STATES MUST MAKE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS MORE SECURE

By Connie Reguli 1/6/23

Two portions of the December 29, 2022 Omnibus bill dealt directly with the presidential election, and the transition of presidential administrations.  The Electoral Count Reform Act makes some significant changes to Title 3 of the United States Code, and the Presidential Transitional Improvement Act of 1963 is modified to address any presidential candidate that does not concede the election.  

During the 2020 presidential election, an objection to the State’s electoral votes only required the signature of one Congressman and one Senator to be presented during the vote tally January 6.  The role call on the states is in alphabetical order, and as soon as an objection is received, the two Houses were required to withdraw to their own separate chambers and to consider the following: (1) the votes from the electors have been “regularly given”; and (2) only one certified result was received.  If both conditions were met, the electoral votes must be accepted. Both Houses could reject one or more electoral votes if the vote “has not been so regularly given” by electors even if they have been certified. 

However, if the Vice President received more than one set of votes from a State, a complex inquiry was required. If the returns had been certified by two different State authorities, and there was a challenge to which was the proper State authority, and that conflict had not been satisfied within the State; then, each House had to consider which was the proper State authority “under the laws of the State.”  If the two Houses disagreed, the electors certified by the “executive of the State” would be counted.  This complex inquiry left many questions.  The code did not describe which state official was considered the “executive of the State” or what was meant by “regularly given”.  

Under the Electoral Reform Act passed on December 29, 2022, this complex inquiry is totally removed and the events that occur on January 6, 2021 are unlikely to happen again.  First, the law now requires that objections contain signatures of one-fifth of the members of Congress and one-fifth of the members of the Senate. 

The law does not remove the opportunity for challenges. However, those challenges will need to occur in the States before January 6.  The law clarifies that the “executive of the State” is the governor.  So State certification will not be an act of the Secretary of State.  It must be certified by the governor and that certification will be conclusive in Congress.    Certification issues must be brought prior to January 6 in a State or Federal court.  All legal contests based on the U.S. Constitution or U.S. laws must be brought in a Federal court, assigned to a three judge panel, in the District where the State capitol is located, and heard on an expedited basis.  The panel will include two judges from the circuit court of appeals and one district court judge.  Any appeal taken from this judgment will be reviewed directly by the United States Supreme Court.  All of this must occur before the meeting of electors: the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December. So the only set of votes that can be officially transmitted are those signed by the governor.  

There are only two bases for objections.  The first is that the vote was not certified by the Governor.  The second is that the vote of one or more electors has not been “regularly given.”   Although the term “regularly given” was not previously defined and has long been the subject of legal debate, the reformed law describes “regularly given” as an appointment under the governor’s certificate.  

If a State is unable to certify its election results or a State appoints more than one set of electors, that State’s electoral votes shall not count on the January 6. 

In sum, what’s done is done.  The role of the Vice President is now a ministerial function and the burden is on the States to complete all election contests before the December meeting of the electoral college.  

Failure to concede a presidential election no longer carries any significance.  If the loser does not concede five days after the election, the Federal election Administrator can declare an apparent winner pending the final tally of the electoral votes on January 6.  The significance of that time period is that the transition act provides tax dollars prior to the inauguration to the winner. 

A legal question that has not been resolved is a State’s ability to sue another State for election irregularities.  In 2020, Texas filed a lawsuit against Pennsylvania in the United States Supreme Court citing election irregularities that corrupted the election results.  At least seventeen states either joined the lawsuit, filed amicus briefs, or publicly endorsed the case.  The arguments were based on Federalism.  The Presidential election is the only federal election in which the lack of election integrity in one state, such as mail-in ballots, electronic voting, and failure to purge voter rolls, would affect the voters in other states that had more stringent voting laws.  

The United States Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit and said that one state could not control the election process in another state.  We need a federal law which will secure the ability to challenge election integrity across state lines in a presidential election.  Ideally, we would also have federal election integrity laws which would eliminate electronic voting, absentee voting, mail-in ballots, and force state’s to purge voter rolls. 

Bottom line, the only power we have left is to preserve and protect our own conservative values in the State of Tennessee and find a way to support other states, especially the swing states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada.  As conservatives, we have to step up our role in State government and help conservatives in our sister states. 

Follow me on Facebook, Instragram, and YouTube – @ConnieReguli

By Connie Reguli and Catherine Wang Anderson

Dec 6 2022

ONE BILLION dollars for Illinois cp$’ ANNUAL budget.

These are the “official” numbers released by Illinois’ cp$. We all know how honesty they are. The real numbers have to be much higher.

“More than 2,129 children died under the watch of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services during the past two decades, including 122 kids in a recent year.”

DCFS failures to protect children could get worse under …

“The 2022 DCFS Office of the Inspector General report examining deaths and serious injuries of children in state care, alongside allegations of impropriety by DCFS employees, covered 27 full investigations between July 1, 2020, and June 30, 2021. It recommended the discharge or discipline of DCFS employees in nine of the 27 investigations. They failed to perform basic duties, compromised investigations, misused department authority and even solicited sex from clients.”

“These systemic department failures, alongside others outlined in a report by Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert, have been compounded by DCFS Director Marc Smith being held in contempt of court 12 times during 2022 for failing to get children into appropriate housing. DCFS left children for months locked in psychiatric hospitals and other inappropriate housing.”

Annual report to the governor.

DCFS failures to protect children could get worse under Amendment I

https://www.illinoispolicy.org › dcfs-failures-to-protect-…

Nov 3, 2022 — Now government unions are pushing Amendment 1, which could void 11 child protection laws. More than 2,129 children died under the watch of …

Amendment 1 could undermine 11 DCFS provisions aimed at …
https://www.illinoispolicy.org › amendment-1-could-un…Dec 20, 2021 — Amendment 1 would allow unions to override provisions put in place for the protection of the children Illinois is supposed to be safeguarding.

