Joe is tried and true on this. I recall him drilling Mukasey a few months ago, hitting a stone wall wrt program cuts, the bastards at DOJ.
Thanks Christy.

great post, great stuff for Biden, he really means it when he says he cares

this is what it means when we say “provide for the common welfare”

Hey Christy. Dontcha know that the govt is the problem. /s

I started out in mental health working for a community crisis center (Sunflower House in Corvallis, OR) in the late 70’s. One of our proudest accomplishments was establishing a network of safe houses for victims of domestic violence. It’s a very real problem and can be very dangerous for all those dealing with the situation.

2 million calls, two million women crying out for help. That’s one dubious milestone.

At least they had someone to call.

Remember back when government actually…you know…tried to govern well?

Christy, thank you for your service helping battered women. Thank you for the info here. I survived abuse not as serious as this, but it was still hell. And there is not a day that goes by that I don’t remember, at some point, how great my life is now, compared to then. No matter how bad the day, I relish the simple things, like a quiet bedtime. Waking in the night only to tend to a little one’s nightmare or a wet bed. No drunk maniac anymore. Never again. Or if I make some little mistake, I just fix it. Nobody there to scream and track my every breath. I found people so kind and helpful in the system, and I’m grateful for the respect this legislation gave to the idea that domestic violence is a special sort of crime.

I do, I do!

What accounts for Biden’s interest in this issue? Did he have personal contact with women in such circumstances? I ask because it’s the sort of thing you’d expect to be led by a woman. And I suspect there might be an interesting back story.

Christy – the younger daughter ran the facilities end of a domestic violence shelter in Glens Falls, NY as one of her co-ops for Antioch College. She did everything from making sure there was enough toilet paper and ice cream to accompanying women to and in the court room, connecting women calling from highway rest stops with directions and rides to the house and coordinating workshops. To say this experience changed her is to put it mildly.

Still have dim memories of the day. I’ve become so jaded in the last 8 years that I doubt you could ever get back to those days. Certainly the remaining pitiful Rs in congress will try their best to prevent the Ds from accomplishing anything. I suspect the big nasty is still ahead in the minds and bodies of the R congress critters.

Wow. Good for her.

Christy, Fantastic, a hidden misery that can/does happen in the most seemingly “normal” families. So Scary and shameful. Then you learn how truly dangerous the problem is…not just slaps, hits, but damage, harm, hospitals, injuries that do not heal…let alone the PTSD the can be lifelong. Thanks for the reminder and the care that Biden has shown.

Sadly, it is one of those things that is still a “blame the victim” circumstances that is hard to crack, even get attention. Great progress has been made, to be sure. Not enough.

Nothing like going to a college whose theme is: Be afraid to die without having done something for humanity.” and George will was jubilant in print when they were going down the tubes! Horrible man. The teachers, students and alums are still running the school, in people’s livingrooms.

I would love to know this as well. But I’m impressed he did came through on behalf of others just because, you know, it was the right thing to do, protecting others.

I didn’t know Antioch had gone under. How sad.

OMG. Is Obama up to the job?

Have I mentioned lately that David Gregory is an idiot?

I think this place is a safe house.
For the most part. *G*

Don’t know the answer to that one — but if I ever get a chance to ask Biden or one of his staff, I’ll let you know if I get an answer.

Good for her! Sounds like you have a fantastic daughter…

real american george macaca allen loves him some sarah palin.

Find the funding in some communities is difficult. On the reservation where I live there is not a shelter available. There is a need for one. This is place with 50% unemployment and high use of booze.

Macaca’s up on his show.

Well, basically the efforts of all the DFHs that George Will hates saved it from a board of directors who seemed to be bent on closing the place, selling the assets to be used for a sister college and all the far flung campuses that they had started. They were basically using Antioch college to feed all the other campuses and would not reinvest in the Yellow Springs campus itself. It was really horrible. Once the students, faculty and alums realized what they were trying to do, they were able to pull together about $15 million to buy back the college. They are still in negotiations with the board(a suit against the board seems to have been very meaningful), but things are moving along. In the meantime, classes, etc. are still being held in faculty livingrooms, etc. under the aegis of http://nonstopinstitute.org/

Hugs, hon. I’ve seen that more times than I care to count, including with some members of my extended family through the years. So glad you are in a safer situation these days…

He’s there to balance Rachel’s brilliance.

My ex prosecuted domestic abuse cases in federal court. Any felony on a reservation is prosecuted in fed ct. One of the problems on the reservation was that the family (male and female) of the perps would attempt to intimidate the victim and witnesses. In one case she wound up sending the perp to prison and also several family members for intimidation.

Digg this post right here, please!

Your local law enforcement can apply for a federal grant to set up a shelter. There are also state-directed grants through VAWA that allow for the same thing. Worth checking into…we got a federal grant to add a victim’s advocate person to our staff in the prosecutor’s office I used to work in, and it made a huge difference to those folks involved in crimes to have someone there to walk them through the process every step of the way and refer them to services and such.

