tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9391443766832133222024-03-05T07:47:52.636-06:00To Earnest, with LoveInsights, musings, rants ...jnmccoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13105653642726149653noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-939144376683213322.post-34564755543996685022020-09-07T12:27:00.005-05:002020-09-09T19:23:25.083-05:00Dear Mr. President, <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div class="kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "segoe ui historic", "segoe ui", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Dear Mr. President, </span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "segoe ui historic", "segoe ui", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I understand that you have some questions about why people serve and what's in it for them. Well, I can't speak for anybody but me, but perhaps my first-hand experience can offer you some insight, if not true understanding. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKcOm4iGXEBmWYMQs4duz3cZt2rPVdiLRYBc5wq5bahTig_Km56hJ0p2zkYGTiBIRkOTxYBtOeakPqcxb3JEOh9wmHY471UZnLhs9CZtDgdwJKusS0VZeMilkTX4giEnJuQDeHQM4KPnWu/s960/2002+Roci.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="643" data-original-width="960" height="137" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKcOm4iGXEBmWYMQs4duz3cZt2rPVdiLRYBc5wq5bahTig_Km56hJ0p2zkYGTiBIRkOTxYBtOeakPqcxb3JEOh9wmHY471UZnLhs9CZtDgdwJKusS0VZeMilkTX4giEnJuQDeHQM4KPnWu/w205-h137/2002+Roci.jpg" width="205" /></a></div></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I served 4.5 years on active duty in the US Coast Guard and when I left active duty to go to college, I remained in the active reserves. In November 1990, to my utter surprise, I was involuntarily activated for Desert Storm in the midst of my Fall Semester of my senior year in college.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My initial orders were for 90 days, which I served in Galveston as a Small Boat coxswain. Our boat crews provided security to cargo vessels traversing the Houston Ship Channel loaded with military equipment and supplies headed for the Persian Gulf. It was the very antithesis of exciting or dangerous.</span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "segoe ui historic", "segoe ui", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"> As my involuntary orders were winding down, I was asked to volunteer for a brand new Port Security Directorate that the Coast Guard had formed in response to the war. These Port Security Units (PSU)s were meant to be comprised primarily of reservists. The first Units had already been deployed to the Gulf, but they were due to be rotated out in a few months and the Coast Guard was experiencing critical shortages of qualified boat coxswains to fill out the next group of boat crews. Would I volunteer since they couldn't, at that point in time, extend my involuntary orders or compel me to stay with a new set?</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If I accepted, I would be sent to intensive training in Florida, to include a crash-course in combat and chemical warfare, and then we would be deployed to the Gulf by spring. Because I was a woman, I would also receive training in specific protocols I would be required to follow once in theater to protect me from having acid thrown in my face, or other attacks by "friendlies" - the people we were there to "protect" - who were hostile in particular to women serving in uniform.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieCAGcDyNMHU4VdaDi13jz1KtYZYOFx6iSBedQRSu34oBikkOgvTQOQ3-vM9rzaUelctERdlIiwJfbzzSVnF0ksAB_669o_miDq8aWDgcI-LBh1hSCNU8SfgqXa7G_1EBPjTyCjurvb3Ue/s960/1991+Camp+blanding+psu+2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE8Hw5OmbqiTXU9X4lG819OANdpF8mftd2UCUJt7tdcO9RfeQG6HQab4Qy1UT_0mW-tIIcbiPq_0vXdxWUAXDcIcekhEagwskGV7k7aEoLixZ8_wKw60EXILHPjGcl3IQ-sEOgXvKZO784/s960/1991+Camp+Blanding.jpg" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="652" data-original-width="960" height="139" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE8Hw5OmbqiTXU9X4lG819OANdpF8mftd2UCUJt7tdcO9RfeQG6HQab4Qy1UT_0mW-tIIcbiPq_0vXdxWUAXDcIcekhEagwskGV7k7aEoLixZ8_wKw60EXILHPjGcl3IQ-sEOgXvKZO784/w205-h139/1991+Camp+Blanding.jpg" width="205" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeGpHa1UsfhhGHK3k6ESMIXonWVuLGY0NqpxJJGnRzGqYrGYfLV9detXZoJ556ELi9Fui8vvGC0lduZ1Yuu8h3cV2JmvoUQ2uNzIIHy-dX8qpddV3zmAtSe6I_aRKJnRPMGkg8hxQ7-yNI/s960/1991+Camp+Blanding+psu.jpg" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="648" data-original-width="960" height="138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeGpHa1UsfhhGHK3k6ESMIXonWVuLGY0NqpxJJGnRzGqYrGYfLV9detXZoJ556ELi9Fui8vvGC0lduZ1Yuu8h3cV2JmvoUQ2uNzIIHy-dX8qpddV3zmAtSe6I_aRKJnRPMGkg8hxQ7-yNI/w205-h138/1991+Camp+Blanding+psu.jpg" width="205" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Finally, our mission once in theater was to essentially be the first line of defense from suicide bombers or other attacks from the water on US forces, whether underway or in port. Our primary purpose was to get between the enemy and our naval vessels to slow down attackers long enough for our forces to man their guns and open fire. In the worst case scenario, that we constantly trained for, we were essentially cannon fodder, encouraged to run for cover once our forces were in position but absolutely expendable if we couldn't get out of the line of fire fast enough.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieCAGcDyNMHU4VdaDi13jz1KtYZYOFx6iSBedQRSu34oBikkOgvTQOQ3-vM9rzaUelctERdlIiwJfbzzSVnF0ksAB_669o_miDq8aWDgcI-LBh1hSCNU8SfgqXa7G_1EBPjTyCjurvb3Ue/s960/1991+Camp+blanding+psu+2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="960" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieCAGcDyNMHU4VdaDi13jz1KtYZYOFx6iSBedQRSu34oBikkOgvTQOQ3-vM9rzaUelctERdlIiwJfbzzSVnF0ksAB_669o_miDq8aWDgcI-LBh1hSCNU8SfgqXa7G_1EBPjTyCjurvb3Ue/s320/1991+Camp+blanding+psu+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "segoe ui historic", "segoe ui", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Let me just say that I joined the Coast Guard at 18 over all other branches of the military because, as I've so often said, I wanted to learn how to help people, not kill them. I have no illusions of being a hero. I don't know that I am particularly brave when given enough time to think things through. There were plenty of times on search and rescue (SAR) missions that terror and panic nearly overcame me and it was only my training, and my crew, that held me together. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A secondary mission involved Law Enforcement (LE) in fisheries and drug interdiction, but I was never as comfortable with the LE parts of our job as I was with the SAR. It is somehow in my nature, still to this day, to want to like people and assume that people want to like me. The idea that someone would consciously and deliberately want to harm or kill me was always unnerving. When it came to LE, I worried that I would hesitate when faced with the "shoot don't shoot" option or fire too quickly, and I didn't know which would be worse. And though SAR ops are inherently dangerous, the "rescue" part meant that, unlike in LE, all parties involved were focused on the same happy ending.</span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "segoe ui historic", "segoe ui", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLSVd6uC0rq_2EqbOcLCT2nvorqk6yTorYJYH2NIZjWkHW0uHI2mORNsaCBidrK1WUU16dBuMWBC4sZk4_LNgzSJJnYPIvxdQdAPJEZ0hc9USN97CDSrPdHBC5vsk6nqC_xNyjjonKWEtk/s960/1991+Cape+May+3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="648" data-original-width="960" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLSVd6uC0rq_2EqbOcLCT2nvorqk6yTorYJYH2NIZjWkHW0uHI2mORNsaCBidrK1WUU16dBuMWBC4sZk4_LNgzSJJnYPIvxdQdAPJEZ0hc9USN97CDSrPdHBC5vsk6nqC_xNyjjonKWEtk/s320/1991+Cape+May+3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">So when the Coast Guard asked me to volunteer to go overseas into a war zone where nameless and faceless people would be on a mission to indiscriminately kill me - or to throw acid in my face simply because I was a female in uniform - I wasn't especially enthusiastic. The night I was grappling with the choice to volunteer or not, US Forces invaded Iraq, marking the official start of the Persian Gulf War. I stood on the beach in Galveston that night and wept. Had I known at that time that the War would be over so quickly thereby ensuring that I was never deployed, the decision would have been easy. But at that moment, all I knew was that I was being asked to go and kill people or be killed myself. </span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Only about 20% of the US population has ever served for any period in any branch of the military, and perhaps because of a lingering shame about how returning Vietnam vets were treated by civilians and their own government in the 60s, 70s, and even into the 90s, it is now nearly mandatory, to give lip service anyway, to honoring those who served. We're supposed to thank them at the least for their service.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>Many people have thanked me and I can tell you, it always makes me uncomfortable. Overall, I enjoyed my years of service; even the hard parts; even the unjust parts; even the tragic parts. I am certain that I got far more out of the experience than it ever cost me, even though that cost included sexual assault and relentless sexual harassment. I would still join and serve, even knowing that cost, because what I got from my service is worth the price I paid, regardless of how unjust the cost was.</span><span> </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>The Coast Guard grew me up in ways I badly needed, and it taught me important things about myself that I might never have learned otherwise. It exposed me to the best - and yes, sometimes, the worst - of people, though there were far more of the best. For a time, it was a family that I desperately needed.</span><span> </span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "segoe ui historic", "segoe ui", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXOMc_uAK0af3UBEx74Pv-UWwIxMaGyQTyEQ778lAmlT_Y7gFXDh5Z0id5WJNm25bdluB6QUe_vaL-DvcS7GkJCoVF4tBfZ6kTDP7A_eubpV8WJO7bTatuCKZfHf1znhOToKH30exmaTCn/s960/1984+Galveston.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="960" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXOMc_uAK0af3UBEx74Pv-UWwIxMaGyQTyEQ778lAmlT_Y7gFXDh5Z0id5WJNm25bdluB6QUe_vaL-DvcS7GkJCoVF4tBfZ6kTDP7A_eubpV8WJO7bTatuCKZfHf1znhOToKH30exmaTCn/w256-h178/1984+Galveston.jpg" width="256" /></a>I still feel a sense of gratitude to the people who served alongside me, trusted me, and put their lives on the line alongside mine when shit got real. <span style="font-family: inherit;">There is nothing - nothing - that compares to that feeling of being part of a group of people - a team - working together to achieve something greater than yourselves - something that could cost you everything and yet you know that the ultimate goal is far more important than your individual life. That includes knowing that your life is worth risking for the lives of the people you serve with. When you are in those moments when your success and your life are not assured and death is a palpable entity standing at your shoulder breathing down you neck with baited breath, it elevates you in a way that nothing else in my life has ever done before or since.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "segoe ui historic", "segoe ui", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Obviously, not every mission or ever experience in the service was like this. But once you've experienced that, once you become bonded with people like that - even people that you otherwise can't stand once you take your uniform off in the evening - you live for it. And you will die for it.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "segoe ui historic", "segoe ui", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I love the ideals enshrined in our Constitution that describe the United States of America and the nation it is supposed to be. Nearly my entire life, from the time I learned the pledge of allegiance at 4 years old in school, the phrase "and justice for all" has resonated in every cell of my being. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "segoe ui historic", "segoe ui", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Land of the Free, Home of the Brave -this was the country I lived in! When I donned my uniform and traveled in public, I felt a pride like nothing else to represent those ideals to the rest of the country; to say to them: I am here to ensure that we remain free! That justice prevails! </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqP_Fi2Bkl3FnFHye9g3SXSR-_5pLwa9uKnrQ3McdTzR3Bjxtgl8AnnVSmiZjXp7I7k55rBcUlrMXexgvEgej70FgYyBasXswOzIrg9Y5KUU9eL44eYH2QeK4C3pjjb0tDMUz79yLEbzKz/s960/1992+Michigan.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="689" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqP_Fi2Bkl3FnFHye9g3SXSR-_5pLwa9uKnrQ3McdTzR3Bjxtgl8AnnVSmiZjXp7I7k55rBcUlrMXexgvEgej70FgYyBasXswOzIrg9Y5KUU9eL44eYH2QeK4C3pjjb0tDMUz79yLEbzKz/w146-h205/1992+Michigan.jpg" width="146" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpKCgnOQ4-sQpy3h0WcxSDQKPjoDjV7Ry2zPTszM-uxsl_7GbMyZ3av2qsaozXChy-DZvNRQoTc9CORBMbTnwNDQBUKK_ygm9PoZhYp-40z_y3oH-Wxl2iNjjCchMYPXU_f6h1uRE5PPB5/s960/1999+Cape+May+2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="649" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpKCgnOQ4-sQpy3h0WcxSDQKPjoDjV7Ry2zPTszM-uxsl_7GbMyZ3av2qsaozXChy-DZvNRQoTc9CORBMbTnwNDQBUKK_ygm9PoZhYp-40z_y3oH-Wxl2iNjjCchMYPXU_f6h1uRE5PPB5/w138-h205/1999+Cape+May+2.jpg" width="138" /></a></div><br /><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "segoe ui historic", "segoe ui", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">My loyalty has always been first and foremost, to those ideals. For me, to be an American is not to be born here, within its geographical borders, but to embrace those particularly American ideals in our Constitution, that define America. Like the Rule of Law, which ensures justice for all because it demands that every single one of us submit to the law. And the concept of Freedom, which people often like to say isn’t free, and I agree, but not because people have to die to defend it, but because being free means not dying to force your freedom down my throat. It means giving up the freedom to have your way all the time so you can live in peace with others who want to live their freedom differently. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "segoe ui historic", "segoe ui", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The Land of the Free, Home of the Brave was never meant to be a country obsessed with being “safe” and protected from every possible threat. It was meant to be a place where we were willing to risk everything to preserve one thing: freedom. It takes courage for freedom to reign not because it requires our lives sacrificed on foreign soil, but because my freedom has to willingly end where someone else’s begins, and figuring out where those boundaries are and should be takes personal sacrifice and moral courage, not dying in rich people’s wars. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div bp.blogspot.com="" dir="auto" https:="" lhuciwtri="" lympics_redacted.jpg="" nked1984="" qsenq_n4="" s960="" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;" vrboh_fremhbdc1gnxeecso_5eofz2bwcpcbgayycw=""><img border="0" data-original-height="688" data-original-width="960" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipBAGcDv4nDNp0ofQsW-0ejyWxafh38CcnrVWclBCB74HonZ4W-zAi18SNru0yXKemU8BDcBTyIHbzryz8kM88Uj1r6pv7Qm_L8SzJg2PjkKN9ZMwyosEuT5NaF3QEE9t8O7tHBjfmW7xd/w256-h183/Inked1984+LA+Olympics_redacted.jpg" width="256" /></div></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But I digress. Honestly, in the end, it wasn't any of those ideals that inspired me to ultimately say yes. As idealistic as I am, I am also not so foolish to think that the Gulf War was about anything but oil. I understood that by volunteering, I was not serving as part of some grand fight for "Freedom" or "Justice for All." This was not a battle for liberty or democracy. This was a battle for capitalism; nothing more, nothing less.</span></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "segoe ui historic", "segoe ui", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So even though I was genuinely terrified by the very idea that I would be going into a war zone where people who didn't know me and would probably never lay eyes on me were going to try and kill me, along with all the crap that is particular to being a woman serving in the military and in that particular arena, I, after a lot of thought and a great deal of hesitation, said yes.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "segoe ui historic", "segoe ui", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I didn't say yes for Freedom, or Justice or even our Constitution, as much as those words and ideals still mean to me. I said yes because of the people I would serve with. Because not everyone gets to serve, and not everyone should serve, and not everyone who serves does so honorably, but if there is one place where you are going to have the best opportunity to meet the best of us, the bravest of us, those of us who are all that we, as Americans, should aspire to be, that place is in the US Armed forces. And it was my greatest honor to serve alongside them and I would have died for any one of them because that is the best death I can imagine.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "segoe ui historic", "segoe ui", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">So, Mr. President, THAT's what was in it for me. That's the kind of sucker I am. I'm not a hero, but at least I understood what it means to serve and why. And it is no surprise, or accident of fate, that in all my years of service, there was no chance I would ever meet you there, serving alongside America's heroes. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "segoe ui historic", "segoe ui", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">To all of you who have served, whether you consider yourself a hero or not, you have my undying respect for your willingness to be one or, like me, to just serve alongside the true heroes. And for all of you who are worried that this is the end of the America that our Founders envisioned and placed in our trust, remember: So long as those ideals survives, America survives. Learn them and live them, and for the love of this country, and the ideals in which it is rooted, VOTE.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWfZ0BVY-ViOG_P9z7UWYj4MQcrA_l9uStXOxBzpILmCRi0c5l4Q0MxNctMKbJCneiEAlUVkXRpe26wqh75ql_H0nf9IAXGFFjrPha23Og0-XLd15VvQ0h7Eeik1eYhUPGhui2ZZnIIoyE/s1440/I+voted.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1072" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWfZ0BVY-ViOG_P9z7UWYj4MQcrA_l9uStXOxBzpILmCRi0c5l4Q0MxNctMKbJCneiEAlUVkXRpe26wqh75ql_H0nf9IAXGFFjrPha23Og0-XLd15VvQ0h7Eeik1eYhUPGhui2ZZnIIoyE/w152-h205/I+voted.jpg" width="152" /></a></div><br />jnmccoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13105653642726149653noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-939144376683213322.post-25537724972017941112017-10-21T17:24:00.000-05:002017-10-21T17:24:04.756-05:00A confession; an explanation and my passive aggressive indictment of my "friends."<div class="MsoNormal">
This is a confession and an explanation and a passive
aggressive indictment of my friends. Read it or not, like it or not, this is my
truth and however you choose to take it, I will manage. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m angry. And I’m
angry about being angry. Being angry
about what I’ve experienced means that it matters to me, and I’ve spent my life
determined for it not to matter. If it
matters, then it means they got to me; that they have power over me; that I’m
weak; that I’m pathetic. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am surprised at the depth and breadth of my anger, and I
am still desperate to stuff it down; to ignore it; to deny it; to detach myself
from it. When I’m detached, I can
rationalize why it shouldn’t matter; why they are the pathetic ones; why they
are the ones to be vilified and despised. When I’m angry, I'm trapped between
rage and shame. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was devastated when Trump was elected. And I’m not one to be “devastated.” I’m not sure I even understood what it meant
until Trump. It deconstructed me in a way
I never saw coming; in a way I never imagined.