And in July 2022 CBS Chicago reported on the abuse against children.

Join us on Facebook and view videos on YouTube Connie Reguli

By Connie Reguli

Thank you Civil Beat in Hawaii for pulling g together a great series on how abusive and corrupt the child welfare system operates. I am sharing snippets and the link to each story. For more stories like this John Hill is the Investigations Editor at Civil Beat. You can reach him by email at jhill@civilbeat.org or follow him on Twitter at @johncornellhill.

Nov 7, 2022. Court appointed attorneys don’t do enough to defend parents. The frustration with family representation by court appointed attorneys is not unique to Hawaii. A Mother Jones article also exposed how the lack of parent representation in western Massachusetts is delaying cases for months.

In Hawaii, a Civil Beat investigation found that the overall system often falls short of the rigorous defense that experts nationally consider the most effective in preserving those rights. In some jurisdictions, those principles form the basis for court-appointed defense in child welfare cases using a much different model than Hawaii’s.

Mother Jones exposed several stories of parents who had lost parental rights due to delays and ineffective court appointed counsel. This problem is not. New one. MJ said: The problem goes back decades: A state-commissioned report in 2003 found a “critical shortage of attorneys available to handle the ever-increasing volume of child welfare cases in the juvenile courts,” and that the issue had reached “crisis proportions” in western Massachusetts. Yet, of all the courts that the authors visited, the Springfield Juvenile Court stood out. “One person we spoke with described the Springfield Juvenile Court system as a fiefdom, with each judge poorly managing his or her own docket,” it reads.

Oct 3 2022 Civil Beat published that State Senator seeks to limit power to remove kids without court order. n. Joy San Buenaventura said the bill would address the findings of a Civil Beat investigation published in September. The story found that in more than 90% of cases of children being taken from their parents after abuse or neglect allegations, police and social workers act on their own without first getting an order from a judge.

“I am alarmed that children are being taken away without a court order,” said San Buenaventura, chair of the Senate Human Services Committee.

Her proposal Was to introduce a measure similar to one passed in 2017 by the Arizona Legislature. In that state, child welfare workers had not been getting court orders before removing children. The new law made it clear that court orders should be the norm, and narrowly defined the circumstances that could lead to an emergency removal absent a warrant.

However her belief may have been misguided.

On July 27, 2022 Arizona’s Channel 12 news reported that – According to DCS reports, bed space in licensed foster homes is at a five-year low. The latest data shows only about 6,329 beds are available. While the number of kids in out-of-home care is also at the lowest in at least five years, DCS records show there are still 11,722 kids in out-of-home care. “When we don’t have enough foster caregivers, we utilize congregate care group home settings,” Mesaros said.

And March 2022 azfamily.com reported – There are more than 14,000 children in foster care across Arizona right now. The Arizona Department of Child Safety says there are only 4,500 licensed foster families.

And horror stories like the 2020 house fire that killed a foster-to-adopt ten year old (and her death was never reported) continue to poor out of AZ. After a fire that her adoptive father confessed to setting at the family home in January 2020, a shocking discovery emerged: The child had died in 2017 at age 10. For more than two years, her remains had been concealed in the family’s attic.

When police investigating the fire discovered the child’s bones, Rafael Loera told them he and his wife Maribel did not disclose the death to officials for fear that the Department of Child Safety would remove their three other children. And of course it is likely that they continue yes to receive the adoption stipend even after her death. As reported by maryjo.pitzl@arizonarepublic.com and follow her on Twitter @maryjpitzl.

And four-month-old Samora who was left in a hot car by her foster father in 2019 as reported by Azcentral.com. Her family had adopted 15 kids from foster care. The article does not disclose the perverted financial incentive with foster to adopt. The truth is that this family was making about $1,000 per month per child in tax free cash along with free medical care for the kids. And oh yeah don’t forget child tax credit which is “cash back” on your kids from other tax paying citizens.

The infant was in the care of her foster father, Roger Ham, at the time of her death Tuesday, The Arizona Republic has confirmed. Phoenix police officials said they aren’t releasing the identity of the foster father because he hasn’t been arrested.

Police said the foster father, an administrator at a Washington Elementary School District transportation facility, arrived at work at about 7 a.m. after dropping off several children at day care. He left work to pick up the infant girl for an appointment, then returned to work. When he returned to his vehicle again at about 3:30 p.m., he found the child still inside the vehicle.

You are not coming into my house,” she said, according to the police report. “You need a warrant!”

In March 2022 Civil Beat reported on the abusive tactics of taking children without a court order or warrant on anonymous tips which sometimes come from estranged partners.

One mom tried to stop the cps worker and cop from taking her child and as another officer approached the door, Chapman held out her arm to block him. The first officer grabbed her right arm and Chapman went to the ground, the report says. The officers took the baby and handed him over to CWS, which placed him in foster care.

Earlier that day, police — including an officer who a couple of hours later helped remove Chapman’s infant — had responded to her home after she reported that the husband had violated a restraining order. At that time, Chapman told one officer that she was afraid her husband would try to frame her for using drugs, according to Dara Carlin, a domestic violence counselor who was there for both incidents. That officer told Chapman he had no concerns about her sobriety, Carlin said.

When it decided to take Chapman’s baby, CWS failed to take into account that her accuser husband had recently burglarized her home, vandalized her car, stolen her telephone and hacked her email, her lawyer said in a later court filing.

