State of Texas to families: "We've got your kids now give us all your money, and by the way, screw y'all!"

This has got me very angry. VERY ANGRY.

What country are we in, again, someone remind me please????????? The way I add it all up, with the state estimating they will be keeping the children for twelve months, the State Legislature in Texas wants to go after the FLDS Church to the tune of $27.9 million.

Hmmm....the YFZ Ranch just happens to have an assessed value of $24 million. Methinks the state would settle for that.

So, we have the plan to destroy a people laid out for us:
1) Steal the children
2) Scatter the children to the four winds
3) Require parents not be allowed to go live in their very nice homes they built themselves, but instead to go on welfare and rent apartments, and get jobs flipping burgers
4) Give the children back after a year and after the beautiful ranch property has been vacant and fallen into disrepair
5) Give the church and/or parents a bill for 30-freaking-million dollars
6) Sit around and congratulate selves for defeating the evil Mormons
and, finally....
7) Build NAFTA Superhighway through the land that was once a beautiful, industrious testimony to the value of hard work and effort, by a productive and faithful people.

I'm pissed. Anyone else???????

State may try to seize sect's assets

By JOHN MORITZjmoritz@star-telegram.com
AUSTIN — With the price care for the more than 400
children seized last month from the polygamist ranch
in West Texas expected to reach into the tens of
million of dollars, a legislative panel on Tuesday
suggested that the state explore the possibility of
garnishing the religious organization's assets to
recoup the costs.

"That compound didn't grow out of fairy dust," state
Sen. Robert Deuell, R-Greenville, said after a Senate
Finance Committee hearing where he urged state health
officials to determine whether members of the
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints (FLDS), or even the sect as a whole, be held
responsible for the cost of care. "Why should we be
footing the bill when they've got assets?"

The remarks came after the panel heard testimony that
providing foster care, Medicaid coverage and casework
for the children from the YFZ (Yearning For Zion)
Ranch will likely cost taxpayers more than $1.7
million a month for as long as they are in state
custody. The figure does not include the $5.3 million
for the first six weeks of the operation or the cost
of providing the required legal representation for
each child, which is likely to total at least $2.2
million.

The committee, which plays a lead role in drafting and
overseeing the state's budget, is exploring ways to
cover the near-term costs even though no money was
appropriated last year for such an event. Legislative
leaders and Gov. Rick Perry's office are expecting
that an emergency appropriation will be necessary when
lawmakers return to Austin in January, to ensure that
the state's bill for the operation are paid.

"We basically need to pay what it's going to cost to
do the job right, and we need to know, to the best of
your ability, what that cost is so we can factor that
in when we're making decisions about other worthwhile
costs and needs in this state," said Sen. Steve Ogden,
the Bryan Republican who chairs the finance panel.

Law enforcement officers and officials from Child
Protective Services rounded up the children from the
ranch in Eldorado after an anonymous caller claimed to
be a pregnant, abused 16-year-old forced into a
marriage with a 50-year-old. Officials now believe
that the call may have been a hoax.

But CPS workers have said that the children were in
imminent danger of abuse, and court hearings began
Monday in San Angelo in which many parents are seeking
to regain custody of the children.

Deuell said efforts should be made to determine
whether any of the children in foster care are covered
by the parents' private insurance. If so, he said, the
state would not have to enroll them in the
taxpayer-supported Medicaid program.

Albert Hawkins, the state's executive commissioner for
health and human services, said it was unclear whether
members of the sect have private insurance. He also
said that officials have found no evidence that anyone
from the sect is receiving any sort of public
assistance.

But even if the adults do have private insurance, the
children would still likely require Medicaid coverage,
Hawkins said, because DNA testing to determine
parentage is expected to take up to two months to
complete.

Rod Parker, a spokesman for the FLDS, said any effort
to seize assets belonging to the sect or to individual
members would be an overreach on the part of the
state.

"I think my response is to ask the state on what legal
grounds it believes it would be entitled to take FLDS
assets," Parker said in an e-mail to the
Star-Telegram. "This is a country of laws; they cannot
simply go after assets without legal basis."

John Moritz reports from the Star-Telegram's Austin
bureau, 512-476-4294.