SoCalDem
SoCalDem's JournalRemember Elian Gonzalez?... Now we have Angel, Isaiah & Adrian.
This is an especially sad story, since all three are American citizens, but they have a ridiculously unreliable American Mother, and a Mexican Father who was deported. The NC judge has ordered them "reunited" with their father who is temporarily staying in a hotel, but who will undoubtedly be sent back to Mexico once he's finished his "parenting classes".
There are no "winners" here,,
I cannot help but feel that NC is just eager to get rid of the lot of them 
http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/11/felipe_montes_reunified_with_his_children_on_trial_basis.html
Felipe Montes, an immigrant father who lost his three children to foster care when he was deported two years ago, was provisionally reunited with his three young children today in a North Carolina court. “The court cannot find that the father is unfit,” County Judge Michael Duncan said from the bench in the Alleghany County courtroom shortly after noon. “The permanent plan is reunification with the father.”
snip
Montes is not yet free to take his three U.S. citizen sons, now 2, 3, and 5, to Mexico. After the ruling in court, the judge told the attorneys in chambers that the reunification would be a “trial placement” in Alleghany County, said Donna Shumate, Montes’s attorney. From December 7th until February 19th, the children are scheduled to live with their father in a local hotel. It’s the same local hotel where Montes and his kids have visited with their father since August when he returned to the country on a rare humanitarian parole from federal immigration authorities. The parole, which was granted after a long application process so that Montes could attend his parental rights hearings, currently expires on December 23rd. Ann Robertson, an immigration attorney hired by the Mexican Consulate to represent Montes, said today she will apply for an extension so that he can remain in the country until the 19th of February.
Colorlines.com broke the Montes story in February. Soon after, the Latino advocacy group Presente.org gathered 20,000 signatures on a petition demanding Alleghany County reunify the boys with their father. In recent weeks, the Alleghany County Department of Social Services reversed it’s position and began recommending the children be returned to their father. If all goes well for Montes during the trial placement, the Judge will close the child welfare case and grant Montes full rights over his children. The father plans to bring his children with him in Tamaulipas, Mexico, where he’s lived since he was deported for driving violations in 2010.
snip
Montes’s children were removed from the custody of his U.S. citizen wife Marie Montes shortly after he was deported. Mrs. Montes, who is now pregnant, is currently incarcerated for parole violations related to driving violations. She has long struggled with drug addiction and mental health issues and could not continue taking care of their children, including a newborn baby, after her husband was deported. The county child welfare department initially refused to place the boys with their father in Mexico, instead, arguing that they should be adopted by foster parents. The foster parents, Brian and Marcie Galyean, who have cared for the two older boys Isaiah and Adrian, and Bob and Patricia Westlund, who have raised Angel since the baby was born, sat quietly in the second row of benches as the judge spoke. Mrs. Galyean and Mrs. Westlund began to cry when the judge ordered the boys move toward reunification. They have previously declined to speak with Colorlines.com and left the court room quickly after the hearing today.
snip
John McCain for Secretary of State
Ist assignment:
Get to the bottom of Benghazi... Go there and stay there until it's all figured out 
and take your little buddy Lindsay with you
First there was "Harry & Louise"..Now we have "Harriet & Lou"
You know them.. They are the elders whining about taxes going up on their dividends..and they NEED those dividends to live on..
Just curious here.. How many of you GET dividends?
We do, and let me tell you.. I will not cry over taxes going up on the whopping $18.36 a year we get from Metropolitan...OR the $9.09 we get from State Farm..
Geez Louise.. Susan succumbed to a private meeting with the Three Stooges?
Why on earth did she do that? or why on earth did ANYONE think there would be anything positive from it all? No matter what she said, they would have scurried out of the meeting to trash what she said.
Republicans may have taken a beating a few weeks ago, but they have NOT forgotten how to drive a careening, burning bus into a crowd...
they are experts at Briar Patch politics and dems seem all-too willing to play along with them.
McCain is all but irrelevant now, and he knows it, so WHY give that weasely little scumbag ANY opportunity to blather on.?
He and his little pal, Lindsay, have glombed onto their new "gal-pal" protege, Kelly for some "cover", but their game is the same as it's ever been.. Discredit Obama at ANY opportunity...and discredit anyone he presents as the public face of the administration..
Now, apparently, we have JOE LIEBERMAN weighing in as a lovely parting gift..