In the nine Western states and two Pacific territories in its jurisdiction, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has drawn very narrow criteria for taking children without a court order. The federal appellate court has found that the constitutional rights of parents and children require judicial review unless there’s reasonable cause to believe a child will be seriously injured in the time it would take to go before a judge, often just a matter of hours.

However snatching children without a warrant is nothing new.

ProPublica just published in October 2022 that police need warrants but child protective services rarely gets one.

Each year, child protective services agencies inspect the homes of roughly 3.5 million children, opening refrigerators and closets without a warrant. Only about 5% of these kids are ultimately found to have been physically or sexually abused.

By law, ACS caseworkers are not allowed to enter and search a home without either permission to enter or an entry order, which is the legal equivalent of a search warrant, unless a child is in imminent danger. But many parents don’t know that they have the right to deny these government agents or don’t push back for fear of losing their children, according to parents and their advocates. And caseworkers frequently say things that are coercive and manipulative in order to get inside homes without going to a judge, according to interviews with more than three dozen former ACS workers, New York City Family Court judges, parents, children and attorneys.

Reporter Eli Hagar exposed the abusive government practices of child protective services in New York.

The story in Civil Beat from July 7 2022 discusses qualified immunity granted to social workers when parents sue for civil rights violations.

This summer a mom and her daughter asked the question – can we sue cps for money damages. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals answered last week with an unequivocal “yes.”

It was the latest 9th Circuit decision addressing the question of “qualified immunity,” the principle that public officials generally cannot be held liable for official actions. The exception is when they violate clearly established rights that they ought to have known about.

The idea in recent years has come under attack by police reformers who argue that officers should not enjoy special protection when they cross the line, such as using excessive force.

But it often also plays out in child protection cases, when social workers remove children from their parents without a court order. That’s only supposed to happen when children are in so much danger that they could be injured in the short time it would take to get a judge to issue a warrant.

Lawsuits against child protective services rarely make it past the scrutiny. The courts have ways to nuance the facts of the case to shield social workers from liability even in the most egregious cases.

It took Sixth Circuit until 2018 to acknowledge that social workers should get liable for damages if they lid under oath to get a ex parte removal order.

And YouTube is full of videos showing removals in real time where there is no apparent immediate threat of harm.

Indiana. 👇👇👇

Ohio 👇👇👇👇

Tennessee 👇👇👇

And somewhere in America 👇👇👇

Be sure to watch for my follow up.

By Connie Reguli

So just now, the middle Tennessee community is upset because Vanderbilt is performing gender transition therapies and surgeries for children. Tennessee LookOut reporter Holly McCall and Tennessee Stands Gary Humble published commentary on the recent events which included a call from Congresswoman Marjorie Green to criminalize gender surgeries for children, Matt Walsh’s (Daily Wire) podcast regarding Vanderbilt’s “gender butchery”, and the responses of Governor Bill Lee, Senator Jack Johnson, and House member William Lamberth.

Although I disagree with Ms. McCall’s characterization of Congresswoman Green as a “looney toon”, I do agree that if suddenly the Tennessee General Assembly is outraged at how children are being treated in Tennessee, especially by the government, they are walking with blinders. Holly pointed out AGAIN the systemic dysfunction of DCS which I have screamed about for two decades and little to no respect or response from the General Assembly. However, my voice was loud enough and threatening enough that the Tennessee government needed to shut me up, disgrace me, and make me ineffective.

I have faced the anti-lobbying efforts of the executive branch every time I have lobbied for changes in the law to better protect families and children.

But since suddenly legislators want to know what Vanderbilt does let me tell you more. Vanderbilt has misdiagnosed child abuse many many times under the supervision of child abuse pediatrician Deborah Lowen, M.D. I have heard Dr. Lowen testify under oath the an infant could not have multiple fractured ribs if the parents squeezed and shook the baby violently. She has absolutely ignored the differential diagnosis of infantile rickets even though the American Academy of Pediatrics position paper warned of this. The result is that several infants have been separated from their mothers as infants and placed in the homes of strangers, many while still nursing infants. Remarkably Dr. Deborah Lowen is now employed full time at DCS. She should be fired.

What else? Well Vanderbilt reported a family to DCS for medical neglect when they refused to treat their 11 year old with Humira (a biologic) which was against their religion

Connie Reguli: This is an important story that was published by CBS in 2005. I am circulating this again because I know that children in foster care are still given vaccines, drugs, and other medications without parental consent or knowledge. When our last public health crises was raging, DCS was leaving it up to the foster parents to make decisions about that vaccine.

By John Soloman

MAY 4, 2005 / 3:49 PM / CBS/AP

Government-funded researchers tested AIDS drugs on hundreds of foster children over the past two decades, often without providing them a basic protection afforded in federal law and required by some states, an Associated Press review has found.

The research funded by the National Institutes of Health spanned the country. It was most widespread in the 1990s as foster care agencies sought treatments for their HIV-infected children that weren’t yet available in the marketplace.

The practice ensured that foster children – mostly poor or minority – received care from world-class researchers at government expense, slowing their rate of death and extending their lives. But it also exposed a vulnerable population to the risks of medical research and drugs that were known to have serious side effects in adults and for which the safety for children was unknown.

The research was conducted in at least seven states – Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Colorado and Texas – and involved more than four dozen different studies. The foster children ranged from infants to late teens, according to interviews and government records.

Several studies that enlisted foster children reported patients suffered side effects such as rashes, vomiting and sharp drops in infection-fighting blood cells as they tested antiretroviral drugs to suppress AIDS or other medicines to treat secondary infections.

In one study, researchers reported a “disturbing” higher death rate among children who took higher doses of a drug. That study was unable to determine a safe and effective dosage.

