Recently we have the presidential judicial immunity ruling and the chevron case how will these two decisions help families in family court and when cps has illegally seized their children social workers committing fraud upon the court how will these two rulings effect the lower courts
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The recent rulings you mentioned, concerning presidential judicial immunity and the Chevron case, primarily affect legal principles and administrative law. Here’s how they might indirectly impact family court and cases involving Child Protective Services (CPS):
Presidential Judicial Immunity:
This ruling typically deals with the scope of immunity for government officials. If it narrows the immunity protections for officials, it could potentially make it easier for families to hold individual social workers or CPS agents accountable for misconduct or illegal actions.
Families who believe social workers committed fraud or acted illegally might find it slightly easier to pursue legal actions against them personally, rather than facing significant barriers due to immunity protections.
Chevron Case:
The Chevron doctrine relates to the level of deference courts should give to administrative agencies’ interpretations of statutes. A change or clarification in this doctrine might affect how courts review decisions made by agencies like CPS.
If the Chevron doctrine is altered to reduce agency deference, it could lead to more rigorous judicial review of CPS decisions, potentially providing families with more opportunities to challenge CPS actions in court.
Impact on Family Court and CPS Cases:
Judicial Immunity: If the scope of immunity is narrowed, families alleging misconduct by social workers or CPS agents might find it easier to pursue civil lawsuits for damages.
Chevron Doctrine: A stricter review under the Chevron doctrine could mean that CPS decisions and interpretations of laws by social workers might face more scrutiny from judges, potentially leading to fairer outcomes for families in disputes with CPS.
Effect on Lower Courts:
Lower courts would have to adapt their practices and interpretations based on these rulings. They would likely see an increase in cases where families challenge CPS actions or social worker conduct based on alleged fraud or illegal seizures.
Judges may become more cautious in deferring to administrative decisions under the Chevron doctrine, requiring clearer justifications from CPS and social workers regarding their decisions.
In summary, while these rulings directly impact administrative law and judicial principles, their effects on family court and CPS cases are more indirect. They could potentially provide families with greater legal avenues to challenge CPS actions and hold individual social workers accountable for misconduct or fraud, depending on how lower courts interpret and apply these rulings in specific cases.
A father’s battle for his daughter is at the heart of a tale of love, grief, and court cases that takes place in the sleepy suburbs of Hillsborough County, Florida. With his name now linked to the hardships of single fathers, Brandon Marteliz finds himself in a heartbreaking situation where he is up against an adoption system that appears to have disregarded his rights as a parent.
A Room Filled with Unfulfilled Promises
Brandon starts his adventure in a nursery that is full of unopened books, toys, and clothes that are never going to be used. Brandon carefully selected every object in this room to represent his hopes and wishes for the birth of his daughter. However, his hopes were dashed when he learned that, in contrast to the heartbreaking information that was first given to him, his daughter, whom he had been ready to greet with open arms, was still alive and had been placed for adoption.
The Tangled Web of Law and Heartache
Brandon is up against a complicated, nuanced legal dispute that calls into question the rights of single fathers. Brandon’s relationship with his daughter was legally overlooked since it was seen as superfluous in the adoption process because of his non-marital status, the fact that he was not named on the birth certificate, and the apparent lack of financial assistance during the pregnancy. He responded by submitting a paternity claim, entering the court system to challenge the adoption and assert his fatherhood.
The Plight of Unmarried Fathers: A Broader Perspective
Though not uncommon, Brandon’s struggle is a reflection of a larger social problem. When attempting to enforce their parental rights, single dads frequently encounter formidable legal obstacles. The problems they face are starkly brought to light by this example, emphasizing the need for more awareness and support.
An Emotional Odyssey
The effects on Brandon’s emotions are significant and varied. The tale of his daughter’s dream-filled bedroom now serves as a moving memorial to his passing. Throughout this voyage, his remarks and observations provide a striking image of a father’s love triumphing against overwhelming difficulties.
Navigating the Adoption System: A Call for Change
The intricacies and possible prejudices in the adoption procedure, particularly about single dads, are exposed by this heartbreaking tale. It advocates for a system that is equitable and just for all parties involved and argues for a reevaluation and reform of the laws regulating adoption and parental rights.
