Real Player format are available at
www.tellusnews.com/dads I am very impressed.Michigan Enemies
The Family Independence Agency operates the Child Support Services.
The Friend of the Court Bureau publishes a Handbook that sets forth child support enforcement procedures, including contempt proceedings.
Carol Rhodes, a former employee of Child Support Services grants a 54 minute interview to KRights Radio and Robert Pederson of A Child's Right. Thank's to Teri Stoddard's www.mensnewsdaily.com article informing of this!
Cycling 4 Children sponsored speech by Carol Rhodes, former Michigan Support Enforcer. She tells it like it is.
Michigan's Attorney General, Mike Cox Sucker, has his Child Support Division operating or sponsoring the loathsome site, www.paykids.com, operated by the Paykids Foundation, which is a "nonprofit" founded by Mike Cox Sucker and funded with corporate donations as he himself explains. Particularly offensive is his contest for children to make posters or billboards painting their noncustodial parents in the worse way possible, offering Domino's Pizza gift certificates for the first 250 entries. NOW CANCELLED!!!!
This is STATE SPONSORED PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME!!!
Boycott the listed sponsors, including Art Van Furniture, Meijer Stores, Michigan State Medical Society (warning, the MSMS website does not like to let you out when you click the back button), SBC Communications, and Michigan Health and Hospital Association and tell them why you are boycotting them!
What the HELL are these corporations THINKING? They are no better than IBM when it sold computer technology to Nazi Germany to be used to administer its Nuremburg Laws and Final Solution!!
For even more information, please read letters by Stan Rains and Terry Lear.
Not to be outdone, we are announcing our own billboard contest!
Domino's Pizza sent me the following e-mail in response to my concerns:
October 09, 2004
Mr. Roger Knight
Mailing address redacted for this website
Seattle, WA Zip Code redacted for this website
Dominos Case #: 304371
Dear Mr. Knight,
If you have Pop Up Blocker turned on you might not be able to view the letter. Below is a letter, however, it might not be word for word of what is on our website. Thanks for letting us know about the website still mentioning Domino's Pizza.
Thank you for your recent correspondence to Domino's Pizza and for sharing your concerns with us. We appreciate your feedback. We did not know about the use of Domino's gift certificates in the PayKids billboard contest until concerns like yours began coming to us. We were not informed about this contest in advance, nor did we endorse the use of our company name in conjunction with it.
As a company, we do not have a political bias or agenda. We simply want to sell pizza - and we know we cannot do that by alienating any of our customers or potential customers, as this issue clearly does.
An important part of our company philosophy is to be a good corporate citizen, and we support a variety of causes and children's charities, including St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Variety Children's Charities, Child Help, Make-A-Wish and dozens of others.
In January, we donated gift certificates to the Attorney General's foundation, with the expectation and understanding that they would be used for pizza parties or events to support children and families through ensuring their financial stability. We were never informed of the foundation's decision to ultimately use them as an incentive for children to design billboards in order to pressure a parent into paying child support. We would have declined the opportunity, if we had been given a choice.
We do appreciate you taking the time to let us know how you feel, and we will be happy to forward your concerns to the Attorney General's office.
Thank you.
But then I found out more about Domino's internal thinking on this issue. And I wrote this e-mail:
In his response to Richard Farr of Krightsradio.com, Mr. Tim McIntyre, Vice President of Communications at Domino's Pizza, Inc. wrote:
I wanted to follow up in writing following our conversation late yesterday. While I appreciate the opportunity to go on air with you, I’d much prefer to use this format, and ask that you consider using it on your radio program and on your web site. As we discussed, I am a non-custodial parent of two teenagers, paying child support in Michigan.
Ironically, my ex-wife is a family law attorney (who actually drafted all of the documents for our divorce!), so this issue is particularly close to me. First, I think you would agree that ensuring kids get the support they need from both parents is incredibly important. I think you also agree that non-payment of child support is a problem across the country. That being said, we did, back in January, donate pizza gift certificates to the Michigan Attorney General’s office and his foundation. Our intent, expectation and understanding was that these gift certificates would be used in an appropriate way, and in some way, benefit kids by bringing attention to the cause.