The government provided special protections for child wards in 1983. They required researchers and their oversight boards to appoint independent advocates for any foster child enrolled in a narrow class of studies that involved greater than minimal risk and lacked the promise of direct benefit. Some foster agencies required the protection regardless of risks and benefits.

Advocates must be independent of the foster care and research agencies, have some understanding of medical issues and “act in the best interests of the child” for the entirety of the research, the law states.

However, researchers and foster agencies told AP that foster children in AIDS drug trials often weren’t given such advocates even though research institutions many times promised to do so to gain access to the children.

Illinois officials believe none of their nearly 200 foster children in AIDS studies got independent monitors even though researchers signed a document guaranteeing “the appointment of an advocate for each individual ward participating in the respective medical research.”

New York City could find records showing 142 – less than a third – of the 465 foster children in AIDS drug trials got such monitors even though city policy required them. The city has asked an outside firm to investigate.

Likewise, research facilities including Chicago’s Children’s Memorial Hospital and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore said they concluded they didn’t provide advocates for foster kids.

Some states declined to participate in medical experiments. Tennessee said its foster care rules generally prohibit enlisting children in such trials. California requires a judge’s order. And Wisconsin “has absolutely never allowed, nor would we even consider, any clinical experiments with the children in our foster care system,” spokeswoman Stephanie Marquis said.

Officials estimated that 5 percent to 10 percent of the 13,878 children enrolled in pediatric AIDS studies funded by NIH since the late 1980s were in foster care. More than two dozen Illinois foster children remain in studies today.

Some foster children died during studies, but state or city agencies said they could find no records that any deaths were directly caused by experimental treatments.

Researchers typically secured permission to enroll foster children through city or state agencies. And they frequently exempted themselves from appointing advocates by concluding the research carried minimal risk and the child would directly benefit because the drugs had already been tried in adults.

“Our position is that advocates weren’t needed,” said Marilyn Castaldi, spokeswoman for Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York.

If they decline to appoint advocates under the federal law, researchers and their oversight boards must conclude that the experimental treatment affords the same or better risk-benefit possibilities than alternate treatments already in the marketplace. They also must abide by any additional protections required by state and local authorities.

Many of the studies that enrolled foster children occurred after 1990 when the government approved using the drug AZT – an effective AIDS treatment – for children.

Arthur Caplan, head of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said advocates should have been appointed for all foster children because researchers felt the pressure of a medical crisis and knew there was great uncertainty as to how children would react to AIDS medications that were often toxic for adults.

“It is exactly that set of circumstances that made it absolutely mandatory to get those kids those advocates,” Caplan said. “It is inexcusable that they wouldn’t have an advocate for each one of those children.

“When you have the most vulnerable subjects imaginable – kids without parents – you really do have to come in with someone independent, who doesn’t have a dog in this fight,” he said.

Those who made the decisions say the research gave foster kids access to drugs they otherwise couldn’t get. And they say they protected the children’s interest by carefully explaining risks and benefits to state guardians, foster parents and the children themselves.

“I understand the ethical dilemma surrounding the introduction of foster children into trials,” said Dr. Mark Kline, a pediatric AIDS expert at Baylor College of Medicine. He enrolled some Texas foster kids in his studies, and doesn’t recall appointing advocates for them.

“To say as a group that foster children should be excluded from clinical trials would have meant excluding these children from the best available therapies at the time,” he said. “From an ethical perspective, I never thought that was a stand I could take.”

Illinois officials directly credit the decision to enroll HIV-positive foster kids with bringing about a decline in deaths – from 40 between 1989 and 1995 to only 19 since.

NIH, the government health research agency that funded the studies, did not track researchers to determine if they appointed advocates. Instead, the decision was left to medical review boards made up of volunteers at each study site.

A recent Institute of Medicine study concluded those Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) were often overwhelmed, dominated by scientists and not focused enough on patient protections. An ethicist who served 22 years on such boards said they lack the resources to ensure the safety of foster children.

“Over the last half century, IRBs have basically broken under the strain of some of the structural changes in research,” said Gregory E. Pence, a University of Alabama-Birmingham bioethicist.

The U.S. Office for Human Research Protections, created to protect research participants after the infamous Tuskegee syphilis studies on black men, is investigating the use of foster children in AIDS research. The office declined to discuss the probe.

NIH said it considers patient safety its top priority and awaits the outcome of the investigation. “If we find that patient protections need further strengthening, we will take action to do so,” spokesman John Burklow said.

AP’s review found that if children were old enough – usually between 5 and 10 – they also were educated about the risks and asked to consent. Sometimes, foster parents or biological parents were consulted; other times not.

“Our policy was to try and contact the (biological) parents because it was fairly common when we got done the foster kid would go back to the parents,” said Dr. Ross McKinney, a pediatrics AIDS expert at Duke University.

Research and foster agencies declined to make foster parents or children in the drug trials available for interviews, or to provide information about individual drug dosages, side effects or deaths, citing medical privacy laws.

Other families who participated in the same drug trials told AP their children mostly benefited but parents needed to carefully monitor potential side effects. Foster children, they said, need the added protection of an independent advocate.

“I don’t believe a foster care parent can do it,” said Vinnie DiPoalo, a New Jersey woman whose 10-year-old adopted son has participated in three AIDS drug trials. “There are informed consents that have to be signed. There are follow-up blood appointments.

“I think that’s the role the advocate should take, because a foster parent may only have this child for three months and then the child moves on and someone needs to be watching all the time,” she said.

Many studies that enlisted foster children involved early Phase I and Phase II research – the riskiest – to determine side effects and safe dosages so children could begin taking adult “cocktails,” the powerful drug combinations that suppress AIDS but can cause bad reactions like rashes and organ damage.