A Community’s Echo
The community’s and society’s overall response to Brandon’s predicament and comparable situations is increasing. To uphold the rights and voices of biological parents, advocates, and citizens are mobilizing in support of modifications to adoption laws and procedures.
A Father’s Unyielding Resolve
In summary, Brandon Marteliz’s tale is about a father’s undying love and resolve; it’s more than just a legal struggle. It emphasizes how critical it is to change society and the law to protect the rights of both parents and children. This narrative reminds us of the strength of perseverance in the face of hardship and serves as a call to action as we consider it.
Championing Single Fathers: A Rallying Cry for Equality in Adoption
We want to do more than just tell tales like Brandon’s. Our goals are to empower and educate. This involves offering information and direction on navigating the court system and adoption procedure. Additionally, we regularly lobby legislators for modifications to adoption legislation to make sure they are equitable and inclusive.
In addition, our site acts as a community where single dads can interact, exchange stories, and get help. In addition to seeing a father’s struggle for his child, Brandon’s narrative serves as a call to action for anybody facing a similar circumstance. It serves as a reminder of the steadfast love and resilience that characterize parenthood in the face of adversity.
We encourage our readers to support us in this cause as we continue to bring attention to these crucial concerns. By working together, we can improve the lives of dads like Brandon and their kids and fight for the day when all parents will be able to love, care for, and raise their children.
August 31, 2022 There are many things in this world that are messed up. It’s easy to have a lengthy discussion about social injustice if only to see the ills that are happening to our people, especially our children. It’s sad to see poverty and strife, and you think you can’t see anything worse than that.
But if there’s anything worse than seeing the already desolate situation of a foster child, it has to be when a Child Protective Services employee encourages her to become a prostitute.
“You gonna be a hoe, be a real hoe,” the caseworker was quoted saying in the now-viral video. Now that has got to be messed up – as messed up as it can ever be.
First, let’s take a look at reality. How widespread is child abuse happening in our society today? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one out of seven American children in today’s modern world are victims of some form of abuse.
The numbers say a lot about the reality of child abuse. We need caseworkers to do their jobs right.
Now for some context: If you are looking at a classroom filled with about 15 children, you can expect that two of those poor souls in there are experiencing abuse. Or maybe as you’re walking on your way to wherever you’re headed on a random day, try to count the number of children that pass you by – and when you’ve counted seven, you’re pretty sure you’ve seen the actual face of an abused child on that exact day. Try it today or tomorrow and have a feel of how close you actually are to the situation. Get it? That’s how bad it is.
And logically, because the government recognizes this, it has provided a governance measure in the form of Child Protective Services – and certainly, the people who have sworn to serve the agency to the best of their abilities also have a code that they live by.
According to the CPS Caseworker guide, it is the responsibility of the agency to:
Assess the safety of children
Intervene to protect children from harm
Strengthen the ability of families to protect their children
Provide either a reunification or an alternative, safe family for the child
There’s a provision that should incentivize this, as we can all expect. We need these people to be inspired for them to do their jobs the right way. But then, when news about a CPS worker actually telling a child to become a prostitute hits the internet, you know you’re looking at something extremely wrong.
These caseworkers are supposed to be the source of protection for foster kids. And this particular caseworker had no business working under the agency. In a more recent development, the caseworker was fired. Now that would have passed as a fitting ending to the tragedy. The CPS apologized for the incident, as they should have done. But the sad news is that the CPS itself is having the case dismissed.
Child prostitution – How rampant is it?
Are we now looking at an agency that would go all out to protect its reputation, even if it means that it conceals the harsh truths about what’s going on between children and caseworkers? It makes us wonder further – could it be because this turning into a full-blown case could open up other similar incidents? Then what might be other dark secrets being kept from the public’s view? Their behavior is way too suspicious to be ignored.
It seems that what we need right now is to have an investigation – something that runs a bit deeper. They shouldn’t have anything to fear if they’ve been doing things right, should they?
In an earlier post, we talked about a systemic ill in which children who couldn’t find homes to adopt them end up in a life of crime and prostitution. This is a big issue, and yet we need to be reminded that we only discussed a local development in Cuyahoga County, Cleveland. However, in this blog, we will see how systemic ills can find a place at the highest levels.
