July 22, 2014

 

By Julia Fletcher

Working night and day, Connecticut’s family court reform advocates and state legislators finally knocked down and rebuilt the part of that state’s family court system which allowed Guardians ad litem to put Profit at the top of “To Do” lists over and above The Safety & Well Being of Children. 

Monthly, and then bi-weekly task force meetings, beginning last year led to a 15-hour-long hearing in the Connecticut State Capitol on January 9, 2014. 

A few months later, one state legislator called Connecticut’s family court system “broken”.

Another said, “racketeering”.

On the day of the historic unanimous vote on April 25, 2014 which fundamentally changed several family court rules, protocols and law, one legislator after the other congratulated those who had worked so hard to get the job done. A few days later, Connecticut’s US Senator Richard Blumenthal could have taken a few minutes to write a speech, an article or a few comments about the progress made. He could have praised – or at least recognized in some way – the outstanding progress state legislators and family court reform advocates worked so hard to achieve. 

He didn’t.

Instead, on Mr. Blumenthal’s agenda was a meeting with Russian nationals Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina. 

The meeting wasn’t to congratulate state legislators or family court reform advocates for the unanimous vote in favor of SB 494. 

It wasn’t to tell the public about his official support for continued investigations and reform of Connecticut’s family courts – highlighting the right of Connecticut families to live free from any form of any unfair governmental coercion typically found in repressive regimes. He didn’t speak about the nation’s need to weed out criminal collusion in family court related offices, all state and federal conflicts of interest and all semblance of public employee racketeering under guises of state authority. 

He said none of that.

Instead, Mr. Blumenthal prepared a speech for May 6, 2014 to speak about the future of a Russian punk rock band called, “Pussy Riot”.

He spoke of Pussy Riot’s rights and the human rights of band members. He spoke of the right to desecrate religious buildings for political purposes. He spoke of the need for the rest of us to pay attention to the aforementioned human rights violations. 

Not in Connecticut, just Russia.  

Some might say Mr. Blumenthal isn’t the state’s top Attorney General anymore so he doesn’t need to speak about broken anything in Connecticut. And he can say whatever he wants to say about other countries because now he’s a US senator. That’s all true. It’s also true that US senators are supposed to ignore their home states when their focus needs to be on national and international affairs. 

Here are a few questions about what’s needed and what’s not:

1. While Mr. Blumenthal focused on Russia’s internal affairs this past spring, did he know anything about the massive transformation happening in Connecticut’s family courts? 

2. How about years ago? Did Attorney General Richard Blumenthal know about Connecticut’s “broken” family court system and the alleged racketeering involving an inter-state private corporation monopolizing child custody cases throughout the state?

3. Is is at all possible that Senator Blumenthal’s attention to “Pussy Riot” was a distraction from his lack of focus on his state’s family court reform and related investigations of various state and judicial offices?

Clues for answers to the questions above might be found in the total lack of common sense in the following:  

• “Pussy Riot” desecrated Russian Christian churches.
• The human/religious rights of Russian Christians were violated because “Pussy Riot” desecrated their churches.  
• Mr. Blumenthal advocated for members of “Pussy Riot” to desecrate Christian churches in Russia. 

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From ABC News:

 The lawmakers praised the two women for speaking out about Russia’s abuse of human rights.

“It is my pleasure to welcome to the United States Capitol members of the Pussy Riot,” Cardin said. “We had a chance to talk with them about the conditions today in Russia, the experiences that they had, including the fact that they were arrested and sent to prison, how they had tried to help the citizens of Russia deal with the current deterioration of human rights in Russia.”

“The only way we’re going to get advancements on human rights is to put a spotlight on those who are violating human rights to stand up and make it clear that we will not accept these behaviors,” Cardin added.

There’s something very wrong somewhere.