Mitt Romney, recently focused upon only attacking Obama, may be shifting gears again as last night the Romney campaign issued a statement similar to one issued after South Carolina that mentioned Newt Gingrich.

Denver, Colorado (CNN) – As Rick Santorum counted up his victories Tuesday night, a senior adviser to Mitt Romney signaled the campaign would take a tougher approach toward his resurgent rival and portray him as a Washington insider.

But regardless of any response to last night’s losses, Romney continues to have a trending problem and GOP primary turnout remains low as compared to 20008.

In Colorado, last night Romney received 22,875 votes for 35% of the vote. In 2008, he received 33,288 for 60% of the vote. Santorum won with 26,372 for 40%, while Romney was down over 10,000 votes from 2008.

In Missouri, Romney received 63,826 votes last night for 25% and second place. In 2008, he received 172,329 votes for 29% and third place. Santorum won with 138,957 for 55%, while Romney was down 109,000 votes from his 2008 finish.

As for Minnesota, Romney received 8,096 votes for 17% and third place behind Ron Paul. In 2008, Romney received 25,990 votes for 41% and first place. Santorum won with 21,436 for 35%. Romney finished 16,000 votes below his 2008 numbers.

Romney is trending down from 2008, when he lost the primary to Senator John McCain and appears to have a problem motivating the GOP base. Obviously, the low turnout across the primaries doesn’t appear to be good news for the GOP, either. They’ve been counting on an energized base to defeat Barack Obama in November.

Fear the sweater vest!

So much for Governor Mitch Daniels’ “truce” on social issues. Rick Santorum refused to raise the white flag on his principles and charged ahead. Tonight he celebrates a trifecta victory in Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado, all but shattering the myth of Romney’s inevitable cruise to victory in the presidential primary.

I’ll admit it. I didn’t see it coming. To be sure, this victory comes with caveats, as I wrote here. Santorum picked up only five delegates tonight and has 22 delegates to Romney’s 106, but it’s a move in the right direction. (The delegate count is here.)

But Santorum understands something that few of the other candidates can put into words: that the power to mandate is the power to compel and compulsion must be grounded on something higher than the mere will of the sovereign. This is a very effective argument against Barack Obama, but it it also a very effective one against Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, who also supported the Wall Street bailouts, cap and trade (taxing breathing) and of course, the individual mandate in health insurance. Both Gingrich and Romney are essentially progressives in their view that there is nothing government mustn’t do.

Santorum is totally correct when he says that government big enough to give you everything is big enough to take everything away or to force you to accept their “gifts” on their terms. We got a vision of what an Obamacare regime will look like this week when the Obama administration forced Catholic universities, hospitals and other church-affiliated employers to implement a new policy that requires health insurers to offer birth control coverage. For Catholics and many Americans who rightly argue that life begins at conception, forcing their institutions to provide the morning after-pill is tantamount to forcing them to countenance abortion.

The truth has always been that the left were the aggressors in the culture wars and this week they dug their trenches and prepared their assault on three key issues: homosexuals, the murder of the unborn, and compulsory subsidizing of birth control. Each of these issues is tied to the freedom of conscience and each of these issues is a battleground that the left has chosen. Suddenly the pushy Catholic, as the left would describe Santorum, doesn’t seem so pushy when the Catholics get pushed around. So much for if you like your health plan you can keep it. The fine print was apparently: you can only keep your health plan if we like it. Oh, and if you are a charity that doesn’t want to fund our left-wing causes, we will hack your websites, destroy your reputation, and threaten your employees.

Santorum knows all of this. Like Gingrich, he gets that we are in the fight of our lifetimes against an adversary that wants to wipe out our way of life. Romney doesn’t understand this impulse, alas, for all his bromides about America.

When Santorum speaks of the liberty of the Constitution, Santorum knows what the Ron Paul fans do not: that liberty is not license, but the right to live a good, virtuous life. Which is what Santorum, in contradistinction to Newt’s personal life and Mitt’s business and political life is exactly what Rick has led. What Gingrich and Santorum reveal is that Romney cannot win in the South and Midwest.

