Free Republic

Levi Johnston 'To Take Sarah Palin To Court' Over Child Custody The teenager who fathered Sarah Palin's 10-month-old grandson has delivered a fresh blow to the former Republican vice presidential candidate by saying he will "definitely" take her to court to gain access to his child. By Nick Allen in Los Angeles 30 Oct 2009 Levi Johnston, 19, who had a son called Tripp with Mrs Palin's eldest daughter Bristol, has been considering legal action for months but now says it is "inevitable" and that Mrs Palin is preventing him from seeing the boy. A court case over Tripp, during...

SALEM A three-year dog fight over who gets to keep Dexter the beloved pug ended Monday when a Superior Court judge ordered the ex-couple to share ownership. Eric Ware and Doreen Houseman, who live miles apart in Monroe Township, must start sharing the family pet on a five-week cycle. "I just can't wait to have him in my hands on Friday," said Houseman, who said she hasn't seen Dexter in two years, seven months, and three weeks. She guaranteed it would be an emotional reunion with "a lot of hugs and kisses." Dare and Houseman, who never married, spent 13...

The identity of the biological father of Michael Jackson’s children is being reported as that of his dermatologist, Arnold Klein. Klein reportedly fathered the children with Jackson’s ex-wife Debbie Rowe, who gave birth to Prince Michael and Paris Michael Katherine. The identity of the mother or father to Prince Michael II, known as ‘Blanket’, is unknown. Sources revealed Klein as the father to usmagazine.com, saying that "He and Debbie signed an agreement saying they would never reveal the truth." Los Angeles-based Klein is Rowe’s former boss. She previously worked as a nurse’s assistant. Rowe has reportedly reached out to the...

Michael Jackson's 79-year-old mother won temporary guardianship of his three children Monday and moved to take control of his estate. Michael Joseph Jr., 12, Paris Michael Katherine, 11, and Prince "Blanket" Michael II, 7, who have lived an extraordinarily sheltered life with their eccentric father, could inherit millions.

The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday threw out a judge’s order that prohibited children in a divorce case from having any contact with their father’s gay and lesbian friends. The ruling was hailed by gay rights groups who said the decision focuses on the needs of children instead of perpetuating a stigma on the basis of sexual orientation. The state high court’s decision overturned Fayette County Superior Court Judge Christopher Edwards’ blanket prohibition against exposing the children to their father’s gay partners and friends. “Such an arbitrary classification based on sexual orientation flies in the face of our public policy...

Maryland Residents - Please contact your state representatives and urge them to support the Shared Parenting Bill now being debated in the Judiciary Committee. Maryland is only one of 13 remaining states NOT to support the right of father's to have shared custody of children in divorce. Many fathers such as myself have had their children stolen from them by the courts as a result of a contentious divorce. I was personally denied all access to my 4-month old son by a judge in Montgomery County for nearly 16 months and am still only permitted to see him one hour...

A British mother faces jail in Dubai after being convicted of adultery. Marnie Pearce fears she may never see her two sons again. She insists she is innocent and that it is her ex-husband who cheated on her. Miss Pearce, 40, claims she was framed by Egyptian Ihab El-Labban so he could win custody of their children, Laith, seven and Ziad, three.

October 26, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - When Lisa Miller repudiated the lesbian lifestyle in 2003 and turned to Jesus Christ as her savior, she believed that she and her daughter Isabella would be safe from her traumatic and confused past. However, her former partner Janet Jenkins, to whom she was joined in a “civil union,” was not willing to let go without a fight. Jenkins sued and successfully received the right to unsupervised visits with Isabella, some lasting for weeks, despite the fact that she has no biological or adoptive relationship with the child. Although Miller is now living in the...

HARRISBURG, Pa. - A Philadelphia man was forced to pay more than $12,000 in child support for another man's daughter

I got this from a Woman Marine I know. We are looking for someone who can help this Marine legally with his problems who lives in his area. Can anyone assist us? A phone number, a reference of who we can go to? Cpl John Lake is one of your young veteran's. I've become one of his friends/admirers. Ok I don't know a lot about him, but he's one of our warriors living in the VA hospital with a TBI. (Traumatic Brain Injury) What more do I need to know... I learned this weekend some details that I assume are...

CHONGQING, China - Nine-year-old Anna He stands quietly amid the chaos in her boarding school dorm on a Sunday night, a frenzy of little girls chattering in Chinese as they change the linens on rows of wooden beds. Anna is an outsider here. Her parents are Chinese, but she cannot talk to her schoolmates because she grew up in America. This small girl with watchful dark eyes was at the center of one of the longest custody battles in the U.S. in recent times, a high-profile seven-year dispute marked by racial and cultural undercurrents. On one side were the Bakers,...