And true to type, I ignored the devastation; the hollowness; the fury;
the despair – because it didn’t make sense but mostly – if I’m going to be
honest – because it didn’t feel okay to be angry; to be devastated; to be
broken. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I live in a red state – Louisiana – and I’m used to being in
the minority in my political and social views.
I never considered Trump a rational choice for president, even though I
wasn’t particularly excited about any of the candidates. I liked Bernie, but his socialist bent made
me nervous; I admire and respect what Hilary has achieved and her toughness and
brilliance, but I didn’t particularly trust her; I thought of the republicans,
only Jeb Bush had any potential; I tried to fall for some of the others, but it
didn’t take long for each of them to say, including Bush, something
misogynistic; racist; or patronizing that put me off. And honestly, I believed, and continue to
believe, that Americans place too much emphasis, and usually the wrong kind, on
the presidential election while ignoring local elections that have a much more
direct and immediate impact on their lives.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But when the Access Hollywood tape came out, the election,
for me was no longer about pretending there was any question about which
candidate was the better choice to be the leader of the “free” world; it became
entirely about women and our value to the nation, and about common
decency. I spoke up; I shared my experiences
- in more detail - and explained why Trump was just like the men who had abused
and assaulted me. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When people all around me, people who knew my history of
sexual abuse and sexual harassment and assault in the military, who professed
to love me; who professed to respect me and especially those who professed to
be lifelong friends, when they not only continued to support Trump, but to
attack me and to defend Trump; to make excuses for his behavior; to laugh it
off or attack the women who accused him, it was a full-on punch in the stomach. It took my breath away. It wounded me in a
way I had not anticipated. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The depth of my despair is not even clear to me. When I begin to slip into it – like now – I
have this kind of governor on the pain and despair that shuts it off, and I
feel nothing. If I don’t pay attention,
I’m not even aware of it; I’m just suddenly okay, where a moment before I
wasn’t, and I go with it. The more
sadness and hurt I feel, the more anxious I become; the more ashamed I am; the
more worthless I feel. Feeling nothing
is much safer. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But it’s no way to live.
I don’t feel anything very intensely for very long. A brief moment here or there, but it doesn’t
last because that intensity, even if it’s intense joy, is a quick pathway to
intense sadness = worthlessness. It’s
not safe, so I do it less and less.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I used to believe that the whole point of life was to
experience joy. I probably still believe
that at some level, but I'm largely out of touch with it. I was struggling before Trump, but it was the
Trump election that staggered me. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Harvey Weinstein thing has done nothing but cause me recognize
how deeply I was affected by the Trump election, and to confront my own
surrender to powerlessness, and the depth of my rage – a rage that feels
“wrong” and more evidence of what’s wrong with me. It has also caused me to realize that I have
been gradually easing away from my “friends,” in particular those who defended
Trump or were unable to see how important it was to me that they hear me; that
they take a stand beside me rather than retreat to some abstract political
justification for NOT voting for Hilary Clinton, the only possible choice in
that election if you care at all about protecting women from sexual violence
and exploitation. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This distancing myself from people, some of whom I’ve known
practically my whole life, hasn’t been a conscious choice. I haven’t had to resist the urge to reach
out. Rather, I have not been able to
summon the strength to reach out to them, even though I know I should. I know it annoys them – they let me know –
that I don’t call or rarely return calls.
I wrestle with the guilt of letting them down, but I just can’t do it.
My love for them is buried by rage – rage I don’t believe I deserve or is
justified, and yet a persistent deeply entrenched anger that squelches any
guilt I have for not calling my friends.
Instead, I feel like, by not calling or reaching out, I am protecting
them from it. And I have lots of reasons
and real-life examples of why I should resist giving into my own rage. I have no interest in becoming that person. So I distance myself, and keep my rage in
check.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But, it’s also life-altering. Cutting myself off from people I’ve known my
whole life is just a progression of my detachment from people in general, which
started before Trump, but accelerated after the election. I spent my whole life essentially finding
purpose and fulfillment in service to others.
The opportunity to help someone else was what gave me a sense of value;
redeemed me; made me worthy. Victim of
childhood sexual abuse, an unpredictable, frequently violent mother, a loving
but often absent father, I think it’s a wonder that I have any kind of sense of
worth at all, but that worth has been rooted in “pleasing”. Please my abuser to protect my shame; please
my mother to avoid her rage; please my dad so he would not abandon me, as I
absolutely believed I deserved; please my friends so they would continue to be
my friends. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I no longer have the strength to please them, so I stay
away. I have no power to help them, so
what’s the point? What else do I have to offer them? Nothing they haven't
rejected in the past. And they have rejected me, at least, from my
perspective. I have spent my life trying
to see it from their perspective, but that requires empathy and I think mine
is exhausted. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I tweeted #metoo, and spent a good bit of time reading other
#metoo tweets. I was mostly
unmoved. Indifference, even contempt,
not empathy, was what I felt. And I
noticed. Empathy used to be second
nature to me. I have no idea where it
has gone, and I still care that its missing, but I suspect that too will
pass. If I could summon some other
emotion besides rage, it might be terror of what I'm becoming - the walking
dead in a way. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Harvey Weinstein thing has brought a childish rage upon
me. (I call it childish because I’m
embarrassed by it, but it resists all of my logic and persists.) What, because it happened to someone in
Hollywood, suddenly everyone cares? And if it’s so “rampant” in Hollywood, how
come no one else is being outed? Is that
it? Do we have them all now? Really? And
always in the background, “What about me?”
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am nonplussed by all of the outrage (now) and the
“sincere” apologies for enabling him.
First, we’re all enablers – even those of us who are disgusted by it but
recognize that it is exactly like playing Russian roulette to speak out, or to
advise someone else to speak out. Maybe
someone will listen this time, but most likely not. Then what? When the only power I have is my
voice, and no one is listening, what power do I – does anyone – have? It’s
nothing but patronizing to talk about “the power of our voices.” Until someone important enough speaks, most
of those same people spewing that drivel wouldn’t listen either. And the most powerful voice in this country –
Trump – feels validated by Weinstein. That’s what he’s speaking. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
More importantly, Weinstein has just become the latest
sacrifice for the club of entitled, powerful men who share the same attitude
toward power and women as Weinstein; who hide in plain sight, just as Weinstein
has, and who will now continue to hide in plain sight, using their indignant
outrage over Weinstein as more cover for their own abuses of power. And it will work because no one listens to
women who speak out, not even A-list actresses, until it happens to enough of
them that it’s a story worth covering.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why does this kind of thing only matter to us when it
happens to famous people? Why suddenly are people being supportive because a
newspaper reported on Weinstein and all the famous people who he sexually
assaulted and abused? How many of those
same people ignored those same women who reported it directly to them? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because despite the outrage, there is little evidence that
anything is different. The fact that
Weinstein’s conduct includes rape speaks volumes about just how far a powerful
man can go before it’s too far; before it gets someone’s attention enough to
warrant a news story. So all those men
who haven’t actually ever raped a woman, they can believe that their
pussy-grabbing; their ass-patting; their intrusive ogling; their lewd
propositions are perfectly okay because they never raped a woman. They may have bullied some into it; used
coercion even, but so long as that woman ultimately laid down and spread her
legs, or opened her mouth then, that's consensual. That's not rape. And it took multiple women accusing Weinstein
of actual rape – to mostly deaf ears - for a newspaper to find Weinstein's
abuses newsworthy. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I had a dear friend once say to me, with the best of
intentions, that because I was a victim of childhood sexual abuse, I was better
able to help other victims. That's
horseshit. Without empathy, it is
impossible to help any victim, regardless of your own experience, and if you
have empathy, you don't need to have suffered abuse to help a victim. Saying otherwise is just an excuse not to be
bothered and foisting the responsibility onto people who have often seen the
least empathy and need it the most. For
her, I think, she was patronizing me to try and boost my ego. She meant to be kind, but she was engaging in
the fundamentals of victim blaming. She
wasn’t actually engaged in it at that moment, but she was well along the path,
b/c people who expect victims to behave a certain way or to have a “shared”
experience are the first to disbelieve any accuser who doesn’t do the accusing the
“right” way.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At best, I at least know that victims of sexual abuse - the
ones who survive - make sense of it any way they can, and live with it the best
they can, and there is no cookie cutter understanding of how we cope with it or
how it impacts us. I’m sure the same is
true of adult victims of sexual violence.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How it impacted me, and continues to impact me, is …
complicated. And I’ve fought it my whole
life, to overcome it; to be me in spite of it; but as it turns out, it is me.
It is inexorably a part of me whether I like it or not. It is the part of me that, as a young adult, failed
to see warning signs that I was putting myself in a dangerous situation; it was
the part of me that “knew” that I was responsible for any man’s erotic urges
toward me, and that I had a duty to please them. It was the part of me that didn’t believe
that what I felt mattered – that in order to be valued and respected, I had to
comply. So when I fought, I not only had
to fight the man, the organization, and the culture that all stood with him, I
had to fight myself. I didn’t always do
it; I wasn’t always successful, and I bear the shame of it, even now. And I am exhausted by it. The adults in my life couldn’t protect me as
a child, and it’s taken my entire life to learn every day, how to protect
myself. I’m still learning. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s what Trump and Weinstein have brought me to. Exhaustion.
I’m exhausted from trying to mirror the indifference to my trauma that
the most important people in my life, throughout my life, have shown it. I’m exhausted by trying to speak to those who
aren’t interested in listening. I’m exhausted by the guilt and the shame and
the persistent feeling that I’m at fault for all of it, despite my extremely
rational, logical brain that knows that’s a lie. A lie that was told to me so young, and
repeated to me so often throughout my life, that it defies rational thought,
and despite my shame over it, continues to run me. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, I’m exhausted and I’m resigned to being pathetic because
it does get to me; it has gotten to me; it does and has affected me and every
relationship in my life, including my relationship with myself. I’m done being strong; I’m surrendering to
weakness and worthlessness, and when I’m not angry about it, I’m numb, so, I’m
all good. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Having said all that, I am compelled to say that NONE of
that I just wrote applies to my husband and best friend, who has always
listened to me, when, or if, I spoke, and who continues to be the one and only
answer to my persistent question: What’s the point? <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
jnmccoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13105653642726149653noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-939144376683213322.post-18350567366322823192017-02-11T18:22:00.000-06:002017-06-20T18:40:13.671-05:00Home of the brave?<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoPCwlgdSJwyU1hrk8kV8RpLeHS3KFKWUtpbdgeabRXmJ7f4-qk96OEkPbIlY2JcdrD1mk4Us2xsAWRYKvRfjZ3Jpl4IEz79dUOjH4wc5MNnnXyC1RDBmxyE760AMtJeXWTSLLuFLswD2Z/s1600/neen+2015+naples.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoPCwlgdSJwyU1hrk8kV8RpLeHS3KFKWUtpbdgeabRXmJ7f4-qk96OEkPbIlY2JcdrD1mk4Us2xsAWRYKvRfjZ3Jpl4IEz79dUOjH4wc5MNnnXyC1RDBmxyE760AMtJeXWTSLLuFLswD2Z/s200/neen+2015+naples.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The author</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
People - mostly people who call themselves republicans - keep asking, "what's wrong with a 'temporary' ban to make sure people coming here aren't terrorists?" Here's my two biggest complaints: 1) There is no evidence that this "temporary" ban (indefinite for Syrian refugees) is based on any imminent threat from those people who have already been subjected to extensive vetting (over two years) and are now cleared to come here but for Trump's ban; and 2) even if the current vet<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">ting process could be better, and keep people here in the US "safer" (from foreign-born terrorists), we are already infinitely safer than so many of the people coming here, and certainly all of the refugees who are fleeing, literally, unimaginable horror, at least if you've lived here you entire life.</span></div>
<div class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px;">
Is there a risk that a "bad" person will slip past all of the extensive screening we already have in place? Sure - there is absolutely no way to ever guarantee with 100% certainty that a foreign-born terrorist won't slip past every safeguard we put in place. But while we wait using the excuse that there's nothing wrong with making us safer, we are arguably already the safest place on earth and the dangers we face from our own citizens is exponentially higher than the extremely remote danger that we will be killed by a foreign terrorist.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
The odds are much higher that we will be killed by a homegrown terrorist; that we will be killed by gun violence unrelated to terrorism; that we will be killed in a car accident caused by a distracted driver; in a plane crash due to pilot error; by being struck by lightning; in a vending machine accident for Pet's sake.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
While we sit safely in our comfortable homes with no thought of a bomb falling on our heads during the nightly news; or drive to work in our mine-free highways; or drop our kids off at a school with all the walls and ceilings intact, there are literally tens of thousands of people, just like you and me, who love their families just like you and me; who have dreams like you and me; who just want to live a meaningful life, like you and me; who live in constant fear - in terror in fact - of the imminent danger that the ceiling will implode at any moment, or the ground will erupt beneath their children's feet as they walk to school, if there even is one; who live in dread of the moment when armed men will come through their door and rape their daughters and their sons, or drag their parents off into the dark, never to be seen again.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
We keep talking about "immigrants" and "refugees" and "Muslims," but what we're really talking about are people. Fathers. Mothers. Children. Just like you. Just like me. They're people. </div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNtN2kSZTMSq35bf9bHj_A8v5px24nvWNRFxG9tnQGxC8IZnwkteshL9UhsdruMVzBQHKWXg8nPm25YKHPv-gD8Nt9cBp0oFnBeR172CiFT2iqKyyNVAncGy4npeM5mhzmHcxpe35wLGQC/s1600/20151120T1330-468-CNS-LEADERS-SYRIAN-REFUGEES.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNtN2kSZTMSq35bf9bHj_A8v5px24nvWNRFxG9tnQGxC8IZnwkteshL9UhsdruMVzBQHKWXg8nPm25YKHPv-gD8Nt9cBp0oFnBeR172CiFT2iqKyyNVAncGy4npeM5mhzmHcxpe35wLGQC/s320/20151120T1330-468-CNS-LEADERS-SYRIAN-REFUGEES.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="color: #444444; font-family: "verdana" , "geneva" , sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-style: italic;">A boy touches his crying father during a Nov. 19 protest by angry migrants from Pakistan and Morocco who blocked a section of the Greece-Macedonia border after Macedonia began granting entry only to refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. (CNS photo/Georgi Licovski, EPA)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px; text-align: left;">
We can't help them all, but we can certainly help a few thousand every year and right now. Under any number of labels we as individuals proudly claim to prove our humanity and nobility, don't we have an obligation to incur some risk to save those who are in such dire circumstances? And especially, to save America, don't we need to act a little bit like Americans?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
Does that star-spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? You tell me.</div>
</div>
jnmccoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13105653642726149653noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-939144376683213322.post-49761619366712023952015-12-06T08:16:00.001-06:002017-06-20T18:51:29.816-05:00It's NOT a Rhetorical Question<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 2.0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #141823; font-family: "century schoolbook" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">P</span><span style="background: white; color: #141823; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">arents often ask me, in one form or
another, why our family court system is so broken. How can the judges, attorneys,
therapists, police officers, etc., who are supposed to protect children fail so
miserably? How can “they” deny due process,
violate the First Amendment, ignore the rule of law, and inflict so much pain
and suffering on families in the name of justice and get away with it, every
day, right here, in the greatest country on earth? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 2.0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #141823; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 2.0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #141823; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">All over the world, people suffer
this and worse, I'm sorry to say. Look at Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, the Sudan, Nigeria, to name just a few. “Injustice”
doesn’t begin to capture the reality of those places. You think because you’re Americans and you
live in the "greatest country on earth" that you are guaranteed
"liberty and justice." You entrust your freedoms to others; put
yellow-ribbon stickers on your cars; share warm and fuzzy memes on Facebook; choose
your elected officials based on a two-second analysis of which bears a "D"
or an "R" after their name, and go about living your very privileged
lives, secure in your conviction that you have done your part in being a “good”
American. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 2.0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #141823; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 2.0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #141823; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As long as the news is about someone
else being arrested, convicted, jailed or having their children removed by the
state, you’re just fine trusting that the system works; just fine believing
whatever the media tells you to believe; right on board with not rocking the
boat; and A-OK with obediently – and blindly – submitting to authority and
power. You sneer at those who don’t play by those rules and feel smug when they
wind up jailed, with broken bones, or dead.
