CPS Spokesbabe Meisner grows a nose

The sheer volume of Texas CPS lies, deceit and rule-breaking in the FLDS case is a severe test of blogosphere processing capacity. Could it be that CPS breeds lies polygamously? If so, Marleigh Meisner, pictured right, must have many husbands and a remarkably short gestation period.  She pops out lies at breathtaking velocity.

Yesterday, CPS lied yet again, this time to the Texas Supreme Court, telling the Court that it should not allow FLDS kids to go back home because . . . (drumroll) . . . CPS can’t identify which FLDS children go with which FLDS parents. Contradicting this nonsensical claim is the fact — highlighted in the parents responsive motion — that CPS has matched all of the children to parents for the purposes of so called “service plans.” In the Alice-in-Wonderland world of CPS, “service plans” describe what parents must do in order to get their kids back after they have been kidnapped by CPS.

Last Friday, in what can fairly be described as a last-ditch “hail Mary” attempt to stay in the game, CPS introduced (and Judge Barbara “Defarge” Walther inexplicably admitted) into evidence a bizarre series of photographs that purport to show Warren Jeffs kissing a 12-year-old girl on the mouth. Courtroom witnesses report that CPS made no effort to authenticate the photos, explain how they are relevant to the family at bar, or provide any context for the photos. In other words, neither CPS nor Walther had any business offering or admitting them into evidence.

Predictably, most major media outlets have trumpeted the photos as “shocking” evidence of sexual abuse. CNN, to its credit, had the decency to modify the party line with the word “appears”. (I’ve chosen not to reproduce them here because until they are properly admitted into evidence, they are misleading garbage that deserves no further dissemination.) A number of alert commentators at GoSanAngelo.com noted that the photos may be a faked and even if genuine have nothing to do with current conditions among FLDS families seeking to be reunited. The apparent objective behind publishing the photos — shared by CPS and Walther — was to further inflame the public against the FLDS and somehow legitimize CPS’s barbaric behavior in the case. It was just the sort of legal cheapshot for which Texas CPS and Judge Walther are now famous.

More evidence of CPS duplicity (and judicial complicity) emerged in court, on May 19th, during a hearing for several different FDLS parents. Jennifer Rios reports that at one point, a CPS supervisor in the gallery was caught coaching a CPS witness then testifying under oath. (As if an oath has any meaning for CPS caseworkers! Silly me.) The Judge, it appears, did not respond in any meaningful way to this clear violation of process:

Attorneys Mark Ticer, Jennifer Hancock and Jennifer Goldman asked for a more specific plan from CPS, which is using the same plan for all the YFZ Ranch cases.

Albrecht said CPS is not waiting for parenting classes to finish, or DNA results to decide to move the children closer together. She said the department continues work this week on the children’s cases. After Johnson told the court that Steed was unable to contact two of her children on their birthdays this past week, Albrecht said she would arrange for phone calls on children’s birthdays.

Goldman asked Albrecht whether she knew that her 3-year-old son was sick, had been ill several times since he was taken from his mother and cries himself to sleep. The caseworker said she was aware that the child had a cold. Albrecht said she knew the child had a “slight fever.”

After an objection was made that Albrecht was being coached by a woman in the courtroom, Weatherby ordered that no nods or signals be exchanged. Ticer asked Albrecht to identify the woman, her supervisor, Patricia Magdaleno.

This exchange suggests, among other things, that the caseworker did not know what was going on with the 3-year-old boy. Otherwise, she would need no coaching. Which leads to the obvious question, where is this little guy more at risk, in the careless, callous paws of a CPS bent on destroying his culture and identity or in his mother’s arms?

