"Nobody Gets Their Kids Back " (Major Update, October 14; critical clarification, May 15, 2011)

(See updates below.)

 The "Petition for Abuse/Neglect" filed on behalf of Cheyenne Irish by New Hampshire's Division of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) alleges that the baby, who was born on October 6, was "neglected" by her mother on that very day in the hospital where the infant was born.

What this means is that Stephanie Taylor's act of "neglect" was to give birth to her child, and that the only way she could have avoided that charge was to have Cheyenne killed in utero. Because Stephanie had neglected this supposed duty, the DCYF kidnapped Cheyenne a little more than 16 hours following her birth. 

Barring a near-miraculous outcome, Cheyenne's parents will never get their daughter back. So testifies New Hampshire resident Dorothy Knightly. Between August 31, 2005 and February 3, 2006, Dorothy (who prefers to be called Dot) saw three of her grandchildren abducted by the DCYF on the basis of spurious child abuse and neglect allegations. 

Dot's grandson Austin (who is now ten years old), was so traumatized by the kidnapping that he attempted suicide. As a result he was institutionalized and "medicated" with dangerous psychotropic drugs. Two of Dot's grandchildren have been adopted, and the DCYF won't permit any contact with the grandparents. Ally was placed with her father.

All of this began on August 31, 2005, when Dot's daughter Candy gave birth to a daughter named Isabella. At some point in the pregnancy Candy developed a condition called placenta previa. Although this usually requires that the child be delivered via C-section, Candy was put on a morphine drip and Isabella was delivered normally. Predictably, this meant that a urine test found morphine in Isabella's bloodstream -- a circumstance easily explained as a result of the circumstances of her birth, but was maliciously depicted as evidence that Candy had "abused" her baby through pre-natal drug use.

Isabella.

Believing that this matter would be quickly and easily cleared up, Dot and her husband applied for temporary custody of Isabella in their home. They eagerly and cheerfully cooperated with the DCYF out of  the common but tragically mistaken belief that agencies of that kind are operated by people who actually care about children, governed by laws, and burdened with scruples.

"We let those people into our home," Knightly lamented to Pro Libertate. "We opened the door and greeted them with smiles. We offered them coffee and treated them well. We trusted them. We assured our daughter, `don't worry -- they're not going to take your baby.' We assumed that we had rights, that the law meant something, and that the people in the DCYF would have to obey the rules. We'll never make that mistake again, and we hope other people won't either."

Two weeks after Isabella was born, a false child abuse report was filed with the DCYF alleging that Austin and his sister Ally had been molested by their father, who was married to Dot's other daughter, Holly.When they were notified of the accusation, Dot and Holly immediately took the children to the Southern New Hampshire Medical Center to be examined for evidence of molestation. A comprehensive screening revealed no evidence of abuse of any kind.

Nonetheless, during a preliminary hearing regarding custody of Isabella on September 26, 2005, DCYF official Kate McClure unflinchingly committed perjury by claiming that the medically debunked molestation charge had been "confirmed," adorning that lie with a critical decorative detail: The purported act has supposedly taken place in the grandparents' home.


Once that charge had been made by the DCYF, the fate of Dot's grandchildren was settled, in everything but the details.

A DCYF document entitled "Notice to Accused Parent" explains the ground rules that govern New Hampshire's "family law" court system: "All Court hearings and records of abuse and neglect cases are confidential. The hearings are not open to the public and only people involved in the case, or invited by the parties and approved by the Court, will be admitted to the Court hearings." In practice this means that DCYF banishes from such hearings anybody who can speak effectively on behalf of the accused.
  
A "preliminary hearing" can result in the DCYF being awarded "protective supervision or legal custody" over a child, "which would give DCYF the right to temporarily remove your child[ren] from parental care and custody and determine where and with whom your child[ren] will live," explains the document.
 
At no point in the process is it necessary to prove that abuse occurred. Even at an "adjudicatory hearing" -- the equivalent of a criminal trial -- the standard is a "preponderance of evidence," rather than a requirement to demonstrate guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt." But the threshold for a judicial decision to award custody of a child to the DCYF is merely the presentation of "evidence."

In substantive terms, an anonymous, unsubstantiated accusation of abuse qualifies as "evidence." In the same fashion, "temporary," as defined in New Hampshire child abuse cases, is a synonym for "indefinite." Once a judge has granted custody or protective supervision to the DCYF, the matter is placed beyond judicial remedy, and the child's fate will be determined by the child-snatcher bureaucracy. 

After Candy was charged with "neglecting" Isabella by receiving a morphine drip during a difficult delivery, the grandparents were forbidden to present evidence at either the preliminary or the adjudicatory hearing. On October 3, 2005, the DCYF seized Isabella, who at the time was a little more than one month old. She was never seen again by her grandparents.Candy was allowed brief, sporadic visits until March of 2006.

One particularly provocative aspect of this case involves Candy's refusal to apply for DCYF-administered welfare benefits. On September 2, 2005 -- less than a month after Isabella was born -- DCYF employee Melissa Deane tried to persuade Candy to apply for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Candy refused to do so, pointing out that she and Isabella would be living with the grandparents and wouldn't need welfare aid -- or the invasive government supervision that would come with it.


On September 28 -- two days after the preliminary hearing upheld the neglect charge against Candy -- Ms. Deane signed the application and filed it herself. A few days later, DCYF kidnapped Isabella from the hospital, eventually arranging for her adoption to another family. 


Dot Knightly points out that as long as Isabella remained with Candy, the DCYF would not be able to obtain federal welfare funding in her name. That problem was "solved" by filing an application over the objections of Isabella's mother, and then stealing her child.