Santorum would be right to return to these wells again. Liberty is about more than choice, it is about choosing the good and sticking to it, even if you might lose an election. Santorum knows all about this and fought the good fight in 2006, only to lose to Bob Casey (an allegedly pro-life Catholic Democrat) by 17 points in a bad year for Republicans. Let’s not forget that Romney lost his U.S. Senate bid to Ted Kennedy by 17 points in a terrific Republican year in 1994 by essentially rejecting Reaganism. Pennsylvania is a moderately blue state; Massachusetts a blue state, but only one candidate compromised his principles.

It’s that argument over principles where Santorum is most strong. Here’s to hoping he dusts it off again in going after the mandates that RomneyCare put on Massachusetts residents. As a then-teetotaler and one-time resident of Massachusetts, I always found it somewhat odd that Mitt Romney, a practicing Mormon, was forcing insurers, underwriters and businesses in Massachusetts to cover the costs of alcohol rehabilitation for their employees.

It would be bad if that were the only mandate, but as of late 2011 there were some 42 other mandates, including clinical trials, hospice care, hormone replacement therapy, diabetes, and, yes, contraceptive services. Only eight were added since Romney left office and of those eight, three governed things that are a lot harder to assail against than alcoholism. Who, after all, wants to be against mandates for prosthetic devices (for the cripples), childhood vaccination (for the kids), and early intervention (for everyone who wishes he had caught the disease before he was felled by it)? This is the central problem of mandates. Everyone wants to mandate something and thanks to public choice economics, the benefits of getting a mandate approved are a lot more concentrated than the benefits of resisting all mandates. Think of it as medical earmarking.

Returning to tonight, with his sweep of the caucuses, Santorum is starting to look an awful lot like the candidate (Barack Obama) who won the caucuses, only to go toe-to-toe with a well-funded machine (Hilary Clinton).

If history is our guide, Mitt Romney is looking an awful lot like Hilary Clinton and Rick Santorum is looking an awful lot like Barack Obama. Now it is on to Arizona and Michigan. Romney is ahead in both states, but will his lead hold after Santorum’s major victory tonight? And will Santorum survive the negative assaults that are going to come his way?

Santorum has better take out his bullet proof sweater vest.

WASHINGTON (AP) – A resurgent Rick Santorum won Minnesota’s Republican presidential caucuses with ease Tuesday night and reached for victory in Colorado, raising fresh questions about front-runner Mitt Romney’s appeal among the ardent conservatives at the core of the party’s political base.

Santorum triumphed, as well, in a nonbinding Missouri primary that was worth bragging rights but no delegates.

“Conservatism is alive and well in Missouri and Minnesota,” the jubilant former Pennsylvania senator told cheering supporters in St. Charles, Mo. Challenging both his GOP rival and the Democratic president, he declared that on issues ranging from health care to “Wall Street bailouts, Mitt Romney has the same positions as Barack Obama.”

Returns from 74 percent of Minnesota’s precincts showed Santorum with 45 percent support, Texas Rep. Ron Paul with 27 percent and Romney—who won the state in his first try for the nomination four years ago—with 17 percent. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich trailed with 11 percent.

Romney prevailed in both Minnesota and Colorado in 2008, the first time he ran for the nomination, but the GOP has become more conservative in both states since then under the influence of tea party activists. Nor was he backed by the overwhelming advantage in television advertising, including fiercely negative attacks on his rivals, that had helped him in other states this year.

In Colorado, with returns counted from 32 percent of the precincts, Santorum had 43 percent support with Romney at 28 percent, Gingrich at 15 and Paul trailing with 13 percent.

Romney showed no sign of disappointment in remarks to supporters.

“This was a good night for Rick Santorum. I want to congratulate Sen. Santorum, but I expect to become the nominee with your help,” he told supporters in Denver.