However, we did not know about the use of Domino’s gift certificates in the PayKids billboard contest until concerns like yours began coming to us. We were not informed about this contest in advance, nor did we endorse use of our company name in conjunction with it. We are incredibly sorry this happened, and are incensed that this was done without our prior knowledge or consent. As a company, we do not have a political bias or agenda. We just want to sell pizza – and we know we cannot do that by alienating any of customers or potential customers by aligning ourselves with controversial issues, such as this one. Instead, we choose to focus our philanthropic efforts on a variety of causes and children’s charities, including St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Variety Children’s Charities, Child Help, the Make-A-Wish Foundation and many, many more.
In providing gift certificates to the Attorney General’s foundation, we made an honest, good-hearted mistake: we thought we were helping kids. We were never informed of the foundation’s decision to use them as an incentive for children to design billboards in order to pressure a parent into paying child support. We would have immediately and strongly declined the opportunity, if we had been given the chance. I hope this helps answer your questions, and I appreciate you giving consideration to helping us answer the questions of your listeners and readers.
Regards, Tim McIntyre Vice President, Communications Domino’s Pizza, Inc.
How STUPID do you think we are?
The Thirteenth Amendment Section 1 reads:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
What part of this sentence do you not understand?
Section 2 provides Congress with the power to enforce with appropriate legislation.
It may be permissible to enforce child support by coercive means in Windsor, where the 13th Amendment does not apply, BUT NOT IN MICHIGAN!!!!! Article I Section 9 of the Michigan Constitution also prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude except as punishment for a crime.
Which an order to pay child support is most certainly NOT!
While Assistant Attorney General Randall Thompson says:
"Asking kids to use their creativity to encourage people to obey the law is appropriate and the right thing to do. We're talking about a felony statute here. We're not talking about the overwhelming majority of mothers and dads that do pay and have wonderful relationships with their children."
Please consider some of the appropriate legislation Congress passed to enforce the prohibition of slavery and involuntary servitude:
42 U.S.C. §1994 reads:
The holding of any person to service or labor under the system known as peonage is abolished and forever prohibited in any Territory or State of the United States; and all acts, laws, resolutions, orders, regulations, or usages of any Territory or State, which have heretofore established, maintained, or enforced, or by virtue of which any attempt shall hereafter be made to establish, maintain, or enforce, directly or indirectly, the voluntary or involuntary service or labor of any persons as peons, in liquidation of any debt or obligation, or otherwise, are declared null and void.
One need not to have graduated at the top of a Harvard Law School class to know that means coercion of labor by threat of violence or by threat or fact of legal process, or by any means that would constitute coercion for the purpose of an extortion statute, where used to enforce service or labor in liquidation of ANY DEBT OR OBLIGATION, OR OTHERWISE, is declared null and void. Congress specifically DID NOT EXCLUDE ALIMONY AND CHILD SUPPORT EVEN THOUGH THESE TYPES OF DEBT AND OBLIGATION WERE WELL KNOWN IN 1867!!! That includes ORDERS. That includes ACTS, LAWS, RESOLUTIONS. That includes Michigan Compiled Laws Section 750.165, the felony statute Randall Thompson is apparently referring to.
More to the point,
18 U.S.C. §1581 reads:
(a) Whoever holds or returns any person to a condition of peonage, or arrests any person with the intent of placing him in or returning him to a condition of peonage, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. If death results from the violation of this section, or if the violation includes kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or the attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, the defendant shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or life, or both.
(b) Whoever obstructs, or attempts to obstruct, or in any way interferes with or prevents the enforcement of this section, shall be liable to the penalties prescribed in subsection (a).
So WHO is committing the felony here?
Randall Thompson and Mike Cox Sucker deserve and are legally entitled to be guests of the taxpayers in the federal Bureau of Prisons.
All you did, by your own admission, is commit the crime of aiding and abetting a federal felony, 18 U.S.C. §2
I am posting all of this on my website at
www.antipeonage.0catch.com/michiganenemies.htm
It will be there soon.
Obviously. Domino's is backtracking because it now realizes that when a noncustodial parent picks up the children for their once every two weeks visit, one of the things they do is order pizza. That is about ALL the noncustodial parent can do after paying child support and income tax. CHILD SUPPORT PAID IS NOT DEDUCTIBLE FROM TAXABLE INCOME, 26 U.S.C. §§71, 152, and 215. Please stop killing me! Please see the Moccasin Page for further details. When we order pizza, it need not be Domino's.