  
The DCYF then turned its predatory attention to Dot's other daughter, Holly, and her two children, Austin and Ally. 


On January 19, 2006, Holly went to the hospital following a friend's suicide attempt. While there she was arrested for "belligerent behavior" by a police officer who believed that she was intoxicated. Although she was on various prescription medications (she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder), a test confirmed that there was no alcohol in her system at the time of her arrest. Regardless of that fact, Holly was charged with "child endangerment."


The arresting officer, Patrolman Josue I. Santia, delivered Holly's children Austin and Ally to Dot's home. Santia noted in his report that he and his partner "felt comfortable leaving the children in [the grandparents'] custody." On the following morning the grandparents were awarded temporary supervisory care over the children while the child endangerment charge was examined. That charge was eventually dropped, but DCYF wasn't willing to end its pursuit of Holly's kids.


Darren Hood Tucker, an attorney employed by DCYF, went "judge shopping" and "found another Judge willing to modify the court order" granting temporary custody to the grandparents, Dot Knightly recounted to Pro Libertate. Tucker was able to suborn a judge into ruling that it was inappropriate for Austin and Ally to have contact with Dot's daughter Candy -- whose only "offense" had been to give birth to a child who was later abducted by the DCYF. 


"They sent four police officers to our home and took those children away at gunpoint," Dot recalls. "Poor Austin was literally dragged down the street kicking and screaming as the neighbors looked on." Shortly after the siblings were placed in a foster home in Merrimack, Austin -- who had no previous record of behavioral problems -- tried to hang himself. 

News of the suicide attempt sent Holly rushing to the hospital, where she was intercepted by DCYF caseworker Anna Salvatore. The caseworker "threatened my daughter Holly by stating that if Holly didn't sign Austin's admission to Anna Philbrook Psychiatric Hospital ... the Judge would sign a court order terminating Holly's parental rights," Dot Knightly relates. 


Just days earlier, Austin had been a bright-eyed, friendly, cheerful little boy.
Austin's disposition and physical appearance changed dramatically after he was seized by armed strangers and forced to take mind-altering drugs.


During the four months that DCYF caseworker Anna Salvatore was on maternity leave (remember that detail; I'll return to it momentarily), Dot, her husband, and Austin's mother were able to have one brief phone call with Austin and his attending physician at the Psychiatric Hospital. The doctor told Dot that "after Austin spoke to his family his whole demeanor changed ... and he was not the same violent little boy as when he was admitted." When DCYF Supervisor Tracy Gubbins learned of that phone call, she issued instructions that there would be no further contact between Austin and his grandparents or his mother. 

Austin with his Grandpa.

The only reason Dot was able to talk to her grandson was because the newly single caseworker was on maternity leave. Dot believes that Anna Salvatore -- who is now known as Anna Edlund -- may have become pregnant as a result of an affair.


"Holly and her husband had been having problems, but after this whole mess began they actually moved into a new apartment and seemed to be starting over," Dot told Pro Libertate. "The caseworker, or `home-wrecker,' Anna Salvatore found out about this and had them separated again within a week. Then Salvatore started to visit Holly's husband on nights and weekends, with or without the children, which eventually ruined her own marriage. And then she ended up divorced and pregnant -- after tearing my daughter's family apart." 

The record should reflect that Ms. Edlund strenuously and categorically denies this aspect of Dot's account.

After Austin was placed in a "pre-adoptive" home, Dot -- with the help of the new caseworker -- was able to arrange a few brief, supervised visits with Austin. During one of them, the traumatized little boy quietly informed his grandmother:  "They told me that Holly's not my mother anymore."

"Honey, Holly is still your mother and will always be your mother," Dot replied -- thereby triggering the DCYF's retaliation reflex.

"From that time, all further visits were canceled," she recalled to Pro Libertate.

Not even this could be considered the crowning act of cruelty inflicted on this long-suffering family by New Hampshire's child "protection" racket.

By 2008, Dot -- who still hoped that she would be permitted to care for her grandchildren -- had completed her coursework to be a state-certified foster parent, but was refused a license. She was told by DCYF official Lorraine Bartlett that she would never be permitted to care for Austin out of fear that she would take him off the toxic psychotropic drugs he was forced to take. 


Through a steady series of dilatory and obstructionist maneuvers, the DCYF made it impossible for Dot to qualify as a foster parent for her grandchildren. When it was decided that Austin would be adopted by another couple, Dot and her husband were instructed by Bartlett to write a good-bye letter to their grandson in order to bring "closure" to the atrocity. This gesture reminds me a bit of the way that firing squads employed by Ethiopian despot Mengistu Haile Mariam would force families of the victims to pay for the ammunition used to murder their loved ones.


Dot insisted that she would continue her legal efforts to get Austin back.


"Nobody gets their kids back in New Hampshire," replied the DCYF official. "The government gives us the power to decide how these cases turn out. Everyone who fights us loses."

(Note: This is a slightly edited version of the original essay; some details have been changed in the interests of clarity.)

UPDATE --

According to a source on the ground in New Hampshire who is very close to the principals in the story, Cheyenne Irish was not sexually abused. She was rushed to be examined by a specialist dealing with victims of child sexual abuse; that specialist reportedly concluded that no abuse had occurred.

In interviews today, Jonathan Irish's father has made it abundantly clear that he considers his son to be a disturbed and potentially dangerous individual. That view is reportedly shared by other people long acquainted with Mr. Irish. Assuming -- for now -- that  there is merit to that characterization, we're still left with this question: If the father is the problem, why was the mother charged with neglect for the act of having the baby?

UPDATE, October 14: Sometimes, They Do Get Their Kids Back...