Some of those drugs were approved ultimately for children, such as stavudine and zidovudine. Other medicines were not.

Illinois officials confirmed two or three foster children were approved to participate in a mid-1990s study of dapsone. Researchers hoped the drug would prevent a pneumonia that afflicts AIDS patients.

Researchers reported some children had to be taken off the drug because of “serious toxicity,” others developed rashes, and the rates of death and blood toxicity were significantly higher in children who took the medicine daily, rather than weekly.

At least 10 children died from a variety of causes, including four from blood poisoning, and researchers said they were unable to determine a safe, useful dosage. They said the deaths didn’t appear to be “directly attributable” to dapsone but nonetheless were “disturbing.”

“An unexpected finding in our study was that overall mortality while receiving the study drug was significantly higher in the daily dapsone group. This finding remains unexplained,” the researchers concluded.

Another study involving foster children in the 1990s treated children with different combinations of adult antiretroviral drugs. Among 52 children, there were 26 moderate to severe reactions – nearly all in infants. The side effects included rash, fever and a major drop in infection-fighting white blood cells.

New York City officials defend the decision to enlist foster children en masse, saying there was a crisis in the early 1990s and research provided the best treatment possibilities. Nonetheless, they are changing their policy so they no longer give blanket permission to enroll children in preapproved studies.

“We learned some things from our experience,” said Elizabeth Roberts, assistant commissioner for child and family health at the Administration for Children’s Services. “It is a more individualized review we will be conducting.”

Researchers likewise defend their work, saying they often sat with foster families to explain the risks and benefits, and provided them literature and 24-hour phone numbers.

“We talk about it. Then they come the next time. There is no rush,” explained Dr. Ram Yogev, the chief pediatric AIDS researcher in Chicago whose patients include a large number of foster children.

Kline, the Texas researcher, added: “I never wanted a parent or guardian to ever say ‘yes’ simply because they thought that it was what I wanted them to do. I wanted it to be the right choice for them. I think there is not any single right answer for any family.”

By John Solomon

Local Police Stop Dad Walking With His Two Children and DCS Takes Them Away

This is the 28th article in the Tribune’s series on the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services.

By Peter White / Posted by Connie Reguli

SOUTH FULTON, TN—One of the town’s six police officers was waiting at a stop sign in a squad car as Joe Nery and his two kids walked by. The officer made Nery wait for an hour and a half in a church parking lot before two women who drove a black pick up truck with big wheels and tinted windows showed up. They wore T-shirts and jeans.

“One was wearing flip flops and the other was wearing tennis shoes. It would be very difficult to believe that someone who works for the state to handle an important matter like this to be dressed so totally inappropriately. They looked just raggedy, you know? I had to take their word because I had three officers in front me ready to tackle me if I put up a fuss or if I wanted to fight for my kids,” Nery said.

He does not know their names because the two women did not show any identification before taking the kids. One of the women flashed a photo on her cell phone of what she said was a court order but she pulled it back before Nery could read it.

They trundled the two kids into their big black truck and left Dad alone in the parking lot. He said they had no booster seat and didn’t give him any paperwork, although he asked for it.  

The kids, Izabella, 10, and Franky, 6, have been in foster care since July 20.

On July 21, DCS attorney Marlene Simpson told Obion County Juvenile Court Judge Sam C, Nailling Jr. that there was probable cause for the removal of the children. DCS had gotten an emergency removal order to take the kids because someone had reported the parents to DCS.

In its court petition, DCS said the children were removed for “educational concerns, environmental neglect, and drug exposure concerns”. The parents said those were just excuses and they denied the allegations.

The Tribune has read the report and it is full of innuendo, long on speculation and short on facts. Getting a judge to sign off on an emergency removal order based on an interview while Mom was packing to move is like the story of the boy who cried wolf.

The sleazy landlord

The unnamed witness who reported them was probably their landlord, Joseph Mathews. He was in the process of evicting the family from a rental on 325 Forestdale Ave in South Fulton.

On Wednesday, July 13, Mathews sent Deborah Turnbo to the house. She gave Gheorghe-Nery an ultimatum. “I begged her basically to please let me do what I can until Saturday. She said ‘yes, you have until Saturday but if you’re not out by then I will call child protective services on you’.” She wasn’t out by then and so they did. Turnbo admitted it in a text to Mom.

A legal eviction can take 1-3 weeks. If the landlord wins in General Sessions court, the judge will grant a writ of restitution. Tenants usually have 10 days to vacate. The parents said that they didn’t go to the hearing on June 29^th and don’t think their landlord showed up either. In any case they didn’t receive a notice to vacate the property because county sheriffs usually remove you within 48-72 hours and that did not happen.  

 (See https://tntribune.com/250000-tennessee-households-face-eviction/)

DCS Gets Involved

On July 19, DCS case manager Jesse Cochran showed up at the house around 10 am with two other DCS workers.  

“It was clear that I was in the middle of moving due to all the boxes that I had already packed and carried out on the porch,” said Claudia Gheorghe-Nery.

Cochran and his two colleagues invited themselves into the house that was, understandably, in disarray.  Gheorghe-Nery explained her situation to them.

Nery was serving an 18-day sentence for an unpaid parking ticket. Mom had to do all the packing herself. Nery got out of jail on July 19 but was not home when DCS interviewed Mom earlier that day.

“During the entire meeting at my home, my children played, interacted with your employees, laughed, introduced pets,” Gheorghe-Nery later wrote in a letter to DCS Commissioner Jennifer Nichols.

That’s in sharp contrast to what Cochran wrote in his report. “The children were observed to be dressed in dirty clothing and covered in dirt. Both children had several bug bites on their arms, legs, and backs,” Cochran said.

