By Susan Stamper Brown

Since Adam’s fall in Eden, we humans find it easy to fall for lies. Especially in the absence of a moral filter which helps us differentiate between and navigate around what is right and wrong.

Apparently, moral filters were in short supply in Germany in the 1930s when Nazism was on the rise. Adolf Hitler and his minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, launched an insidious campaign against the Jews. They spread their evil telling despicable lies blaming Jews for every malady on the planet.

Hitler’s “big lie” campaign included the idea that if a big lie is repeated frequently enough, it will be believed.

Concentration camps, gas chambers and mass graves across Germany spoke to how effectively their “big lie” propaganda technique worked. That presumably preventable and disturbingly dark stain etched on the annals of history should give all thoughtful humans reason for pause.

America, it seems, has recently become home for, as Rush Limbaugh puts it, “a special kind of stupid.” Democrats and their media cohorts understand their lies will eventually be considered “truth” if they hammer away at it long enough.

Their goal is to normalize abnormality to the point our brains begin convincing us that the Star Wars Cantina scene is as regular and ordinary as a Mayberry R.F.D.soda shop. Switch on your flat screen to hear the cacophony of wild accusations, zany insinuations, and hare-brained inferences of untruth- tellers, thrashing in the throes of post-election temper tantrums.

Donald Trump is an illegitimate president, just like George W. Bush who “stole the election” they incessantly regurgitate. The only difference in their rhetoric now is that hanging chads have become Russian hackers.

In 2000, recounts reflected Bush won, even in the four Florida counties Al Gore cherry-picked for recount because they leaned heavily Democrat. Gore was such a pathetic loser, he couldn’t win his home state of Tennessee. Even so, Bush stole the election.In its majority opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court described the cheating by Democrat Party counters who continuously changed the counting rules during recounts to rig the election in favor of Al Gore.

The one thing I know with certainty: There is a God…and he rescued us from what would have been sure and certain disaster if Gore was president on September 11, 2001.

Nevertheless, Bush was illegitimate…illegitimate…illegitimate…just like Donald Trump, they ceaselessly reiterate.

Although the fresh air of truth floats just above their noses, they remain content hog-scratching through the mud piles of innuendoes, overtones and implications in search of a mouthwatering morsel of mistruth they can twist into something else. The Devil deals in counterfeits, you know.

On May 11 during a meeting of the Judiciary Committee which had nothing to do with Russia, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Ranking Member Democrat Dianne Feinstein addressed the subject of Russia. Grassley said both he and Feinstein were briefed by former FBI director Comey regarding the individuals the current FBI investigation targeted.

Grassley said, “Mr. Comey testified before the Judiciary Committee last week… Shortly after Director Comey briefed us, I tweeted that he should be transparent. I said he should tell the public what he told Sen. Feinstein and me about whether the FBI is or is not investigating the president. On Tuesday, the president’s letter said that Director Comey told him he was not under investigation. Sen. Feinstein and I heard nothing that contradicted the president’s statement.”

Grassley also said the FBI should “confirm to the public whether it is or is not investigating the president. Because it has failed to make this clear, speculation has run rampant” tempering “some of the unsubstantiated statements that have been made.”

Later, Grassley told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto: “There’s no evidence whatsoever now that they [Russia] changed one vote, but that suspicion is out there.”

Sure is. Ask the hog-scratchers.

State Agrees To Pay Family $25M To Settle DCS Case

Indiana will pay $25 million to conclude a northern Indiana family’s decade-long legal fight to clear their names after the Department of Child Services falsely prosecuted them for their daughter’s death.

Roman and Lynnette Finnegan and their three children – Johnathon Abair, Tabitha Abair, and Katelynn Salyer – will share in the settlement confirmed Wednesday by their Indianapolis attorney, Ron Waicukauski of Price Waicukauski Joven & Catlin, LLC.

“It’s fair to say we’re very pleased this is finally resolved after so many years,” Waicukauski said. “The family has received a significant measure of justice,” he said, from “parties who were responsible for causing enormous suffering.”

A federal jury in 2015 awarded the Finnegans $31.3 million against Pulaski County DCS agents and an Indiana State Police detective. The verdict included $12 million for conduct by state actors that jurors found shocked the conscience. Last year, the state appealed the verdictto the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. The case was dismissed Wednesday after parties filed a joint motion noting settlement had been reached. The Chicago appeals court earlier this year ordered mediation in the long-running matter.

A spokesman for the Indiana Department of Child Services did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

The Indiana Attorney General’s Office, which represented DCS in the litigation, released a copy of the settlement agreement Thursday afternoon.