... if the parents in question can create a nation-wide controversy over the kidnapping. Reports the New Hampshire Union- Leader:

"Johnathan Irish and Stephanie Taylor emerged from a closed family court hearing Thursday afternoon with smiles on their faces and indicated they may be getting back their daughter Cheyenne, whom state officials took from them hours after her birth last week."

A local TV report unequivocally states that Cheyenne has already been returned to her parents:

Interestingly, Johnathan Irish's mother was on hand in what appears to be a supporting role. This contrasts sharply with the attitude of Mr. Irish's biological father, who has conspicuously approved of the DCYF's action in abducting Cheyenne.

Point of editorial privilege....

This report relies heavily on a significant quantity of documents not available on-line. I intend to archive them and make them available as soon as possible. 








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The Kidnapping of Cheyenne Irish (Third Update, 10/11)

The Regime's youngest political prisoner.

"Happy birthday. You're property of the State."

This is the message that was given to Cheyenne Irish, the newborn daughter of New Hampshire residents Jonathan Irish and Stephanie Taylor, who was literally stolen from her parents hours after her birth on October 6. 


While there are reportedly some "very serious" criminal allegations involved in this matter, the focal point of the case should be this: Among the reasons cited by New Hampshire's child "protection" directorate as supposed justification for the seizure of Cheyenne was the fact that "Mr. Irish associated with a militia known as the, [sic] `Oath Keepers,' and had purchased several different types of weapons including a rifle, handgun and taser."

"Whether or not the charges against Mr. Irish are true, this action is entirely unconstitutional and represents a very dangerous precedent," Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, a practicing defense attorney, pointed out to Pro Libertate.  "Using this man's political views and alleged affiliations to define parental suitability in any way is entirely illegitimate, and a direct threat to the rights of parents who are political activists of any kind." 


This is hardly the first time law enforcement officials and social workers have cited "political extremism" to justify severe and extra-constitutional sanctions against people who have not been convicted of an actual crime.


Just a few months ago, police in Salem County, Massachusetts arrested an innocent man named Gregory Girard on palpably fraudulent criminal charges because his wife -- acting as a dutiful collectivist drone -- reported that he had developed "extremist" political views. 

Those unsanctioned opinions, coupled with legal firearms purchases, led to Girard's arrest and detention as a "danger to the community" -- but he was never formally charged or prosecuted. He was simply taken into Soviet-style administrative detention while the local members of Lavrenti Beria's fraternity -- that is, the county prosecutor and judge -- tried to devise a criminal charge to justify his imprisonment. 

Political Prisoner Gregory Girard

After Girard spent four months in jail without a criminal charge,  his case was eventually "dismissed without a finding." He was designated a "ward of the court," compelled to undergo routine psychiatric evaluation and treatment, and notified that he could be arrested and subjected to indefinite detention at any time such action was deemed suitable by his persecutors.


This was done to Girard because he was classified to be what law enforcement organs in the Soviet Union called a "socially dangerous person." This same calculus appears to have been used to justify the government kidnapping of Cheyenne Irish -- a much graver crime, given that it involved not merely the seizure of a man's means of self-defense, but of his newborn child.



Cheyenne "wasn't even 16 hours old when they came in and stole her from us," reports her father Jonathan. The head of security at Concord Hospital "had a nurse come in while Cheyenne was sleeping [who] lied to us that they just wanted to take her to the nursery to see the doctor to be discharged. Even though I said NO to have the doctor come in the room they took her anyway.... I followed [them] out to the nursery because I didn't want my daughter out of my sight, as we were walking out I saw several gentlemen wearing suits with detective badges and my gut just started wrenching."


"They rushed her into the nursery and locked her in," Jonathan continues. "[W]hile I was talking to one of the other nurses the head of security comes up behind me, grabs my arm and starts walking me down the hall saying `you need to keep an open mind, you need to just hear them out' and he just kept repeating himself ignoring my questions as to who `they' were."

Cheyenne, shortly before her abduction.

How typical of an agent of government aggression to be accusing the victim of "intolerance" even as the crime is in progress. This little touch is a variation on the police tactic of bellowing "Stop resisting!" to a helpless victim at the bottom of a thugswarm.


"When he got me in Stephanie's hospital room and sat me down on the couch the police department and DCYF [Division of Children, Youth and Family services -- that is, the child-snatcher apparat] showed up. Three uniformed patrol officers and 3-4 detectives with 2 DCYF social workers walked in the room.... [One] of the patrolmen asked if he could pat me down. I said NO, not giving my consent.... The officer grabbed my wrist, bent it behind my back and stood me up and proceeded to pat me down anyway."


After seizing a pocketknife and cigarette lighter and asking if Jonathan had "any other weapons" -- officer safety uber alles, you know -- the childnappers "gave us a fabricated affidavit ... telling us they were taking custody of our newborn daughter."


Jonathan was then informed that he would be shadowed, Stasi-style, by a "security officer." When contacted by Pro Libertate at approximately 3:45 MST on October 8, Mr. Irish was being forced to leave the Concord Hospital parking lot pursuant to a "notice" he had been sent by the local police.


"I received a phone call a while ago telling me to go to a website" -- that is, a Facebook page -- "where a group of people had taken it on themselves to organize a protest and rally," Irish recounted to Pro Libertate. "I was then sent a document by the Concord Police that said I wouldn't be allowed to go inside the hospital, or even be in the parking lot, unless it involved a medical emergency, otherwise it would be considered `criminal trespass.'"


***

***


Irish refers to Cheyenne's mother, Stephanie Taylor, as his fiancee. The affidavit mentions that the couple had been under DCYF scrutiny "for approximately 21 months ... in a case involving two children of Stephanie Taylor; neglect petitions were filed on January 7, 2009 and a Termination of Parental Rights trial was recently concluded as to these two children...."