Lindsay Graham's "Norquist" pledge
"Ahh will make y'all a lovely ice cream sundae..but it will have shit sprinkles on it"..
nevermind Lindsay...bless yer heart
Modern wheat a "perfect, chronic poison," doctor says
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505269_162-57505149/modern-wheat-a-perfect-chronic-poison-doctor-says/Play CBS News Video
(CBS News) Modern wheat is a "perfect, chronic poison," according to Dr. William Davis, a cardiologist who has published a book all about the world's most popular grain.
Davis said that the wheat we eat these days isn't the wheat your grandma had: "It's an 18-inch tall plant created by genetic research in the '60s and '70s," he said on "CBS This Morning." "This thing has many new features nobody told you about, such as there's a new protein in this thing called gliadin. It's not gluten. I'm not addressing people with gluten sensitivities and celiac disease. I'm talking about everybody else because everybody else is susceptible to the gliadin protein that is an opiate. This thing binds into the opiate receptors in your brain and in most people stimulates appetite, such that we consume 440 more calories per day, 365 days per year."
Asked if the farming industry could change back to the grain it formerly produced, Davis said it could, but it would not be economically feasible because it yields less per acre. However, Davis said a movement has begun with people turning away from wheat - and dropping substantial weight. "If three people lost eight pounds, big deal," he said. "But we're seeing hundreds of thousands of people losing 30, 80, 150 pounds. Diabetics become no longer diabetic; people with arthritis having dramatic relief. People losing leg swelling, acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome, depression, and on and on every day."
To avoid these wheat-oriented products, Davis suggests eating "real food," such as avocados, olives, olive oil, meats, and vegetables. "
It's) the stuff that is least likely to have been changed by agribusiness," he said. "Certainly not grains. When I say grains, of course, over 90 percent of all grains we eat will be wheat, it's not barley... or flax. It's going to be wheat. "It's really a wheat issue."
snip
A reporter weighed in about customers (this AM) from a mall with 520 stores
FIVE HUNDRED & TWENTY STORES???
and this is ONE mall...and probably within not too many miles there are OTHER malls, not quite as big, but sheez....
THIS is what's "wrong" with our economy.
Let's say you are from xxxxxx,XX and it has 50K people, and there is a mall near you...and/or a Walmart/KMart...Malls are often achored by or located near other BIG BOX stores like Staples/BestBuy/Sportmart/Lowes?Home Depot, etc.... 520 stores is a LOT of stores, and the needs were probably met by many fewer stores before the Big Boxes/malls came along.
The money spent in those places does NOT stay in the community (except for the low wages paid to local workers, and often a pittance paid in sales taxes). What people often miss in the fine print of the reports that pre-date the arrival of said malls/companies, is that fact that these companies are often demanding (and getting) tax-holidays for a very long time, because they are promising jobs jobs jobs.
In times-past, stores were locally owned & run, and yet everyone managed to have shoes, dresses, pants, office supplies, car repairs, books, food..you name it.
The money was divvied up at the LOCAL banks as merchants deposited checks & cash from their sales and paid out the wages necessary to cash those checks.. It was a CIRCLE..a closed circle.
It's now a funnel..with locals tossing money into the top as they buy stuff made elsewhere, and the money goes OUTSIDE the community..
The locals get cheaper stuff (maybe), but they also get higher taxes (someone's gotta pay for the running of the community), and they may get wages from working at those places, but they probably also see lots of closed up businesses that used to provide the things they needed. Every empty business/building is a LOSS in taxes paid to the community, in addition to the blighted look that could drive down interest in people who might think about relocating there.
And when the tax holiday ends, the BIG BOXES often just pull up stakes and move to the next town, leaving another big empty spot... Why do they do it? Because they know that their customers will follow them..They almost have to follow them because the local places that kept money within the community have been put out of business, and will not be returning.
If you are tired of the "holiday programming", here's a suggestion
You'll have to watch online, but this is a fantastic series.
http://video.pbs.org/program/craft-in-america/
http://www.pbs.org/craftinamerica/
I am thankful for a lazy Thanksgiving Day
No drama
No irritating guests
No panic
It's 11:35 AM...I have just finished watching a documentary about pottery-making & weaving...have perused DU off & on all morning.
I may start cooking the turkey soon....or I may just take a nap first.
We will eat when the meal is ready.
It may be 5-ish...or it may be 7-ish..
There will be no shopping
and I may even wait to do the dishes until tomorrow..
The only "special request" from my husband is "black olives".. He's always been an easy-to-please sort of husband ..
I am thankful for that too
He hates turkey, so I will also cook a small ham
He will be thankful for that
Profile Information
Gender: Do not displayMember since: 2001
Number of posts: 103,856