You teach your children to follow your lead and support MORE LAWS that
would demand that everyone teach the same.
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Until, that is, it happens to you, and
then you think, “I’m special,” and “my circumstances are special.” And you just know that as soon as all those
other freedom-loving, brave Americans (like you) find out about the injustice
being done TO YOU, they will jump to your rescue and protest against this insult
to the principles that all those yellow ribbons and feel-good memes were meant
to protect.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 2.0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #141823; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 2.0in;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTj2uML-l_NIcPmPhRB1INL84mDU_w6wor7ktoryKugOpYt3mDoOTFM4pSMbiGrhLEexUaFQnlTcu4sN31Juk8N3nzSh4xTpPbxeBBMX5J0VcZx3HQqtfWY3R0awaXhojEI_gORdqwN50T/s1600/NiemollerQuoteMonmouthNJ580pxw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTj2uML-l_NIcPmPhRB1INL84mDU_w6wor7ktoryKugOpYt3mDoOTFM4pSMbiGrhLEexUaFQnlTcu4sN31Juk8N3nzSh4xTpPbxeBBMX5J0VcZx3HQqtfWY3R0awaXhojEI_gORdqwN50T/s320/NiemollerQuoteMonmouthNJ580pxw.jpg" width="261" /></a><span style="background: white; color: #141823; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Except, as you soon discover, there
aren't a lot of freedom-loving, brave Americans (like you) to be found that
aren't too busy living their very privileged lives to be bothered to do more
than post on Facebook or affix a pretty symbol to their car. Not many who are free anyway, or still alive, or whose bones have sufficiently healed, who can be bothered with the sacrifices
and inconveniences that actually being free and ensuring justice for all - like we all pledge to do - demand. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 2.0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #141823; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 2.0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #141823; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So how can “they” – the judges and police
officers, etc. - inflict so much injustice, right out in the broad light of day – in plain
sight of all those “freedom” loving Americans? The answer is obvious. Because
they can. Because there’s no one (left)
to stop them. Because “we” let them, every
day. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 2.0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #141823; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 2.0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #141823; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The problem is not "them."
"They" ARE us. WE are the problem.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 2.0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #141823; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We who don’t question beyond what “sounds”
right to us; <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 2.0in;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">We who want good government to play
like a sports match: root, root, root for the home team because being part of
the WINNING team is all that matters and how we win and what we do afterwards doesn’t matter either, so
long as we’re declared the winner;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 2.0in;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">We who are enamored of power and
those who wield it and will wield it the same if we’re ever given the
opportunity because we want THE POWER, and not the obligations that come with it;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 2.0in;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">We who don’t care how wealth is
accumulated so long as we can be wealthy too because THOSE are the only
American principle that really matter anymore: Land of the wealthy and home of
the wanna-be wealthy – at all cost, at any price.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 2.0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #141823; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 2.0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #141823; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Think I’m wrong? Think I’m not
talking about YOU? Then consider this: the
next time you hear or sing the national anthem, remember, it ends with a
question. Have you always considered it as a rhetorical one? Or do you
recognize it for what it really is: a reminder of the vigilance that freedom
demands? Because if you think that red, white and blue stars and stripes whipping
in the wind are evidence of freedom; that because you are free to sing a song,
freedom reigns from sea to shining sea, that playing by the rules that others
made for you is “freedom,” then you might want to consider moving to North
Korea. You’ll fit right in. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 2.0in;">
<span style="background: white; color: #141823; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 2.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background: white; color: #141823; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">For the rest of you who actually
believe you love this country and the ideals it stands for, then it’s way past
time to start walking the talk in the land of the free and the home of the
brave. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Here are my top
four walks: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 2.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-right: 2.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; text-indent: -0.25in;">Support
a federal constitutional amendment to end absolute immunity for judges and
prosecutors.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; text-indent: -0.25in;">Organize
local Court Watch programs and demand transparency in ALL proceedings. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; text-indent: -0.25in;">Find,
support and elect individuals to state and federal legislatures who are
committed to repealing, rather than enacting, legislation, especially legislation
that favors certain classes, such as attorneys, legislators, judges and
executives. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; text-indent: -0.25in;">TEACH
your children how to think critically and for themselves and that it is un-American
and un-patriotic to ever blindly trust anyone who wields the power to decide what you're NOT free to do. </span></li>
</ul>
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Join me ... </span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-right: 2.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-right: 2.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
jnmccoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13105653642726149653noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-939144376683213322.post-64831248461632323852015-10-01T19:00:00.002-05:002015-10-02T21:56:31.159-05:00Starving for Justice - All I want for breakfast, lunch or dinner in October, is JUSTICE. <div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #363135; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27.0002px; margin-bottom: 1.25em;">
It's October, and that means it's Domestic Violence Awareness month so to commemorate it, I am going on a hunger strike. The only nourishment I will take for the entire month of October is JUSTICE because I'm starved for it. And I'm not the only one; there are millions of us out there who are starving for justice. They are the victims of domestic violence, the protective parents, and the victims of social services who turned to the courts seeking justice, and are starving for it still. Unlike most, if not all of them, though, I am in a privileged position to do two things that most people can't: I can speak out about the travesties that are taking place in our courts every day; and I can literally starve for justice.<br />
<br />
<span style="line-height: 27.0002px;">In honor of Domestic Violence Awareness month, throughout October lots of non-profits, governmental agencies and celebrities will make extra efforts to urge anyone trapped in violent and dangerous relationships to leave their abusers and find safe haven amongst the many organizations dedicated to serving victims of domestic violence. All of those promises of assistance, however, are based on the assumption that there is a justice system ready and waiting to help victims when they find the courage to leave; that there are attorneys and judges who understand the tremendous hurdles - and real dangers - that victims face when they try to escape, and will be standing by, ready and waiting to assist and protect them. </span></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #363135; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27.0002px; margin-bottom: 1.25em; margin-top: 1.25em;">
And that's a lie. And it's a cruel lie that every year lures desperate victims into a trap which is often far worse than the one they were attempting to escape. </div>
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There is no such justice system out there. The justice system that these victims who heed the messages of hope and help will find will treat them with contempt, suspicion, disregard and ridicule. And if the victim fleeing is a woman with children, she will quickly find herself trapped in a nightmare so brutal, so cruel, so unimaginable in the greatest country on earth, dedicated to liberty and justice for all, that she will begin to doubt her own sanity. A woman with children attempting to escape an abusive relationship will more likely than not find that she has walked into a trap where the only outcome will be the loss of custody of her children, either to the abuser himself, or to the State. In other words, right now, if you're a woman with children in a violent relationship, and you want to protect your children, you're better off staying with that abuser. Because at least you'll be around - until he kills you, or the State takes your children from both of you because you failed to leave with them - as if you could. </div>
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But it isn't just the traditional victims of domestic violence the courts are failing. Any parent who finds him or herself in the horrific situation where a child reports sexual abuse by the other parent; where one or both parents disagree with a child's diagnosis and seek a second medical opinion; or a parent who doesn't smile wide enough at a social service agent standing at their door, will also experience a system of judges, attorneys, mental health professionals, and various other "professionals" so corrupt; so depraved, so licentious that it is no wonder that those who have experience it unflinchingly consider the family courts and various child protective agencies to be the largest child trafficking organizations in the world and easily the most rampant perpetrators of domestic violence in this country. </div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #363135; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27.0002px; margin-bottom: 1.25em; margin-top: 1.25em;">
I used to be an attorney and I have seen this system first hand. I lost my license fighting against it, and I am not the only one. I spoke out then, at the cost of my license, and I speak out now, for all the parents who cannot speak themselves because the courts hold their children hostage, and I speak for all the children who are voiceless in a system that treats them as commodities to be used as an excuse for billable hours and then awarded as prizes to the favored parent or the highest bidder. </div>
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And I'm asking all of you out there, who are already fighting this fight or simply care about children and the necessity of an honorable and independent judiciary to our nation and the purpose of justice, to JOIN ME in this petition. If you're a parent who can't sign for fear of reprisal, have a friend sign. Have all your friends sign. Have a stranger sign. And share your stories here - your organizations, your websites, the docket numbers, the news stories. Post them to this petition. And then we will submit it to the US Attorney General to demand action. Investigations; Spotlights; Congressional hearings; REFORM. </div>
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JOIN ME in my vote of NO CONFIDENCE in the independence and integrity of the Family and Juvenile courts, and in telling that system, that, </div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #363135; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27.0002px; margin-bottom: 1.25em; margin-top: 1.25em;">
In the greatest country on earth, rooted in the principles of the rule of law and "justice for all", WE are starved for justice, and by signing below, WE are voting "NO CONFIDENCE" in the integrity and independence of the Family and Juvenile courts through out the U.S. </div>
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WE are the mothers, fathers, spouses, brothers, sisters, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends and advocates, and concerned citizens of the USA, who are voting "NO CONFIDENCE" in the licentious, lawless system that acts under the color of law, but completely outside the law, to arbitrarily and capriciously decide the fate of children who have been brought before these tribunals for protection, and instead, are sentenced to die or suffer unimaginably at the hands of predatory parents or complete strangers by judges who are free to act with malice and in excess of their LEGAL authority with complete impunity. Stump v. Sparkman, 435 US 349 (1978). </div>
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The doctrine of judicial immunity it represents a cancer within our system that is eating away at our democracy. It violates the Separation of Powers doctrine by removing almost all checks and balances from the third branch of government, and as a result, the judiciary is acting without regard for the law; for the people it is sworn to serve, or the rights of the citizens of this country who lend it their authority. </div>
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Please go to my <a href="https://www.change.org/p/loretta-e-lynch-starved-for-justice-a-vote-of-no-confidence-in-family-and-juvenile-courts?recruiter=8481936&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=share_page&utm_term=des-lg-share_petition-custom_msg&fb_ref=Default" target="_blank">change.org petition </a>to sign and register your vote of NO CONFIDENCE in the integrity and independence of the judiciary, so we can send a powerful message to the U.S.Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, that all of us are STARVED FOR JUSTICE. </div>
jnmccoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13105653642726149653noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-939144376683213322.post-66641978346674957142015-07-17T23:19:00.001-05:002018-03-12T15:02:16.842-05:00Roadmap to Disbarment<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141412; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<h2>
It should be obvious by now that if someone is determined NOT to know the truth, then it doesn’t matter how much truth is put in front of her or him, the truth will be ignored. </h2>
<div>
<br /></div>
But for anyone interested in facts underlying my journey to disbarment, here they are.<br />
<br />
The underlying events dealt with allegations of abuse of two small children which gave rise to a custody case in Mississippi, an intra-family adoption case in Louisiana, and a petition seeking emergency relief, also filed in Louisiana. On July 20, 2011, Chancellor Deborah Gambrell, the Mississippi judge presiding over the custody case in Mississippi, issued <a href="http://tinyurl.com/nmeg7bk" target="_blank">an illegal order</a> affecting custody and visitation of the children. The order was issued without prior notice to mom, and it was done in the judge's chambers so there was no record of what was said. Those two factors alone make is absolutely null, according to the U.S. Constitution and Mississippi law.<br />
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The order allowed dad to have supervised (by his mother who never believed that the girls had been abused) visitation in his home beginning on that Friday, just two days away, and then unsupervised visits in three weeks. The trial to address whether or not dad's rights should be terminated because of the abuse was also set, coincidentally about a month away, on August 16. <br />
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According to <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/238723402/Exhibit-2011-07-20-Email-from-counsel-to-mom-relating-what-happened-in-ex-parte-conference" target="_blank">an email from mom's attorney</a>, Gambrell allowed the Guardian ad Litem (the children's "attorney") to discuss the details of the case, and to give second hand information - otherwise known as hearsay - about the merits of mom's claims, that were set for hearing in a few weeks. Essentially, Gambrell held a trial in her chambers without mom present, took testimony that was not recorded, but was intended to influence her opinion against mom, and then issued a judgment that was unfavorable to mom, all without mom present or able to respond, and without a record so mom could not even know what was said so she could address it later, and couldn't get a record of it to show to the appeals court.<br />
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The email also suggests that Gambrell issued the order to punish mom for allowing her new husband to seek to adopt her girls in Louisiana. Although her attorney references "an appeal In Louisiana" there was no appeal pending at that time, just the adoption brought by mom's husband. <br />
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<span style="color: #141412; font-family: "source sans pro" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Judge Dawn Amacker, in Louisiana had stayed this adoption in March pending the Mississippi proceedings, but, there is no provision in the law that would allow her to do that. Instead, the law, <a href="http://www.legis.la.gov/Legis/Law.aspx?d=72728">La. Ch.C. art. 1253</a> says, in part, that the court <u>shall </u>hear </span>the petition for intrafamily adoption within <u>sixty days </u>if there is no opposition or <u>within ninety days </u>if there is <span style="color: #141412; font-family: "source sans pro" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">opposition. The court </span>may extend this time for <u>up to sixty days</u> for good cause. At the time of the July 20, 2011 hearing, the adoption had been stayed, indefinitely by Judge Amacker. By staying the adoption, Judge Amacker was able to prevent us from putting on our evidence of abuse. That was the first time she wouldn't allow evidence. <br />
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When the oldest girl heard that she would have to go back to her father's house - someplace she hadn't been for nearly three years and the place where she reported having been abused by her dad - she expressed her fear, trepidation, and confusion in a journal. She gave the journal to her grandmother and asked her to take it to the judge. She also wanted to speak with the judge and tell her how frightened and confused she was. <br />
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Her grandmother took copies of the journal to the Guardian ad Litem and the police because the father's indictment for child molestation, according to her understanding, was still open. Mom also brought a copy to her attorney in Mississippi and to me. Mom asked her attorney to oppose the illegal Mississippi order and to take it to the Mississippi appeals court, but he refused. <br />
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When mom's attorney refused to fight the order, and in light of the oldest girls' distress as reflected in the journal, I drafted a pleading in Louisiana, asking the Louisiana courts to exercise emergency jurisdiction - something the law allows them to do in specific circumstances. I also sought relief for mom under other areas of law. <br />
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This pleading was very fact specific. Pleas for the courts to exercise emergency jurisdiction or give relief from domestic violence are always very fact specific. In other words, you have to be very specific about the reasons why you believe the court can, and should, intervene. If you put appropriate facts in your pleading, then the court has to give you a hearing to <i>prove </i>what you said. That's what "due process" means. If you can prove it, the judge still doesn't have to give you relief, but if she doesn't, you can then seek an appeal because all of your evidence goes into the record. Without a hearing to put on evidence, you cannot create a record and you have nothing to appeal.<br />
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We filed the pleading on August 4, 2011. In our pleading, we asked the Court to give us an immediate hearing, but if she declined to do so, we were entitled to a hearing within a brief period of time, no more than 15 days. Judge Dawn Amacker refused to give us an immediate hearing, and then, on August 5, 2011, <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/239718019/EXHIBIT-2011-08-05-Order-Denying-Relief" target="_blank">she denied ALL relief</a> without giving us a hearing at all , and dismissed ALL of our claims. Even though she clearly had subject matter jurisdiction over mom's effort to be protected and to protect her children under Louisiana domestic violence statutes, Judge Amacker denied relief under that statute as well under the guise that she lacked subject matter jurisdiction. She also denied relief - including the issue of whether or not she could exercise emergency jurisdiction - without taking any evidence. <br />
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How, exactly, can a judge deny all relief and pretend they are not biased when they make up their minds before they ever hear a shred of evidence? <br />
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I next sought relief from the appellate court, which also denied relief. Once the appellate court refused to provide relief, I submitted a <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/238237683/ODC-14-Writ-App-to-LA-S-Ct" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #bc360a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">writ application to the Louisiana Supreme Court</a>, the court of last resort. While the application was pending, I helped my client draft and circulate <a href="https://www.change.org/p/justice-for-harley-and-zoey" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #bc360a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">online petition</a>s, published on two different sites, urging Judges Amacker and Gambrell to “look at the evidence and apply the law” before making a decision.<br />
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Approximately 400 people ultimately signed the petition(s) and apparently many also called the judges’ offices to tell them they were concerned about the case. At some point, someone (not me) faxed the petition letter with signatures to both judges’ offices.<br />