Want more data on this question? Please take time to read the May 13 article in the Deseret News on how “eleven employees of the Hill Country Community Mental Health-Mental Retardation Center . . . written reports of their experiences [at the hands of CPS in the FLDS case].” Their reports are shocking even for those of us who know how CPS operates. Here are excerpts:

• “My observation of the mothers’ interaction with their children was one of love, warmth and kindness. Not once did I hear an unkind word, yelling or negative response to a child’s behavior. I really feel these women could teach us all a lot about positive parenting.”
• For me, on a personal level, the most difficult aspect of the entire experience was the apparent lies being told to the mothers. I myself felt the inconsistency in information when we had been told that special needs children were to be allowed to stay with their mothers and, yet, by that afternoon, that was no longer the case. This left me in a strange position in which I felt compelled to voice the needs of these children and their mothers. This was met with less than enthusiastic response and after I spoke out for the children, I was asked to either leave the bus or be arrested.”
• “Some who were previously sullen or reluctant to speak would brighten when they learned we were not CPS.”
• “The children laughed easily and gave eye contact. They had none of the traditional withdrawal common in abused children.”
• “On the last day of my stay at the coliseum (April 24), the mothers had been removed … The children had cried bitterly on the removal of the mothers, and they were now with strangers. … Children were grabbing toys from others and using the toys as play weapons against each other and their ‘captors.’ In my estimation they were acting out their fear and anger. One little boy of about 4 was frantically running from the CPS workers, avoiding capture in every way he could. Once caught, I held him firmly in my arms while he wept that he didn’t want them to take his mother.”
• “One of the women … asked me if I knew of any underage mothers in (my) community. I told her yes. She asked me if I knew of any domestic violence or sexual abuse that had been reported in my community and I replied yes. ‘Why then,’ she asked, ‘did no one hear of that community having all of the children taken from all of the mothers?’ All I could respond was, ‘That’s a good question.’”
• “Never in all my life, and I am one of the older ladies, have I been so ashamed of being a Texan and seeing what and how our government agencies treat people. … This must stop somewhere and somehow. This invasion of their property and the disruption of their lives could happen to anyone anytime if all power and authority is given to CPS.”
• “The entire experience at Ft. Concho and the coliseum was surreal; at times it felt like these women and children were prisoners. I heard some people wonder out loud if this was Nazi Germany. The thought had struck me, too. Is this what it was like for the people in concentration camps in Germany? The women and children from Eldorado were basically lied to and deceived on several occasions. I often felt helpless; I also felt in awe of the grace, and self-confidence in which the women behaved. My culture, my society could learn from these women and children; they have my utmost respect.”

Ladies and gentlemen, the people of Texas — all the people of Texas who are allowing this to happen without a murmur — are guilty of emotional genocide. Those of you reading this blog comfortably in your homes, it is time to take to the streets. Go to San Angelo, to Austin, to whereever you can gather in large groups to protest this gross violation of Constitutional principles. Today, it isn’t happening to you. But tomorrow it will unless you do something today. This is precisely the kind of governmental abuse that prompted the Revolutionary War. You allow it to continue unchallenged at your peril.

The Governor of Texas has the emotional blood on his hands, too. He has turned a deaf ear to the cries of the wounded in this case. Every citizen of Texas (not just rogue judges like Walther) has a duty to defend the Constitution. In this vein, I close this blog entry with a poignant account by one of the courageous Hill Country employees:

“At one point, when the children were all separated, one male child who was about 9 years old, broke away from the rest of the children who were all hurtled together, being comforted by each other, and walked up to a police officer. I heard him say, ‘You’re the police, help us. Help me get my mother back. She has done nothing wrong.’ The police officer could only respond by saying, ‘I can’t do that.’”

Mr. Police Officer, you are wrong. Your response is strikingly like that of countless German soldiers who helped shuttle millions of Jews to their deaths during World War II. Your failure to stand up for principle in this case paints you with the same brush as those German soldiers. You are in essence a war criminal just as they were, just for “doing your job”. How does it feel?

You took an oath of office — as does every police officer in the country — to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Texas CPS is an enemy to the Constitution. So is Judge Walther. She does not deserve your obedience or loyalty. You should have saved that little boy from these animals. Your failure to do so will burn in your conscience until the day you die. I hope you suffer a long time because by your cowardice, you have inflicted incalculable pain on hundreds of God’s little children.