If the night was good for Santorum, it was grim for Gingrich, who made scant effort in any of the states that voted during the day. He ran far off the pace in both caucus states, forced to watch from the sidelines while Santorum boasted of being the candidate with conservative appeal.

There were 37 Republican National Convention delegates at stake in Minnesota and 33 more in Colorado, and together, they accounted for the largest one-day combined total so far in the race for the GOP nomination.

The victories were the first for Santorum since he eked out a 34-vote win in the lead-off Iowa caucuses a month ago, and he reveled in the moment. “I don’t stand here to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. I stand here to be the conservative alternative to Barack Obama,” he told his supporters.

He had faded far from the lead in the primaries and caucuses since, and Gingrich seemed to eclipse him as the leading conservative rival to Romney when he won the South Carolina primary late last month.

While Romney throttled back after victories in Florida and Nevada in the past several days, Santorum campaigned aggressively in all three states on the ballot, seeking a breakthrough to revitalize his campaign.

He won Minnesota largely the way he did Iowa, dispatching his organizers from the first state to the second and courting pastors and tea party leaders alike.

Romney’s campaign moved swiftly to take the sting out of the Missouri vote. The state’s Republican Sen. Roy Blunt, a Romney supporter, congratulated the winner but noted the state’s delegates are still up for grabs. He said, “Mitt Romney has the organization and the resources to go the distance in this election, and I believe he’ll ultimately win our party’s nomination.”

And it was not clear where Santorum could exploit his victory. Aides have already said he has little hope in Maine caucuses that end this weekend, the next event on the calendar.

Paul, a Texas lawmaker, has yet to win a primary or caucus. He claimed credit for a strong second-place finish in Minnesota and said he was optimistic about his chances in Maine.

Romney began the day the leader in the delegate chase, with 101 of the 1,144 needed to capture the nomination at the Republican National Convention this summer in Tampa. Gingrich had 32, Santorum 17 and Paul nine.

Though the delegate total on Tuesday was high, the campaigning was a pale comparison to the Iowa caucuses or primaries last month in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida.

Television advertising was sparse; neither Colorado nor Minnesota hosted a candidates’ debate, and there was relatively little campaigning by the contenders themselves until the past few days.

The same was true in last weekend’s Nevada caucuses, which Romney won on the heels of a Florida primary victory days earlier. The same pattern holds in Maine.

Not until primaries in Michigan and Arizona on Feb. 28 is the campaign likely to regain the intensity that characterized the first few weeks of the year.

Then it roars back to life with a 10-state Super Tuesday on March 6 with 416 convention delegates at stake. Georgia, where Gingrich launched his career in Congress, is the biggest prize that night with 76 delegates. Next is Ohio, which has 63 delegates at stake and where early voting has already begun.

Santorum, in particular, was eager to seize the relative lull to redeem the promise of his Iowa victory.

He campaigned more aggressively this week than any of the other contenders, and he spent Tuesday hopscotching from Colorado to Minnesota to Missouri in hopes of nailing down at least one victory. Touting himself as a true conservative —a slap at Gingrich—he sought to undermine Romney’s electability claim at the same time by predicting the former Massachusetts governor would lose to Obama.

Romney responded by assailing Santorum as an advocate of congressional earmarks—shifting the criticism he had leveled at Gingrich when the Georgian seemed a more imposing threat.

In the hours before the caucuses convened, the front-runner sought to lower expectations.

“Mitt Romney is not going to win every contest,” Rich Beeson, the campaign’s political director, wrote in a memo for public consumption.

“John McCain lost 19 states in 2008, and we expect our opponents will notch a few wins, too,” Beeson wrote. McCain, the Arizona senator, won the Republican nomination four years ago.

In fact, Colorado and Minnesota were among the states that McCain failed to win, and he lost them to Romney.

In the four years since, the GOP has become more conservative in both. That posed a challenge for Romney, who runs as the Republican most likely to defeat Obama and is still trying to establish his credentials among tea party activists suspicious of a one-time moderate who backed abortion rights.