Ultimately, the Louisiana Supreme Court denied our application and thus, declined to hear the case. <br />
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Somewhere in this period, Amacker contacted Gambrell to tell her about the online petitions, and to encourage her to file a complaint against me. Although Amacker denies this, and insists that she called Gambrell only because she was concerned for Gambrell’s safety (<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/238237690/2014-01-22-Amacker-Depo-Redacted" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #bc360a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Amacker deposition</a>, pp. 25, 33-34), Gambrell was repeatedly asked during her deposition to state the reasons Amacker gave for contacting her, and Gambrell never once mentioned that Amacker expressed concern for her safety during her deposition. (See <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/238237687/2014-02-03-Depo-of-Chancellor-Gambrell-Redacted" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #bc360a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Gambrell depo</a>, pp. 9-11, 17-19, 21-23, 45-48). According to Judge Gambrell, Amacker called her to direct her to the online petition, and then encouraged and helped her to file the complaint against me:</div>
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DUCOTE: So after you talked to Judge Amacker that one time on the phone where she called you and told you that there was this petition online, did you take any action?</div>
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GAMBRELL: Yes, sir.</div>
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DUCOTE: What were the first things you did after talking to Judge Amacker?</div>
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GAMBRELL: After I pulled up that online petition thing, I think I called the judge back and asked her was this permissible by Louisiana lawyers to do this type of thing, because here, it would not be.</div>
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DUCOTE: What did she say?</div>
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GAMBRELL: I think she indicated to me that she didn’t think it was permissible, but the only way I would know whether it was permissible or not would be to file a complaint with the Louisiana lawyers [sic] disciplinary board.</div>
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(<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/238237687/2014-02-03-Depo-of-Chancellor-Gambrell-Redacted" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #bc360a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Gambrell deposition</a>, pp. 24-25)</div>
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And then:</div>
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DUCOTE: Now, you did file the complaint with the Louisiana Disciplinary Counsel [sic] on September 19 or you dated it September 15, 2011, did you not? Do you have that document in front of you?</div>
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…</div>
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GAMBRELL: Uh-huh (affirmative response).</div>
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DUCOTE: And I note on there that you cc’d Judge Amacker on that. Why did you do that?</div>
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GAMBRELL: Because I’d asked her about what the procedure was, and I cc’d her so I’d know if I had done the proper procedure …</div>
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<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/238237687/2014-02-03-Depo-of-Chancellor-Gambrell-Redacted" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #bc360a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Gambrell deposition, p. 44.</a></div>
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Gambrell filed the <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/238237676/2011-09-30-Complaint-Filed-by-Gambrell-With-Attachments-Redacted" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #bc360a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">complaint</a> against me on September 15, 2011, and cced Judge Amacker on it. I received notice from the ODC, with the complaint attached, shortly thereafter, and <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/238237673/2011-10-17-McCool-Initial-Response-With-Attachment" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #bc360a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">replied</a> in mid October. What I wasn’t aware of, and wouldn’t find out for more than two years, was that on October 11, 2011, Amacker initiated contact with the ODC and followed up with a <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/238237671/2011-10-11-Ltr-Frm-Amacker-to-ODC" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #bc360a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">letter</a> of the same date.</div>
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Judge Amacker admitted that she initiated contact with the Office of Disciplinary Counsel, but expressly denies that she did so to file a complaint against me. (Amacker’s deposition, p. 23):</div>
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MR. DUCOTE: Well, Judge Amacker, do you have any knowledge of — let me back up. Have you had communications with the office of Disciplinary counsel about Mrs. McCool?</div>
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AMACKER: Yes.</div>
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DUCOTE: Did you contact the office of Disciplinary Council first or did they contact you first?</div>
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AMACKER: I contacted them first.</div>
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DUCOTE: Did you contact them to file a complaint against Mrs. McCool?</div>
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AMACKER: No, I did not.</div>
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DUCOTE: For what purpose did you contact the office of Disciplinary counsel [sic] about Mrs. McCool?</div>
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AMACKER: I was aware that a complaint has been filed by Judge Gambrell in Mississippi and similar conduct had occurred directed to me and also to the Louisiana supreme court. As a judge and an attorney in this state, I have — as I stated earlier – an absolute obligation with this type of conduct to report it to the ODC because there was a prior complaint filed. I was requested just to send in my information, whatever that might be, to them and that’ s what happened.</div>
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Pursuant to <a href="http://www.lasc.org/rules/supreme/cjc.asp" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #bc360a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Judicial Canon </a>2(B), a judge shall not initiate the communication of information in any court or disciplinary proceeding, but may provide such information for the record in response to a formal request by a court or disciplinary agency official. Thus, Judge Amacker’s admission that she initiated contact with the ODC to provide information about an existing disciplinary proceeding would appear to be a clear violation of the canon. </div>
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I continued to appear in Amacker’s court representing clients during this period, unaware of her activity with the ODC. I kept telling myself that I was imagining that she was being especially hostile toward me and unreasonable toward my clients. I gave her much more credit than I should have.</div>
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On March 27, 2012, I appeared in Amacker’s court on a client’s case and was nearly arrested before the day was over. Amacker’s demeanor and conduct toward me – and rulings in the case – were outrageous. It was so bad that I expressed my concern about her conduct toward me in a complaint I filed against another attorney (my first) because of what went on in Amacker’s court that day. I didn’t find out for two more years, but the very next day, Amacker initiated contact with the ODC yet again, and sent a<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/238237672/2012-03-28-Ltr-Frm-Amacker-to-LADB-Redacted" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #bc360a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">nother derogatory letter </a>about me.<br />
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I was so concerned by her conduct toward me, in March of 2012, <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/239047689/Exhibit-2012-03-30-McCool-ltr-to-Judge-Amacker-re-concerns" target="_blank">I wrote a letter to her</a>, expressing my concerns, and in my formal complaint against opposing counsel, I also <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/239052853/Exhibit-2012-04-02-Redacted-Bar-Complaint" target="_blank">expressed my concern</a> about Judge Amacker's conduct toward me to the ODC about the same time. Unbeknownst to me, the ODC was exchanging information with Amacker about me at this same time - <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/238237672/2012-03-28-Ltr-Frm-Amacker-to-LADB-Redacted" target="_blank">within days of it</a> - and yet, they didn't raise a warning flag; they didn't intervene; they didn't protect the public from Judge Amacker's bias. I might not have known what was going on, but the ODC sure did. And yet, it did nothing. And I strongly suspect that they dismissed my complaint against the attorney - another shining example of how "sacred" the profession is - because Amacker intervened without my knowledge. </div>
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About a month later, I received a <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/238237677/2012-04-25-Ltr-From-LADB-Re-Complaint-Redacted" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #bc360a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">second letter from the ODC</a>, ostensibly related to Gambrell’s original complaint. Without the benefit of Amacker’s March 27, letter, it was impossible for me to know that the ODC was responding to her complaints, not Gambrell’s, but I mentioned my concerns in <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/239060602/2012-05-24-McCool-2nd-Reply-to-Complaint-Redacted" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #bc360a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">my response</a>:</div>
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<div class="ff71" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
<span class="a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">I find your requ<span class="l6" style="box-sizing: border-box;">est that I respond to Judge Amacker’<span class="l" style="box-sizing: border-box;">s </span></span></span><span class="a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">characterization </span>of what happen<span class="l6" style="box-sizing: border-box;">ed, which is not reflected </span>by <span class="a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">the record, troub<span class="l6" style="box-sizing: border-box;">ling. I fin<span class="l6" style="box-sizing: border-box;">d </span></span></span><span class="a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">it even more disturbing that<span class="l6" style="box-sizing: border-box;">, rathe<span class="l6" style="box-sizing: border-box;">r than respo<span class="l6" style="box-sizing: border-box;">nding to accusations made </span></span></span></span>by <span class="a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Judge </span><span class="a" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Gambrell, </span>whose conduct from <span class="l" style="box-sizing: border-box;">the bench </span>is unquestionably inappropriate, I am responding to accusations made by Judge A<span class="l11" style="box-sizing: border-box;">macker. </span></div>
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The ODC never responded to my concerns, nor was I ever notified that Amacker had filed a complaint, even though she was voluntarily providing information to the ODC that had nothing to do with Judge Gambrell’s complaint. As the record of the formal charges will show, the ODC maintains to date that Judge Amacker did not file a complaint against me, though her <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">known </em>communications to the ODC were more numerous than Judge Gambrell’s, and give rise to a significant portion of the formal charges brought against me. Frankly, I don’t know how the ODC is not embarrassed by how it has been represented in these proceedings. The failure to fully disclose Judge Amacker’s participation in the complaint, especially in light of Canon 2(B) would seem a clear violation by its own prosecutor of <a href="http://www.ladb.org/Material/Publication/2011-10-30%20ROPC.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #bc360a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Rule of Professional Conduct </a>8.4(f):</div>
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It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to … Knowingly assist a judge or judicial officer in conduct that is a violation of applicable Rules of Judicial Conduct or other law …</div>
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And beyond that, it just smells bad. Why weren’t Amacker’s communications treated as a complaint? Why wasn’t I notified from the outset of her participation? Why all the subterfuge?</div>
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In any case, the second letter from the ODC, along with Amacker’s conduct toward me in court, prompted me to file motions to recuse her in the two cases most obviously impacted by her now obvious bias toward me, Keister and <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/238237691/2012-06-05-Maurer-True-Copy-of-Motion-to-Recuse" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #bc360a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Maurer</a>. Maurer was the case that involved the online petition, which Amacker had continued to preside over during this period while she was surreptitiously feeding derogatory information about me to the ODC.</div>
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Judges <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">must </em>recuse themselves in very specific circumstances. La. CCP. art. 151(A):</div>
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(1) Is a witness in the cause;</div>
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(2) Has been employed or consulted as an attorney in the cause or has previously been associated with an attorney during the latter’s employment in the cause, and the judge participated in representation in the cause;</div>
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(3) Is the spouse of a party, or of an attorney employed in the cause or the judge’s parent, child, or immediate family member is a party or attorney employed in the cause; or</div>
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(4) Is biased, prejudiced, or interested in the cause or its outcome or biased or prejudiced toward or against the parties or the parties’ attorneys or any witness to such an extent that he would be unable to conduct fair and impartial proceedings.</div>
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Note number 4. Items 1-3 are objective, and usually readily apparent. Not so item no. 4. That one is subjective and up to the judge to decide. This is why it is very hard to get a judge removed from a case for bias. If the judge denies the bias, it is nearly impossible to <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">prove </em>the bias. In this case, based primarily on the letter from the ODC, I <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">thought </em>I had a pretty good shot at getting Amacker recused from my cases but initially, there certainly was no guarantee. This put me in a really awkward position. The conflict wasn’t with my clients, it was with me, but the bias was still affecting them. I had to give them a choice: 1) Stay in Amacker’s court with me as their attorney and likely lose; 2) fire me and hire a different attorney; 3) file a motion to recuse her and pray we’re successful because if we’re not, boy will we have really pissed her off then.</div>
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Both Maurer and Keister opted to try to recuse her so I filed separate motions in each case almost simultaneously, and surprisingly, Amacker admitted her bias and voluntarily recused herself. Now, this is one of those things I’ve been accused of making “blatantly false statements” about. In these first two motions, I described the facts I believed evidenced her bias, as I was required to do by law, and then attached an order that provided Amacker’s two options under the rules: 1) voluntarily recuse herself; or 2) decline to recuse herself and set the matter before another judge for a hearing. In both instances, she lined through option number 2, and hand wrote into option number 1 additional language indicating that she was “voluntarily” recusing herself because she was a potential witness in the disciplinary proceeding pending against me, out of an abundance of caution, and to avoid the appearance of impropriety.</div>
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In law, if you allege something in a pleading, and the other party doesn’t deny it, the allegation is considered admitted. Amacker didn’t deny anything that I alleged in my pleadings to recuse her. She took the time to line out option 2 and hand-write her reasons to recuse on the order, which included an admission that she was a <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">potential witness </em>in the disciplinary proceedings pending against me, but didn’t deny, or line through, a single allegation in the pleading. In my legal mind, <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">that’s </em>an admission.</div>
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I also thought it was obvious that she had an obligation to go ahead and, on her own motion, recuse herself from <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">all </em>of my cases. Inexplicably, she didn’t. This forced me to have the same awkward discussion with another client, and then yet another a few weeks later, about the three options: keep me, fire me, or recuse her. Both clients opted for recusal. In both instances, Amacker’s refusal to recuse herself on her own motion forced my clients to bear the burden of recusing her. In both instances, I put in my motion that she had “expressly admitted extreme bias” against me in prior instances, and the same reasons for her recusal applied in the instant case. In each instance, Amacker opted to recuse herself, lined out option 2, and made her handwritten note in option 1, giving her <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">express </em>reasons for recusing herself, but did not object or deny any of the allegations I included in the motion. Admission. Admission.</div>
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Excellent outcomes in both of those cases, by the way, once we got them out of Amacker’s court. A complete 180 in one and, I think, the difference between life and death in the other. Judge Devereux, in both instances, listened to the children and completely changed the direction the case had been going in based on what the children said, something Amacker had refused to do and still never does.</div>
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But I digress. Fast forward about 6 months and I file <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/238237679/Exhibit-2013-01-03-Mot-and-Ord-to-Recuse-Russell" target="_blank">yet another motion</a> to recuse Amacker from a case. This time, for the first time, she <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">does not </em>voluntarily recuse herself. This time, she chooses <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/238237688/Exhibit-2013-01-29-Russell-Tim-Order-Settin-Recusal" target="_blank">option 2, and sets the matter for hearing before another judge</a>. Nothing has changed in the ensuing 6 months. The complaint is still pending against me; she has made no effort to clear the air between us. There is no rational explanation for her sudden refusal to voluntarily recuse, and I was dumbfounded.</div>
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It was only after the formal charges were brought against me almost a year later that I was able to discover that after I filed the motion to recuse her on January 3, 2013, Amacker initiated <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/238237678/2013-01-22-Ltr-Frm-Amacker-to-LADB" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #bc360a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">another letter to the ODC,</a> on January 22, 2013, complaining (but not filing a complaint) that I was making false statements in my motions to recuse her. Keep in mind that I don’t know about this letter at the time, and that she’s a judge, who has the means and the authority to haul me into her court at any time to answer to her charge that I’m making false statements in motions I’m filing in her court. Yet she doesn’t resort to her considerable power to immediately put a stop to my shenanigans, but essentially whines about it to the ODC, without cluing me in at all.</div>
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My client, in this instance, did not want to deal with the delay and hassle that the recusal was causing and opted to hire another attorney. Completely understandable, but this episode was the last straw for me, and I filed <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/home/!McCool%20Law%20Office/complaints/odc%20formal%20complaint/shared%2013-db-059%20in%20re%20mccool/Supporting%20docs/Misc?preview=2013-03-29+Amacker+complaint.pdf">a complaint against Amacker</a> with the Judicial Commission, Office of Special Counsel. By the way, according to Amacker and the ODC, I am not allowed to say the word “complaint” in relation to Amacker. Period. It’s the “Cee U Next Tuesday” word for the legal community. So stand by for another complaint to be filed against me. In any case, the Office of Special Counsel ultimately dismissed my complaint against Amacker, along with another I filed just this year based on her failure to recuse from my cases as it is now firmly established she has an obligation to do. </div>
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In case the Supreme Court is listening, it is very very hard to take these oversight bodies seriously when they are so willing to ignore blatant failures of judges to abide by <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">the law</em>, or discipline attorneys for behaving like bullies, even refuse to demand their own prosecutors abide by the Rules of Professional Conduct, but will pursue me and my license for standing up for a client and demanding that judges look at evidence and apply the law before they make a decision. Very very hard.</div>