Three Tijuana police officers suspected of ties to organized crime were detained this week by U.S. authorities as they tried to cross into the United States. The officers, two of whom were assistant chiefs, were taken into custody at the Otay Mesa and San Ysidro ports of entry, said Lauren Mack, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego. The officers worked for the municipal police department and were turned over to the Mexican military. The first two were detained Monday and are among the 20 municipal officers being held for questioning in Mexico City by the federal...

Brande Samuels, 29, shows some of the child support documents from the Oklahoma Department of Human Services. Samuels has been forced by the state to pay child support for a child but DNA tests show he is not the father. SHERRY BROWN /Tulsa World Friday He promised himself and his family that when he left his prison cell, he would work hard to build a stable and positive life. After two years in prison, he was released early on good behavior and worked for less than minimum wage while he trained to become a welder. But that's when he...

Teri Stoddard Fathers4Justice Activists Atop Crane In Ohio 2008-09-27 Donald Tenn is a man of conviction. Since the day I met him, one thing, and one thing alone has guided his every move. Tenn is a Daddy who misses and worries about his daughter Madison every moment of every day. Madison and Tenn are victims of Madison’s mother Shannon and the disaster called the family court system. Shannon illegally abducted Madison from California to Illinois. When she learned the law would make her return Madison, she immediately filed false allegations of domestic violence against Tenn. As I described here and...

A New Jersey judge recently confronted an issue that courts have been avoiding for years: are restraining orders constitutional? Accused criminals have "due process" and many other constitutional rights, but the feminists have persuaded many judges to issue orders that restrain actions of non-criminals and punish them based on flimsy, unproved accusations. These restraining orders are issued without the due process required for criminal prosecutions, yet they carry the threat of a prison sentence for anyone who violates them. Mr. and Mrs. Crespo were divorced and rearing their children in the same household when they had a fight, and Mrs....

<p>MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Mary Winkler, the woman convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the 2006 shooting death of her minister husband, has taken custody of her three daughters, one of her lawyers said Monday.</p> <p>Rachael Putnam, a custody attorney, said the former minister's wife picked the girls up Friday from the slain man's parents, Dan and Diane Winkler.</p>

A Smithfield man this morning filed a federal lawsuit against Fayette County Children and Youth Services alleging that the agency removed his children from him -- and has forbidden contact with them for nearly a year -- even though there were no allegations of any kind of abuse against them. Filed on his behalf by the American Civil Liberties Foundation of Pennsylvania, the lawsuit seeks a temporary restraining order that would prohibit CYS from placing -- or threatening to place -- his children, who are staying with his parents, in foster care. The plaintiff is listed as "John Doe" in...

5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans is hearing a a suit brought forth byAttorney Susan Watson of Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid on behalf of Monica Castro who lost her daughter in a custody dispute 5 years ago. Ms. Castro had been living with her daughter Rose, and common law husband Omar Gallardo. Gallardo was in the US illegally, while his wife and daughter were both American citizens. The dispute arose when Gallardo was arrested, detained, and later deported by Border Patrol Agents. He stated that he was the father of then 11 month old Rose and...

"The raid ­- resulting in the largest child custody case in American history - was based on a lie." "Police traced the calls to 33-year-old Colorado Springs woman named Rozita Swinton. Swinton had earlier been arrested for making a false report, and accused of posing as "Jennifer," 16, who called 911 to report that her father had locked her in a basement for days. Swinton may also have posed as thirteen-year-old Dana Anderson, who was being sexually abused by her pastor and raped by her father. There is no evidence that Sarah, Jennifer, or Dana exist. Swinton remains a "person...

SAN ANGELO, Texas — The day after FLDS mothers celebrated an appeals court decision ordering the return of their children, child welfare officials went to the Texas Supreme Court to prevent it. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services asked the Supreme Court to stay the 3rd Court of Appeals order and keep the children where they are, in foster facilities, until the high court considers its arguments. Attorneys argued the more than 450 children will "suffer irreparable harm" if the appellate court order is followed and says the children "will be at risk of sexual and emotional abuse"...