Two years ago in Minnesota, establishment candidates for governor were swept aside in the primary, and tea party-backed insurgents for governor and the Senate in Colorado won the party nominations.

In all three cases, Democrats won in the general election that fall.

Gingrich spent the day campaigning in Ohio, one of the primary states on March 6.

His campaign went into a downward spiral after he won the South Carolina primary in an upset. The former speaker was routed in the Florida primary to Romney, then finished a distant second in Nevada over the weekend.

Several sources are predicting a Santorum surge in Missouri and Minnesota tonight, but there’s reason for pause before we order out the “Rick 2012″ bumper stickers. Caucuses depend on two things: money and organization. Santorum has neither. Despite an impressive win in Iowa, it is getting harder and harder for him to keep up, because he is second to last in the delegate count with only eight so far.   That may well change tonight, but here are some reasons to be skeptical of a Santorum win, even if he manages to pull off a victory in Missouri or Minnesota:

1. Even if Santorum wins in Missouri, it’s nothing more than a beauty contest. Knowing full well that their vote won’t have any effect on the delegate count, election officials are predicting that only 23% of party loyalists will bother showing up to the polls, according to stl.today.com. Given that Newt Gingrich’s name isn’t on the ballot, Santorum is hoping to show that his victory in the Show Me State will show GOP activists he’s the best anti-Romney. “Protest vote” or not, Santorum needs the win, but what if he loses to Romney in a symbolic race?
2. Santorum isn’t on the ballot in several other states, including Indiana and Virginia, meaning he will forgo 46 and 49 delegates respectively. Santorum is also not on the ballot in Washington, D.C. and lacks full delegate slates in North Dakota, Ohio, and Illinois.
3. Polling is notoriously difficult for low-turn out caucuses, and Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling outfit who has done the most recent (and only) poll with Santorum ahead, is notoriously bad at polling in general. In 2008, PPP predicted an Obama victory against Clinton in Pennsylvania, only to have Clinton win by nine or ten points.
4. It’s hard to believe that a state that went two-to-one for Romney in its caucuses in 2008 would make it neck and neck this time around. Romney hasn’t changed all that much since 2008.
5. The delegates from Minnesota are unpledged, meaning they can, of course, change their mind, and candidates will be less than willing to invest lots of time in getting their support.
6. Yes, it is true that Santorum has high favorables–he is pushing 70 percent in some polls–but expect his rivals, Romney and Gingrich, to drag him down to the 40s with them if he does well.

We are looking for conservatives who want to stand up and get active in their communities.  The centerpiece of GGI is The Initiative Project.  It is an effort to get individuals to take personal responsibility for their lives and communities.   We want the grassroots to self-source the direction of their movement.  GGI is not an organization dedicated to telling grassroots activists what to do.  It exists to facilitate grassroots action. We have five levels of initiative: Individual, Local, Regional, State, and National, and we are looking for ideas at every level.  Initiatives will begin rolling out in the coming days, and weeks so keep your eyes out for how you can get involved.

Gateway Grassroots Initiative is organized around three core values, rooted in out country’s founding.  They are: Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government, and Free Markets.  The Left fights not just a political war however, but also a cultural war.  So must we. They understand that politics is downstream from popular culture.  They know that if they control how a society understands itself, through, art, law, education, and religion, they can control that society.  We must join that battle.  We stand for the most radical idea in the history of political thought, that the rights of the individual are unalienable, that they are endowed by a Creator, and that those individual rights are the source of political sovereignty. We intend to make sure we live in a culture that reflects and embraces that belief.  To do so, we will need the action and initiative of artists and creative individuals to create a culture reflective of our values.

You can read more about our mission, here.

Please visit www.gatewaygrassroots.com for more information on this exciting new venture and help us take the initiative in 2012 and beyond.

Mohamed H. Dawod

Dawod is accused of shooting Justin Hall, 32, of Mt. Vernon, Ohio, during a late-night rest stop for travelers on a St. Louis-bound bus full of passengers from as far away as Amarillo, Texas, point of origin for the bus.