A friendly word of advice to corporations who wish to be good citizens of the community. Do NOT give money to organizations founded by and run by politicians. Feel free to consult with outfits who check these organizations out before funding them with money donated by citizens who mean well. The charities listed in Domino's letter to me are good non-political charities who would not be caught dead anywhere near the Child Support Crusade for the obvious reasons that Domino's cites, it alienates donors and customers.
According to ACES, Michigan collected $700,000 in child support money from noncustodial parents that should have been distributed to the custodial parents, but the custodial parents had yet to see it. A lawsuit was required to get Michigan to fork it over.
Given the cost of this program, to both employer and employees, it is no wonder the car manufacturers moved their production to Mexico and China. Not only are the wage rates much lower, the local child support laws, if any, are not applied to people too poor to afford running water. (That would necessitate paying factory workers enough to allow them to afford running water and to pay child support. We can't have that!!!)
Practical folks, them Mexicans and Chinese.
Speaking of unconstitutional felony statutes, the new decision in Jones v. City of Los Angeles, (9th Cir. April 14, 2006) provides an argument against prosecutions under Michigan Compiled Laws Section 750.165, which does not provide an inability defense. The key provision reads:
(1) If the court orders an individual to pay support for the individual's former or current spouse, or for a child of the individual, and the individual does not pay the support in the amount or at the time stated in the order, the individual is guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 4 years or by a fine of not more than $2,000.00, or both.
No requirement for willfulness in the nonpayment. While there are many Ninth Circuit decisions that go against common sense and any understanding of the Constitution based on reading its plain language, the Jones decision is a good one. Sometimes the "Ninth Circus" gets it right. I understand that Michigan is outside the Ninth Circuit, but Jones is based on the Eighth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment, and several United States Supreme Court decisions that apply everywhere within the nation. Specifically: Robinson v. California, (1962) 370 U. S. 660; Powell v. Texas, (1968) 392 U.S. 514; and Ingraham v. Wright, (1977) 430 U.S. 651. Read Jones carefully, and carefully analyze your client's situation. If your client is unable to pay the child support as an unavoidable result of unemployment, you can make a good faith challenge to a criminal prosecution for nonpayment of child support as cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. To support this argument cite:
Zablocki v. Redhail, (1978) 434
Under the
challenged statute, no
I make a Zablocki v. Redhail based argument against the State of Washington's child support license suspension laws in my Reply to State's Answer to Petition for Review.
In my spare time, I will be drafting a dummy brief on behalf of the luckless Roslyn Washington, who lost custody of her son Quincy and has been unable to pay child support after her job was shipped overseas for cheap labor.
In Michigan, our allies recently
held a videotaped rally at the Michigan Capitol in Lansing. These videos
in
Real Player format are available at
www.tellusnews.com/dads I am very impressed.
Marriage is regulated by Chapter 551 of the Michigan Compiled Laws.
Divorce is regulated by Chapter 552 of the Michigan Compiled Laws. This Chapter includes:
Act 259 of 1909 or Sections 552.101-104 Judgments of Divorce or Separate Maintenance;
Act 52 of 1911 or Sections 552.121-123 Alimony Awarded by Court of Another State;
Act 379 of 1913 or Sections 552.151-156 Collection of Alimony or Support and Maintenance;
Act 138 of 1966 or Sections 552.451-459 the Family Support Act;
Act 294 of 1982 or Sections 552.501-535 the Friend of the Court Act, (what we might call guardian ad litems in other states,)
Act 216 of 1985 or Sections 552.671-685 the Interstate Income Withholding Act; and
Act 310 of 1996 or Sections 552.1101-1901 the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act.
Act 328 of 1931 or Chapter 750 is Michigan's Criminal Code. It has some interesting sections:
Section 750.29-32 Adultery. Section 750.30 does not provide for stoning to death upon conviction. Only that the crime is a felony and that an unmarried man who does it with a married woman is also guilty. Might want to check the case law on whether the failure to include unmarried women who do it with married men as felons is a denial of equal protection of the laws without serving any legitimate interest of government.