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I filed my first complaint against Amacker in April 2013. I posted the substance of it in my bolg, “False and Misleading.” Less than a month later, on May 21, 2013, the ODC sent me <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/238237681/2013-05-21-Ltr-From-ODC-Re-Complaint" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #bc360a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">another letter</a> ostensibly in relation to Gambrell’s complaint from a year and a half before, but in fact incorporating Amacker’s complaints – that aren’t complaints – from her correspondence to the ODC back on January 22, 2013. Just a few days later, I received <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/238237682/2012-06-04-All-Recusals" target="_blank">14 or so signed orders</a> from Amacker voluntarily recusing herself, on her own motion (<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">sua sponte)</em> from any case in her court in which I was attorney of record. The timing of all of this – her (secret) letter to the ODC on January 22, my complaint in April, followed very closely by a letter from the ODC in May, essentially countering my complaint against Amacker, followed by Amacker’s <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">sua sponte </em>recusals from ALL of my cases just a few days later – stinks. It has the feel of a set up. At least to me.</div>
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Because of the smelliness factor, <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/238237680/2013-06-05-McCool-Response-to-ODC" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #bc360a; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">I responded </a>to the ODC’s letter by – politely – demanding that it disclose to me the extent to which Amacker was involved in the complaint proceedings. The ODC never responded to that letter and the next correspondence from it was notice of the Formal Charges which came, stinkily enough, within a week of my formal announcement that I would run for Amacker’s seat.</div>
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One of the great ironies of these proceedings is that I was repeatedly accused of making “false and misleading” statements that violate the Rules of Professional Conduct, yet the formal written charges against me were rife with false and misleading statements, and the Supreme Court's decision get's even less right, and makes up quite a bit more. </div>
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I am baffled as to how anyone could reasonably conclude that, in light of what Amacker had <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">admitted </em>to doing,and what Gambrell has described she did, what the ODC Prosecutor did, and considering all of these facts, which are still not all of the facts, it was my conduct and my character that the Committee believes poses a threat to the administration of justice. How can that recommendation be taken seriously by anyone who genuinely cares about justice?<br />
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In deciding that I had violated the Rules so egregiously that it was necessary to disbar me to protect the public from me - discipline is not supposed to be punishment - the LASCT failed to address so much truly disturbing conduct of the judges and the ODC attorneys that I can only assume that the point all along was to punish me. The rendition of the facts incorporated into decision to justify disbarment is so far removed from what actually happened, and what is actually in the record, that I barely recognize it as the same case, and I was there.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Source Sans Pro", Helvetica, sans-serif;">The decision to disbar me is a travesty but not for me. It's wrong, it's unfair, and it forces me to rethink my future, but it's not a travesty in my life. The travesty is in the practice of law and the increasing emphasis on deferring to judges rather than representing clients; in the degradation of our constitution by judges who have ensured that there are no meaningful checks on their power, no matter their authority; on the inability of people in this country to access meaningful justice, even when they can hire an attorney and get into court because there is no justice to be found in the courtroom. The travesty is in the gradual restructuring of the 1st Amendment so that people increasingly believe that if a judge,</span> or a police officer for that matter, tells them to shut up, they MUST shut up. <br />
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You don't have to care about me to care about this case. You just have to care about this country and your own freedoms.<br />
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"The germ of destruction of our nation is in the power of the judiciary, an irresponsible body - working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall render powerless the checks of one branch over the other, and will come as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated." Thomas Jefferson.<br />
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jnmccoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13105653642726149653noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-939144376683213322.post-25013078347001224922015-07-17T12:18:00.001-05:002015-07-17T12:48:50.010-05:00More Facts; Fewer F#(K Y@Us. <div style="-x-system-font: none; display: block; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 12px auto 6px auto;">
That was the advice my friend and attorney, Richard Ducote, gave me when I sat down to write this application for rehearing to the Louisiana Supreme Court. That proved even more challenging than I imagined, so it's not my best legal work, but the ultimate product, I think, gets my point across with only a couple of "kiss my @ss"es. </div>
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Not that I think it's going to make an iota of difference. If the Court was ever interested in the facts, or the law, it could not have published that tortured, contrived, largely fictional analysis underlying their <i>opinion </i>that I should be disbarred. (<a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/271804448/In-re-McCool-No-2015-B-0284-La-6-30-2015">In Re McCool, 2015-DB-0284 (La 06/30/2015</a>)). And not that I care what the individual - ahem - justices think. Knoll called the U.S. Supreme Court justices "attorneys in black robes" a half dozen times or so in her outraged <i>concurrence </i>in <u>Costanza v. Caldwell</u>, 14-2090 (La. 7/7/15) and pretty much accused them of wiping their collective asses with our Constitution, but found my speech, that was less a criticism than it was a demand for justice, an intolerable breach of ethics and an affront to the "sacred profession" of law. States' rights aside, apparently Knoll and the rest of the Court (except for Justice Hughes, who took no part in the decision) are kind of selective in which rights are sacrosanct and which - for instance free speech a la the 1st Amendment -aren't. </div>
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I can't help but wonder - are they really that out of touch with their own hubris that they don't recognize the utter hypocrisy they're spewing? Did they collectively claw their way to the pinnacle of the justice system in Louisiana because their understanding of "justice" is too threatening and arbitrary to risk standing on the other side of the bench? Are they a pack of sociopaths who actually think that depriving me of a law license teaches me some kind of lesson: Don't fuck with us or we'll ... kick you out of our club? Or are they just stupid? <br />
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Given those choices, I'm going to give them all the benefit of the doubt and conclude, just stupid. </div>
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<a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/271804659/2015-07-14-In-Re-McCool-Motion-for-Rehearing" title="View 2015-07-14 In Re McCool, Motion for Rehearing on Scribd">2015-07-14 In Re McCool, Motion for Rehearing</a> by <a href="https://www.scribd.com/nanine_mccool" title="View Nanine Nyman McCool's profile on Scribd">Nanine Nyman McCool</a></div>
<iframe class="scribd_iframe_embed" data-aspect-ratio="0.6030789825970548" data-auto-height="false" frameborder="0" height="600" id="doc_11191" scrolling="no" src="https://www.scribd.com/embeds/271804659/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-qlQYfkCpiM2nmyWyCrCX&show_recommendations=true" width="100%"></iframe>jnmccoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13105653642726149653noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-939144376683213322.post-12184395962968689282015-07-17T01:20:00.001-05:002015-10-02T21:32:27.875-05:00Beasties Behind the CurtainI've come to the not-so-un-obvious conclusion that we, as a nation, are all concerned with the wrong terrorists. It's not ISIS, or ISIL or radical Islam in general that is the preeminent threat to our freedom and security - it's judges, and attorneys who aspire to be liked by judges. <br />
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How many people really understand that you can't do anything to a judge (legally) no matter what they do to you or your family? Until you've seen it, lived it, fought it and lost your kids in it, most Americans cannot wrap their heads around the very simple fact that any judge anywhere can take everything from you - your job, your home, your life - even your kids, and do it maliciously and without any regard for the law, and you have absolutely no recourse. It's called judicial immunity. Look it up. <i>Stump v. Sparkman, </i>435 U.S. 349 (1978). </div>
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It's our fault, you know. Well, not mine really. I've seen the little beasties behind the curtain; the sociopaths wearing the robes, the terrorists in plain sight. I've seen it and read about it, and still get desperate calls about it every day. I discarded my veil sometime ago. </div>
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But there are plenty enough of you out there who still fall for it. Good people; hard -working people; law-abiding people, who look up to judges and hang on every word they say; who feel honored if you can call a judge "friend;" get tongue tied and giddy if one deems to notice you, and believe every word they say because they said it. You'll kick some 1st Amendment exercising flag burner's ass and feel all proud of yourself, but not feel one iota of shame for standing before a judge, hat in hand, asking nicely for your rights. <br />
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And I'm going to be really harsh here but, it is in no way even remotely American to be deferential to power. Respectful, yes - but obedient? Since when is obedience, particularly blind, deaf and dumb obedience, a sign of respect? Because it's not. It's a sign of submission, and last time I checked, our national anthem doesn't end on the refrain, "home of the meek and land of the obedient." </div>
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But maybe it should. Because every day, good people; hard-working people; law-abiding people step into court and, like lambs to the slaughter, meek and obedient, lay their heads on the chopping block, always believing that the fine person wearing that impressive black robe will not drop that hatchet on their neck because they're a good person; a good parent; they're hard-working, law abiding and, don't forget, a fierce defender of a piece of fabric with stars and stripes. Just don't ask any of them to defend anyone's rights, much less their own, without getting permission first. <br />
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I can't figure out who I'm more disgusted with: the mechanical, uninspired drones who sacrificed their integrity and dignity so they can keep a piece of paper that says they're an attorney, and maybe one day a judge ... or at least a judge's pet ... or the rest of you, who can't wrap your head around the fact that judges are just average people, with a lot of power, who can do whatever they want with it, and there is absolutely no one left to rein them in because you, the people can't be bothered to stand up and be the Americans who are actually worthy of the great country the Founders entrusted you with. <br />
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This opinion by the Louisiana Supreme Court is based on pure fiction and is so bloated with hypocrisy and self-serving reasoning that it should smell like old road-kill and make about as much sense as sweaters in July. In order to justify disbarring me, they had to ignore, distort and just make up the "facts." It's not hard to check the facts - they're all in the record - but it does require a desire to <i>know </i>the facts, which are inconvenient in my case if the whole objective is to merely disbar me. <br />
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What makes it so easy for them is that these judges know that they can say whatever they want - they could say I was responsible for Jimmy Hoffa's death and disappearance; I was Charles Manson in disguise; Hitler back from the dead; born a poor black child in rural Mississippi. It doesn't matter how ridiculous or absurd, they know that once they declare it, all you robe worshipers are just going to say, "There she goes, that white lady that was born a poor black child ... " And in those rare instances when someone does question them - or accuse them of admitting bias - Oh my! - so what? Even if they're caught in their own lies, they'd have to punish themselves because no one else can do it. And that will be when you'll need that sweater in July - at least by the current Court in Louisiana.<br />
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They took my license - big deal. I'm still standing, taller and prouder than ever. They took my license, but they didn't get my integrity and I'd close that deal every day, twice a day.<br />
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<a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/271804448/In-re-McCool-No-2015-B-0284-La-6-30-2015" style="text-decoration: underline;" title="View In re McCool, No. 2015-B-0284 (La. 6/30/2015) on Scribd">In re McCool, No. 2015-B-0284 (La. 6/30/2015)</a> </div>
<iframe class="scribd_iframe_embed" data-aspect-ratio="0.6069986541049798" data-auto-height="false" frameborder="0" height="600" id="doc_33029" scrolling="no" src="https://www.scribd.com/embeds/271804448/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-HBkbxCgtYMBCw5XY2ThX&show_recommendations=true" width="100%"></iframe>jnmccoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13105653642726149653noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-939144376683213322.post-15621103476941233082015-07-12T18:24:00.000-05:002015-07-12T18:36:20.967-05:00Justice is process, NOT outcome<br />
"And when a strict interpretation of the Constitution, according to the fixed rules which govern the interpretation of laws, is abandoned, and the theoretical opinions of individuals are allowed to control its meaning, we have no longer a Constitution; we are under the government of individual men, who for the time being have power to declare what the Constitution is, according to their own views of what it ought to mean. When such a method of interpretation of the Constitution obtains, in place of a republican Government, with limited and defined powers, we have a Government which is merely an exponent of the will of Congress; or what, in my opinion, would not be preferable, an exponent of the individual political opinions of the members of this court." Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393 (1857) Justice Curtis, dissenting at p. 621.<br />
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I am finally getting around to reading the US Supreme Court's decision finding that states cannot bar same sex marriages. Although I personally have no opposition to same sex marriage, I find myself in the rare position of being in agreement with Justices Scalia (and Roberts and Thomas), in their dissent. It is not the outcome that we should ever focus on in judicial decisions, but the process by which the Court obtained that outcome. The majority's reasoning, no matter how well intentioned, undermines the principles of democracy and States' rights that are fundamental to the fabric of this nation. Worse, it sets a precedent at the highest level of our justice system that judicial advocacy is a legitimate part of the process. This decision strikes a blow to all of us, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, not because it's "wrong" but because the decision was obtained through a process that has never been - and can never be - part of our democratic process. <br />
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Justice Roberts: The need for restraint in administering the strong medicine of substantive due process is a lesson this Court has learned the hard way. The Court first applied substantive due process to strike down a statute in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393 (1857). There the Court invalidated the Missouri Compromise on the ground that legislation restricting the institution of slavery violated the implied rights of slaveholders. The Court relied on its own conception of liberty and property in doing so. It asserted that "an act of Congress which deprives a citizen of the United States of his liberty or property, merely because he came himself or brought his property into a particular Territory of the United States . . . could hardly be dignified with the name of due process of law." Id., at 450. In a dissent that has outlasted the majority opinion, Justice Curtis explained that when the "fixed rules which govern the interpretation of laws [are] abandoned, and the theoretical opinions of individuals are allowed to control" the Constitution's meaning, "we have no longer a Constitution; we are under the government of individual men, who for the time being have power to declare what the Constitution is, according to their own views of what it ought to mean."jnmccoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13105653642726149653noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-939144376683213322.post-89754506811012591882015-03-05T15:23:00.002-06:002020-09-09T21:26:19.639-05:00A bitter pill I'm proud to swallow. <div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, "lucida grande", tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15.456px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
Just for clarification, my license has not been suspended ... yet. If it is suspended, I will likely never be able to have it reinstated because I will never agree that it isn't my job, as an attorney and a US citizen, to call out a judge who ignores the law; who abuses her authority and who denies due process to litigants and that it isn't my sworn duty to call attention to those transgressions to the public, which is the last and only remaining check on judicial authority.</div>
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This Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board disagrees with me and now the Louisiana Supreme Court will ultimately decide, but it's obvious from the LADB's recommendation that it and I have completely different notions of what is honorable and ethical and what an attorney's duty is to the profession and who it serves.</div>
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The thing I keep coming back to is, why do I care? Why even fight? If You, the People, don't care, why should I? This country is, on paper anyway, a democracy and I believe in the democratic process. Clearly, my idea of what it means to be honorable and to serve my clients is not the majority view within the profession, if the LADB's opinion is representative. If this is the system you all want, then the democratic process says you can have it.</div>
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It's not like losing my license at this point is going to be some huge financial blow. I never made enough money to live on as an attorney because I did so much pro bono work. I just wanted to help people. If I have to choose between helping people and keeping my license then the license is meaningless.</div>
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Do I sound bitter? I am, a little, but not because of my license, or the accusations, or even the fight itself. I'm proud of my conduct. I'm proud of the fight. Whatever the outcome, I will be no less proud of what I've done because in doing it, I was true to the oath I took, to uphold the law and to advocate for justice for my clients.</div>
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I've lost so much respect for the Bar that my license just looks like blackmail to me anymore. I'm ashamed of the profession and what the LADB has done in its name, and what it has allowed to go on in its name, in plain view, while it turns a blind eye. I am embarrassed to tell people I'm an attorney because the LADB's opinion legitimizes so much of what people despise about attorneys and judges. To keep that license, according to the LADB, I have to become what I despise. That's not any kind of choice at all, and I have no problems choosing to keep my convictions. I'm proud, not bitter, to make that choice.</div>
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I'm bitter because the justice system that I believe in - the one that actually involves justice - is about to get ground under the heel of the status quo that you all seem to never stop complaining about - and none of you can be bothered to care, though no doubt, it won't stop any of you from complaining incessantly about how broken it is.</div>
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I am besieged daily by requests to sign petitions and to protest any number of goings-on in this parish and beyond, from fracking to term limits to saving the whales, wild horses, illegal immigrants, legal immigrants - I could go on all day - and am constantly sought out by people who want the benefit of my legal training - for free - which I still give whenever I can.</div>
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As important as all of those things are, no one, other than me and those closest to me, seem even a little bit worried about what it means if the Louisiana Supreme Court sees fit to take my license. No one seems outraged by the LADB's recommendations, analysis, or blatant misrepresentation of the facts which support their conclusions and recommendations. No one is even a little bit concerned about the inherent validation by the LADB of this legal system that you all constantly complain about.</div>
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That makes me bitter. Not a pretty truth, but truth nonetheless.</div>
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At this point, keep my license, lose my license, personally, it hardly seems to matter. It's just a piece of paper and with it or without it, I'm the same person with the same convictions. But if the Supreme Court agrees that what I did in representing my client is sanctionable, then you're damn right it matters to the legal system.</div>
jnmccoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13105653642726149653noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-939144376683213322.post-4160579442285962452014-12-10T08:59:00.002-06:002014-12-10T09:10:25.939-06:00Of shepherds, sheep, and wolves in sheep's clothing - with guns and badges.<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.3999996185303px; line-height: 15.4559993743896px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
When I was trained as a law enforcement officer a long long time ago, we were trained to use only the force necessary to protect others and ourselves; to use deadly force only as a last resort; to always act in a way that deescalated the situation, not escalated it; and most importantly, to be willing to sacrifice our lives before we took the life of an innocent. That meant that in the split second of making a decision of shoot or don't shoot, your duty was to sacrifice your life before you harmed or killed someone you weren't absolutely certain posed a threat to you or someone else. We were repeatedly reminded that the people we were engaging with were the people we had sworn to protect and serve.</div>
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Law enforcement is an extremely difficult and thankless job when its done the way I was trained and I was in awe of the officers who trained us and did this thankless job every day. They were/are heroes - true heroes.</div>
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Today's LE officers are not trained as police but as an occupying army, and this shouldn't surprise us considering how many service members who came home from Dessert Storm/the first Iraq War were snapped up by law enforcement departments at every level of government, a practice that continues today. When today's LE respond to a call, everyone is considered a potential hostile, and their primary concern is protecting their lives and the lives of their fellow officers. As a soldier in a foreign land, where anyone not in a uniform is considered the "enemy" - this training makes sense. In war, shoot first and ask questions later is a valid and important practice, and there is nothing heroic about killing the enemy to keep yourself safe - it's just necessary for the mission to be successful. Heroics on the battlefield are very different than the heroism required of civilian law enforcement officers.</div>
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As the public, we've got to recognize and come to grips with the fact that although the job of law enforcement demands respect, just because someone wears a LE uniform - or any uniform for that matter - does not make them automatically entitled to our respect. It is hubris to believe that because persons puts on a uniform, or a title, or a black robe they can then act any way they want because the uniform, the title, or the robe automatically makes anything they do honorable and just. But hubris becomes normal if We the People are willing to go along with it.</div>
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Only sheep stand by and justify the wolf slaughtering their herd simply because the wolf is wearing a sheep's hide, and America wasn't birthed by sheep. We the People, people, We the People. Please figure it out before we don't have any shepherds left.</div>
jnmccoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13105653642726149653noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-939144376683213322.post-65614309509898252882014-12-04T10:43:00.000-06:002014-12-05T07:56:14.354-06:00The Machine ... <div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 10.5pt;">
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">It DOES exist!</span></h2>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Recently, someone messaged
me and remarked that because of my recent stint in politics, I must agree that
there was no “good ‘ole boy network” in St. Tammany anymore. I don’t know this person except through Facebook, but his posts, wherever I've seen them, are intelligent and respectful so his remark gave me pause. After my year of living politically – that is,
wading through an ever deepening river of slime and hoping I didn't step off
into a deep hole – I am more acutely aware of the “good ‘ole boy network” than
I ever was before. Before I ran, ‘the
machine” was just a concept that I understood about as well as I understand
gravity. I know it exists because I can
see the effects of it all around me, but I don’t know how it works or what it
looks like. In fact, I was less certain
that there was some political machine in St. Tammany before I ran than I was
certain of gravity. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">Having now seen the machine first hand, contrary to the messager's assumption, I know it exists. What I think surprised me, and what would
probably surprise most people including the FB friend who gave me pause, is
that “the machine” that most of us talk about is also very much like
gravity. We see its effects so we know
something’s there but the machine itself – like the force of gravity – is essentially
invisible to us. It's so pervasive we don't see it for what it is. And many of us think we know what it is when, in fact, we don't. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Some are a cog in the machine but like and protect it, or at least what the
rest of us call the machine.</span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">They don’t
see a machine. They see a system that functions as it’s supposed to, and they don’t
think it’s anything other than normal. It’s the way of the world and the way it
should be.</span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Some, many of us in fact, are a cog in that machine but don't realize it. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">Before I ran for judge, I
had never run for public office before and had paid no attention to politics
except to try and make an intelligent decision about how to cast my vote. I didn't have a positive impression
of politics but truthfully, it was like watching foreign film without subtitles
– what politicians say is usually meaningless to me and trying to figure out
what’s going on requires paying really close attention to body language and
context and a lot of cultural clues that might as well arise from an Amazonian
aboriginal tribe for all I can relate to the world in which politicians live. </span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I have found it maddeningly pointless to do anything but guess, usually voting against something rather than for someone.</span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">A dear friend of mine recently
said that she didn’t have time to NOT trust the government, and although I have
serious objections to her perspective, I am sympathetic to where she’s coming
from.</span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Most of us who have to work to pay
the bills and who still vote have taken shortcuts to remain, at least
ceremonially, engaged in the process and most of those shortcuts involve
trusting someone or some group to tell us how to vote.</span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">We are bombarded with information that we
must accept or reject based on trust, or lack thereof, of the source.</span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">Therein lies the
problem. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">This may surprise many of
you, but I do not enjoy confrontation.
Agreeing to disagree is my comfort zone BUT I’m not afraid of confrontation
when it’s necessary and as a lawyer – nevermind as a patriot – it is my job to
confront injustice, especially when it emanates from those entrusted with dispensing
justice. As someone who <i>chose </i>a profession that requires me to
swear an oath to stand for justice, I am confused and frustrated by the current
culture of “go along to get along” that pervades the legal profession. Go along to get along is NOT a compatible construct
in an adversarial system where someone pays you a lot of money to fight for
their rights. This should be obvious to
anyone smart enough to get through law school, which is to say, it does not
require brilliance. It does, however,
require a willingness to resist significant pressure to "go along" from people you are
conditioned to practically revere. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">After I announced I was
running for judge, someone warned me that it was considered bad manners (in St.
Tammany/Washington) to run against a seated judge and that it was going to
offend the other judges and my colleagues that I was running. This was my first glimpse of the machine,
though I didn't realize it and I’m certain the person conveying that message to
me didn't see himself as part of the machine.
He had just learned how to “go along to get along” and was trying to
help me out to do the same. Smart person
– smarter than average in fact – yet oblivious to what he was promoting. He didn't confront this practice and see “machine.”
He saw structure and normalcy and embraced it. I was stunned, then outraged, and that outrage continues. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">This practice of discouraging
attorneys from running – which is just another element of the culture of not
offending judges if you know what’s good for you – is the single most powerful
means by which a small group of well-respected people control and manipulate
the much larger community without the community even having a hint that they
are being bilked out of their democracy. </span><br />
<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">What do we say all the
time about why it’s so important to vote? “If you don’t vote, don’t complain.” “If
you don’t like the incumbent, vote him/her out of office!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">Well, how many of you chronic
voters voted for Judge Childress on November 4? How about Judge Hand? Swartz? Garcia,
Burris, Cody, Gardner, Penzatto, Badeaux, Knight or Devereux? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">For that matter, how many
of you who regularly vote voted for Walter Reed in 2008? Or the election before
that? In over thirty years, not counting
the first time he was elected to the position, how many times did you actually
go to the polls and cast a vote for or against Reed? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I already know the answer
to all those questions: None, to the judge elections, and one time, to Reed. And
yet Reed got re-elected every time without anyone casting a single vote (save
once) and all of those judges just got reelected on November 4 the same way. So
no more complaining from any of you about Reed or those judge who got reelected
– or Strain, for that matter, because he
also has been re-elected repeatedly without opposition –because you didn't go
cast a vote so you have no right to complain … right? Right?!!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Did you even think about
the fact that you didn't get a choice? Did you even realize all those judges
were up for reelection? </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">What about all those election years when Reed or Strain
had no opposition, so there were no signs, no news stories, no debates or
forums? Did you even know you had been
cheated out of a choice? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">More importantly, have you
ever done anything except sit back and passively wait for your candidates to be
served up to you by one political organization or another? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Here’s the short
story. The machine is real, but it doesn't believe it's evil and most of what we see of it isn't evil either. Which is what makes it so
powerful. It isn't blatant evil that is
so dangerous to our community or our democracy. It is the blind
trust we put in good people who have put their blind trust in people who
believe they are entitled to our deference and to their social position and to do whatever is necessary – including evil – to retain what they KNOW they are entitled to. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Everyone thinks the Machine is about money. But
money isn't what the machine wants – money is what it needs to get what it
wants, and what it wants is to be in control. </span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In every case, except perhaps George Washington, the people who have risen to the most powerful political positions in our communities, both locally and nationally, have done so not because they seek money but because they seek power.</span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">It’s why I ran for judge, frankly.</span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I wanted to have that power and authority
that the office would grant me.</span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Power, like money, is a tool.</span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Having either doesn't make you good or evil,
but what you do with them can.</span><span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">Most people, though, want
to feel important far more than they need to actually be important. The need for social acceptance into a particular group is part of all of us, and sadly, it is the means by which the machine continues its control. Those who aspire to be liked and admired by "important people", i.e., people with money and power, are easily used by the machine to benignly spread the Kool Aid. Give most people the feeling that they have
the inside track; that they have a connection, or a connection to someone who
is connected to “important” people, and they will put their faith in that connection, and treat whatever they hear from that grail as if it is gospel. It's not wrong or shameful to to do this, just not very wise. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">How many city and
parish council members went and told their supporters to vote for Amacker? How many
pastors? How many judges? And how many people voted the way they were told because they
trusted those people, and will do so again this Saturday?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">Do you know how many of those council members, pastors, and judges ever met me? Interviewed me? Cared at all about what the real issues were or what was a stake? Very few. Too few. Those "important" people supported who they were told to support or who they were paid to support, and then they went out to people that trusted them, and told them how to vote. To NOT do so means that they will face very well funded opposition next election. Or lose a tithe and be kicked out of the fold. Or have some secret spilled. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">That's the machine, in all of its glory. And all of us are entrapped by it because most of us want to like and believe in the people who we have entrusted with power. It can seriously mess with your zen, depending how far down the conspiracy theorists track you're willing to go, to realize that people you respect from a distance are not so respectable up close. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">One thing this campaign
taught me is just how much most people want to believe in someone and have
someone to trust and look up to. They
want to believe that someone in leadership actually does care about them. When they believe that, they will follow them
blindly. The problem is, you can never
be sure who the person you're following blindly is following blindly, and why. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">Several months before the
election, I had a meeting with someone who point blank told me he was very
politically connected and that Amacker was not well liked by his connections
but she would likely be reelected anyway.
I asked him how it was that this small group of powerful people hoped to
control an election that involved 30K to 70K voters and he told me, and I am
grossly oversimplifying, that almost everyone wanted to be in their
"club" and the majority of voters would vote as they were told to
vote so they could feel like they were a member of the club. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">It was a bizarre
interview, to say the least. I suspect my political naïveté must have
frustrated and surprised my host. I
think he thought I was kind of stupid. We
had a fundamental disagreement about what it meant to be ethical in politics, and it struck me afterward that he had lived with
his particular perspective for so long without any dissenting voices that he
was as confused by my perspective as I was by his. I think he was take aback by my failure to be persuaded to come around to his perspective, which frankly, deeply disturbed me. </span><br />
<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">Although I had gone into that interview with
the impression that this person was already willing to get behind me and
support my campaign - he made it clear during our discussion that he had no
respect for Amacker and what she was doing on the bench – I did not leave there
with his support. I was not willing to
come into the fold, so to speak, and take the oath of blind loyalty to his
group, which I think I gave away when I could not be persuaded to adopt his view of what it meant to be ethical in politics. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">I have never done blind
loyalty and don't recommend it. I don’t even follow myself with
blind loyalty. Everyone is capable of
error; of getting it wrong; of being unfair, biased, prejudiced. Injustice lurks in the blinding light of
absolute certainty just as much as it does in the dark hallows of deliberate ignorance. A surprising number of us are frightened by uncertainty and out of a need to feel certainty, will believe anything without question, and will tolerate no questions from anyone else. There's nothing wrong with faith - but we would all do better to discern between what we believe because of faith - and what we actually know. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">Who do you trust for guidance
about how to vote? Do you know who they trust?
It’s not a bad system if you know everyone’s agenda. The problem is, most people in politics these days, or
close to politics, don’t want to admit to themselves that their agenda is not
at all about service to the community, but about gaining social standing, power
and prestige. And most of us don't want to admit that we don't really "know" what they tell us is true - we just choose to believe in it, and them. Faith. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Right before the November
4 election, someone connected the dots for me between Trainor and Reed, and why
Black initially endorsed Montgomery and then flip flopped to Trainor. There aren't criminal dots. Again, I think that's what people
misunderstand. It’s not so much about
money and graft as it is about what circles you run in, and how close you are
to the inner circle; whose cell phone numbers you have access to, who you can
call when you have a brush with the law, or a neighbor. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I knew that Black had been
Amacker’s campaign manager before he decided to run for DA, but I didn't know
that he and Amacker had been close friends for years. Because of their friendship, I was told, he
fully expected her camp’s full support when he decided to run, and her camp
included Reed and his supporters. This
probably accounts for Reed’s honorable mention of Black when Reed announced he wouldn't run again and, in the same speech, sang the praises of Brian Trainor,
who had only just announced he would run a day or so before. This is
also very likely where the wheels started to come off for Black because he
might not have counted on the ties between Amacker’s husband, Ted Ditmer and his
partner, Chuck Hughes and the Sheriff’s office. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">I was told, though
obviously I can't say myself that it is true, that Chuck Hughes' brother is
Brian Trainor's godfather. Chuck Hughes is, of course, a partner at Talley, Anthony
Hughes and Knight, along with Amacker's husband, Ted Ditmer - the firm that represents Sheriff Strain and any suits
brought against his office or deputies. Sheriff
Strain is, of course, Brian Trainor's boss, and Trainor's father was also chief
deputy to the Sheriff prior to Brian assuming that post, or so I’m told. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">Sheriff Strain and Walter Reed
have a long and rich history of working in lock step with each other, and that’s
a fact that either of them will happily confirm. There is no way Sheriff Strain would endorse
anyone for DA that Walter Reed didn’t. Anyone who insists that Brian Trainor
has no connections to Reed is either attempting to delude everyone else, or is
actively deluding themselves. Either
way, the easiest way to confirm this, if you don’t want to take my completely unsupported
testimony here as gospel, is to just go compare the campaign finance reports
between Reed and Trainor. It’s obvious
if you know who’s who and who owns what.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">According to a different
source, Trainor was being groomed to take Strain’s job when Strain ultimately
decided to step down, but then Reed got into trouble. With rumors circulating that Reed would be
indicted at any moment, the decision was made for Reed to step down and put
Trainor in the DA spot to ensure that the “structure” that Reed and Strain had
built and managed over the prior 30 years was not threatened. Again, I’m not suggesting that, even if true,
these people are planning anything nefarious.
Reed and Strain and those closest to them sincerely believe that the system
–what most of us who aren’t in that circle refer to as “the machine” – is a
legitimate means of governing. They are not deliberately scheming to commit
evil. They are deliberately strategizing – or scheming depending on your
perspective – about how to retain their power and influence in the two parishes
with the change in Reed’s position – all for our own good. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">So Reed anointed Trainor privately, where it counts, more so than publicly, where it was a problem. Black got ticked off because he didn't get the support he expected from Amacker and her connections, so he outed Trainor during the primary as an insider and part of the machine, and Black, himself an insider, would know. The flip flop, of course, was inevitable. No offense to Alan Black, but he's one of them and unlikely to know how to act for long outside the fold. But I think the voice message to Montgomery on November 4, speaks volumes to how deep that rift got over the primary. For a while, Black was serious about breaking away. Kind of a shame he didn't make it. I was rooting for him (at least to break away from the machine. Never for DA). </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In that same vein, I am
not suggesting that Brian Trainor is evil or even corrupt.
