When the System Rips Children Away from Their Mother: A Voice Still Cries from Ramah
“Thus saith the Lord; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.”
— Jeremiah 31:15 (KJV)
Thousands of mothers today know this pain all too well. Family court calls it “in the best interest of the child,” but for many, it feels like legal kidnapping — rubber-stamped by judges who never sat at your kitchen table, never saw your bedtime routines, never knew your child’s heart the way you do.
If you’ve lost contact with your child because of a bitter ex or a system that refuses to hear your side, this message is for you.
The world may try to erase you, but you are still their mother.
Watch the short video above and know you are not alone.
Your voice matters. Your story matters. You still matter.
Please share your story in the comments or send a note to bbohemian_books@yahoo.com.
Stop Laughing! There is nothing funny about Judge Rudofsky ordering us to give scam callers our personal info.
This video is a scam caller who called me back to ask what my YouTube channel is called.
He and his partner in crime called earlier to try to trick me into divulging information about myself, such as where I bank and approximately how much money I have in my accounts.
Portfolio Recovery Associates, a debt buyer and collection company owned by PRA Group, Inc., also made calls trying to gain information about me, even after I told them I have no debt and to quit calling me.
Instead of messing with them like I did with this caller, I sued for violations of the FDCPA and invasion of privacy.
PRA got the last laugh (so far) on that one. Trump appointed judge Lee Rudofsky threw my case out on summary judgment, meaning I did not get a jury trial. The Harvard educated judge also ordered me to pay over $8,000 of the scam caller’s costs. He even lied – flat out – that I said I owed the debt.
The Eighth Circuit justices said they agreed completely with Judge Rudofsky, but failed to elaborate at all on the reasons they disagreed with my full-length appellate brief and reply.
By this order and failure to reverse on appeal, the courts are ordering us to answer questions from scammers or expect the scammers to call us again until we comply with their demands for information.
A good question that was not addressed in Hammett v. Portfolio Recovery Associates: If a person lies to a scam caller on a recorded line, can that lie be used against the recipient of the call in a court of law to prove the recipient is somehow less than honest?
Here are the aforementioned briefs and the Eighth Circuit Order affirming Rudofsky’s B.S. summary dismissal.
Judge’s Pet, PRA Group (PRAA), Owner of Unethical Debt Collector, Stock is Stuck!
When I filed my lawsuit against Portfolio Recovery Associates in 2021, its parent company PRA Group, Inc’s stock was selling around $20 per share. Today it sold for $13 plus change.
I don’t mean to be a schadenfreudist, but watching PRAA’s stock nosedive genuinely made my day. Maybe true schadenfreude is about undeserved suffering — and this isn’t that. This is earned misery. PRAA is a pet litigant of Federalist Society cabalist Judge Lee Rudofsky, and if justice exists, this is just the beginning of their bad news.
Stop Laughing! There is Nothing Funny About Court Corruption or Judge Susan Weaver
Technology and I are in a love-hate relationship. Thanks for your patience. Hopefully you catch my drift.
Attorney Knows Better Than to Confirm Info — Even When Caller Has Accurate Private Details. But According to Judge Rudofsky and the Eighth Circuit, You’re Supposed to Cooperate Anyway
Portfolio Recovery Associates, the Nation’s second largest debt buyer, made 100s of phone calls to me before I agreed to confirm (or deny) my identity, birthdate and address. After I confirmed my name and birthdate and denied the address they had was one I was familiar with, they told me that I owed $2,297.63 but not by whom, on what, where, or when the account they purportedly purchased was used.
I sued PRA.
The CFPB had already obtained a consent agreement against the debt collector against making phone calls exactly like this one. A couple years after I filed my suit, Portfolio Recovery stipulated to an order to pay another $24 million for continuing to make the harassing collections.
Judge Lee P. Rudofsky threw my suit out on summary judgment. He said it was not more than an acceptable annoyance for a debt collector to make repeated calls if the recipient refused to confirm personal information about themselves on a recorded line. The Eighth Circuit confirmed. SCOTUS denied writ of certiorari to review the orders. (Steve Lehto, at 5:20 of the YouTube video said, “so I said, ‘just so you know, I find this entire phone call annoying’, and I hung up on her.”)
The courts also allowed the supposed evidence that their decision was based on to be kept under seal. I can tell you that the evidence provided did not show that I owed PRA any money and did not show that my estimate of the number of calls made was inaccurate. This begs the question, why would PRA want to keep the records of my account confidential if I begged to have the records made public?
I can’t answer Steve Lehto’s question, but agree with him whole-heartedly that a caller has no right to demand confirmation of identity or anything else. (At 10:10, Mr. Lehto said, “in fact, I didn’t even confirm some of the things that she asked me.”
I pointed out to Judge Rudofsky that the Fourth Amendment of that pesky Constitution forbids demands for identification. The judge said the 4th amendment only applies to government intrusion. By that reasoning, there is separation of church and state, but it is perfectly fine for an individual to tie you to a rock and force you to profess faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior before the tide comes in. – Well, that is hyperbole. A more literal analogy is that Portfolio Recovery Associates can call you as often as they want if you let the calls go to voicemail and once every three days for answered calls, indefinitely, until you state on a recorded line that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior. (For me, that is a true statement, but I don’t think I should have to confirm my faith on a recorded line, nor wear a Star of David on my sleeve.)
And isn’t it interesting, when I said that I could not confirm the address they had on file, PRA went ahead and discussed the alleged debt with me anyhow?
Unpacking a Pro Se Petition for Writ to SCOTUS
The first piece out of the box: Judge Susan Weaver, the Arkansas Court of Appeals and the Arkansas Supreme Court were adamant that a pro se litigant is not allowed to advocate on behalf of a trust. Even if the pro se litigant is the sole trustee, sole settlor and sole non-contingent beneficiary of a revocable living trust, and extradited herself from the case.
Judge Weaver dismissed me with prejudice.
But she did not dismiss my unrepresented trust pursuant to the Common Defense Doctrine.
I paid an attorney to represent the trust on appeal.
Instead of reversing Judge Weaver, the Court of Appeals waited two years and then said they didn’t have jurisdiction. Their basis? The trust attorney wrote a Notice of Appeal that said the appeal was from an interim order, not the final order written a week later. (Both orders were filed before the appeal was filed.) The Notice of Appeal I wrote on my own behalf referenced the correct order.
Both Searcy County Court and the Arkansas COA allowed the errant trust attorney to withdraw from the case, even though the trust did not have a replacement.
Hey. Is there an attorney out there that wants to represent the trust or write an amicus brief to SCOTUS?
My contact info is all over the petition for writ of cert posted above. Please help.
A Higher Law 