For reasons not specified in the document, Irish was "ordered to attend Ending the Violence with Scott Hampton; however, to date, has not completed this program." (Remember this point; we'll return to it anon.) The police complain that they have "responded to multiple calls" involving Irish and firearms, which resulted in "a pending charge for possession of a concealed weapon without a permit." It was in the context of that trivial paperwork matter that the affidavit mentioned Irish's "association" with the Oath Keepers, which was misrepresented in the affidavit as a "militia."


The Oath Keepers is an organization of current and retired law enforcement and military personnel who have pledged not to carry out patently unconstitutional orders. The group's founder, Stewart Rhodes, emphasizes that it encourages lawful, peaceful non-cooperation, rather than armed insurrection, as a way of interposing against the all-encompassing criminal assault by the Regime against individual rights. 


Had an Oath Keeper been present at Concord Hospital on October 6, he would have refused to be party to the criminal abduction of Cheyenne Irish.



The "association" referred to in that document consists of occasional involvement by Irish and his fiancee in an on-line discussion group involving the Oath Keepers. Mentioning this tenuous connection served the immediate interests of the child abduction bureaucracy, since it created a caricature of the father as a potentially dangerous "extremist." But it also serves the long-term interest of the Homeland Security bureaucracy by using Jonathan Irish as an indispensable defendant in a potentially precedent-setting case.


"I know practically nothing about Jonathan Irish," Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers told Pro Libertate. "Whatever we learn about his problems, the real question is this: Why was such prominent mention made of his political beliefs and supposed affiliations?" 

If Mr. Irish is a legitimate criminal suspect -- as opposed to a troubled parent who is considered a political criminal -- why wasn't he taken into custody? Why was  he left relatively free, while his newborn daughter was wrenched from her mother and father through deliberate deception and the threat of lethal force?


The Oath Keepers have been targeted by the so-called Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an immensely profitable leftist "watchdog" group run by the degenerate fraud named Morris Dees. Through an illicit relationship with law enforcement agencies, both federal and local, the SPLC has become deeply involved in an effort to indoctrinate police (as well as educators and social workers) regarding the ubiquitous menace of "anti-government extremism." Rhodes points out that the SPLC, a nominally private group that is unaccountable to the public, is a member of the "Homeland Security Advisory Council" (HSAC) which published a report on domestic "radicalization" and "extremism" last Spring.

A work in progress, the HSAC describes itself as striving to prevent  "violent crime that is motivated by extreme ideological beliefs" through "threat mitigation" and "community policing." That last term of art came into vogue during the early part of Bill Clinton's first term: Washington began to lavish funding on states and municipalities for the purpose of integrating the police with the social services bureaucracy, the better to create a seamless web from which no family could escape.


Before she presided over the Holocaust at Mt. Carmel as the federal Attorney General, Janet Reno was a forceful advocate of "community policing" in order to draw recalcitrant parents into the suffocating embrace of the omniprovident Nanny State.

"Community policing"; below, more of the same.

"They sit behind doors and they glare out at officialdom in whatever its form -- a building inspector, a Housing and Urban Development manager, a police officer -- and they don't believe that person," complained Reno in a 1993 speech to the Police Foundation. "They won't come out. They won't bring their child to the clinic ... because they are suspicious and unbelieving that government really cares."


That speech, incidentally, was given on April 9, 1993 -- just ten days before the government Reno served so eagerly displayed its "caring" nature by immolating the children of the Branch Davidian community. 

Reno, according to a Los Angeles Times summary, urged that local governments assemble teams of "community-friendly, highly respected police officers, social workers, public health nurses, [and] community organizers" to pry open the doors of people burdened with a healthy mistrust of the congealed mass of corruption called government. 


The group that carried out the abduction of Cheyenne Irish is a perfect example of a  Reno-style "community policing" strike force in action. 


Among the reasons cited for seizing Cheyenne was Scott Irish's refusal to attend a seminar taught by Dr. Scott Hampton, Director of an organization called Ending The Violence. Hampton and his organization offer "training and consultation ... to child protective workers, probation and parole officers, judges, attorneys, medical professionals, clergy, teachers, and law enforcement" as well as offering "expert witness testimony in both civil and criminal cases." Hampton has conducted hundreds of workshops and seminars throughout North America and Europe, and is past President of the National Supervised Visitation Network.


Most importantly, he is an unabashed proponent of totalitarian attitude reconstruction, the sort of social engineer C.S. Lewis referred to as an "official straightener." Although he eagerly cites the work of "tolerance" peddlers such as Morris Dees, Hampton believes that tolerance is inadequate. Unlike those who believe that only God has jurisdiction over the inner life of human beings, Hampton -- like others who would use the power of the State to tear windows into men's souls -- maintains that the government literally must reprogram the inner life of people who hold "bigoted" beliefs.


"Tolerance does not require that you give up your hatred. It just tells you how to act when you hate. Not good enough," sniffs Hampton in his new book Tolerant Oppression. "It is time that we teach people how not to hate." What this requires, of course, is court-ordered reconstruction of individual attitudes using whatever leverage may be necessary -- apparently up to and including child abduction.


The kidnapping of Cheyenne Irish on her birthday bears more than a passing resemblance to a November 2008 incident in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The newborn daughter of Cirila Baltazar Cruz, who was born at Pascagoula's Singing River Hospital, was abducted through deception and coercion by hospital officials and social workers. The child was placed in the custody of two attorneys who practiced "family law" before the same judge who approved the hasty transfer of custody.