On Sept. 9, I was the first to raise the possibility that the shooting might be a case of terrorism at my website and at BigGovernment.com after officials in the Southwest Missouri community, according to a report in the Springfield News-Leader, were quick to say the shooting appeared random.

A day later, a KSPR-TV report cited Springfield police officials as saying that, because of a language barrier, they only learned Dawod’s name and had asked the FBI to help them with the investigation. That local television report included this telling paragraph:

Ten separate witnesses say they did not notice the men fighting or arguing before the shooting. One passenger said she watched the suspect wander around the terminal until the call to line up to re-board the bus. “She then observed the suspect remove a silver and black handgun from a back pack he was carrying,” the officer wrote. “The suspect then pointed the handgun upward while saying something. The witness could not understand what the suspect said and didn’t know if he was speaking English.” No matter what was said the witness said Hall didn’t react or turn around. Shortly after the witness says Dawod shot him from a few feet away.

I went on to draw information from two other television news reports that seemed to reveal more than the “official” story lets on about the deadly incident that involved a man with a Muslim name allegedly shooting someone he did not know less than 48 hours ahead of the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States:

The first television report which aired on St. Louis NBC affiliate KSDK prior to any names being released or charges filed, features witnesses saying it appeared the assailant would have kept shooting, but his gun jammed; and

The second report, which aired on the same station after the Springfield Police Department announced the alleged shooter’s name and charges against him, offered much the same story.

Below, in chronological order, are other important milestones related to this case:

On Sept. 12, Dawod pleaded not guilty to the charges. On Monday, represented by public defender Shawn Markin of Springfield, he’ll stand before Judge Mark Fitzsimmons courtroom in his 31st Judicial Circuit courtroom.

On Sept. 14, I shared news of what a man traveling with the victim had to say about the suspect.

On Sept. 16, I asked the question, Will MSM Cover Trial of Accused Killer in Bus Station Shooting on Eve of 9-11 Anniversary? Why? Because, one week after the shooting, no media outside of Missouri had picked up the story.

On Sept. 25, it was revealed in this report that, in addition to a handgun, Dawod had a 9-inch knife and 37 rounds of ammunition when arrested.

On Sept. 28, I shared details of the story with Aaron Klein on his 77 WABC radio show, Klein Online Investigative Radio.

On Nov. 22, according to a posting on CaseNet [Case #1131-CR06034], Judge Fitzsimmons decided to allow media to film in and around the courtroom prior to the commencement of the hearing but will require all cameras and microphones to be turned off before the hearing begins.

Stay tuned for updates on this story as it will be interesting to see how — or, more accurately, IF — any of the major national media cover this story.

Unlike other middle-age Americans who find themselves caring for both young children and elderly parents, Janet’s status as a member of the “sandwich generation” is unique. Rather than simply care for her almost-seven-year-old granddaughter and her octogenarian mother at the same time, the 40-something woman who once earned six-figure income as manager of a high-end fitness center/spa in a posh St. Louis suburb finds herself fighting for both of them in separate cases at the St. Louis County (Mo.) Courthouse. After years of legal wrangling, she now finds herself on the verge of bankruptcy, having thrown everything she had into the effort to save the two most important people in her life.

“Sometimes I feel like that movie is my life,” said Janet, referring to “Changeling,” a 2008 film in which a grief-stricken mother takes on the Los Angeles Police Department to her own detriment after it stubbornly tries to pass off an obvious impostor as her missing child. Unlike the movie, however, Janet’s child isn’t missing; instead, her granddaughter is on the verge of being taken from her family permanently. In addition, her mother has, for the most part, already been removed from her life.

SAVING A GRANDDAUGHTER

Janet’s most-pressing concern is the fight to keep her granddaughter, a little girl for whom she’s been the primary caregiver during most of early life, from being placed up for adoption — possibly by total strangers. In less than 10 days, a court hearing could determine whether or not she succeeds in the fight that begun in earnest 15 months ago.