Gheorghe-Nery called Cochran’s investigation a pack of lies.

“As the meeting went on I was advised to leave and find a place that’s cleaner; without a car it was rather difficult to find a rapid solution to my problem,” she said.

 “There was no investigation done before KIDNAPPING my kids,” she wrote Nichols.

“I still have no hard copies of the charges and investigation of my case,” Gheorghe-Nery said.

In its report to the judge, DCS claimed they didn’t get a full urine specimen from Mom on July 19 but it showed positive for amphetamines and THC. Gheorghe-Nery said she told Cochran that she was taking prescription phentermine and pulled the bottle from her purse and showed him. Cochran did not include that information in his report to the judge.

The Tribune has read the report and it is full of innuendo and “concerns”. Given the circumstances, no reasonable person would conclude the children were in serious danger without further investigation. Cochran promised a second interview but that never happened because DCS seized the kids the day after he interviewed Mom. In hindsight it seems DCS already planned to take the children before they even knocked on the door.

The Child Abuse Hotline collects reports of child abuse from anonymous callers. DCS investigators follow up on those tips to find evidence of serious child abuse. Too often they deliver false or misleading evidence to justify an emergency removal when their “investigation” is actually part of a personal vendetta, as it was in this case.

Gheorghe-Nery wrote DCS Commissioner Jennifer Nichols that her children were never in imminent danger. She said there was no evidence of physical, emotional, neglect, or sexual abuse. In short, DCS had no grounds to take them and she wanted her kids returned immediately.

Later, DCS caseworker Brian Hill wanted the parents to sign a neglect and dependency petition. They refused. It would have given DCS another legal weapon to keep Izabella and Franky instead of returning them to their parents. They did agree to a drug test that both parents passed.

Mom never heard back from Nichols but did get a note from the Customer Relations Unit (complaint department). Following a yearlong investigation into DCS by the Tennessee Tribune, Margie Quin replaced DCS Commissioner Jennifer Nichols on September 1.  

“They told us personally that our daughter wanted to come home and she wanted to be with her mom and dad because we’re good parents to them. And my son said the same thing to them,” Gheorghe-Nery said.

Life in Foster Care While Parents Fight DCS in Court

Regarding their custody conditions, the foster home is set up with triple-tier bunk beds. “Basically they eat a lot of hot dogs and pizza,” Gheorghe-Nery said. She said they have seen the children twice since they were taken.

“For the first time in my son’s life, who is 6 years old, we found scabs on his head, his skin is dry as dry can be; he had bites all over his legs and his arms visible to the naked eye. Both children were emotional, crying, asking us not to leave them. My daughter won’t remove the nail polish off her toes, because she said that it reminded her of me and she was happiest with me. I did her nails before she was taken from me,” Gheorghe-Nery said.

Franky Nery, age 6, was taken July 20^th and remains in foster care. He has seen his parents twice.

Judge Nailling held a show cause hearing on July 21^st. DCS attorney Simpson objected during Nery’s testimony. The judge overruled Simpson and let Nery continue but said that he didn’t want to pull the case out from under the feet of DCS. He set a disposition hearing for August 17^th. At that hearing the parents asked for a court-appointed lawyer and the judge scheduled the next court date for September 29^th.

“He should have pulled the case out from under her feet. They take kids from a happy environment and for the first time in their lives they are traumatized emotionally, psychologically, and now I see that there is also physical (abuse),” she said.

Unfortunately, Juvenile Court judges, DCS attorneys, and court-appointed lawyers often fail to reunify the families with the children DCS has wrongfully taken. The parents are not in the courtroom very long and then they go home with or without their kids. DCS is like a bad case of poison ivy that never seems to go away.

An ever-present litigant, DCS is always in court and a force to be reckoned with. DCS usually brings multiple staffers to a trial and they often get their way because judges and court personnel simply don’t have the stomach to confront them.

As we have reported, DCS takes into custody about 8,000 kids a year. Many are snatched on the flimsiest of grounds with no actual investigation like Izabella and Franky were.

Rural Obion County has a population of 30,466. According to its official website, Obion County courts provide “fair, courteous, and timely service to every individual and agency having business with Chancery, Circuit, General Sessions & Juvenile Court”.  So we know they are big on nice but the jury is still out on whether they will dispense justice in “Case NO. 6675 In The Matter Of Izabella Nery, age 10, and Franky Nery, age 6”.

There is a dark underside to the picture of friendly corn-growing Obion County. Three local policemen, a landlord, his flunky, and several DCS employees worked in concert to seize Izabella and Franky and take them from their parents because being evicted is apparently a serious case of environmental neglect.

“Those kids have gone through an immense amount of distress just so that DCS can make some money on my children. I know exactly what they get paid. I’ve been doing my homework. I know what they get paid and why they take them so quickly,” she said.

Foster care is a booming business in Tennessee. It’s not the boon to the local economy that a prison would be, but it’s a good little racket they have going up there in Northwest Tennessee.

DCS paid out $ 14,333,900 last year to foster parents and other contract service providers like the child collectors who snatched those kids from a church parking lot and the foster parents DCS is paying to feed them hotdogs and pizza.

Please leave your comments.

Aug 16 2022 By Connie Reguli

Don’t be fooled by the lib media trying justify the Aug 8 2022 raid on Trumps home and office in Mar Largo. Although I don’t have the secret code to know what the FBI took from his private residence I do suspect that it included documents and records supporting his Federal law suit against Hillary Clinton.

So first of all here is the link to the story from Politico regarding the declassification of all documents repeated tot the RussiaGate scandal which dominated the attention of our Washington lawmakers during the entire Trump administration.

