All Smiles

Mindy McCready sang about Ten Thousand Angels in 1996 and now they sing for her.  Protective mothers who also know all too well about family courts, DCF and abusers what Mindy has been through with custody of her son.  This is a victory that will not go unnoticed with the large community of protective mothers.  We applaud Judge Harrod for what we can only assume is reason and logic that a mother should be with their child, we couldn’t agree more.

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/mindy-mccready-leaves-court-happy-girl-ruling-son/story?id=15089586

Country singer Mindy McCready left an Arkansas courthouse a “happy girl” Monday without divulging details about a juvenile court judge’s ruling on what will happen to her and her five-year-old son Zander.

“I can’t talk about it, but I can tell you all I’m a happy girl. I’m a happy girl right now,” she said to reporters gathered outside the Izard County courtroom of Judge Lee Harrod.

“I love Judge Harrod, I’ll tell you that. I love that man. He’s a good man,” she said before being driven away from the courthouse.

Later Monday evening, McCready sent a text message to HLN’s Jane Valez Mitchell that the host read on air.

“WE WON!!! ZAN STAYS,” McCready wrote. “Court details sealed but we love Judge Lee W Harrod.”

Details on when the singer may be able to take Zander back home to Nashville, and whether McCready will get permanent custody of her son remain unclear.

“The next step would be for the judge to decide,” Amy Webb, director of communications for the Arkansas Department of Human Services, told ABC News.

Florida Department of Children and Families officials had been expected to request in the hearing that Zander be sent back to Cape Coral, Fla., where McCready’s mother, Gayle Inge, is his legal guardian.

“We will not discuss details of this case per the judge’s order. Of course we continue to work with all involved parties to ensure this child’s safety and well-being,” a Florida DCF spokeswoman told ABCNews.com.

McCready’s rep offered no information either. “All proceedings and documentation surrounding the hearing are sealed,” Kat Atwood said in a statement to ABCNews.com. “No further information is available at this time.”

If it were not for Susan and the countless other of survivors that have found their voice and share their story to the world to let us know, we are not alone, we are not crazy and you too can survive!  My work on this blog and elsewhere has led me down a path filled with love and empowerment.  My hope for the future is that all women will be protected as every human deserves.  Since we cannot eradicate “abuse” it is up to law enforcement and the judiciary to be well-informed and educated on the subject of domestic violence.  We have not only shattered that proverbial glass ceiling we are coming through it in masses.

You are not alone, your sisters are all around you, come find us!

In honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month we want the world to know that we are here… we always have been.  It was only up until recently with the slap in the face against domestic violence survivors and victims in Topeka Kansas that our voices have only gotten louder.  We honor our fallen sisters who were not as lucky as we are to have survived a relationship.  We have faith in knowing they are guiding us as we preserve their memory.  Many are now gone but not forgotten, this is for you.        

http://www.topeka.org/cityofficials/

UPDATE!!

Topeka’s governing body voted 7-3 Tuesday evening to repeal the city ordinance banning domestic battery, in a move interim city manager Dan Stanley said would force District Attorney Chad Taylor to resume reviewing and evaluating domestic batteries committed in Topeka for possible prosecution.

Mayor Bill Bunten and council members Karen Hiller, John Alcala, Sylvia Ortiz, Chad Manspeaker, Bob Archer and Andrew Gray voted in favor of the move while council members Denise Everhart, Larry Wolgast and Richard Harmon voted against it.

http://cjonline.com/news/2011-10-11/city-repeals-ordinance-banning-domestic-battery#.TpThbt7qP1Q

 http://www.topeka.org/video/

Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor said Sept. 8 he would no longer prosecute misdemeanors committed in Topeka, including domestic batteries. Taylor said he could no longer afford to prosecute those crimes after county commissioners approved a 2012 budget for his office that cut its funding by 10 percent from the 2011 amount. Taylor indicated his move would require the Topeka city attorney’s office to begin prosecuting those misdemeanors.

When Shawnee County, KS District Attorney Chad Taylor decided to hand over misdemeanor cases, like Claudine Dombrowski’s, to the city, she knew the consequences would be the hardest on victims of domestic violence.  Dombrowski, a victim of violence for 16 years, who ultimately lost the right to custody or visitation with her daughter through years of wrangling in court, speaks from a position of experience and first hand knowledge.