Like Jonathan Irish, Baltazar Cruz was deemed an unsuitable parent on the basis of unproven allegations. An employee at a local Chinese restaurant, she had reportedly come to the United States as an illegal immigrant, and was accused of "trading sex for housing." Her immigration status would not justify the seizure of her child, and the prostitution charge was never investigated. Nevertheless, it took more than a year and a half for Baltazar Cruz -- working with a self-described "public interest law firm" -- to regain custody of her stolen child.


A federal lawsuit filed against the hospital and others responsible for this atrocity correctly condemns the "unconstitutional actions" of those who abducted Baltazar Cruz's child. Their unconscionable acts inflicted severe emotional and physical harm on the bereaved mother, alienated the newborn from parental affection, and "substantially interfered with [their] constitutionally protected right to family integrity," the lawsuit observes.


Exactly the same case can be made on behalf of Jonathan Irish, Stephanie Taylor, and their daughter Cheyenne. It's not likely, however, that the legal activist group that defended the parental rights of Cirila Baltazar Cruz -- the Southern Poverty Law Center -- will volunteer its services on behalf of Cheyenne and her parents, given that organization's distant but substantive role in the crime that was committed against them.

Update --

File this one under "The default setting is overkill":

"FBI bomb-sniffing dogs were at Concord Hospital on Friday after demonstrations gathered to protest a newborn being removed from her mother's care by the state. The hospital said there was no threat made, but it was taking precautions in part to reassure staff and patients.... The FBI left the hospital without finding anything threatening...."

No overt or tacit threat was made, yet the Feds were called in to treat this as a potential terrorist situation. That's SPLC-style "political profiling" at work.

Note the cringing euphemism employed here to describe what provoked the protest: The child was "removed from her mother's care by the state," the most delicate description I can imagine of kidnapping a newborn from her mother at gunpoint.

The domestic situation behind all of this is a mess. As noted above, Mr. Irish and his still-married "fiancee" have some baggage. The State insists that he's an abuser and she's a victim; they both stoutly deny the charges, and he's not being treated like a criminal suspect. Furthermore, their landlord maintains that Mr. Irish is "a very honorable person who loves his country. And I've watched the state and the police systematically hammer him."

As with the mass seizure of children from the FLDS polygamist enclave a couple of years ago, this case seems like a perfect illustration of H.L. Mencken's maxim that "the trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."


Second Update --

This video was shot shortly before Jonathan Irish and his fiancee were evicted from the parking lot at Concord Hospital (which was just a few minutes before I contacted him on Friday, October 8):

Third update --

Looking into some additional details in the Cheyenne Irish case, I'm struck by the fact that the overt act of "neglect" supposedly committed by her mother, Stephanie Taylor, was giving birth to the child.

This would mean the only way she could have avoided being charged with "neglect" at this point would have been to abort the baby.

 

Granted, there is a backstory here -- a very confusing and troubling one. As noted above, Mr. Irish and his still-married "fiance" have plenty of problems, some of which are, to some extent, of their own creation. We're still left to deal with the fact that the State claims the authority to seize a child who is a victim of "neglect" by virtue of being born -- and that those responsible for that act defended it, in part, by referring to the political views of the child's biological father.

 

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Speak No Ill of the County Dictator

Early in a dictatorial reign that left millions dead, Indonesian dictator Suharto enacted a series of laws punishing public dissent as "criminal defamation" of state officials. Those laws, which remain in force today, are frequently used to punish activists who publicize police abuses. Similar laws have been used to similar effect in Singapore, Mexico, and even in Canada. That list has now expanded to include Montana's Lake County Sheriff's Office.

On September 30, Sheriff's deputies raided the Bigfork home of Terry Leonard, an outspoken critic of the department who maintains a website called www.asksheriffluckylarson.com. The officers seized computers -- including an iPad belonging to Leonard's wife, and a personal computer belonging to his 7-year-old son -- as well as printed e-mails, electronic storage media, and anything else they could find that might be related to the website. 

Deputy-turned-critic: Leonard.

Lake County Attorney Mitch Young has refused to comment on the reasons for the seizure, beyond offering the predictable and perfunctory observation that the matter is an "ongoing investigation."

Prior to the raid Leonard was already the subject of an election practices complaint filed by LannyVanMeter, treasurer of the Jay Doyle for Sheriff campaign and a Detention Officer at the County Jail. (Jay Doyle is currently Undersheriff to incumbent Sheriff "Lucky" Larson, who is not seeking re-election). That led to the search, which may result in a charge of "criminal defamation" against Leonard.

Sheriff Lucky Larson

"Lake County has sent a clear message," Leonard told the local press. "The message that they're sending is don't question us, don't accuse us of wrongdoing, don't even look at us sideways. Or, we will come take your stuff, and try to make you be quiet."

Leonard is both an outspoken critic and a veteran of the Lake County Sheriff's Office. Earlier this year he was fired by the department for "failing his probation" as a full-time deputy. The reasons for the termination were not specified. 

 

"I was an officer for seven years, six of them in the reserve force," Leonard told Pro Libertate. "This is a huge county -- we're in Montana, which is a huge state -- and we often had just a few officers to cover this vast territory. There is a real disparity between regular officers and reservists, in terms of what they're permitted to know and the level of access they have. So it wasn't until I was hired to be a full-time officer that I discovered how bad things have become."

As Leonard describes it, becoming a full-time deputy in the Lake County Sheriff's Office was a bit like becoming a "made man" in a crime syndicate.

"I'd be sitting around with members of my team and my sergeant, and they'd be telling me things that I'd have to call a litany of criminal behavior," Leonard recalls. "Some of it involved violations of department policy, or petty acts of everyday corruption. But more than a few were actual crimes," such as allegations of poaching by department personnel, which are currently under investigation.