And so we train our sights on one of the most controversial videos in recent times, entitled Infertility: A Diabolical Agenda, a film by award-winning director Dr. Andy Wakefield. The video has been making its rounds on the internet since mid-2022, and it puts into light the existence of powerful global machinations that cook up elaborate plans for their selfish objectives.
The film details the harrowing plight of women in Kenya who had been administered a vaccine that supposedly addressed tetanus – but that was only a disguise. While the vaccine did enable women to develop antibodies for tetanus, they also developed antibodies for Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG).
Bear with me as I go science-y for a bit more: HCG is a natural chemical that develops in the body of a woman. When it develops, it is a sign that she is already pregnant. HCG also acts as a signal that tells the woman’s body to produce another chemical called progesterone. Progesterone is a hormone that maintains the pregnancy. It’s literally the stuff that ensures the full and successful development of the baby in the womb.
What the tetanus vaccine does is that it creates antibodies that go against HCG. The system of the now vaccinated pregnant woman literally neutralizes HCG, because that’s how the immune response in her works. So following the simple logic, no HCG means no progesterone. No progesterone means no baby. In other words, this whole sequence of chemical events renders a woman sterile, or unable to have children.
Shocking…
And this vaccination was rolled out by the World Health Organization for a good 2 decades.
There’s strong speculation that this move was made in the interest of addressing an alarming global population. It’s true that the number of people all across the globe is increasing at a rate that the planet’s resources cannot support for long. It’s a legitimate problem, for sure.
Overpopulation is a real problem that we have to face right now.
But what the powers-that-be did right here is they took the liberty of choosing which group of people had to be stopped from continuing on. Apparently, they chose a race from among the ones that are considered “unstable developing world countries,” the majority of which are black.
An African country like Kenya must have been too easy of a choice. Could you blame anyone who might believe that this was motivated by racism, too? Whatever motivations they had, one thing is for sure – there was a lot of profiteering involved in this tragedy. Profiteering at the expense of human lives, that is.
It even could have been worse if not for a civic group in the Philippines, which won a court order that stopped a UNICEF program that had to do with a vaccine that had HCG. But the fact is, the program in Kenya had been in place for a while already. By the time the court order came out, there were already 3 million women who had received the tainted vaccine. Many Kenyan women, and women from all over, are now infertile because of a tetanus vaccine.
As many expected, the movie received flack from the other side of the fence, even tagging Wakefield and the film’s executive producer, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as deceptive anti-vaxxers and propagandists. A whole lot of things have been said against the movie and its makers all over the internet.
However, nobody seems to give an answer to a simple question: If it was indeed an honest-to-goodness tetanus vaccination drive, why weren’t the recipients made aware of the HCG and sought for their consent on it?
There is a resounding call for these vaccination programs to be made more transparent.
Then there’s also the argument that the infertility caused by the vaccine was reversible, which supposedly makes it a lot less dangerous than it actually is. If it were indeed reversible and the women were not aware of the infertility side effect to begin, where would they get cause to have it reversed? Any random woman who had received the vaccine would have no cause for alarm. Since there were potentially huge consequences, wouldn’t one in his right mind think to at least communicate these to those who received the vaccine? Something just doesn’t add up. This really feels like a covert plan. From the looks of it, it only makes sense that someone wanted it that way.
This development changes the way that we view vaccines – especially in today’s circumstances. The huge elephant in the room is now the looming doubt on the whole Covid-19 vaccination. Is it totally misplaced to suspect that this could be a diabolical agenda all over again? It’s not so much a matter of whether people are right or wrong about it. There is a lingering fear that needs to be addressed with real answers.
A recent video has been circulating online, and it has sparked citizen outrage for good reason. In a news report from Fox 11, the Los Angeles Unified School District is now facing a lawsuit, allegedly for bribing a 13-year-old, to get himself vaccinated for Covid-19 without his mother’s consent. Ridiculous as it sounds, the so-called bribe came in the form of pizza.
A visibly worried Maribel Duarte shared how her child “wasn’t the same anymore,” even adding that he doesn’t sleep well and doesn’t exercise the way he did. She also claimed that the child was coerced into forging his mother’s signature. Duarte and her attorney are now filing a lawsuit after a damage claim was apparently ignored by the Barack Obama Global Prep Academy and the school’s district.