A result of the new ruling, facing the consequences a victim could encounter when the abuser is arrested, then released, she advises victims not to call the police. She says, “You, as a survivor, know how to survive. You just keep surviving. If you call the police right now, and God forbid you end up with the city, you might die.”

Knowing how victims of violence are already treated in an over burdened system, Dombrowski knows it will be even worse if offenders are not properly prosecuted.

According to Kansas First News, ”We know of three cases where judges have released the people accused of domestic violence back out because it’s their understanding that the district attorney will not prosecute and so there may be more of these.”

“Topeka Police Officers are forwarding misdemeanor cases involving domestic violence to the District Attorney’s Office. Stanley says the D.A.’s office has already turned away 30 cases. He believes the  victims and their families are most affected.”

National Intimate Partner Violence Strategist, Susan Murphy Milano says, “This could be a violation of Federal Laws set forth and signed, not with ink, but with the blood of those who have been killed as a result of intimate partner violence. Domestic violence is a criminal act, against the law.  The city officials and the prosecutors need to go into the cemetary business because that’s what’s going to be the most profitable if they allow this to stand.”

Hoping that the city receiving the domestic violence cases is only temporary until the District Attorney’s Office can restore their funding,Dombrowski says, “We’ve just jumped back 30 years into the dark ages, and it’s very dark. The lights just went out in Topeka.”

http://imaginepublicity.com/2011/09/15/the-lights-went-out-in-topeka-for-victims-of-domestic-violence-claudine-dombrowski-speaks-out/

For decades now, mothers that have survived domestic violence and family court have continued to scream for justice, now they’re starving for it, literally.  This week in Arizona a mother has made the ultimate sacrifice not only her body but for all mothers that are used and abused by the family court system, she has begun a hunger strike.

In Arizona a judge ordered that a mother be placed in jail for arrears in child support.  Now mind you this mother does not get to see her children in a normal setting to begin with.  This mother, like the thousands of others, is a “non-custodial” mother.  She’s not just a “non-custodial” she is also a domestic abuse survivor, for whatever that’s worth these days anyways.  A domestic violence survivor or victim will receive the worst treatment from the family court system than any other judicial “branch” (besides a rape victim).  But it’s the same if you were raped it was YOUR fault, if you were abused it was YOUR fault.  After 100 years of women in the early 19th century fighting for the right to vote we are still at a place where women are oppressed.  We make less than men, work more and get our children taken away.   Now if all that’s not bad enough at insult to injury when you are thrown into the family court arena.  Now you are “forced” to “co-parent” with your abuser.  That’s right, not only does he have access still to your life he then does everything in his powers (by way of his attorney who is the judges golfing buddy, oh and didn’t I tell ya…the judge knows the abusers dad…they go waaaay back, and the GAL oh yeah he’s golfing buddies with them all too).  Once the abuser becomes the master manipulator that he is and gets by with a  lot of help from his dads friends, soon gets custody.  Then after that it continues with supervised visits (because you are a bad mother in whatever fictitious label they can pin on you) and soon after comes the child support because even though he makes more than you do with working two or three jobs… he can’t do it ALL BY HIMSELF.  My mother did.

Family Court Judges, lawyers, psychologists and other supporters of female victims to interpret the effects and impacts of abuse as equivalent to passivity, incompetence, and poor mental health. So what can women and their supporters do to combat this social problem? http://www.speakoutloud.net/helping-women/language-of-resistance-in-family-court/

Mothers that have been abused should AVOID family court at all costs.  They should run as fast as they can away, far far away from the abuser, because IF there isn’t “placement order” in place at the time of escape your chances are better than him tracking you down and THEN trying to get the children. ALWAYS have your children in YOUR care and custody. Even IF the abuser just wants to take the kids for “one night”.  Do not fall for the trickery. Many mothers have lost their children this way. Either by the abuser claiming HE had custody (just as mine did) or running off with them or even worse, murder.

So with all this in mind you should also be “aware” that these travesties are not something “new” the courts are doing.  This has been going on for decades.  This started in the 1980′s when more mothers returned to work and became more independent and decided they didn’t need a “Mr. Mom”.  When they began the child support system that spurned the phrase “dead beat dad” for the era that’s when the men folk starting fighting back and then abusers caught on that this system could work to their advantage since we wanted equality after all…didn’t we?