How they see themselves: Detail of an SRT t-shirt.

Of particular concern to Leonard was that he described as the pervasive attitude that the "badge lets [law enforcement officers] to do whatever they want. They think it's OK to bully citizens and other officers. They think it's OK to take ammo from the ammo locker for their personal use without permission, even though the taxpayers paid for it.... They think the badge on their uniform means they don't have to answer to anybody."


Many of Leonard's most serious allegations focus on the Lake County Special Response Team (SRT), a SWAT-style paramilitary unit.

Last March 19, Leonard alleges, an SRT exercise involving an Army-issue M-117 roadside explosive nearly cost the life of a local woman, who literally stumbled on the device while out walking her dog. "Jay Doyle's SRT team left the device unattended and unwatched," he complains.

Leonard's website also offers photographs of a commemorative t-shirt distributed to SRT officers by a team member who was re-deploying to Iraq. The black t-shirts contain a movie-style "advisory" warning that "Use of this team may result in broken doors, windows, heads; along with the risk of live fire injuries and possible death. When using this product please use extreme caution: Strong violence/gore and some language may occur."


Those t-shirts -- which bear more than a passing resemblance to commemorative garb issued by other police departments -- were not the only tangible illustration that the SRT viewed itself as part of an army of occupation.


"Right now the ATF is investigating a case involving an unregistered machine gun that was used by one of the deputies as a duty weapon," Leonard pointed out to Pro Libertate. "The base weapon was an AR-15 owned by the department" -- which, of course, had been provided to the Sheriff's Office through a Pentagon program. "This deputy -- who claimed to be an ex-Marine, and told all kinds of bogus combat stories -- purchased an auto-sear kit and converted it to full-auto," Leonard continues. "All he had to do was register the weapon, but he refused to do so this. Like others on the force he believed that the rules didn't apply to him, because of his badge. He had this same SRT kick-in-your-door mindset. `I'm a cop -- I can do whatever I want.'"

The accumulating evidence of institutionalized corruption in the Sheriff's Office "created something of a moral conundrum for me," Leonard recalls. "I liked my job, of course, but more importantly I have a wife and two kids and a house to pay for. But I couldn't just ignore what was going on."

"Look, I don't claim to be the most moral individual I know," Leonard concedes. "I'm an old Navy man, and I've been arrested before, with good reason. I've made my share of mistakes, been in my share of scuffles, and I'm not particularly proud of it. As I've gotten more mature, I've learned to hold myself to a higher standard, and not let testosterone dictate my response to situations. So when I left for work every morning I would literally look at myself in the mirror and remind myself to use my head, do what is right, and make good decisions."

One decision Leonard made was to complain about the casual corruption he encountered, which meant that "within a couple of weeks I had been fired."

A week after being expelled from the force, Leonard -- whose "hands were no longer tied" -- created his website. It was ignored for about eight months "until last week," he observed just a few days after the raid. The same County Attorney who signed the complaint that led to the raid, Leonard relates, "signed one of the many letters of recommendation that led to the decision to hire me in the first place."


The raid "was a simple bullying and intimidation tactic," Leonard observes. He remains on friendly terms with active-duty deputies who agree that the department is in need of an ethical overhaul.  "Four other deputies traveled with me to Helena and testified to the POST [Police Officers Standards and Training] Council regarding the problems in the Sheriff's Office," he points out. When contacted by Pro Libertate on October 6, Leonard was on his way to meet with a current deputy who was providing a signed affidavit for an anticipated lawsuit arising from the September 30 raid. 

"Whatever happens in the election on November 2, we're still going to be pressing for accountability," Leonard maintains. "If the department and the County want to go to court, that's fine with me; I'd love to be able to depose those people under penalty of perjury. The citizens of Lake County demand the truth about what's going on in their Sheriff''s Office."

Ironically, this is true not only of Lake County, Montana, but also of Lake County, California.

A campaign pitting incumbent Lake County Sheriff Rod Mitchell against Deputy Frank Rivero has churned to the surface detailed allegations of internal strife and malfeasance similar to those Leonard found in Lake County, Montana. 

Rivero, a 10-year veteran LEO who joined the Lake County, California Sheriff's Office in 2007, has accused Mitchell of running a department rife with "mismanagement, cronyism and racial discrimination," notes one local press account. 

Whatever the merits of the racial profiling charge, the public record is replete with evidence that the department is a festering puddle of corruption. Five deputies have been cashiered over the past year, including one charged with stealing from the department's armory, one accused of conducting illicit surveillance, and another who used money from a federal marijuana eradication grant to take helicopter flight lessons.


The most serious scandal to emerge from the 200-member department involves former Chief Sheriff Deputy Perdock, who killed 51-year-old Lynn Thornton in an April 29, 2006 boating accident at nearby Clear Lake. Perdock had been operating his 385-horsepower, 24-foot powerboat at speeds in excess of up to 60 MPH on the gloomy, moonless night when it struck the stern quarter of the sailboat containing Thornton and her companion, Bismarck Dinius.

"I'm a victim": Former Chief Deputy Perdock

"There goes some idiot who is going to kill himself or someone else," grumbled an onshore observer -- a retired police officer -- just seconds before that prophecy was fulfilled. The "idiot" in question, however, was part of Lake County's protected punitive caste. His victims enjoyed no similar immunity.

Dinius, who was at the tiller of the sailboat at the time of the accident, was prosecuted for causing the death of Thornton and a felony charge of boating under the influence of alcohol.He was acquitted on all charges following a trial in which the defense utterly annihilated the prosecution's case. Perdock, Sheriff Mitchell's second in command, was never charged; he was kept on the payroll for a year on paid vacation (aka "administrative leave") before being dismissed from the force. 





