‘Someone Needs to Pay’

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Meet Angel Adams, 37-year-old single mother of 15:

The lifelong Tampa resident said she wants justice from the Hillsborough County sheriff’s child protection team that took her kids away from her two years ago and from Hillsborough Kids Inc., which got her kids back six months ago.
“What do I do?” she said earlier in the day. “I have no answers. My family has been railroaded. Someone needs to pay.
“Nobody’s helping me.” . . .
This morning, inside the dingy motel room, Adams handed out a list of her children’s names and ages. Across the top: “Three fathers. One Mother. Fifteen Children.”
Ten of the children, she said, were fathered by Garry Brown, currently serving a five-year prison term for dealing cocaine. A sampling of his kids’ names: Garry Nesha, Garry Brown Jr., Garry Lethia, Garryiell and Garry Rick. . . .
The 12 kids [currently living with Adams in a Tampa motel room] are the youngest of 15 altogether, she said. Three have “aged out,” meaning they have turned 18 and are on their own, no longer a part of the child welfare system.
“I can have as many as I want to,” she said. All her kids, she added, “are gifts from God.”
The 37-year-old mother doesn’t work. “This is my work,” she said gesturing toward the bunch. “I do this all by myself. I don’t know what I’m going to do. This is a revolving door going nowhere.”
She said her problems began two years ago when Brown was arrested and the money dried up. Right after that her children were taken away and put into foster care over allegations of neglect, she said.
Hillsborough Kids stepped in and took the case, eventually returning the children to her and Brown. Before Christmas, the couple took a two-bedroom apartment off North Boulevard near Columbus Drive.
Hillsborough Kids agreed to pay the $800 a month rent after caseworkers inspected the apartment and, though a bit cramped, said it was OK.
But the landlord, who evicted Adams in March, thought differently.
Sandy Chiellini said Adams showed up to sign the lease with Brown and one child. She didn’t learn until later that there were 11 other children. . . .
She said Adams’ apartment was trashed. Clothes and food were scattered everywhere, screens were broken out. Chiellini began eviction proceedings. Adams failed to show up for two eviction hearings. . . .
“I need money,” she said. “I need transportation. My children need a place to live.”
Hillsborough Kids spokesman Elaine Olszewski said her agency has been working with Adams for months and there is a system of support at work behind the scenes.
Case managers have been in constant contact with Adams, Olszewski said.

Yeah. “Someone needs to pay.” Because she’s a victim.

Green Sex: Because Hermaphrodite Fish Probably Aren’t the Good Kind of Kinky

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Earth Day has come and gone, but environmentalist commitment to a sustainable sexual lifestyle just keeps coming and coming:

If you truly love the Earth, then you must learn how to make eco-friendly, sustainable love.
Put another way . . . green sex.
That’s the message from writer Stefanie Iris Weiss . . .
“EcoSex: Go Green Between the Sheets and Make Your Love Life Sustainable” is all about getting warm without the global warming guilt. . . .
“Hormone-based birth control is a landmine of horribleness,” the Manhattan-based author said. “It’s bad for the body, and marine life. Hormones get excreted into the water, and fish are becoming hermaphrodites.” . . .

(Hat-tip: Jules Crittenden.) Opposition to hormone-based birth control is one area where conservatives like me can agree with tree-huggers like Weiss, which helps explain why my wife and I have six children.

Among the benefits of our organic lifestyle are twin 17-year-old sons whose idea of “communing with nature” is using their chainsaws to cut down firewood.

So far, however, no major publisher has offered a contract for my proposed book, Rape the Planet: Because You Know She Wants It.

UPDATE: Adrienne calls our attention to a relevant article, “Big Families Are the New Green.” That probably shouldn’t be considered an endorsement of the unemployed 37-year-old single mother with 15 kids by three fathers, including a convicted cocaine dealer.

A Suggestion Of Tension Concerning
The Good Representative Waxman

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by Smitty

Valley of the Shadow continues the fight for blogospheric excellence, emphasis mine:

Next week I will be at the 30th Congressional District Republican debate. I know the candidates, and I will blog about it afterword. If there are 5 (yes FIVE!) candidates who think Rep. Waxman is vulnerable, then look in your city and town, other Democrats are vulnerable too.

I don’t understand what Rep. Waxman did to rate five people who want to see his political career move into the historic category. My local piece of work, Rep. Moran, only has two contenders going into the June primary.
Sure, there are cheap shots about physical appearance. We ignore those, as they are more likely to engender sympathy for Rep. Waxman. Then there is the fact that he assumed office in the. . .what?!? Carter Administration? And he’s “chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the principal investigative committee of the House.” Does that mean he and the Wicked Witch of the West are two of the most responsible people for the historically low approval rating of Congress?

I fail to see what could be the source of the anti-Waxman sentiment. Discuss.

Alex Spillius: How Many Tea Parties Have You Attended?

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by Smitty

Have you been to any Tea Party events in the last year, Alex? (Emphasis/formatting mine)

The Tea Party.

  • What is it?
  • How long will it last?

The longer I report on this the more I think that the answer is

  • a) disgruntled Republicans
  • b) as long as it takes Republicans to win back Congress.

Politico makes a similar point today. The movement is now doubt influential. It is forcing moderate Republicans to the right. It scared the Democrats witless over health care. It helped get Scott Brown elected. But as it stands it will not be a transformative force. Its glue is anger about the recession, the spending and about Barack Obama’s agenda.