AUSTIN – Texas Child Protective Services will ask the state's highest court to keep a polygamist sect's children in state custody, following a Thursday appeals court ruling that ordered the youngsters be returned to their homes. Texas Supreme Court spokesman Osler McCarthy said attorneys for the state called Friday morning and said they'd be "filing an action in this court" later in the day. On Thursday, a state appeals court ordered many though perhaps not all of a polygamist sect's children returned to their parents Thursday, saying Texas failed to prove they were in physical jeopardy and urgently needed to...

Texas authorities no longer believe that a woman who gave birth to a child in state protective custody is a minor herself. Lawyers for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services acknowledged in a hearing in San Angelo on Tuesday that the young woman is legally an adult. "We received information — credible information — and we now believe this woman who was believed to be a minor in question, is in fact, an adult," said Texas Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner. However, she will still remain in custody alongside her baby boy, who was born in San...

A woman who claimed that she is allergic to her ex-husband's cat cannot prevent their two children from visiting their father's home, a Long Island, N.Y., judge has ruled.

If you watch much television, you've probably heard of a product called Mike's Hard Lemonade. And if you ask Christopher Ratte and his wife how they lost custody of their 7-year-old son, the short version is that nobody in the Ratte family watches much television. The way police and child protection workers figure it, Ratte should have known that what a Comerica Park vendor handed over when Ratte ordered a lemonade for his boy three Saturdays ago contained alcohol, and Ratte's ignorance justified placing young Leo in foster care until his dad got up to speed on the commercial beverage...

"If Walther gives CPS permanent custody of the children, the agency will begin looking for foster homes in a case that has already stretched the legal resources of this small town and the state's child welfare system. The custody case is one of the largest in U.S. history and involves children from six months to 17 years in age. Roughly 100 of the children are under age 4. ... Typically, each child would be given a separate hearing, but given the number of cases, it's likely the judge will have the state, the children's attorneys and the parents' attorneys make...

11-year-old Libby Mashburn is at the center of a child-custody battle with far-reaching consequences. Libby's mother says she lost primary custody of her daughter because she was deemed to be too religious.[A Judge in Alabama ruled that Libby could not be taught the Bible by her Baptist mother.] Libby tells INSIDE EDITION, "I think children should be able to choose who they want to live with." Libby's mom Laura Snider is a member of an [large] ultra-conservative Baptist church in Alabama. Libby spends several hours each week attending sermons. On weekends, she goes to Sunday school.[She attends church at...

MADISON, Ala. — On a January night nine years ago, Laura Snider was saved. A 27-year-old single mother at the time, Mrs. Snider felt she had ruined her life through a disastrous marriage and divorce. But in her kitchen that night, after reading pamphlets and Bible passages that her boss had pointed her to, she realized she was a sinner, she said, she prayed for forgiveness, and put her trust in Christ. Four years later, the conservative brand of Christianity Mrs. Snider embraced became the source of a bitter, continuing custody battle over her only child, Libby Mashburn. Across the...

In the heartbreaking Melinda Smith case, a San Diego father and daughter were needlessly separated by the foster care system for over a decade. Last week, Los Angeles County settled a lawsuit over the case for an undisclosed sum. Yet a recent Urban Institute study found that the Smith case typifies the way the foster care system harms children by disregarding the loving bonds they share with their fathers. Smith was born to an unwed couple in 1988. Her father, Thomas Marion Smith, a former Marine and a decorated Vietnam War veteran, saw Melinda often and paid child support. When...

A Maryville woman who went to court on Aug. 14 for a child custody hearing says she was persecuted because of her religious beliefs at the hands of the Blount County judicial system. According to Jo Anne White, what was supposed to be a standard child custody hearing turned into an almost hourlong “Bible study” in the courtroom in spite of the repeated protests of her attorney, Kevin W. Shepherd. After a detailed discussion of her religious beliefs — documented in court reporter transcripts obtained by The Daily Times — and a brief recess to chambers, Blount County Circuit Court...

MADISON, WIS. — Talk about treating Fido like one of the family: Wisconsin legislators have introduced a bill that outlines how divorcing couples and the courts should handle custody battles over pets. The measure would let couples specify, among other things, visitation rights and the right to move animals out of state. If the feuding spouses can't agree on what to do with the pet, the solution is simple: A judge can either pick a spouse — or ship it off to a local Humane Society facility or similar shelter. Whoever gets there first owns the dog, cat or even...

MURCIA, Spain, July 24, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Spanish judge ruled in June that a woman must leave her lesbian relationship for the sake of her children or give up custody of them to the father, her former husband, in a controversial story that has just come to light. Homosexual advocacy groups have begun clamoring for an investigation into Fernando Ferrin Calamita, a family court judge in the southeastern city of Murcia who has insisted that the "most prestigious specialists" and "common sense" say homosexual environments are damaging to the development of children. In his June 6 decision Ferrin Calamita...