I don’t know Brian Trainor well enough to know his character, though I
can say that the people he has surrounded himself with during this election have
caused me to lose some confidence in him.
But I’m still willing to believe that he’s a nice guy who means
well. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">Let’s be clear about
something though: Brian Trainor and his campaign may say he’s not connected to the machine but
what he’s really saying is that he doesn’t believe a machine exists, just like
my FB friend. Brian has spent his entire life in that machine and he can't see the machine for the cogs he's surrounded by. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">He doesn’t
have to be Reed’s puppet; he is Reed, essentially. He sees the world the way Reed does; the way
Strain does; he understands power and authority the way they do. He doesn't see a machine because it surrounds
him and orders his world like gravity surrounds us and orders the world. To do away with the machine, for Brian, would
be like doing away with gravity – impossible. To Brian, it's not a machine, it’s good, it's the way the world works and should work, though
obviously, like gravity, if you don’t respect it, it will hurt you. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">So vote how you will, but
I hope you will not delude yourself that there isn’t a machine/system in place
that desires to perpetuate itself through Brian Trainor. Reed and Strain, and all of those people who
feel entitled to their position of power and prestige, have chosen Brian for a
reason, even if Brian himself doesn’t understand it because, like the force of
gravity he can’t see but takes for granted every day, the machine is all he
knows. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">I’m voting for Warren
Montgomery because he’s got much more experience in life and law than Brian
Trainor; because he appears to value justice over conviction rates, unlike
Brian; because he has a defense attorney’s perspective of what it’s like to be
at the mercy of an unjust justice system, and, in no small part, because he isn’t
Reed or Strain’s choice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">And if you want to be rid of the machine, but don't believe that I have any idea of what I'm talking about because you KNOW the people you trust KNOW what they know, then just take a chance. Vote for Montgomery because he is most definitely NOT the machine. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4d4d4d; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">Happy voting!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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jnmccoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13105653642726149653noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-939144376683213322.post-73331287382342936392014-09-26T11:08:00.001-05:002020-09-09T15:10:52.562-05:00FREEDOM - it cannot be bought, but it can be sold. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTKCGU5P5J-sSZHwLvtWTeJ7fQh3Gw3tMphH1GwyA77wlqCz4nydXeZXCxuCGkzX-EMSehy6PQai8vHC3Ua7hTAjWGQ2vfGflPJDQX6wYyFOtykop_V9HkR1Oul4xLr8_11QMBOQ3GjsVY/s1600/accumulation+of+wealth.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTKCGU5P5J-sSZHwLvtWTeJ7fQh3Gw3tMphH1GwyA77wlqCz4nydXeZXCxuCGkzX-EMSehy6PQai8vHC3Ua7hTAjWGQ2vfGflPJDQX6wYyFOtykop_V9HkR1Oul4xLr8_11QMBOQ3GjsVY/s1600/accumulation+of+wealth.jpeg" /></a></div>
<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">The accumulation of wealth is not a virtuous or even meaningful pursuit. </span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: helvetica, arial, "lucida grande", tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" />
<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Sorry, it just isn't.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: helvetica, arial, "lucida grande", tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" />
<span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Regardless of your faith, all of the mainstream religions are founded on the fundamental principles of love and service to others, not making a buck at other's expense for the sake of a new car, a bigger house, yet another pair of shoes (guilty), every imaginable new toy or gadget, whe</span><span class="text_exposed_show" face="" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">ther for ourselves or our children, or any of the other material objects we devote so much of our incomes to obtaining. Every time you or I pass on making a contribution to a worthy cause - and there are so many worthy causes - so we can buy yet another adornment for ourselves or our lives, we are failing to be virtuous; we are failing our fellow humans; we are failing ourselves; and if a person of faith, we are, in addition to all of those things, also failing God.<br /><br />Which is not to say that you are not free to devote your life to the pursuit of wealth for wealth's sake. Hey, it's a free country - or it's supposed to be. Because I believe in that freedom to the core of my being, I, for one, will defend your individual right to pursue wealth for wealth's sake, and to eschew the christian values of service and sacrifice that this country was founded upon. I hope the irony is not lost upon you.<br /><br />But here's the thing, at least for me. That pursuit is enslaving us. We are enslaved by the rhetoric that justifies the endless pursuit of more stuff; we are enslaved by our adoration and envy of all those who have more stuff than us; we are enslaved by our contempt of all those who have less stuff than us; we are enslaved by the condescension we feel entitled to every time we actually act upon our christian values and do any little thing to help someone we deem as "less fortunate" than us; we are enslaved by our sense that we are entitled to have more than we do, which relieves us of any sense that, perhaps, we should be doing more for others who actually have even less. And if you are a person of faith, you are also putting more and more stuff between you and God.<br /><br />I'm guilty. I'm not above all of that. I am at times filled with resentment because I don't feel rewarded or appreciated enough for all the sacrifices I have made for others. There are days when my frustration boils up in me and I lash out at those closest to me in anger and, sadly, entitlement. And I feel perfectly justified, at least in the moment, in feeling that way and acting that way. Feelings are powerful, and we are all "entitled" to have our own.<br /><br />But just because you or I "feel" a certain way, doesn't make us right. Feelings are not facts. Just because I feel entitled and unappreciated, doesn't mean that I am entitled to one more blessing in my life, or another iota of appreciation than I've already received. But as long as we give in to that "feeling" that "I" deserve more, so I am entitled to turn my back on others; I am entitled to put wealth over service; I am entitled to use whatever means I can to get ahead and make the big bucks, or just one more buck, regardless of how I earn it, or who or what I earn it from, then we are willingly participating in the demise of our democracy and this amazing, beautiful country that was founded as a nation under God.<br /><br />In today's divisive political climate, I dare you not to be shaken to your core by the degree to which we actively condone, on a daily basis, the abdication of our democratic process in favor of Corporate control all for the sake of money and stuff, and how we routinely abandon our neighbors out of fear and greed.<br /><br />We are, as a community, as a nation, as the people of the world, in desperate need of a collective Counting Our Blessings day, every day, no matter how few they may seem on any given day. Because once you manage to step outside your own personal sense of entitlement, it is absolutely humbling to see how much you have been given and not feel compelled to give for the sheer privilege of giving, and to honor God, or the universe, for all that it has given you.<br /><br />Stop today, and count your blessings and then just do one random act of kindness to someone who looks like they are in desperate need of it and remind yourself that being kind to others is the greatest kindness that we can give ourselves.<br /><br />Peace.</span><br />
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jnmccoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13105653642726149653noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-939144376683213322.post-30123006487221189552014-07-23T09:32:00.002-05:002020-09-09T12:29:31.012-05:00Fracking St. Tammany - why I say, not in my backyard, not in my parish, not on my planet. <div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The more I read, the more I am
convinced that fracking is "safe" like smoking was safe;
like thalidomide was safe; like agent orange was safe. Safe for whom?
In each of those cases, billions were made by a few at the expense of
thousands of lives before the sheer weight of the devastation could
no longer be denied. Then, finally, came the acknowledgment by those
who should have protected the public from the beginning that, not
only was it not safe, but the evidence of the threat had been there
all along.
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In the case of fracking, we are talking
about the "safety" not of the individuals who voluntarily
expose themselves and their property to it, but of our water supply.
And by "our," I do mean, all of us. Not just this
community, but our country and the world. Clean water is fast
becoming the most valuable commodity of our time. Just ask Texas,
Colorado, and California.
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We in south Louisiana, surrounded by
water, deluged by it almost every summer afternoon, take water for
granted. We take so much for granted. Have we learned nothing from
the past? Do we really want to wait for the evidence that fracking is
destroying water supplies to become so overwhelming that it can no
longer be denied, even by the oil and gas industry? It's frightening
to me to guess at how much worse it has to be before we wake up.
Again, look at, and I mean really look, at what's going on in Texas
and California as they are beginning to realize how much of their
clean water they have sacrificed in the name of profits and the
assurances by oil and gas that fracking is "safe."</div>
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<br />
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The rhetoric of "economic benefit"
and "responsible natural resource development" has put us
in a trance from which we must awaken before we experience first hand
that you can't drink money, no matter how much of it you've made off
of fracking, or anything else for that matter. Sure, you can buy it
with your wealth, but only if it exists to be bought.
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Wake up, people. Please, wake up.
Unlike the deaths and injuries caused by smoking, thalidomide and
agent orange, to name only a few, this devastation cannot be
eradicated with money judgments, apologies, and television
commercials. Once our water is contaminated, the only thing that
will repair it is time. I'd guess a few thousand years. And even if I
could live that long without clean water, who, especially here in
south Louisiana, the sportsman's paradise, would want to?</div>
jnmccoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13105653642726149653noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-939144376683213322.post-34408242250699150852014-01-26T15:04:00.000-06:002015-08-25T17:29:55.807-05:00Reality Check<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I grew up in a dysfunctional home. Bored yet? I don't know ANYONE who didn't grow up with some level of dysfunction going on. I know there are people out there who claim to have had very normal, loving parents and families, but I've never actually met any of them. The kids next door to me were raised by their grandmother because their mother was an alcoholic and their dad just couldn't be bothered; the kids across the street, their mom died in childbirth with the youngest, who suffered a permanent brain injury during the birth and both were raised by their heartbroken single dad and his mother; my best friend's family was like a whole season of Law and Order - someone was always being arrested, being shot, disappearing, or involved in a serious, drug related accident; another friend's father tried to stick his tongue down my throat in his garage while my friend and her mom, his wife, were inside cooking dinner. I was 12. What do you think was going on in that house? Even my husband's family, by far the most normal I've encountered so far, had its dark side. <br />
<br />
My parents did the best they could. My dad was a workaholic and an alcoholic and very passive, but as a dad, he was nearly perfect. He did a lot of things wrong, but I grew up knowing, without question, that he loved us - me - unconditionally. <br />
<br />
Mom did her best too, but the truth of the matter is, her best just sucked. She did a lot of things right - probably saved my life several times over by the things she taught me - but what she called "love" had a greater resemblance to being marched at bayonet-point through a minefield - one wrong step and BAM! everything went to hell, and NO AMOUNT of begging would get her to stop the march.<br />
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As a child, dad was heaven and mom was hell. Dad was safe, predictable, comforting, joy. Mom was volatility, unpredictability and a constant source of fear, stress, angst. I was infinitely happier with my dad - completely relaxed and safe. I skirted around my mother, struggled with wanting her attention and being terrified of gaining it. I never knew what to say or do to get any given response from her. She was completely random to me, sometimes kind and affectionate, the next minute oblivious, even if I'd been on fire I think, and the next a raging maniac, with the coldest, deadest eyes I'd ever seen. I had nightmares about her flat, green-eyed gaze for years after I grew up and left home. <br />
<br />
When I was in the 4th grade, my parents separated. Mom moved out and left my safe, predictable wonderful dad to look after me and my siblings. I remember how much more fun it was getting up in the morning for school, even though we had to get up earlier so dad could fix us breakfast before he left himself. I remember how nice it was the way my dad would wake me up in the morning, standing at the foot of my bed, grabbing my foot, or gently shaking the mattress with his own bare foot, saying "Up, up up; rise and shine, hit the deck," his lovely, deep baritone, resonating love and ... sadness. At the time, I thought he was sad because mom had left, but now, I wonder if it was more because he could see the terror in my face every day - the terror arising from my fear that my crazy, volatile, scary mother, WOULD NEVER COME HOME AGAIN. <br />
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Even though my parents didn't really go to church and rarely brought us to church, I knew there was a god, and every day, on my way to and from school, I would pray to that god with every ounce of my childish will for him to send my mother home. I didn't think about how scary she was. I didn't think about how much nicer and quieter it was to go home after school, and how fun it was to hang out with dad, who would hold court in our small kitchen and get us to help him fry shrimp, or redfish, or whatever. All I thought about was that my mother had to come home. It was like living with a fist around my esophagus for those months that she was gone. I felt like I was choking all the time, like the earth had dropped from beneath my feet and I was in free fall everyday. <br />
<br />
I spent everyday trying to get my breath. Until she came home. And then the world was right again. It was cured. I went back to tiptoeing around her, missing my dad, b/c I saw him less, and worrying about what her mood would be at any given moment. But she was home and all was right in the world. I could breath again. I could pay attention in school again. I could think about something else again. <br />
<br />
In my line of work, I hear a lot of people tell me that they love their children, and would do anything<br />
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for them. Anything. Except stay with that child's other parent. Or give up drugs/alcohol/gambling. Or the mistress/paramour. Or put aside whatever differences he/she might have with the other to make it work. Obviously, this isn't an option when there's violence or abuse involved, but that's not the case in most divorces. In most divorces, one or both spouses is just bored with the other. The thrill is gone; the infatuation is worn, the chemistry is stale and suddenly, you can't be bothered. <br />
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Don't fool yourselves, though, and tell yourself you're leaving "for the kids." Before you decide you can't take it anymore, take a few days or weeks to consider what you're going to do to your kids. Because I can assure you that most kids will run headlong into a beating from a parent rather than go happily with the other in a divorce. No, it doesn't make sense to most of us adults, but kids aren't adults. They don't see or understand the world the way we do, and we don't see or understand the world the way they do. Try to remember that when you're reassuring yourself that your kids "will understand." They don't; I promise. jnmccoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13105653642726149653noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-939144376683213322.post-18298562569951819092012-06-09T20:41:00.001-05:002020-09-09T21:36:41.053-05:00I Need to Be More Like Russell Crowe ...<h2>
I got married for the insurance. </h2>
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I was just-turned 40 and being activated for the second gulf war and it occurred to me that if anything were to happen to me while I was on AD (in my ultra-dangerous job of writing regulations in DC) I could at least leave the man I loved a little bit of cash to help him raise his son. It was finally a reason for marriage that made sense to me. Of course, although he had asked me to marry him at least a half-dozen times in the first two years we were together, after being turned down cold every time, my not-yet hubby had quit asking nearly a year before. Quitter.<br />
<br />
So, it was left up to me to do the asking, which I did late one morning as we were leaving the elementary school where we had just enrolled his son in 3rd grade. I turned to him as we were walking down the sidewalk, with cars whooshing past us a few feet away, and the heat blasting up from the pavement (it was August in New Orleans) and said, "We should get married." Very romantic, I know. But hey - he was always the romantic one. He cried at the end of Titanic; I was just annoyed. He remembers the date of our first email; and our first date, and our anniversary; I have a hard time remembering his birthday (much less our anniversary). But I'll tell you one thing, if we ever go down in the North Sea with only a door for a raft, either we're both getting on the damn raft, or I'm staying in the water with him. None of that watching-your-soul-mate-drift-away for me. What kind of crap is that?<br />
<br />
Not that "James" (his name has been changed to protect the innocent) is my "soul mate." If I have one of those, I doubt it would be good for either one of us to actually get together. If the other half of me is anything like this half of me, hooking up would definitely end badly - and wouldn't the sex be just boring? Would my soul mate challenge me - or call me out when I've got my head up my ass? Would my soul mate even need courage to stand before one of my issue-driven rants and be certain it's only temporary insanity? I don't know - maybe I don't fully understand the concept, but I am absolutely certain that the first time James met me, it wasn't love at first sight. The first time he met me he thought I was hot, and smart, and funny, (which I was/am!) and he wanted desperately to get into my pants, which was understandable, since I was, you know, hot. And smart. And funny. In that order. (And still am! Except maybe not in the same order ... )<br />
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But that's all about sex, and hormones, and chemistry, and in the interest of being honest, rather than taking poetic license, it's only fair that I admit that I went into the relationship pretty certain that, after the chemistry wore off, we wouldn't go much farther.<br />
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It wasn't about James so much as it was what I had come to expect. Emotionally, I'm pretty demanding and uncompromising. Don't jerk my chain; don't feed me crap; don't "be nice." Be honest. Brutally honest if you must, but say what you mean and mean what you say, and know you mean it before you say it because you can't really ever take it back. As everyone knows, this is not always so great when you're on the receiving end of someone else's honesty (unless, of course, they're telling you how hot, smart and funny you are). As one former friend told me, I was a complete moron if I thought she was going to thank me for telling her how screwed up I thought she was. As far as I'm concerned, she's the moron for caring so much about what a moron thinks.<br />