You’re dangerously close to something at the end of that paragraph, Alex. BHO is really a tool. He represents the pinnacle of homo progressivus, that delicate colloidal suspension of Marxism in hogwash that really feels that a human ant colony would be a great way to live. Especially if BHO and his puppet masters retain control.

It has no real coherent ideas beyond a nebulous anti-Washington-ism, fiscal control and lower taxes. There are very few genuine libertarians with real ideas about controlling spending, such as privatising social security, a savings plan to replace Medicare, or axing a federal department or two. The reason Ron Paul wins all these straw polls is he is one of the very few with ideas.

Maybe the point is less obvious from Merry England, Alex, but the root of the problems reside in the Constitutional ignorance of those taking an oath to uphold notions of Federalism, separation of powers, and common sense. We The People have been absentee landlords for decades.

The lack of coherent ideas has to do with the fact that Congress, as a unit, is a stone-cold pack of liars. Walking that back just a bit, the system that has evolved the last century renders forthright behavior a virtual impossibility. Even the most individually honest, personally respectable members of Congress are at pains to accomplish much without veering in the direction of grey areas.

“The Problem Will Never Fix the Problem“, states a profound post. The Federal government is collapsing in the direction of autocracy. When peaceful, impassioned citizens gather, that government and its propaganda organs started out by calling We The People racists and birthers. This hasn’t gained traction, due to the predominantly false nature of the charge. Then came astro-turf knock-offs like the Coffee Party. This week we’re seeing old tools like Bill Clinton employed to call We The People terrorists. This is going over like a showing of Triumph of the Will in a synagogue.

One is generally perplexed about what the Left will do next to dismiss the 80%-ish of Americans who understand that the Progressive plug must be pulled, and now. If the debt was not such a crushing threat, one would expect the Left to veer back towards the middle, which is how Independents were duped into voting for BHO in 2008. A simple course correction, a few Stupakian bargains, combined with some statistical manipulations of jobs, home sales, and the stock markets, and the approval ratings would improve enough tho be manageable for 2012. Also, more attempts to break up the Tea Parties along social vs. fiscal lines. Foreign policy is peripheral at Tea Parties, from what I’ve seen.

The blogs, Tea Parties, those rabid PJTV extremists are all combining to keep the pressure up. There is no lack of ideas, though. There is a surplus of ideas, constantly batted about. The Contract From America bears mention.  Are these the final answers?  Of course not.  We can’t expect to erase a century of drift in even a decade.  We  can, we must attack the systemic causes of the situation. Chronic deficits are unethical. Taxing unrepresented future generations with debt is unethical. Acting as though the Constitution can be amended by systematically ignoring its provisions where inconvenient is unethical. Incumbency, in general, is a bad idea. Federal involvement in non-Federal issues is a bad idea. And so forth.

Pragmatically, the Tea Parties know that elections matter. Lots of people can make clever signs, but the Tea Party has to transition from a pleasant group hug at the town square to volunteer activism on a scale to make Madame Bowel Movement eat. . .her words.

Will the Tea Party effect that shift? Those of us who expect to greet the Founding Fathers in the afterlife, which is a sizeable chunk of the Tea Parties, won’t be ashamed at that meeting, I expect.

Sarah Palin on Financial ‘Reform’

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From her Facebook page: 

The current debate over financial reform demonstrates what happens when political leaders react to a crisis with a raft of new regulations. First off, the people involved in writing government regulations are often lobbyists from the very industry that the new laws are supposed to regulate, and that’s been the case here. It should surprise no one that financial lobbyists are flocking to DC this week. Of course, the big players who can afford lobbyists work the regulations in their favor, while their smaller competitors are left out in the cold. The result here are regulations that institutionalize the “too big to fail” mentality.
Moreover, the financial reform bill gives regulators the power to pick winners and losers, institutionalizing their ability to decide “which firms to rescue or close, and which creditors to reward and how.” . . . The president is trying to convince us that he’s taking on the Wall Street “fat cats,” but firms like Goldman Sachs are happy with federal regulation . . .
 Goldman showered nearly a million dollars in campaign contributions on candidate Obama. In fact, J.P. Freire notes that President Obama received about seven times more money from Goldman than President Bush received from Enron. . . .

Read the whole thing. Notice that she links and name-checks my buddy J.P. Freire — a clever application of Rule 2. If this politics thing doesn’t work out for the Gov, she certainly shows promise as a blogger.

The Surprise Return of Blago-Gate!

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Incomplete redaction of a Chicago subpoena for the Rod Blagojevich corruption trial reveals some unseemly — and perhaps criminal — actions by Team Obama:

Obama may have lied about conversations with convicted fraudster Tony Rezko . . .
Obama may have overtly recommended Valerie Jarret for his Senate seat . . .
A supporter of President Obama may have offered quid pro quo on a Jarrett senate appointment. . . .
Obama had a secret phone call with Blagojevich . . .

Read the whole thing. You knew when they brought the Chicago Way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue there would be some unexpected plot-twists, but such unmitigated awesomeness — SEIU President Andy Stern may be in the middle of this ugly mess — caught everybody by surprise.

Allahpundit’s happier than a senior federal official with a $200,000 salary and a hard-drive full of porn.

Hat-tip: Memeorandum. More at Another Black Conservative, Confederate Yankee and Pundit & Pundette.