A former Morris County man who learned 30 years after his son was born that the child was not his cannot recoup $110,000 spent in child support from the biological father, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled yesterday. The 7-0 decision overturned an appellate court ruling in 2005 and found there is no exception in the New Jersey Parentage Act to extend the deadline in a paternity case beyond the child's 23rd birthday. "The Legislature evidently knew what has been known since time immemorial -- that children would be born of adulterous relationships and that the true identity of the...

LOS ANGELES -- David Hasselhoff beamed outside of a Los Angeles courtroom Friday when saying that he won his long-running battle with ex-wife Pamela Bach over custody of his two teenage daughters. After the hearing, Hasselhoff declared that the judge said, "Enough is enough." Bach and her lawyer aren't talking about the case. They said they are prevented from doing so by a court order. Bach and Hasselhoff had been splitting custody of their daughters, who are 14 and 17. Last month, a judge put a hold on Hasselhoff's visitation privileges for two weeks. The decision came within days of...

Stupid Men June 7, 2007 at 6:04 pm · Filed under Sex & Relationships, Mating, Marriage & Divorce, Feminism, Child Support & Custody, Vox Populi I’m going to give you the highlights of a very unfunny joke. A man is married for 8 years, and comes home one night to “the talk.” The one about the relationship, about the need for space, (I have a boyfriend, and it’s getting to hard to cover it up) – a lot of us know the drill. So, he agrees to move out “for a while” to “work on the relationship.” Fast forward a...

Psychology Today To Child Custody Divorce Courts, Father's Rights Groups: Dads Are Equal By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Jerusalem ----June 3 ...... It was not easy writing the above headline. But when Psychology Today, one of the most respected lay journals on clinical psychology releases research illustrating that fathers are empowered biologically no differently than women when it comes to nurturing children, all keywords are needed. The Psychological Today story: The Making of a Modern Dad, by Douglas Carlton Abrams illustrates in vivid scientific detail how fathers are no different in their biological programming than mothers when raising children....

Legal question for anyone who knows. A friend of mine is in a bad relationship (unmarried) with two kids. The lady has definite mental issues and some prescription drug issues as well. He finally had enough and is leaving her. The lady in question called his mom up at 3:30 in the morning and told her to come get the kids, that she couldn't handle them and if she didn't she would call 911 and have them take her kids. Apparently, she had threatened suicide to her fiancee as well. This woman has a history of faking seizures and being...

WASHINGTON, April 27, 2007 – The Defense Department announced today that it has taken a senior al Qaeda operative into custody at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The detainee, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, was transferred to Guantanamo this week from CIA custody and is now under the control of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, Bryan Whitman, a Defense Department spokesman, told reporters. Abd al-Hadi is considered a high-value detainee, like the group of 14 detainees who were transferred to Guantanamo from CIA custody in September, Whitman said. At the time of his detention, Abd al-Hadi was one of...

PAPILLION, Neb. -- A teenager accused of threatening students at Papillion La Vista High School will stay in police custody, a judge said on Wednesday. The 16-year-old faces a charge in juvenile court of making terroristic threats. He was accused of saying in class on Monday that he intended to kill everyone at school. The teen allegedly told school administrators that he didn't mean the threat seriously, that he was resonding in anger to harassment at school, prosecutors said.

McGreevey seeks sole custody of 5-year-old daughter Former governor's amended divorce lawsuit also asks for child support Tuesday, March 13, 2007 BY JOSH MARGOLIN Star-Ledger Staff Former Gov. James E. McGreevey has revised his divorce lawsuit against his estranged wife and is now seeking sole custody of the couple's 5-year-old daughter -- and child support. The new documents make no mention of a "matrimonial settlement agreement" that McGreevey's original divorce filing said had resolved all issues of custody and support. Advertisement McGreevey, who resigned as governor after announcing he had had an affair with a male aide, has retained a...

Why Women Are Abandoning MenBy SHMULEY BOTEACH The Jerusalem Post Remember the days when little girls grew up dreaming about a knight in shining armor whisking them off their feet to live happily ever after? Remember when a woman's foremost fantasy was finding the man of her dreams? Well, that's all over now as women are abandoning men in droves and learning to find happiness completely on their own. Two astonishing studies show just how alarming the trend has become. First, there was the study, from the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University and others, that two-thirds of all divorces...