A concerned audience of citizens is closely following the developments of this bit of news, and suffice it to say, we will eventually see where this goes. But more importantly, it puts a number of things into perspective.
On the one hand, we are all called to view things from the perspective of a parent. In this case, it seems we are looking at a mother who is not sold on the whole idea of vaccination. In this regard, she is right to feel violated.
Maribel Duarte expresses her displeasure about her child getting vaccinated by the school without her consent
On the other hand, there’s a school whose action trickles down from an overarching view that comes from the government – that having people vaccinated will save their lives. The point here is that there are believers in vaccination who will do what they can to have other people vaccinated, no matter what gets in their way.
The Barack Obama Global Prep Academy in Los Angeles
When these two sides are weighed, they fall under the scrutiny of the law. And obviously, the law says that for a young child to get vaccinated, he needs parental consent. That simply is how straightforward the law is.
Seems to be clear-cut, doesn’t it? Whether you agree with it or not, this is how our justice system is defined.
The debate rages on, and while we’re at it, we seem to forget what really caused it in the first place. We must remind ourselves that the global pandemic was caused by a single viral agent developed specifically to put the world in shambles. Apparently, there’s still a global investigation going on as to who should be held accountable – and we’re not going to see the end of it soon.
Right now we’re faced with settling for the next best thing, which is that we co-exist with the virus. The only way we see that happening is if we find a vaccine that truly works. And yet we must remind ourselves that the creation of an effective vaccine takes time. You might be surprised that the 200-year-old common cold, which is something that we’re very familiar with, has no specific vaccine yet. The Covid-19 pandemic has been around for less than 3 years. This means that not enough time has passed for us to definitively determine if these vaccines that had been rolled out in the past couple of years would have any ill effects in the long term.
Like it or not, anti-vaxxers have a valid reason for believing the way they do. In like manner, the government has no choice but to continue with its vaccine drive. The children need to be protected, because they are not invulnerable to the disease, even if based on demographics, most of them are resilient against the virus.
For the time being, the law stands. We should adhere to it, whether we agree with it or not. But what is scary is the move to pass bills like AB 2098, which effectively states that when children the age of 12 are not given vaccination consent by their parents, they can decide to be vaccinated on their own. Further, the bill seeks to penalize any doctor who strays away from the government’s vaccination narrative, by removing their medical license. We understand the government’s drive for full vaccination, but this bill might be an overreach on their part if it’s passed. It’s like them saying that they know all about the virus and its implications inside and out.
AB 2098 will penalize doctors for not following the government’s narrative on Covid-19 vaccination
That the issue has gone on for a while now only means that the points raised on various sides hold some validity in some way. Let’s all please have an intelligent conversation about it. We don’t get to stop talking about this really important issue until we arrive at something that works.
In the meantime, don’t force anything upon anyone. Let the parents have the final say.
There’s a cause for concern in Cleveland, Ohio, which is currently the talk of the town in this corner of the country. In a recent article released on the Cleveland.com website, a couple of Children and Family Services workers have alleged that there are a number of unsafe conditions for youth and staff at the county office.
Call takers Cristina Sarsama and Marilyn Henderson, were given some airtime in no less than a regular council meeting as they delivered their testimony that detailed the alarmingly unsafe conditions in the Jane Edna Hunter Social Services Center, the Division of Children and Family Services headquarters located in Cuyahoga County.
The Jane Edna Hunter Social Services Center is the headquarters for the Division of Children and Family Services in Cuyahoga County.
The revelation was disturbing, to say the least.
When the words “rape,” “rampant violence,” and “sexual assault” are mentioned in testimony by people who have everything to lose just by coming out publicly to say such things, you know that this matter is absolutely not to be taken lightly.
To begin with, the county’s Division of Children and Family Services designated the Jane Edna Hunter Social Services Center as a place that children can consider home when there are no other placements for them elsewhere. And yet, anything you refer to as a home should be one of the safest places you can ever be in. This is why it is both shocking and saddening to find out that an agency – which was specifically designed to ensure the safety of children – may be the one that is causing all the trouble in the first place.
