for that same amount of time, I won’t say it’s a fact. No matter how true it seems, it’s still an opinion. It was his opinion and it is my opinion, and the thing that frightens me most is that saying it is like pissing in the wind because no one wants to hear it and the words just seem to dissolve into nowhere.
The selfishness and greed is manifested by mostly everyone, but the rich and famous are the ones we see it in more regularly. So, for example, we rarely see those welfare, food stamps and Social Security recipients who the taxpayers are supporting as they drive around in their new Mercedes Benz automobiles which they can afford because they have no expenses and work off the books too. These people make more than many of us who support them and hide their money. They wear all brand name clothes and pay cash for everything so as not to leave a trail. Many of them register their cars in a relative’s name so as not have a trail there too.
Man is by nature selfish and greedy!
We see it in those beggars in the street too. Not all of them of course and that’s the problem. You can’t easily discern who the real needy are. If we could easily distinguish between the scammers and the needy, not only would we have plenty of money to help the needy, which everyone in America wants to do, but we could start trimming that National Debt which in and of itself is an obscenity.
But man is by nature selfish and greedy.
Now I know you’re not supposed to use the word man. I know there are some states where I could be arrested for using the wrong gender pronoun. Yes, arrested and either jailed or fined or both! (I also know that that is not a complete sentence.) It is precisely such ridiculousness in the hands of the selfish and greedy politicians that has brought us to the absurdity we see each and every day in America, the greatest country in existence today.
Rich and greedy? Start with the Clintons. They are the most obvious. Move along to the Whoopi Goldbergs and the other celebrities who said if Trump was elected they would leave the country. Why are they still here? They’re making lots and lots of money, not piddly money but real money to the tune of millions and millions, by selling their hatred and warped opinions while exemplifying perfectly the notion that man is by nature selfish and greedy. Move along to the Al Gores and DiCaprios, those epitomes of true conservation.
And on and on.
Nope. Man is by nature selfish and greedy. President Obama somehow increased our National Debt by ten trillion dollars in a mere eight years. For the life of me, I can’t see where the money went. Can you? I only know that if we don’t wrestle the power from the selfish, greedy politicians and if we continue down the path we are on, our selfishness and greed will be our demise.
FYI: Interest on the National Debt for Fiscal Year 2017 was 277 billion dollars. That’s more than half the total Defense Budget. What has our reckless spending gotten us? What is it costing us?
Man is by nature selfish and greedy.
Pick up a copy of my published works here: Books by Peter Weiss.
Our socialist-leaning government, so far from what it was intended to be, is selling the minorities a false narrative. Aimed particularly at African Americans, it is selling a pity party, telling minorities time and time again that they are victims, that they must be taken care of, or, by implication, telling them that they are less than.
Obama and the Democrats own this one, and actually their narrative, spewn recklessly as they have always done it, is a major cause of minorities having failed to effectively integrate en mass into the middle class. It is also the single underlying ideological difference between the Democrats and the Republicans.
A few simple facts: slavery ended about 155 years ago; segregation ended about 55 years ago; we have an African American president; African Americans run some of the cities that have recently had major riots; Democrats have run the cities like Chicago, Detroit and Baltimore for anywhere from 50 to 100 years; the war on poverty, a Democratic initiative, has cost 23 trillion dollars and spanned 55 years yet it has not effectively lessened the poverty rate in America or changed the demographics of the poverty.
There are many more facts of all kinds that could be cited. But the single most germane ones are that children born into single-parent families are much more likely to live in poverty than those born into two-parent families and 74 percent of African American kids are born to single mothers.
The Democratic narrative of inherent racism in America, heightened by two black attorneys general and a president more intent upon demonizing Caucasians than advancing the quality of life of the African American citizens he governs, has crippled African Americans while simultaneously inciting their ire. This president and his attorneys general, in deliberately and purposefully not prosecuting the Black Panthers and wrongfully defending a host of African Americans (Hands Up Don’t Shoot) despite their clear criminal actions, have incited the racial divide we now face, caused chaos in our streets and endangered the lives of every police officer on the job. They have told African Americans they are less than, that they should strike out and that they are deserving of payoffs called reparations. Poor me, Poor me.