Almost five years ago, Janet convinced her daughter and the biological father of her granddaughter to sign a document that, after being notarized and filed with the court, would have given her legal guardianship of her granddaughter. While the document was notarized, Janet never filed it. Why? Because she was holding out hope that her daughter would change her ways. But she didn’t.

During the early morning hours of a Thursday during the summer of 2010, police officers and paramedics responded to news of a person lying on the ground in front of an apartment building in the St. Louis suburb of University City. Upon arrival, they found a woman unresponsive and barely breathing. It was Janet’s daughter, the 26-year-old mother of a beautiful little girl. She had overdosed on heroin.

The overdose occurred on one of those rare occasions when Janet was not watching her granddaughter and the little girl was being cared for by someone else inside her mother’s home.

As soon as Janet found out about the overdose, she picked up her granddaughter and took her home, fully expecting she would soon become the girl’s full-time guardian until her daughter was able to care for her again after completing rehab.

A hearing was held two days later and, not surprisingly, Janet’s drug-addicted daughter was angry at her mom and didn’t want her child to go with Janet, the responsible parent against whom she liked to lash out, especially when she was in trouble. And she was in trouble.

Perhaps due to Janet’s daughter’s outbursts during the hearing, custody of Janet’s granddaughter went to another woman, the grandmother of Janet’s daughter’s other child by a different father — a woman acting as a foster parent who is not a blood relative of Janet’s granddaughter. This occurred despite the fact that the judge had allowed Janet to intervene early in the case and said placement of the child with her was NOT contrary to the best interest of the child.

The emergency petition to take the granddaughter into state care was falsified and not warranted, Janet said, since she had had her granddaughter for several days after her daughter’s overdose and had ensured she was safe and well-cared for.

By granting temporary custody of Janet’s granddaughter to someone other than a blood relative (i.e., Janet), Children’s Division appears to have violated Missouri law (Section 210.305, RSMo) which requires the agency to give preference and first consideration for foster care placement to grandparents of a child.

I used the word, “appears,” because there is a loophole in the law that allows Children’s Division to avoid placing a child with a grandparent if they deem such placement as being “contrary to the welfare of the child.”

Children’s Division workers who opt for the loophole must, according to the statute, document in writing why the child was not placed with grandparent. In this case, however, they did not conduct a home study or background check on Janet and, as a result, had nothing upon which to base their decision. Apparently, they simply decided that her grandparent status didn’t matter. Falsified reports by Children’s Division workers and the deputy juvenile officer assigned to the case followed to hinder Janet’s efforts to save her granddaughter.

Three months after the little girl was placed with the foster parent, the Family Court judge in charge of the case said Janet should have immediate access to her granddaughter if she passed a drug test. Interestingly, she passed the drug test as well as five other blood and hair-follicle tests during the past year. Inexplicably, the foster parent never had to take a blood test. In addition, Janet had to undergo a psychological evaluation which the foster parent did not.

Despite the judge’s directive and the fact that Janet passed the drug and psych test hurdles, access to her granddaughter continued to be blocked by the foster parent. No birthdays. No holidays. And, for the first time ever, no Christmas morning celebration. As a result, Janet’s granddaughter’s life changed dramatically.

Since being taken from Janet, the trips the gifted child enjoyed with her — to the zoo, theater and symphony — have not happened. Her other regular activities, including swimming lessons, dance, music and art classes, ended as well.

Over the summer, the little girl spent more than 12 hours a day in daycare, arriving at 6 a.m. and leaving at 6 p.m. daily. This fall, despite objections from Janet and from officials at the girl’s school, the judge allowed her to miss several weeks of school so she could travel with the foster parent to a far-away state.

SAVING A MOTHER

Least urgent to Janet, but only because her mother understands the other legal battle in which Janet is involved, is the fight to free her mother from the confines of a St. Louis-area retirement facility where she is being held against her will.

Janet’s octogenarian mother was in bed sleeping the day in August 2009 when she was removed from her private residence in the nice suburban St. Louis neighborhood where she had lived for more than 50 years, never to return.