Let’s take a look at a number of salient points that we gathered from the public commentary:
Some staff are being pulled out of their normal work responsibilities – for weeks at a time – to care for youth being housed at the building
The children who are there because they have no other place to go are dealing with mental health, medical, or criminal issues
There is a lack of accountability in the office, which forces the children to commit crimes and even prostitute themselves
The employees at the division have done their part in reporting what has been going on to the higher-ups, without any concrete action from the leadership aimed to address this
Children come in and out of the building – they go out and commit their crimes and sometimes and even take in new children who eventually get into the cycle of crime and prostitution
There is a legal limitation that does not allow caretakers to prevent children from leaving the building
Many of the unfortunate developments that have happened here are quite well-known, and yet this has been going on for at least the past 4 years
The DCFS is understaffed, and its workers are forced into doing work that is already detrimental to their physical and mental well-being, often for 16-hour workdays
Like most of you who are catching this only now, many people were puzzled and flabbergasted when this bit of information hit the news the first time. To begin with, it’s hard enough to get over the fact that these kinds of things now pervade our environment at this degree of seriousness. And it’s even harder to get over the fact that criminality and prostitution among children have been going on for a few years, while they go in and out of the very institution that is supposed to protect them from those ills.
A lot of things about this development in Cleveland simply don’t make sense…
Never mind that it appears that the people in charge seem to feel that they are powerless about all of these things. Based on how they have reacted, it’s almost like they are saying that they don’t intend to do anything about it.
As tax-paying citizens, this simply isn’t a good enough reason that they can throw at us. We want to live in an environment that is safe and meaningful. It’s bad enough that some children need to be removed from homes that are apparently unfit for them to grow up in. It’s even worse when they end up in a life of crime after they are removed from their homes. Who’s to say that the homes that they lived in – in the first place – had no chance of raising and molding them into good citizens?
Imagine how you’d feel if you went to your favorite diner and they’ve run out of that tomahawk steak on your cheat day, of all days. Imagine how you’d feel if you went to the shop for an oil change and there wasn’t any mechanic available to do the work on your car. It’s an unpleasant feeling, isn’t it?
But right here, we’re not talking about food or cars. We’re talking about the lives of people. We are talking about the lives of innocent children. That feeling just went from unpleasant to horrific. We simply can’t take a mediocre answer and settle for it when we’re talking about something this serious.
Children under social services custody are not spared from violence in Cuyahoga County.
And so perhaps this could be much more than the systemic ill that they are portraying this to be. Because of this development, it’s hard to brush off other reports that say that this is actually a malicious effort that follows this narrative:
→The children are pulled out from otherwise loving homes and families
→They are brought to the center under the guise of an effort to place them in homes that can give them better lives
→When they eventually can’t be placed, they are peddled off into prostitution and fated to a life of crime
What if this is the real story, as so many reports have claimed? What if this really is kidnapping disguised as fostering? What if child prostitution really is the endgame?
It’s getting really hard to believe their claim that their hands are tied by the law and whatnot – not when it’s been going on for four years already. What exactly are our leaders doing about this?
This isn’t an innocent shortcoming. It’s a lot more serious than inaction or negligence. We can’t call this a systemic ill when it is deliberately created by a very specific group of people. It’s sounding more like a deeply diabolical effort to exploit children.
Someone had better untie those hands. This kind of thing has to end, and it has to end right now.
Executive Armond Budish and other county officials are being sought out for answers by the public.
Narcissism in government – A disturbing reality (Part II) Previously, we opened the topic of narcissism in government, and how we may have become sitting ducks at the receiving end of this behavior. You must remember that narcissists are people who are constantly in a state of need. They are always looking for admiration and attention, and they are so motivated by their need for affirmation that they can become so competent in their careers and become high functioning in their professions.
It’s a fact that they find themselves in powerful positions in government. Their stature allows them to see everything from the inside out. They can have complete control over the people who work for them, and they often get to act without any accountability. They literally get to make decisions that can affect the lives of millions of people without facing any opposition or scrutiny. If it’s easy enough to see how a narcissist would find a career in government service very appealing, then it’s only fair that we are aware of the ways in which we become victimized by narcissism in government.
Let’s pick up where we left off in Part I of this blog as we continue with our listicle here.
4. Narcissistic rage
Narcissistic rage is a particular type of anger that is often exhibited by people who are in a state of narcissistic injury. An example of this is when they feel that their self-esteem has been undermined. This type of anger can be extremely dangerous, as it can lead to aggressive and destructive behavior. For example, people with narcissistic personality disorder are capable of physical aggression that is often referred to as “sociopathic”.