The story reads:

It’s unclear which documents Trump has ordered declassified less than 24 hours before he leaves office. He cited the decision as based on the results of a Dec. 30 review he asked the Justice Department to perform. The department presented him with a “binder of materials” that remain classified, he said in a memorandum issued on Tuesday. Trump said he then asked for the documents to be declassified to “the maximum extent possible.”

The FBI responded that it believed that all of the materials should remain classified, but that some were particularly crucial and should at least be redacted.

“I have determined to accept the redactions proposed for continued classification by the FBI in that January 17 submission,” Trump said in his memo. “I hereby declassify the remaining materials in the binder. This is my final determination under the declassification review and I have directed the Attorney General to implement the redactions proposed in the FBI’s January 17 submission and return to the White House an appropriately redacted copy.”

Notice that the FBI objected and over that objection Trump declassified even the documents in the binder. I say “Awesome”. We need that kind of transparency.

So we know the FBI was not happy with Trumps unmasking of their investigation which targeted him before and after the investigation.

Now fast forward to 2022. The war rages on. On March 24 2022 Trump filed a lawsuit against Clinton and other defendants — among them John Podesta, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Marc Elias, Michael Sussmann, Glenn Simpson, Igor Danchenko, Rodney Joffe, the Democratic National Committee, and the law firm Perkins Coie this lawsuit alleged a RICO action against Trump as early as 2016. The lawsuit alleges that the defendants falsified evidence, deceived law enforcement, and exploited access to highly sensitive data sources all to cripple Trumps bid for presidency. And the Clinton intentionally shielded herself behind third parties.

The defendants are in the midst of trying to dismiss this lawsuit for failure to meet the four year statute of imitations.

I have read the entire Trump v Clinton lawsuit which you can find here. The facts are laid out in perfect sequence and detail how Hillary Clinton and the DNC players used private funds, campaign money, and taxpayer resources to undermine an election. No lawsuits are search warrants have been executed against those defendants.

Everyone should know by now that two people responsible, perhaps the lowest hanging fruit, were indicted: Sussmann and Clinesmith.

Sussmann was acquitted in May of this year on the allegations that he had lied to the FBI. Sussmann, a prominent Democrat attorney, made a report to the FBI in 2016 that Trumps computers were tied to the Alfa Bank in Russia. He did not tell the FBI that he had been actively involved with Neustar executive Rodney Joffe to hack into the Trump tower and White House computers to fabricate a tie to Russia that did not exist. See paragraph five of the Trump lawsuit.

Neustar, in case you did not know, is the technology company that handles all of the Verizon data including your phone call and text data.

Sussmann was acquitted by the jury but that does not mean he is innocent. It merely means that there was not proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he intentionally lied to the FBI.

FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith admitted that he doctored an email which removed acknowledgement that Carter Page was a government operative. This was crucial in the early stages of this charade and this intentional false information triggered the fake FISA warrant. Clinesmith was out in probation for a year.

So here we are in August 2022 and the Department of Justice under the Biden administration raided the home of President Trump. Was it really classified documents or was it the evidence for the civil suit which had already been declassified.

Now you might say hmmm. The president declassified documents to bolster his civil lawsuit against his opponent? That might be a valid concern if it weren’t so egregious. Reading all 108 pages of the lawsuit will take you a hot minute BUT it’s honestly better than a novel. It lays it out in perfect sequence. Perhaps I will do a talk through that in a video.

See you soon. Connie.

By Connie Reguli

On June 30, 2022 the United States Supreme Court filed an opinion in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency which significantly curtailed the authority of the EPA to restrict the production of energy in existing power plants relying on coal.

For years I have screamed out, “the problem with government is no one stays in their own lane”. Meaning that the judiciary acts like a legislature, the agencies act like law makers and law enforcement, and law enforcement acts like judges.. No one stays within the limits of their constitutional boundaries.

The decision in WV v. EPA deals directly with a bureaucratic agency acting like legislators and law enforcement. In 2015 (Obama), the EPA enacted that Clean Power Plant rule which severely restricted emissions from this nation’s power plants. (Reminding you, of course, that the liberals also want everyone to drive electric cars which depend on power generated by these plants.)

This move by the EPA hit the proverbial nerve of major power producers including those in the state of West Virginia. The goal of these EPA regulations was to shut down coal production in the United States and shift to natural gas and “renewables”, i.e., wind and solar. For the state of West Virginia, this was like sticking their head in the guillotine. The year following this EPA decision, coal production dropped in WV by 20 million tons: an economic blow to WV.

The Trump administration repealed the Clean Power Plant rule in 2017, by the time this case came to the Supreme Court, the administration had changed again to democrat control.

Looking to the SCOTUS decision the syllabus explains that the Agency determined that the interpretive
question raised by the Clean Power Plan fell under the major questions doctrine. Under that doctrine, it determined, a clear statement is necessary for a court to conclude that Congress intended to delegate authority “of this breadth to regulate a fundamental sector of the economy.” It found none.

In other words, this executive branch agency could not rely on a vague statute to give itself broad regulatory authority that had not otherwise been approved by Congress.

CNN report states this: Kirti Datla, an attorney for Earthjustice, a nonprofit focused on litigating climate issues, said this case paves the way for Republican-led states and fossil fuel companies to challenge current and future EPA rules on planet-warming emissions.

“I think the biggest takeaway is that the court produced an opinion that did exactly what the challengers [GOP-led states and coal companies] wanted,” Datla said.

In its opinion, the court cut back agency authority by invoking the Major Questions Doctrine — a ruling that will impact the federal government’s authority to regulate in other areas of climate policy, as well as regulation of the internet and worker safety. It says that the biggest issues should be decided by Congress itself, not agencies like the EPA.