No. 95,203 IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF KANSAS DAVID A. YORDY, Appellant, v. LISA M. OSTERMAN, Appellee. SYLLABUS BY THE COURT 1. When the district court orders that parents have joint custody of their child, the parents have equal rights to make decisions in the best interests of their child. This includes the decision about which school their child should attend. 2. When parents subject to the court's ongoing jurisdiction during the minority of their child cannot agree on the school their child should attend, it is the task of the court to resolve the dispute...

A father embroiled in a custody dispute posted phony ad on the Internet offering to give away his 5-year-old boy to make his wife look bad, investigators said Wednesday. The ad, written as if it were placed by the mother, listed the boy as "free to a good home" on the popular Craigslist Web site. "I've had him now for five years. I've somewhat abused him, but I cannot control myself or him," the ad read. "I have mental problems. DCF (The Department of Children & Families) won't remove him. His father lives in California and has no contact with...

There are no orphan homes in Western Europe and the USA - there are queues for abandoned children. Will it be harder or easier for foreigners to adopt a Russian child since custody regulations in Russia have changed? The rules concerning activity of foreign organizations dealing with children adoption have recently been amended which caused a confrontation of opinions: some consider the new regulations more liberal, others claim it’s nothing but toughened demands.

Call it the backlash against the backlash. Over the past decade, Americans have increasingly understood that the divorce revolution, fatherlessness and single parent households are harming our children. Now those who view the traditional family as disadvantageous to women are firing back, defending women who choose single motherhood and depicting fathers as superfluous. Last fall Stanford University Gender Scholar Peggy Drexler penned the highly-publicized book Raising Boys Without Men: How Maverick Moms Are Creating the Next Generation of Exceptional Men. This month Oxford Press released Wellesley College Women's Studies Professor Rosanna Hertz’s Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice: How Women...

Jane is a successful career woman. She has moved up rapidly in a competitive field, and is advancing her career by attending business school at night. Bob works out of their home and does most of the childcare. If Bob decides he doesn’t want Jane anymore, should he be able to take her kids away and push her to the margins of their lives? The opponents of the North Dakota Shared Parenting Initiative think he should. Under the NDSPI, unless a parent is unfit, both parents in a divorce will have joint legal and physical custody of their children. By...

Schwarzenegger Should Veto AB 2051 By Mike McCormick and Glenn Sacks The California Assembly just passed a domestic violence bill which will perpetuate the state’s harmful policy of excluding men and their children from receiving state-funded domestic violence services. Under AB 2051, only “battered women” are eligible for the shelters, hotel vouchers, counseling and legal services the state provides victims of domestic violence. Governor Schwarzenegger should veto this misguided legislation. Because AB 2051 is based on the discredited premise that men are rarely the victims of intimate partner abuse, the bill has aroused considerable opposition from domestic violence researchers and...

Oh the HUMANITY !!! Those poor,misunderstood al-Qaeda people have been in CIA custody all this time, without so much as a conjugal visit with a goat ! I'm sure you'll want to contribute a few mil for their defense fund.(Group hug,everybody !!)

The family and lawyers of schoolgirl Molly Campbell plan to use claims of anti-Muslim prejudice in Britain as a key pillar of their claim for her custody. In the increasingly bitter international tug-of-love over whether the 12-year-old should live with her father Sajad Ahmed Rana in Pakistan or mother Louise Campbell in Scotland, her lawyers blamed "anti-Islamic" feeling in Britain for the furore that has surrounded the case - and the break-up of their marriage. Against this background, Mrs Campbell was warned yesterday that if she comes to Lahore to personally fight the custody case, she should ask for protection...

Child support enforcement programs are supported by all sides of the political spectrum, from women’s advocates on the left to traditionalists on the right. While this popularity is sometimes understandable, it has also allowed glaring and inexcusable abuses to fester and grow. Of these, none is more egregious than when men are forced to pay 18 years of child support for children who are not theirs, and who in many cases they’ve never even met. In “The Innocent Third Party: Victims of Paternity Fraud,” a new article in the American Bar Association's Family Law Quarterly, Washington DC attorney Ronald K....

You may have read or heard the recent news about two women, both originally from the Commonwealth of Virginia, who decided to dissolve their three-year homosexual civil union that was granted to them by the state of Vermont in 2000. .......... The circumstance today is that the biological mom has renounced her homosexuality and wants to reside in Virginia with the child, away from her estranged partner. This seems to be a typical "moveaway" that men and children are all too familiar with in the aftermath of divorce and separation from heterosexual relationships. But it's not. In this case, the...