Now let’s look back at one of the darkest moments in our nation’s history. For all the sorrow that came with the 911 attack, it has also gone down in history as the event that propelled us into endless wars in the Middle East. How could the most powerful nation in the country get slighted by a small group of individuals and a couple of planes? Clearly, this was too much for Uncle Sam’s ego to handle at that time. And so the destruction of Iraq ensued anyway, just so the land of the free could send a strong message to the rest of the world. But of course, it all turned out much differently than what was originally intended.
5. Projection
Narcissistic individuals often project their faults onto others so that they can feel superior and avoid taking any responsibility for their own actions. They often accuse others of having exactly the same qualities as they do, which is why it’s so difficult to be under this type of influence for long, especially when we’re talking about the ones at the helm. The government blames the media for the current state of affairs when in reality, it’s the politicians and their puppet masters who are responsible.
Often, you would hear a lot of politicians throwing a mouthful of accusations at the media that they consider to be propagators of fake news. Further, they blame the public for falling for the scam that this fake news is, but who’s really behind all of this? The narcissistic politician, that’s who. And that’s exactly what it is – a manipulation of the truth for the benefit of the individual. This is why people call it projection. Narcissists project their own negative qualities onto others in order to make themselves feel better. The next time a politician harps about fake news, look who’s talking. And remember, the truth is always worth investigating.
6. Smear campaign
A smear campaign is the process of damaging someone’s reputation by spreading false or misleading information in order to defame them. Today’s political landscape is filled with examples of such a tactic, which happens to be one of the most obvious traits of a narcissist. This is why it’s so difficult to get any real information out of them. Sometimes, the attempt at damaging the reputation of another can be so subtle that it can escape our awareness.
Not so long ago, a man named George Floyd died at the hands of the police, in what was dubbed as one of the most harrowing incidents of police brutality and racism. This triggered the nation, and it did not take very long until pockets of protests and rallies mushroomed all across the country. And yet, the government decided to criminalize these sorts of protests – an act which had a chilling effect felt most strongly among black communities. To be identified as a protester is one thing, but to be branded as a criminal for such actions is quite another. To many Americans, this felt like a malicious smear.
Much has been said about narcissism, and yet it still pervades the human consciousness. It continues to break the hearts and minds of people in relationships of all forms. The bad news is that narcissistic people will always be around. This is simply because people are a result of the environments that they grew up in. And we all know that some environments are better than others.
Truly, many of us have already been victimized by a narcissist without knowing it. Generally, narcissists crave attention, and many of them are able to get it successfully. Somehow, this tells me that they can be pretty intelligent people. After all, it takes a lot of smarts to deceive, manipulate, and do all other sneaky tactics they use to control other people. Narcissists can be so high-functioning that they even make it to the top of notable careers.
It really isn’t surprising that a lot of narcissists make their way into government and politics. Further, is it too much of a leap to think that we are being governed in a narcissistic manner? Read on and you might be surprised.
Let’s take a look at some of the outstanding characteristics of narcissistic disorder and how these may be exhibited by the powers in government.
1. Gaslighting
In the context of narcissism, gaslighting is an emotionally abusive tactic that is used to create doubt in the mind of the abused person. The narcissistic person does this by misleading you with a false or twisted narrative.
In a marriage, a wife may call out her narcissistic partner who has suddenly been coming home late without notice, for instance. The narcissist would then tell her that if she was having any doubts about whether he was being unfaithful, she must be losing her mind. Note that the wrongdoing here is the lack of notice, and yet he implies that the wife is being distrustful.
The government behaves similarly when you call them out on unreasonable healthcare policies. You’re quite free to let them know how you feel if you somehow don’t qualify for benefits when you get injured. If all they tell you is that you should take care of yourself better, this is gaslighting.
2. Hoovering
Hoovering is yet another typical behavior among narcissists, which works as a counter-strategy. Reality has it that there are victims of routine narcissistic abuse. But there are those who start to decide that “enough is enough,” and they pull away. Because the victim is a source of narcissistic supply – the very thing that keeps narcissists going – the act of pulling away causes them to panic. They reorient themselves so that they could get back their source of power. They do all sorts of things to suck the victim back into their control, like a vacuum cleaner.