"I see myself as a victim," simpered Perdock in a pre-trial interview with the Lake County DA, who at the time was preparing to prosecute the actual victim, Bismarck Dinius.

In a "notice of claim" filed in anticipation of a wrongful prosecution suit against Lake County, Dinius charges that Sheriff Mitchell, working with "numerous LCSO officials" and Lake County District Attorney John Hopkins, "concealed, manipulated, and/or suppressed material inculpatory evidence" against Perdock. This accusation is buttressed by an account offered by one of the deputies who played a central role in the case.




Former Deputy James Breland, who investigated the fatal accident, was ordered by his superiors not to administer a preliminary alcohol screening to Perdock at the scene. In a court deposition Breland later testified that he expressed his concerns over this order to a deputy district attorney prior to Dinius's trial. Rather than investigating Breland's complaint, the prosecutor attempted to suborn perjury from the deputy by instructing him "to use words to describe the `order' as a `discussion' ... when testifying at the preliminary hearing of Bismarck Dinius."


Unfortunately, Breland did as he was told, only to find that this gesture of tribal loyalty was inadequate. Within days he found himself "subject to a continuing barrage of investigations for acts which Sergeant Breland did not do or for acts which everyone else does but are [for which they] are not disciplined," he attests. In retaliation for expressing his misgivings to the deputy DA, Breland's reputation was destroyed and he was eventually fired.

According to Breland's deposition, the department maintains "a system of discipline where favored officers are given mild treatment for extraordinary offenses" -- a form of "patronage discipline" in which the internal affairs process is used "to attack the credibility of deputies who fail to adhere to the unwritten code of conduct of the Sheriff's Department."


In his deposition, Breland lists two dozen cases in which deputies involved in criminal behavior or serious misconduct "were disciplined lightly or not at all." 

The cases include several potentially fatal episodes in which a firearm was improperly discharged; one instance in which a deputy "aimed his duty revolver at another deputy while in a highly intoxicated state"; a physical assault on a female deputy by a male colleague; a SWAT team member responding to a call while intoxicated; a deputy who "used his taser in an off-duty incident involving alcohol"; and several allegations of sexual misconduct, including one involving a minor.



Whether or not Frank Rivero is more ethical than Sheriff Mitchell and his claque, Rivero performed a significant service to Lake County by mounting a campaign against the incumbent, who had previously run unopposed. 

After Rivero peeled away the LSCO's facade of probity, Mitchell retaliated against the whistleblower by following the precise formula Breland described: Rivero suddenly became the target of an Internal Affairs probe alleging sexual assault against a woman who was arrested in December 2008. 


The sexual assault charge against Rivero appears to be devoid of merit. The timing certainly seems to validate Breland's charge that the LCSO uses Internal Affairs investigations to retaliate against officers who speak ill of the county dictator -- the same "offense," in a different guise, that may lead to the spurious prosecution of Terry Leonard in another Lake County nearly 1,200 miles away.


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Gaia's Jolly Jokesters

Suetonious records that while attending the Circensian Games the Emperor Caligula was so offended by a public display of support for one of his critics that he exclaimed: "I wish the Roman people had but one neck!" 

 It's possible that "Little Boots" intended that outburst as a joke. If so, the depraved tyrant had a sense of humor quite similar to the one displayed by the 10:10 Campaign, an English environmentalist group that seeks to hector the public into reducing its collective "carbon footprint."

On October 1, 10:10 rolled out a four-minute film -- written by the immensely talented Richard Curtis -- entitled "No Pressure." The film is a series of vignettes involving an updated riff on Caligula's depraved daydream. Each of the short scenes features an environmentally enlightened authority figure -- a teacher, a middle manager at a corporation, and a soccer coach -- extolling the virtues of those who are willing to take part in the grand campaign of collective self-sacrifice on behalf of Gaia.

In each setting those not convinced of the wisdom of this undertaking were asked -- after being assured that "no pressure" would be used to impose conformity -- to identify themselves. This being done, the commissar pushed a large red button that caused the eco-heretics to explode, thereby drenching the stunned and terrified faithful in the liquefied viscera of the less enlightened. 

The closing voice-over -- performed over the haunting strains of Radiohead's "Weird Fishes" --  briefly lists some of the institutions and political figures who have signed on to the 10:10 Campaign, ending with the tagline: "Care to join us? No pressure."

 ***

***

No Pressure was unveiled to representatives of government-recognized charitable groups on October 1. It went over about as well as Gilbert Gottfried's notorious post-9/11 joke at Hugh Hefner's Friar's Club roast ("I have to fly from New York to L.A. tomorrow, and I couldn't get a connecting flight -- we have to stop at the Empire State Building first"). 

"Our job is to encourage proactive decisions at class level to reduce carbon emissions," sniffed ActionAid, which is presiding over 10:10's schoolroom indoctrination efforts. "We did it because evidence shows children are deeply concerned about climate change.... So we think the 10:10 campaign is very important, but the moment this film was seen it was clear it was inappropriate."


Were an inmate of the government school system in either the People's Republic of Blighty or the U.S.S.A. to submit a student film depicting fantasies of mass murder, he would be charged with terrorism and consigned to the nearest psychiatric gulag. Yet when the same diseased fantasy is submitted by a government-aligned eco-lobby, the sternest adjective used to describe it is "inappropriate." There's something other than the storied British understatement at work here.


The 10:10 campaign's official reaction is a variation on the familiar non-apology, "I'm sorry that you were offended" -- a formulation commonly used by people seeking to deflect blame for genuinely offensive acts.