“Prior to today, the court would look at [an agency] and say ‘this decision is within your lane and expertise and we’re going to defer to your technical decision here,'” said Jay Duffy, an attorney and expert on power plant emissions at the Clean Air Task Force. “Today, unless the actual rule you have chosen has been clearly authorized by the Congress, you don’t have the authority to do it.”

DOES THIS RULING EFFECT OTHER EXECUTIVE BRANCH AGENCIES

AT THE STATE AND FEDERAL LEVEL?

Many citizens have faced frustrations with executive branch agencies at the state and federal level where the agencies create their own rules, regulations, and policies that are not otherwise authorized by lawmakers. For years I battled the overreach of the Department of Children’s Services in the State of Tennessee who made their own rules and kept them secret until they needed to wield some power over an unsuspecting parent. Although the Supreme Court ruling does NOT give us significant power to rely on this to curtail other agencies, it provides a strong argument that executive branch agencies cannot make rules that limit the lives and businesses of citizens without an Act of Congress.

It looks likes Congress needs to get back to work running this Country.

By Connie Reguli – June 30, 2022

SCORE for personal liberty against lying, cheating District Attorneys (and other prosecuting government attorneys like CPS) – The Fifth Circuit entered an opinion on May 3, 2022. See Wearry v. Foster, 20-30406, 5th Cir. In this opinion, the prosecutor was denied absolute immunity when he proffered the fabricated testimony of a juvenile to prosecute a defendant for murder. It took years to undo, in fact the case started in 1998 and this opinion is dated May 2022. Twenty-four years and the case is not over. The plaintiff, if he is even alive, will likely have several more years of fighting to get to trial.

42 USC Sec. 1983 is supposed to provide relief for ordinary citizens whose rights have been trampled by “state actors”, i.e., anyone who works on behalf of, under the employment of, or under the title of a government function. In this case, the lawsuit was brought against prosecutor and police officer for the investigatory acts of conspiring to bring false testimony to trial.

The Opinion described the circumstances like this:

Nothing in the story the defendants invented was based on
information the child had provided to the Detective or the District Attorney.
As Wearry’s complaint plainly puts it, “Perrilloux and Foster made an
intentional and deliberate decision to fabricate a narrative.” In the District
Attorney and Detective’s narrative, Ashton had gone to a “musician
appreciation” function at his church on the night of the murder. According
to the false narrative, as he walked home alone, he heard footsteps and hid
under a house. Following their script, Ashton testified that he then saw
Wearry throw Walber’s cologne bottle into a ditch and get into Walber’s car.
In reality, Ashton had been at a strawberry festival with his older sister in
Ponchatoula miles away from the scene on the night of Walber’s murder.
Ashton had spent the night with his sister in Hammond without coming back
to Livingston Parish. Ashton had never seen Wearry before Foster and
Perrilloux presented Wearry’s photo to him, and Ashton “had no personal
knowledge” of any facts implicating Wearry in the murder, including the
fabrications invented by the defendants. In short, Foster and Perrilloux
knowingly “provided the adolescent with a completely fabricated story” and
intimidated and coerced him to adopt and repeat the story in his testimony.
1

Wearry fought the system for years before his criminal conviction was overturned by the Louisiana Supreme Court. It was only then that he could seek monetary damages for the abuse brought upon him by the government (tax payer funded) employees.

For me, someone who knows the governments abusive tactics violation civil rights everyday of the year, the 33 page opinion is a delightful read. The three judge panel provides an extensive analysis of absolute immunity, qualified immunity, and Monell. These three legal principles are the Damocles of civil rights actions. The opinion acknowledges that “worthy civil rights claims are often never brought to trial,” because of these three doctrines. The overlap and intertwining of these principles “frequently conspire to turn winnable claims into losing ones.”

After the majority of the panel agreed with the District Court that the actions of the prosecuting attorney did NOT afford him absolute immunity, the dissenting opinion found that governing precedent prevented the Court from granting this relief, even though he did not agree. Judge James C. Ho opined this:

“This case illustrates that conspiracy in action. Under the doctrine of
absolute prosecutorial immunity, Wearry cannot bring suit against the
prosecutor or the police officer who wrongly put him on death row. And that
is so even if we assume (as we must at this stage) that the prosecutor and
police officer engaged in a malicious campaign to coerce false testimony
against him. Nor could Wearry sue the municipality that employed the
prosecutor and police officer, because neither of them was operating
pursuant to an official municipal policy or custom. See id. at 691 (“Congress
did not intend municipalities to be held liable unless action pursuant to
official municipal policy . . . caused [the] constitutional tort”); id. (“[A]
municipality cannot be held liable under [42 U.S.C.] § 1983 on a respondeat
superior theory.”).
The good news for anyone outraged by this state of affairs is that the
American people have a remedy. Congress decides what our laws shall be.
Courts merely interpret and apply those laws. So if a court applies a rule of
law that seems wrong and unjust, the people can demand that the legislative
branch fix it.
In sum, Congress can abolish qualified immunity, absolute
prosecutorial immunity, and Monell. And it can do so anytime it wants to.”

Judge Ho called the problem one of the “court’s own making”, i.e, inventing qualified immunity which added a burden to the Plaintiff’s prove. Not only does the plaintiff have to show that his constitutional right was violated, but that it was clearly established at the time the act was committed.

I know from litigation experience, that the plaintiff is faced with razor sharp distinctions in the facts of the case.

Wearry is a good move by the Fifth Circuit Court, it is likely that the defendants will push this to the Supreme Court. We will keep an eye on it.

bible.com/bible/1/exo.10.10.KJV