Out to dinner at the time her mother was taken, Janet said she had spoken to her earlier that night — around 7 p.m. — and learned from her mother that she was tired from working in the yard all day and had gone to bed early. Everything was fine — or so they thought.

When Janet returned to the home where she lived with her mother — at her mother’s request — around 11 p.m., she found her mother missing. The woman who had taught swim lessons to babies three days a week at the YMCA, attended church regularly and tended to an array of growing things in her well-manicured yard was gone. A Hollywood movie-style nightmare had begun.

Actually, the nightmare began more than a year earlier when Janet’s brother, who had not been involved with either her or their mother for more than two decades, coaxed his mother out of her home and made her sign legal papers in an apparent effort to steal her sizable assets.

A banker friend advised Janet and her mother that they should seek to have Janet installed as her mother’s guardian via the courts to prevent Janet’s brother from doing any more harm to her mother. Following that advice, they took the matter to court and thought they were headed in the right direction. But they were wrong.

Instead of obtaining full legal guardianship, Janet was granted limited guardianship by a judge and a St. Louis County official who was named conservator of Janet’s mother’s estate. The springing durable power of attorney, a legal document that was to “spring” into effect at the point Janet’s mother lost capacity, was disregarded by the court even though it had been prepared by an attorney, signed by Janet’s mother (fully competent at the time) and registered with the office of the recorder of deeds.

Now, fast-forward back to August 2009.

After claiming Janet’s mother was somehow incapable of living on her own, Janet explained, the county official had her removed her from her home and placed in a restricted-access care facility under heavy sedation for three months. In addition, the official prevented Janet from being able to visit her — or even know where she had been taken.

Janet said he left her threatening voice mail messages that said, “You can make it easy on yourself or hard on yourself. You have to deed your half of the house over to me.”

Next, she said, he liquidated her mother’s assets, which included — but were not limited to — a half-million-dollar home in one of the St. Louis area’s finest neighborhoods, its contents (for only $100), life insurance policies and investments.

Janet said her mother has now needlessly used nearly half of the term covered by her long-term care insurance — one of the few assets of her mother that the county official/conservator has not sold — and will likely be tossed out of the home at the end of that term and placed in a low-end Medicaid bed somewhere else. So much for her plans to stay in her own home as long as possible an use the policy when it was needed.

Today, Janet’s mother lives in a closet-size room at another retirement retirement facility where she continues to be kept in a locked-down memory care unit, unable to go beyond certain locked-door boundaries without an escort. The only person allowed to take her on outings away from the home, Janet said, is the son who set into motion all of the events that resulted in her being confined against her will in the first place.

Does Janet’s mother really belong in a locked-down unit at a nursing home? Not according to a St. Louis-area physician who is among the nation’s leading researchers on the subject of dementia.

In a “To whom it may concern” letter written 10 days before Janet’s mother was removed from her home, the physician who had cared for the woman for 17 months wrote the following about her condition:

(She) was diagnosed with dementia secondary to chronic stress exacerbated by her involvement with her son. Since being separate from her son, she has demonstrated significant improvement in her cognitive function. At this time, (she) has the mental capacity to determine where she would prefer to live.

Nursing home placement at this time would not be in the best interest of (Janet’s mother) with respect to her mental and physical health.

The court, however, ignored the expert physician’s opinion and sided with the public administrator, leaving Janet’s mother trapped against her will in the locked-down unit of a retirement home.

WHAT’S NEXT?

With few options remaining available to her, Janet told me she expects to file federal lawsuits during the next two weeks against the judges and other officials involved in both cases. Unfortunately, she’s not likely to get far, because two things are working against her:

First, the Missouri House has impeached only two Missouri judges since the Civil War era, and both resigned before they could be removed, according to the Missouri Courts web site; and

Second, Guardian Ad Litems, the individuals — usually attorneys — charged with looking out for the interests of children in court cases, are accountable only to the judges who appoint them.

The time for Family Court reform is now.

For more news about justice denied, read other posts in my series, Family Court Nightmares.

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