A premature environmentalist: Sade

"Many people found [No Pressure] extremely funny, but unfortunately some didn't and 10:10 would like to apologise to everybody who was offended by the film," stated 10:10 global campaign director Lizzie Gillet.  Fanny Armstrong, founder of 10:10, recited the same potted non-apology: "When the film was released ... lots of people found it funny, but many others were offended. Out of respect for those we offended, we immediately apologised and withdrew the film."


I'm struck by the fact that 10:10's "apology" follows the same collectivist logic displayed in its perverted mass murder fantasy: The enlightened understand the joke, even if a few reactionary holdouts aren't enchanted by it. Pity, isn't it, that we don't have a master detonator that would reduce such charmless people to a bloody mist?

The real problem for 10:10 is not that the stolid bourgeois didn't find No Pressure funny; instead, it's that the film laid bare the totalitarian misanthropy that resides at the core of the radical environmentalist movement. Progressives are expected to epater le bouregoise, and they revel in giving offense. Giving away their true intentions is a much more serious matter. 


"It has been suggested  that we call a United Species Conference -- a conference far more representative than the United Nations is - and put this one question to the ten million representatives (one for each species): `Should the human species be allowed to continue on this planet?'" wrote eco-theologian Matthew Fox in his book The Coming of the Cosmic Christ. "The vote would most likely be 9,999,999 to 1 that we humans, with our dualistic hatred of earth ... be banished to some distant place in the galaxy so that Mother Earth could resume her birthing of beauty, amazement, colors, and health." 

Fox is a peripheral figure. David Graber, Chief Scientist for the Pacific West Region of the National Park Service, is not. In a 1989 book review for the Los Angeles Times, Graber unflinchingly expressed the idea that in order for Gaia to prosper, countless millions of human beings must die.


"Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, are not as important as a wild and healthy planet," insisted Graber. "I know social scientists who remind me that people are a part of nature, but that isn't true.... We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the earth. Until such time as homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along."


Oh, if only the unregenerate masses had a single neck that could be severed by an immense guillotine -- or if the exalted "some of us" to whom Graber refers could annihilate the rest by pushing a single red button. 


"Anything that reduces human populations or reduces their growth is a benefit to just about everything else on the planet," Graber said in a 1999 Reason magazine interview. "Ecology is a game where some win and some lose," he continued, and in that conflict human beings have no greater intrinsic worth than other organisms. Pointing out that "Death is by far the crudest and cruelest solution to a problem of crowding," Graber did express at least a measure of sympathy for the human victims of what he considers to be an inevitable culling-out process. Repellent as his ideas may be, Graber apparently doesn't traffic in self-indulgent, sadistic "humor" of the kind found so winsome by the people behind the 10:10 Campaign. 

The term "sadism" is singularly appropriate here, given that the Marquis de Sade, from whose name that term derives, gave voice to ideas very similar to those dramatized in the No Pressure film. 


Decades ago, while researching an article on the "culture war," I made the mistake of trying to read Sade's Juliette, in which the author laid out what passed for his philosophy. Sade's opus reads like what might result were Larry Flynt to dictate a novel under the influence of Tourette's syndrome. I quickly discovered that the book -- as Dorothy Parker might put it -- was not one to be set aside lightly, but to be thrown away with great force. I was able to endure just a few chapters before a hurling both the book and my gorge. 


Sade is widely recognized as a libertine, and regarded by some misinformed people as an individualist. He was certainly devoted to the unqualified service of emancipated appetites, but he had nothing but disdain for the non-aggression principle: "Were I to discover that my only possibility of happiness lay in excessive perpetration of the most atrocious crimes, without qualm I'd enact every last one of them this very instant, certain ... that the foremost of the laws Nature decrees to me is to enjoy myself, no matter at whose expense." (Emphasis in the original.)


By way of social prescription, Sade recommended that children (those who survived abortion and infanticide, both of which he believed should be commonplace) should be treated as property of the State. 

"[Let us] create public schools where, as soon as they are weaned, the young may be reared; installed therein as ward of the State, the child can forget even his mother's name,"opined Sade through one of his literary creations. This element of Sade's manifesto resonates with the opening scene from the No Pressure film, in which a schoolteacher enlists children as eco-socialist missionaries with a commission to convert their parents. 


Significantly, Sade was on the same page with modern "Deep Ecologists" like David Graber and the 10:10 collective, who believe that human beings are alienated from the environment. "Nature stands in not the slightest need of [human] propagation," he wrote, "and the total disappearance of mankind ... would grieve her very little." 

This is the same deified "Nature," recall, that according to Sade, had ordained self-gratification of the elite as its highest law. So why couldn't Nature's priestly class get its jollies by liquidating everybody who disagrees with them? If there is a problem with this suggestion, Sade couldn't identify it: "If from immolating three million human victims you stand to gain no livelier pleasure than that to be had from eating a good dinner, you ought to treat yourself to it without an instant's hesitation."

Sade would see the humor in 10:10's No Pressure film, which isn't so much an exercise in persuading the unconvinced as an expression by the bien-pensants of their self-satisfied, bottomless contempt for those of us who don't share their theology. 

After the audience at the Hugh Hefner Roast turned against Gilbert Gottfried for his 9/11-themed joke, the adenoidal comedian did exactly as Sade would prescribe: He doubled down on the depravity, winning back the audience by telling the filthiest joke imaginable. This isn't surprising, given the crowd to which he was playing. 

I wouldn't be surprised to see Sade's disciples a the 10:10 Campaign take a similar approach. Given that their opening bid was to use mass murder as a punchline, I find myself wondering what they will do for an encore. 

(Note: This version has been corrected with valuable input from sharp-eyed readers; thanks!)


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Dum spiro, pugno!