In relationships, hoovering could come in the form of temporarily changed behavior. What was once cold could turn a bit warmer. Narcissists would even display extraordinary gestures like buying the victim an expensive gift or taking them on an unplanned leisure trip. Politicians might do this in the form of passing a bill that favors an aggrieved party. And of course, you can expect them to give you all sorts of promises to make them appealing in your eyes again.
3. Superiority
A narcissist has the uncanny ability to make their victims feel inferior. Sometimes, this is where you really catch a narcissist in the act. There is such a thing as narcissistic parents who exercise their superiority quite liberally upon their own children. They often rattle off verbal put-downs like “You’re never gonna be good enough.”
However, acts of belittlement can take a milder, more subtle form. You might make an inquiry and ask a government health expert what the active ingredients are in a particular medicine. You know in your heart that you are only asking because you want to be more educated about it. If the person only tells you not to worry because it’s perfectly safe, this is an example of superiority, too.
You are worth a quality answer, even if it is a technical one. Nobody has the right to brush you off and decide that you don’t understand as much as they do. In fact, it should make sense for experts like them to do their jobs and give you some peace of mind.
There are more characteristics that are worth talking about, which we will feature in the next blog.
FACTS: The plaintiffs on behalf of all children in Florida’s foster care sued the administrators of Florida’s foster care system for deficiencies in Florida’s foster care system such as denial of safe care that meets basic needs, lack of the right to prompt placement with permanent families among others. The suit was brought under § 1983 for a declaration that the alleged practices were unconstitutional and unlawful among other reliefs. Unfortunately, all the claims were dismissed by the District Court and 11 out of 21 plaintiffs settled their claims and the remaining 11 plaintiffs appealed to the Court of Appeals.
ISSUES:
Whether the Plaintiffs’ claims presented a justiciable case.
Whether the claims of two of the Plaintiffs are moot.
Whether the other Plaintiffs had standing to challenge the practices at issue.
Whether 42 U.S.C. §§ 675(5)(D) and (E) provide rights enforceable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
HOLDING: The Court of Appeals held that two of the plaintiffs were indeed moot and there was no live controversy presented. Additionally, the Court of Appeals held that the Plaintiffs had standing because they were in the Defendants’ physical custody and also had the standing to pursue their sibling association claims because their siblings were in the defendants’ physical custody. The Court also held that §§ 675(5)(D) and (E) do not contain rights-creating language.
RULE: The three elements for a plaintiff to have standing include:
The plaintiff has suffered an injury in fact or invasion of a judicially cognizable interest that is particularized and actual.
There is a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of and
The injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.
Plaintiff has the burden to prove the elements and provide the evidence to prove the legal standing question is posed. In order to have a viable cause of action under § 1983, a Plaintiff must establish that the statute allegedly violated the Plaintiff’s enforceable rights. The three requirements for a federal statute to be read to confer a right enforceable under § 1983 include that:
Congress must have intended that the provisions in question benefit Plaintiff;
The right assertedly protected by the statute is not so vague and amorphous that its enforcement would strain judicial resources; and
The provision asserted right must be couched in mandatory, rather than precatory, terms.
REASONING: The Court of Appeals stated that the two plaintiffs had been adopted and therefore, they were no longer in the Defendants’ legal custody. In as much they had no legally cognizable interest in the outcome of the suit. The Court also stated that the two plaintiffs could not be harmed by the Defendants’ illegal practices and there was no live controversy because the amended complaints sought injunctive relief to present future harm. Because the Plaintiffs are in custody until they are returned to their parents or adopted, they cannot avoid exposure to the Defendants’ practices and there was a likelihood that the alleged injury will occur. The court also stated that the two plaintiffs who were not in physical custody could not demonstrate that their constitutional injuries were imminent. The courts must look at the text and structure of a statute in order to determine if it unambiguously provides enforceable rights. The provisions in the Act do not give the Plaintiffs an unambiguously conferred right to support a cause of action brought under § 1983.”
JUDGEMENT: The Court of Appeal vacated the District Court’s judgment in part and remanded the case for dismissal in part for moot and for lack of standing and affirmed the judgment in all other respects.
A Room Filled with Unfulfilled Promises
