Stand Up for Standing Rock

Mainstream news sources are not reporting this. Please share this post and take action by calling President Obama to ask him to put a stop to this.

The video above is of an individual explaining the conditions the protesters are facing. This link - Water is Life - takes you to another video that describes the issues in detail. 

Mni Wiconi - Water is Life

Hear the message of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Honor tribal sovereignty and the Earth we inhabit by telling President Obama to deny the easement by calling 202-456-1111. We need every person to call Obama this week before Dec. 5th. Please share. For more information visit standwithstandingrock.net
#NoDAPL
#StandwithStandingRock
#standingrock
#bankexit 

Update from www.standingrock.net

U.S. veterans to form human shield at Dakota pipeline protest

By Terray Sylvester | CANNON BALL, N.D.

CANNON BALL, N.D. More than 2,000 U.S. military veterans plan to form a human shield to protect protesters of a pipeline project near a Native American reservation in North Dakota, organizers said, just ahead of a federal deadline for activists to leave the camp they have been occupying.It comes as North Dakota law enforcement backed away from a previous plan to cut off supplies to the camp – an idea quickly abandoned after an outcry and with law enforcement’s treatment of Dakota Access Pipeline protesters increasingly under the microscope.

The protesters have spent months rallying against plans to route the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline beneath a lake near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, saying it poses a threat to water resources and sacred Native American sites.

Protesters include various Native American tribes as well as environmentalists and even actors including Shailene Woodley.

State officials issued an order on Monday for activists to vacate the Oceti Sakowin camp, located on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers land near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, citing harsh weather conditions.

The state’s latest decision not to stop cars entering the protest site indicated local officials will not actively enforce Monday’s emergency order to evacuate the camp issued by Governor Jack Dalrymple.

Dalrymple warned on Wednesday that it was “probably not feasible” to reroute the pipeline, but said he had requested a meeting with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council to rebuild a relationship.

“We need to begin now to talk about how we are going to return to a peaceful relationship,” he said on a conference call.

UPDATE 12/5/2016 - The Army Corp of Engineers refused to grant the permit needed to build the pipeline. So for now the project is on hold.

The Disconnected Logic of Child Support Enforcement Sanctions in Florida

Non-payment of child support could result in driver's license suspension or incarceration. Non-payment of child support could result in driver's license suspension or incarceration.

I wrote that twice to drive home the logical disconnect that statement implies. If the payor is blithely ignoring his (or her) responsibilities and has plenty of money to fulfill those obligations -- fine by me, take his license and lock him up! And, yes, it is usually a him, only sometimes a her, that is the payor.

The Florida Department of Revenue orders child support through an administrative process, and also enforces those orders. One of the problems is that the ordered amount is often not based on both parties' full financial information. The parents are frequently unwed and low income. A common scenario is that a young couple cohabits and has a child, then breaks up. The father may or may not be on the child's birth certificate. After the break up, the mother contacts the Department of Revenue (DOR) and requests assistance with child support. The father is personally served with a DOR complaint for child support. He frequently does not answer the complaint at all. Most of the time he appears at the hearing, believing that an order for timesharing will be rendered at the same time. The mother may have refused to let the father see the child unless he pays child support.

So the father goes to the hearing, willing to pay child support, and hoping to be able to see his child on a regular basis. At the hearing, the magistrate asks the father how much money he earns and requests to see his pay statements for the past three months. The mother's income is often not taken into account at all. The father is then ordered to pay child support based solely on those three months' income.

Frequently, no consideration is given to other factors such as which parent is paying for daycare or medical insurance for the child. The father asks, what about me seeing my child. The magistrate may tell him politely that this hearing is only about child support. Or the magistrate may tell him rather rudely that he needs to pay his child support and file for shared custody in family court. The father frequently does not realize that the DOR complaint for child support includes retroactive support for up to 24 months. The complaint may actually request retroactive support dating from the child's birth, despite the fact that per statute, only 24 months retroactive support may be ordered. If the father does not make an argument, he may be ordered to pay 24 month retroactive support even though he was living with the mother and the child up until the previous month and supporting all of them. It is not fair. And the father comes out of that hearing with his head spinning, having just been ordered to pay child support and without any order allowing him to see his child. And the father may automatically be several thousand dollars in debt because the retroactive support was ordered, he is below zero before he begins.