Among the settlement terms, Chief Counsel of Appeals Stephen Creason said in a statement, “The parties agree and understand that in reaching this agreement, the state defendants have denied and continue to deny any fault, wrongdoing or liability on their respective parts with respect to all of the claims made against them and as part of this lawsuit. This settlement has been reached solely to avoid the uncertainties of litigation and the expenses, which have been and will be incurred in the prosecution and/or defense of this matter.”

According to the settlement, the $25 million will be paid from the Indiana Tort Claims Fund.

The jury’s verdict came after a 15-day trial before District Judge Rudy Lozano in the District Court for the Northern District of Indiana. Lozano later affirmed the jury verdict after the state petitioned that it be reduced, ruling there was no reason to conclude it was excessive or unreasonable. The state subsequently appealed.

The Finnegans’ daughter, Jessica, died in the family’s Francesville home in 2005, and DCS investigators suspected abuse. But even after an investigation showed the girl died due to prescribed medication that caused a fatal drug interaction with another medication she took to treat a lifelong heart condition, DCS continued to pursue false neglect substantiations against the parents.

A Pulaski County judge found investigators had falsified official records to justify the false substantiations that he ruled were arbitrary and capricious. DCS’ intervention also resulted in the removal of the Finnegans’ other children, who were placed in foster care.

The jury awarded compensatory damages on 22 violations of First, Fourth and 14th Amendment violations involving the Finnegans and their children. In nearly each of those, the jury found former Pulaski County DCS director Laurel Myers most liable.

Jurors awarded lesser damages against Regina McAninch, a former DCS investigator and caseworker; Reba James, a regional DCS director under former director James Payne; and Jennifer McDonald, an Indiana State Police detective.

Waicukauski said the $25 million settlement includes legal fees but declined to say how much of the sum will be paid to attorneys who’ve handled the matter. In 2016, four lawyers petitioned the Northern District for fees of $2.8 million. Lozano stayed the petition until the case was resolved on appeal.

Reversal: Trial Court Ordered To Revisit CHINS Petition

Olivia Covington for www.theindianalawyer.com

An Indiana trial court imposed an “inappropriately high” burden on the Department of Child Services to prove a presumption of a child in need of services situation, the Indiana Court of Appeals held Friday in an opinion ordering the trial court to revisit the CHINS petition.

In Indiana Department of Child Services v. J.D., R.B., et al, 71A03-1611-JC-2627, DCS received a report that M.B., a child, had been seen in the emergency room for multiple fractures, including several rib fractures. DCS Family Case Manager Bridget Murray spoke with R.B., the mother, and doctors at the hospital, where she learned M.B. began exhibiting symptoms of a fractured rib the after being removed from his car seat the previous day.

A physician, however, told Murray it was not feasible for M.B.’s injuries to have been caused simply by removal from his car seat, but that the pattern of the rib fractures showed signs of the child being squeezed. Murray concluded it was necessary to remove M.B. from R.B.’s care, so he was placed in foster care immediately upon his release from the hospital.

DCS then filed a petition alleging M.B. was a Child in Need of Services, and a fact-finding hearing was held in August 2016. Murray testified to the events leading up to M.B.’s removal, and three physicians testified his injuries were very likely non-accidental and had occurred during at least two separate incidents of trauma. R.B., J.D., the child’s father, and L.M., the mother’s boyfriend, also testified at the hearing and each denied observing any injuries or odd behaviors in M.B. before he was taken out of the car seat.

DCS argued it had presented sufficient evidence to trigger presumption under Indiana Code section 31-34-12-4, or the Presumption Statute, that M.B. was a CHINS, but the St. Joseph Probate Court disagreed and ordered the child returned to R.B.’s care. After the denial of its motion to correct error, DCS appealed, arguing the trial court had committed reversible legal error “by failing to give effect to the presumption set forth in I.C. section 31-34-13-4” and by rejecting the physicians’ testimonies to the non-accidental nature of M.B.’s injuries.

The Indiana Court of Appeals agreed with DCS, with Judge Robert Altice writing in a unanimous Friday opinion the trial court’s statements, such as the sentiment that it was “absurd” for the doctors to determine the injuries were non-accidental, were “problematic.”

For example, Altice wrote the question of whether the injuries were non-accidental was a question of fact, not law, as the trial court presumed, an error that “effectively required the court to disregard the physicians’ testimony that Child’s injuries were non-accidental.” Further, the court’s conclusion the physicians were unqualified to opine as to the nature of the injuries was the wrong approach, Altice said.

Additionally, the trial court “imposed an inappropriately high evidentiary burden on DCS to trigger the Presumption Statute,” the appellate panel said. That statute merely requires “competent evidence of probative value,” which DCS provided in the form of the evidence and testimony at the fact-finding hearing, the court said.

Thus, because the evidence was sufficient to trigger the Presumption Statute, the appellate panel reversed the trial court’s denial of the CHINS petition and remanded the case with instructions to conduct further proceedings.