Sections 750.102-103 Blasphemy. We don't need no stinking First Amendment in Michigan! Whosoever shall willfully blaspheme the holy name of God, by cursing or contumeliously reproaching God, and whosoever shall profanely curse or damn or swear by the name of God, Jesus Christ, or the Holy Ghost, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
What does "contumeliously" mean? I guess it is okay in Michigan to profanely curse or damn or swear by the name of Mohammed, or Jupiter, or Athena, or Pele, or Mother Nature, or Gaia, or Ahuru Mazda, or even Mike Cox Sucker! Just don't do it in the name of God, Jesus, or the Holy Ghost! Even if you are a Unitarian!
By the way, blasphemy was the crime for which Jesus was nailed to a cross. Matthew 26:65, the priest declared that he spoke blasphemy, and asked what further need was there for witnesses.
Sections 750.158-159 Crimes Against Nature or Sodomy. Perhaps Michigan is not for lovers, if you love the wrong way. There might be a void for vagueness problem here. One person's "abominable and detestable crime against nature" is another person's idea of a good time! Who are we to judge as long as it is between mutually consenting adults (not married or married to each other, see above) in the privacy of the home or hotel room?
Sections 750.161-166 Desertion and Nonsupport. I can agree with Section 750.161, to some extent, except that in the case of desertion of the spouse, the spouse is presumably an adult capable of taking care of himself or herself. There is the small matter of lay-offs due to outsourcing and corporate mergers, and the way employers use the at-will doctrine to shield themselves from liability for arbitrary firings. Even this provision gets dicey when one considers the Thirteenth Amendment and the Antipeonage Act. But Section 750.165 is clearly declared null and void by 42 U.S.C. §1994 on its face! It turns every court order for support into peonage.
Sections 750.213-214 Extortion Really! I like Section 750.214, Extortion by Public Officers!! How can they enforce Section 750.165 without violating Section 750.213?
Sections 750.335-347 Indecency and Immorality Oh, puhleeeze! I guess we'll just have to cancel the Gay Day parade in Detroit! Do it across the river in Windsor! Section 750.335 defines any man or woman, not being married to each other, who lewdly and lasciviously associates and cohabits together, to be guilty of a misdemeanor. I would like to know how they can prove to a jury the element of "lewdly and lasciviously" without violating every Americans' right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects from unwarranted searches and seizures! Section 750.338 prohibits "any act of gross indecency" between two male persons even if in private, even if both are adults, and even if both are mutually consenting. So what is an "act of gross indecency"? Section 750.338a is the same thing for female persons. These Michigan legislators are just no fun!
Other crimes in Michigan under Chapter 752:
Sections 752.161-162 Endurance Contests Perhaps this is why we never hear about the Detroit Marathon (though not illegal if you can complete the 26 miles and 385 yards in less than 12 hours). To be a season ticket holder for the Detroit Lions or Tigers might be in violation of this provision!
Sections 752.361-374 Obscene Material We don't need no stinking First Amendment!
After you have been sufficiently abused by the enforcement and operation of these laws, you come under the jurisdiction of what's left of Chapter 328 of the Michigan Compiled Laws!
Article I Section 2 of the Michigan Constitution mandates equal protection of the laws. Apparently does not apply to family law or to the family courts.
Article I Section 3 of the Michigan Constitution provides the people with the right to peaceably assemble, to consult for the common good, to instruct their representatives, and to petition for redress of grievances. Too bad their representatives don't listen!
Article I Section 4 of the Michigan Constitution provides for freedom of religion. Just don't willfully blaspheme the holy name of God, by cursing or contumeliously reproaching God, or profanely curse or damn or swear by the name of God, Jesus Christ, or the Holy Ghost!
Artricle I Section 5 of the Michigan Constitution provides for freedom of speech and press for each person's views on all subjects. Apparently some subjects are not included in the phrase "all subjects". If you have a negative view of God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost, you had better keep it to yourself!
Article I Section 6 of the Michigan Constitution declares that each person has the right to keep and bear arms in defense of himself and of the state.
Article I Section 9 of the Michigan Constitution prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude. As long as you are not ordered to pay alimony or child support!
Article I Section 16 of the Michigan Constitution prohibits excessive fines and bails and cruel and unusual punishments. I repeat, As long as you are not ordered to pay alimony or child support!
Article I Section 17 of the Michigan Constitution includes the state Due Process Clause. Apparently does not apply to family law or to the family courts.
Article I Section 21 of the Michigan Constitution prohibits imprisonment for debts arising from contract. Apparently, marriage is not a contract!
Feel free to e-mail me at rogerwknight@hotmail.com with any information that you have to share.
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