<br />
And that's essentially how I expected me and James to go. At some point, I confront him with my wise insight on how he's failing as a human in some specific area of his life, he tells me to fuck off, and we're done. It's not that I wanted all my relationships to end that way, but I tried the other way, and it just isn't for me. I never learn to trust the relationship, you know? How can it be real if I have to lie about how I feel? And in those relationships based on me being less than honest about how I felt, I invariably still ended up hurting someone else. Granted, it was later, rather than sooner, but it seemed to hurt a lot more. <br />
<br />
So, and even more so with James, I made a point to be brutally honest from day one, chemistry be damned. I cut him zero slack. On our first real date, I called him on using a particularly offensive word and told him I wouldn't tolerate it; after we dated a few months I told him he couldn't drink around me anymore because he was an obnoxious drunk; I even remember chewing his ass over putting knives in the dishwasher wrong, Those are some of the nicer, less petty things. I kept waiting for him to get nasty, tell me what a raving bitch I was, and leave. Instead, he never said that word again; quit drinking completely around me and stopped putting anything in the dishwasher. That last one might have a hint of passive aggressiveness in it, but I can live with it.<br />
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<br />
I think he asked me to marry him the first time within the first 6 months we were dating. I don't remember exactly what I said, but it was essentially that there was no way either of us knew the other well enough to get married, and for all I knew, he was an axe murderer with Ted Bundy-ish charm, suckering me into trusting him so he could axe murder me and steal all my worldly goods, which consisted of a 15 year old pick up truck, about $1,000 worth of furniture and a boat load of student debt. Yeah, I've got some trust issues.<br />
<br />
He probably asked me to marry him a half dozen more times in the second year we were together, living together now, but I still said no. When the light finally came on for me, or I finally pulled my head out of my ass, depending on how honest I want to be, he wasn't even there. I find it ironic, or perhaps disturbing, that the most romantic moment of my entire life happened when I was alone. He'd called me, in the middle of the day, because he had a moment from work, and just wanted to hear my voice. He wasn't upset with anyone, didn't want to vent. He was having a fine day and just took a moment to call. He was sweet, and funny, got me to laugh, even though I was not necessarily having a good day, and then he had to go.<br />
<br />
A few days earlier, I had had a total melt down on my way to court. I was nervous and stressed out and I went completely ballistic on him at breakfast, for no good reason, I might add. I was thinking of that when he hung up the phone that day, still cringing at how ugly I had been and marveling at how calm he had stayed, and, when I called him several hours later to beg for forgiveness, he had told me, "It's okay; I know how you get when you're stressed out." He wasn't even mad at me. And he knew me. And he still loved me enough to call me in the middle of the day to tell me a funny story and that he just wanted to hear my voice. <br />
<br />
And, like a tiny tsunami, understanding began rolling relentlessly through all the intellectual, rationalized barriers I had constructed in my head, and I realized that I had been waiting for nearly two years for the relationship to go according to my expectation, and it just wasn't going there. While I had been watching and waiting for the signs that yes, it was business as usual, James had been doing all these other things that, now that I looked at them, looked a lot like what love should resemble. He trusted me to make my own mistakes; believed that I was smart enough to figure out any problem ... eventually; trusted that no matter how badly I did something, it was my best, and never ever forgot the good in me, even when I was being really nasty. He always trusted in me, the whole me, not just certain parts of me. And I knew two things at that moment: 1) that there was no way I was ever giving him up voluntarily; and 2) I was going to learn from him how to love him like that, because he deserved nothing less.<br />
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<br />
<br />
That was really the day I married James, at least six months before we bothered to acquire the legal status. I was certain he would notice within a few weeks of my epiphany, and then, romantic guy that he is, would ask me to marry him officially. Well, as you already know, that didn't happen.<br />
<br />
So what, you must be asking yourself, assuming you've gotten this far, has any of this got to do with Russell Crowe? Okay, well, James has a son from a prior marriage. I met him when he was five, and at that time, his mom had primary physical custody, and he saw his dad every other weekend and on some evenings during the week. I have no kids of my own, but I generally like them, and I definitely want to do right by them, so when James and I moved in together, we set up a room for Brett and on his weekends, I made sure he and his dad had time together without me. I figured as a pseudo step-parent, my role was pretty much to stay out of the way and maybe offer some comic relief from time to time. <br />
<br />
Unfortunately, it didn't go that way. Brett's mom developed some serious problems and she finally admitted that she couldn't take care of him and just like that, I was a full time step-parent. Mom disappeared almost immediately, swallowed up by her issues, leaving a really confused 7 year old behind. The last nine years have been rough. I'm sure I've made a million mistakes, none for lack of wanting to do right by him. If for no other reason than he's his father's son, I've always said I would do my best to be a mom to him, since his actual mom has been mostly MIA. And let me tell you, there is nothing more terrifying that trying to love a kid who sees you as the enemy because to love you means to betray his own mother. And as he gets older, it gets infinitely harder and here's the ultimate problem, and where we finally get to Russell Crowe. <br />
<br />
I am running out of courage. I'm not proud of it, not happy about it, but, you know, it's the truth, and I am just reaching the point, or have already reached the point, where I just don't like this kid. Don't like him, don't want be around him, don't want him in my home. My husband's son. My husband's home. My husband who I adore, and if our ship went down in the North Sea, I'd knock him over the head and drag his ass up on that raft, and I'd stay in the water, because dammit, I get to die first. <br />
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So, I have to figure out how to pretend to like him convincingly enough for him and his father to really believe it, at least for the next 2.5 years. I've been over and over it and there is just no other way; no other chance for any of us to get through this in tact if I don't figure out how to be a really good, and here's the clincher, really fearless, actor. Like Russell Crowe. Or Meryl Streep.<br />
<br />
Because I'm still all about honesty in relationships, at least adult relationships. With kids, it's different. You tell them you love them and you do the things that shows you love them, and you don't really worry about whether you really love them or not. You just do it. But when do they stop being a kid? At what point am I no longer required to fulfill this role that I didn't ask for; that he never wanted me to take, and neither of us have enjoyed very much. And at what point do I start worrying about whether or not I really love him and if I should stop lying about it?<br />
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<br />
Two years have gone by and it's ironic that it has all come full circle. How do you ever know if you failed or succeeded as a parent? It's not like acting, where you can get an award from adoring fans or respectful peers. You can't help but look at the adults your children become and wonder - how much of that, good and bad, am I responsible for? Was there ever a chance to have any influence at all, or was it all predetermined at birth? Would I have been a different parent if he had been a different kid? These are questions that haunt me. The one question that doesn't haunt me anymore is the one I struggled with two years ago: do I really love this kid? My broken heart is answer enough.jnmccoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13105653642726149653noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-939144376683213322.post-9279474828136254522011-08-25T08:13:00.002-05:002011-08-25T08:21:40.407-05:00Justice for Harley and ZoeyAs horrible as it is to accept, some people who become parents abuse their children. We all know this simply from watching the news. Every day there's a story about a child hurt or killed by the person that was entrusted to keep them safe - their parent or parents.That's the sad truth. How many of us wish that we could go back in time and rescue Caylee Anthony from her mother, Casey?<br />
<br />
Caylee was not saved because no one realized she was in danger from the very person that was supposed to protect her - her mother. That's because abusive parents do not abuse in public; they do not tell their friends; they do not brag on facebook that they just played a sex game with their 5 year old daughter. They hide it from everyone, and if the child tells, they accuse the child of lying or of being manipulated by the other parent.<br />
<br />
Harley and her sister Zoey have been telling their mother, their doctors, their therapists, teachers, friends, and family that their daddy has been playing a game with them called "weewees and butts" since they were 4 and 3 years old.<br />
<br />
Listen to their 1st disclosure to Raven: <a href="http://t.co/g0gvKyQ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://t.co/g0gvKyQ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://t.co/g0gvKyQ</a> and a day later, their second: <a href="http://t.co/M8kRQDW" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://t.co/M8kRQDW</a><br />
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Now consider that no judge has ever heard those recordings. Why? Because for 4.5 years, the judges have simply refuse to do so. On August 16, 2011, Judge Deborah Gambrell in the Chancery Court of Marion County, Mississippi, once again refused to admit all of Raven's evidence, including these recordings, and ordered that Harley and Zoey have visits with their father in the house where they both report having been molested by their father in the past.<br />
<br />
Judge Dawn Amacker in the 22nd Judicial District Court for the Parish of St. Tammany in Louisiana is also refusing to hear any evidence or to protect Harley and Zoey, even though the law requires her to have a hearing and to take evidence.<br />
<br />
Their dad just keeps calling them liars and saying that their mom is making them say it. All their mom wants is for a judge to look at ALL the evidence and THEN decide who to believe. Don't you think Judge Gambrell and Judge Amacker should look at the evidence before they make Harley and Zoey go back to their father's house where there is no one to protect them except the person they are most afraid of?<br />
<br />
Harley still loves her daddy. She just wants him to stop doing what he is doing to her. She does not feel safe with him alone. She said as much in her journal, but Judge Gambrell refused to allow it as evidence and Judge Amacker just ignored her.<br />
<br />
Sign our petition telling the judges that there can be no justice for Harley and Zoey, or any child, if the law and evidence is ignored. Tell them they must look at the evidence before they make a decision that will affect the rest of Harley and Zoey's lives. Ask yourself, what if these were your daugthers?<br />
<br />
Have questions want to do more to help? Email us at <a href="mailto:bridge2justice@gmail.com" rel="nofollow">bridge2justice@gmail.com</a> and someone will respond within 24 hours. Want to see more, go to <a href="http://db.tt/Zz225Oq" rel="nofollow">http://db.tt/Zz225Oq</a> and read the writ submitted to the Louisiana Supreme Court on August 12, 2011.<br />
<br />
Horrified? Call the judges and let them know:<br />
<br />
Judge Deborah Gambrell, Chancery Court Marion County Mississippi<br />
Phone: (601) 545-6028<br />
Fax: (601) 545-6080<br />
Email Court Administrator: <a href="mailto:bparham@co.forrest.ms.us" rel="nofollow">bparham@co.forrest.ms.us</a><br />
<br />
Dawn Amacker, Judge, 22nd JDC, St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana<br />
<a href="http://www.22ndjdc.org/Judges/Division-L/default.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.22ndjdc.org/Judges/Division-L/default.aspx</a> <br />
Amber Mitchell Staff Attorney (985) 809-5420 <br />
Michelle Simon Secretary (985) 809-5420 FAX: (985) 809-5309<br />
<br />
The Louisiana Supreme Court (504) 310-2300 <br />
<br />
Are you a victim of abuse and don't know where to go or how to get help? Call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1.800.656.HOPE or find them online at <a href="https://ohl.rainn.org/online/" rel="nofollow">https://ohl.rainn.org/online/</a> <a href="http://www.thepetitionsite.com/4/make-judges-protect-hb-and-zb-from-abuse-by-their-fahter/#show less content">less</a><br />
</section>jnmccoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13105653642726149653noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-939144376683213322.post-10712423459195890652011-08-21T09:41:00.000-05:002011-08-21T09:41:47.719-05:00Help get justice for Harley and Zoey! - The Petition Site<a href="http://www.thepetitionsite.com/4/make-judges-protect-hb-and-zb-from-abuse-by-their-fahter/">Help get justice for Harley and Zoey! - The Petition Site</a>
<br />jnmccoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13105653642726149653noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-939144376683213322.post-56655941204388772102010-09-13T06:48:00.000-05:002010-09-13T06:48:49.931-05:00The AnniversaryI am still surprised by my own reaction to footage of the WTC being hit by the planes. Of course I can remember where I was when it happened and how surreal it was watching the towers, pouring smoke and flame, collapse one, then the other. The images are still brutal to my psyche. I can barely stand to watch them, and I usually avoid it.<br />
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This past Saturday, I made myself watch the replay of actual footage that day. I don't know why. Something else went off and the "tribute" came on, and it seemed ... disrespectful ... to turn it off. So I literally forced myself to watch. Maybe it's that feeling of powerlessness that I find so overwhelming. I don't do powerlessness well, though I acknowledge I am not all powerful - just for the record. But now, every time I see footage of the events leading up to the plane crashes, or the towers crumbling, it's that sense of powerlessness that squeezes my chest. I know what's coming and I can't stop it. Can't save anyone. The towers are already down, the people are already dead; the second Gulf War is already underway. It's done. Why relive it? <br />
<br />
Really, why? What constructive comes out of watching those planes disappear into those buildings, or the smoke billowing out of the Pentagon? They are just more examples of just how completely, and utterly destructive human hatred can be. And they're not the only ones - we've got thousands and thousands of examples caught on tape before and since 9/11. They don't seem to be helping us get the message. <br />
<br />
Ironically, the message seems to constantly lead to more examples. We love the idea of peace; of love conquering all - isn't that the fundamental premise of Christianity and just about every other religion ever conceived? But in actuality, it's apparently much easier to just kill each other. Thousands die in the name of Allah on September 11, 2001, and our response is to kill even more. Apparently, in the name of God.<br />
<br />
Really, do any of these decisions get made out of love? So how is it that so many decisions that have to do with hatred get laid at the feet of "our" god, and we buy it? I mean, I can see the logic of the spindoctors in saying that GOD is on "our" side and wants us to KILL (and DIE) in HIS NAME, but why do so many people accept it as plausible?<br />
<br />
Well, that probably leads to a whole other discussion that Bill Maher would jump all over. jnmccoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13105653642726149653noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-939144376683213322.post-58009776843139494242010-09-12T12:33:00.000-05:002012-06-09T19:04:59.156-05:00We've got to BEAs "Americans", particularly right now, at this moment in hisotry, we need to get our heads around the FACT that it's not enough to just SAY we're great - we actually have to BE great. Sitting on our increasingly fat asses, espousing ideals that we don't really understand ain't workin'. And for (fill in your higher-power-of-choice here)'s sake, we MUST start THINKING FOR OURSELVES. <br />
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Video may have killed the Radio Star (am I dating myself?) but for sure, it killed critical thinking. Where are the Smother's Brothers when you need them?jnmccoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13105653642726149653noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-939144376683213322.post-57353572420551019492010-09-10T00:19:00.001-05:002020-09-09T15:20:30.987-05:00Rough Day<div style="text-align: left;">
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Okay, so this is my first ever blog and I'm suffering somewhat from performance anxiety, but I had a really tough day at work today and need someplace to vent my frustration where there is at least an illusion that someone is listening. Which is somewhat ironic, since a big part of my frustration arises from way too much talking and head nodding, but little or no action. <br />
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So, case in point: California Gov. Schwarzenager signed "Chelsea's Law" yesterday which is intended to protect children from violent sex offenders. Yay, yippee, krunkitola, whatever. I mean, it's kids and who doesn't want to support a law that protects kids, right? So, fast forward to this morning and I read this article in ESPN mag about an NFL-hopeful who is a registered sex offender and can't get picked up by any NFL teams. Yay, yippee, serves the scumbag right? <em>Right</em>? So, fast forward to 4 this afternoon and a deputy clerk at the local courthouse is informing a woman, who has come in to apply for an order of protection from the father of her children, who has kidnapped them and beaten her noticeably black and blue in the process, that the sheriff's office closes at 4:30 and so she has to come back in the morning to get any help. !?! (Delete the next three paragraphs of rant about just how idiotic this statement is).<br />
<br />
Let me just say that it's not that there isn't already a law in place that would protect this woman and her children. The problem is that it is apparently okey dokey to treat domestic violence like it's 9 to 5 problem. Like it's something that is NOT important enough to require public servants to work past 4:30 to ensure that kids are not terrorized indefinitely or, very likely, taken never to be seen again. WTH!<br />
<br />
So, all I have to say is, WTF good is another law on the books? We've got lots of good laws on the books. What we don't seem to have is common sense or the ability or willingness to break free of the herd to think beyond the convenient rhetoric and enforce the damn things in a compassionate and meaningful way.<br /><br />
So battered mom goes another night not knowing where her kids are or if they're okay. The NFL hopeful/registered sex offender <em>may be</em> a victim himself - a victim of the law that was intended to protect kids but, at least in his case, was applied to him when he was just a kid himself - and rapists and pedophiles continue to be released after serving a few years on one excuse or another, only to rape and kill again, (think Chelsea, Jaycee, literally thousands of others) regardless of any number of excellent laws on the books.<br />
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jnmccoolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13105653642726149653noreply@blogger.com0