This is so far from the truth it’s amazing they’ve gotten away with it. We know how and why they did, but that’s for another time. What they should have been selling, if they really wanted to help their people, are hard work, education, and self-dependence. That is what has allowed every other group in America to rise up and that is what is allowing other minorities to surpass the African Americans now.
Fredrick Douglas taught himself to read at a time when Blacks were forbidden to have education. He used ingenuity, hard work and determination. This is what Obama and his cronies should be selling.
But they’re not, and the reason they’re not is because they are the modern-day slave owners. They offer the African American community a variety of government handouts that keep it in virtual poverty and abject dependency. In return, the Democrat masters get 90 percent of their votes and continue to run their inner cities which they have decimated.
The Democrats are gaming the African American community. Their economic policies and current social policies are continually proven untenable and ineffective. Their rhetoric is often pretty. They have the backing from the left-leaning media (check out the owners of much of that media) and billionaires like George Soros (check him out). But make no mistake, they have no one’s interests at heart but their own–their own selfish self-interests.
Attack them and they call you every “ist” in the book to shut you down. Contradict them and they use the lack-of-justice department to prosecute you like they’ve done to those whose scientific findings don’t align with their political agenda, as in climate change. They even use the IRS to prevent organizations which might oppose them from forming.
It took a civil war to end slavery the first time. What will it take this time to prevent the Democrats from continuing to plunder the very community they purport to represent?
This is not an endorsement for Donald Trump. It’s not an endorsement for any presidential candidate or political party. It’s simply some observations and thoughts. The point of this particular piece is simple and straightforward. Watch out for the shouting.
Sometimes we hear sayings like “follow the money,” or “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” There’s also one about he who is screaming loudest usually having the most to hide and another one about looking carefully at those making the loudest accusations. It’s the last two that are of import here.
So the question is why all the divergent forces, from the Pope and Obama to the Republican party itself, inclusive of the super pacs and most everyone else, are so intent upon making sure that Donald Trump does not get elected. Anyone and everyone is entitled to be anti-Trump, but when they all come together like this, it makes one wonder what the real deal is. In this case, the wondering is what are they all so keen on protecting? And the answer to that is the status quo. Trump alone stands to upset all their apple carts. And if they are all screaming so loud against Trump and fighting so hard to stop him from being elected, maybe, just maybe, their apple carts need overturning and the status quo needs a good shake up.
Despite their screaming, is there any other candidate who poses the same shake-up threat as Trump? Even Bernie Sanders, the socialist, needs the status quo to attempt to do what he wants. It’s more that Trump isn’t afraid to out anyone, and more than anyone else, perhaps, he knows and understands the way things work. He knows who he has contributed to and what he’s gotten in return. That’s on both sides. He knows about buying influence and the inner workings of trade deals. He knows how immigration impacts the American labor force from a perspective the members of the status quo wouldn’t dare talk about. And he is seemingly unafraid to talk about these things, openly admitting that his business success is partly because he knows the game, has played the game and understands how the game works.
In its way, our governments, Federal, State and City, are like the mafia. The Dons and the “made” men live lives different from the people. They live like feudal lords. As long as a person pays off, s/he can do business. The regular people can work if they pay off in union dues. The unions in turn buy favor and then support the lords that will allow them to survive well. This is the status quo Trump threatens to expose and upset. Hence all the forces, including some media forces, are joining to make sure he is not elected.
So watch out for the shouting and look closely at who is shouting and why. Almost invariably there’s something nefarious behind the shouts. It’s a good bet these forces aren’t altruistically looking out for the American people. More likely they are looking to keep their fiefdoms.
Look for new novel within the next two weeks. I See My Light is a contemporary novel that explores the directions lives take through periods of time. Sometimes funny, sometimes sexy, always offbeat and real, I See My Light will take you where you never imagined.