We did and we still do, but even in the year 2011 it is far off.  The right to vote, 19 th amendment was the last and only rights that women have in the constitution.  But if you want to count the 14th amendment which states,

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Then again that would mean WE (as in women) have equality in this nation right?  Not really.  With the recent political atmosphere with state governments and their power grabs and war on women’s reproductive rights, we are losing “rights” every day. The women of the 1970′s that started a revolution of women yearning for the Equal Rights Amendment, here we are in the new millennium with only 38 states out of 50 that have “ratified” the ERA.  How much longer?

Now, at this very moment an Arizona mother has taken all she can.  Not unlike the women’s suffragists who went on hunger strikes for the right to place a ballot, she is too.  This mother works two jobs and has limited contact, if any, to her children.  Her abuser has hidden assets and comes from a very “well off” family.  He’s not doing it because he’s starving, he’s doing it because he can.  Years of family court conflicts, collusion and cronyism have taken its toll on this mothers soul.  This woman has decided that she would rather starve and be hospitalized because it matters not what the courts can do to her, THIS is a politicized statement that the family court system is corrupt and we’re not taking it anymore.  We’ve signed petitions, played the niceties with government officials who’ve gave us lip service, we’ve sacrificed our children and our savings accounts, we’ve marched the streets of Washington DC on Mother’s Day, we are done trying to get your attention, we DEMAND it now.

Yesterday was “Day One” of the hunger strike, we are now on “Day Two”.  This mother says she must come up with $2,000 in 60 days or she will be put in jail, per judges orders.  This mother is more deteremined than ever to get out of the circle jerk of family court.  She’s lost everything but her free will.  Perhaps this will be the one thing that she can conrol in her life since her abuser and his colluders continue their rage against her.

So Day Two is sliding into Day Three and I know with all my heart that the tenacity of this mother she is not giving up and we need to stand by her.  I cannot with any good conscience not sound the trumpets for the triumphant return of the suffragists spirits to rise again with us and guide us to freedom of enlslavement of the patriarchy  My prayer and mantra is that we begin our first voyage into the unknown world  non-violent protest.  I beg all victims of the family court system  and their allies align their voices and let the world know we will not ignored.  In the same vane as our Foremothers did and their daughters of the 70′s ERA movement. But this time we really DO get equal rights.

Stay tuned as this blog is about to expose EVERY one of the corrupt family court officials from Arizona

Sunday, May 8, Mothers Day 2011, the Million Mom March has gathered participants and supporters for mothers who lost custody of their children in Family Courts across America.  Mothers of Lost Children included Linda Marie Sacks representing the American Mothers Political Party.

Representative, and other valuable organizers have been present in this historic march, including NOW Foundation Family Law Ad Hoc Committee, Leadership Council, Justice For Children, Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment & Appeals Project, Stop Family Violence, Battered Mothers Custody Conference, Randi James, Protective Parents for Children’s Rights, California Protective Parent Association, Center for Judicial Excellence, Family Court in America, Talia Carner, and The Coalition Against Legal Abuse.

Tourists and visitors on Capital Hill read the banners with great interest, and displayed absolute shock at the horrors that they were exposed to. People still cannot believe that courts will rip babies away from their mothers, and court order them to live with their abusive or pedophile fathers.

One mother had a poster exclaiming, “792 since I have seen my son”, while other posters had political messages to the President and First Lady, Michelle Obama.

This year saw the participation of Linda Marie Sacks, a mother who has filed a landmark case in the US Supreme Court on the eve of mother’s day. Our prayers are directed to Linda Marie in her pursuit of a favorable decision. This case will pave the road for mothers across America who have the strength and resolve to fight. “Mommy, please do not ever stop fighting for us”. We won’t. We love you too much!

May 6, 2011 The American Mothers Political Party Press Release HISTORIC CASE FILED IN THE US SUPREME COURT IN THE US SUPREME COURT IN WASHINGTON DC TODAY In a landmark case, the Sacks v. Sacks case was accepted today at the US Supreme Court in Washington DC. Linda Marie Sacks, a Florida Mother  hand delivered  h … Read More

via Coalition Against Legal Abuse in New York