The father is given no information about how to go about obtaining an order for timesharing with his child. His wages are garnished for support. The mother may or may not let him see the child. The father seeing his child is solely depending on the mother's whim.

As time goes by, the father changes jobs, and the wage garnishment is not placed on his new job. The garnishment is supposed to be automatically put into effect on his new job, but the DOR is an absurdly inefficient entity, and that detail is routinely left undone. That detail, the DOR neglecting to put the income deduction into place on the payor's next job is often the beginning of a nightmare for the father.

The mother, not receiving anything on her child support debit card, contacts the DOR and requests enforcement. In theory, it isn't necessary for her to contact the DOR, they will enforce automatically ... but we've already seen how that goes. So she calls, and calls, and finally gets the DOR to begin enforcement. Child support orders processed through the Department of Revenue are called Title IV-D child support orders.

When a Florida court enters a Title IV-D child support order (or when such an order from another state is properly registered in Florida or a non-Title IV-D case is referred to the Florida Department of Revenue for enforcement), the Florida Department of Revenue can take a variety of steps and measures to encourage the obligor parent to pay the child support amount owed. Although generally the Florida Department of Revenue (DOR) attempts to secure voluntary compliance with Title IV-D orders, the DOR can take aggressive measures if other methods at securing voluntary payment have failed and/or if it is believed such measures will not be fruitful.

Measures that the DOR has taken to enforce child support can include:

• Mailing notices to the Payor informing him or her of the past-due obligations (this is usually the first step at attempting to secure voluntary compliance);

• Arranging a face-to-face meeting between the DOR and the Payor to attempt and negotiate a plan to resolve the outstanding child support obligation;

• Suspending the Payor's professional or business license(s), his or her hunting and/or fishing license, and/or the Payor’s driver’s license until he or she begins making payments and/or arranges to pay the past-due obligation;

• Denying the Payor's request to renew his or her passport;

• Garnishing/ levying bank accounts belonging to the Payor;

• Sending withholding orders to the Payor’s employer directing that employer to withhold a certain amount from the Payor’s paycheck and remit that amount directly to the DOR;

• Intercepting federal or state income tax refunds or intercepting Florida lottery winnings (if those winnings exceed $600);

• Deducting amounts owed for child support from state benefits like worker’s compensation benefits or reemployment benefits;

• Placing a lien on any motor vehicle and/or boat owned by the Payor;

• Reporting the delinquent child support obligation on the Payor’s credit reports; and/or

• Filing a lawsuit against the Payor. This lawsuit could result in the Payor being found in contempt of court. Such a finding can result in the Payor being incarcerated in jail until he or she pays the outstanding amount or makes acceptable arrangements to pay the amount.

The absurdity is real. All of the above measures, except for incarceration, are considered administrative sanctions to coerce the Payor into paying the child support that he owes; and assumes that the Payor has the ability to pay. The most used sanction by far is suspension of the Payor's driver's license. Most people depend on having transportation to stay employed. There are few parts of Florida where the public transportation is adequate so that a vehicle is not needed to get back and forth to work. Take away the license - take away the job. Or, for the desperate few, who will drive despite a having a suspended license, the risk of incarceration for driving on a suspended license is an everyday reality. How is the Payor supposed to pay when he is not able to maintain employment because he has no driver's license?

Incarceration is even more absurd. If its tough to pay child support with no driver's license, it is nearly impossibly while incarcerated. Without a money tree or a generous family member, the Payor continues to fall farther and farther behind. And the mother in all of this, the mother just wants child support, she does not necessarily want her baby daddy in jail, what good can come of that?