If we can get a grant in dinky-ville WV, you should really look into the possibility where you are, too.

Dugg, Teddy!

Joe has always sided on the side of those in Need. He come from a typical blue colar family understands those most in NEED. GO Joe and Obama!!!

Christy, Antioch is a national treasure.It was started by Horace Mann and was the first college in the US to integrate both in terms of gender and race. Their co-op program is/was amazing; my daughter did the following: worked in the hospice at Beth Israel in NYC; the domestic violence shelter in Glens Falls, NY, and worked for The Prometheus Radio project in Philadelphia(they build low power fm stations for third world countries and places in the US that don’t have an alternative voice. She did everything from soldering electronic boards to organizing a build in Vermont). To say it changed her is not even scratching the surface. When we went to the graduation, and the kids stood up to say, “Be Afraid to Die”, with their arms raised in triumph against what the board was trying to do to the college, everyone was in tears. An incredible moment. Antiochians are all over the world and serve all over the world; on the other side, some of them must have succeeded in business or whatever because they pub together $15 million dolars pretty damned quick. Oh, an famous aluns are: Coretta Scott King and Rod Serling…

Have I mentioned lately that David Gregory is an idiot?

Dancin’ Dave’s world is about to come crashing down, live on national teevee, on November 4th.

Couldn’t happen to a worse dancer, umm, nicer guy, umm, more appropriate person asshole.

(((JoyB)))
So sorry to hear your story & glad that you are safe now.

My late husband’s behavior did not fall into the strong word of abuse, but I do resonate with your description of the simple pleasures of not having to deal with it anymore.

I went a lookin’ for the driving reasons why Biden kept after this. Didn’t find it yet, but did find this:

Biden’s Signature Accomplishment

So what did Biden have to do with all of that? Everything. Biden had been promoting a domestic violence bill starting in the early 1990s, and although it didn’t go far at first, he kept at it, finally getting his chance in 1994, once Bill Clinton became president and began pushing for a crime bill. Even then, it was a tough sell. Critics, led by Republican Senator Robert Dole, thought the ‘94 crime bill was bloated with unnecessary spending and demanded cuts from it–including the $1.6 billion over six years set aside for VAWA. But Biden held firm and, eventually, got his way. “You can sponsor a bill, but if you just sponsor a bill and let it sit there, that’s nothing,” says Pat Reuss, a longtime activist who was one of the measure’s chief advocates in Washington. “He shepherded it. He made sure it happened. He assigned staff to it, gave them carte blanche to do with they needed, they spent days and nights on it.”

And Biden’s stewardship didn’t end with the bill’s passage. In 1996, when President Clinton signed the welfare reform bill, Biden made sure that victims of domestic violence got an extra six months to exhaust welfare benefits. When the law was up for reauthorization in 2000, he won even more funding for it. Although the courts would end up striking down one part of VAWA’s legal reforms, and although it would occasionally rankle right-wingers, the program’s bipartisan support grew over the years. In 2006, President bush signed its second reauthorization.

I have never experienced any kind of domestic violence personally or in my family. I am very fortunate.

Just can’t help thinking that having Biden as a VP who cares about this issue will be a breath of fresh air. It seems the Republicans for the most part would rather sweep it under the rug.

That’s an amazing story. I hope they succeed.

Hello, there. You.
Hi, Jay.
(just thought I’d endeavor to get on the same page as you. *g*

‘allo, Demi !

((jayt))

Yep. geez, his “teasers” are so loaded with innuendo, it makes me gag. I just keep the teevee on msnbc cuz I can’t stand cnn. CNN was about to cough up some exclusive interview with Palin and I just couldn’t do it. Palin was looking like she was ready to go all Cheney on the interviewer’s ass. really brisk!

Has anyone mentioned today that The Divine Mrs. P and Da First Dood are being deposed on Friday?

heh.

Well, they have the money and the will, and the dimwits on the board fired all the tenured faculty, against the contract…so they’ve got a shot. And in the meantime, the faculty and alums and students are sticking it out…working at what education is really all about. yes, the place probably has the highest per capita number of piercings and tattoos. But I’ve never seen a place either where ‘the community’(made up of students, faculty and administrators) formed a court and my daughter’s first year, threw out a student who’d been found dealing drugs. The kid’s parents begged the court to take the kid back; according to my daughter, the kids on the court said, “We can’t help him here; he needs to be placed where he can be helped. He needs to take responsibility for himself.” Heh..and George Will exulted that ‘the hippy college’ was in trouble.

I had to attend court with a friend once for protesting he had done and got arrested for. We were instructed to show up a couple hours early so we had no choice but to sit and listen to all the cases that came before his. Mind you this was just any given day in Van Nuys Court in California. Nine out of ten cases we heard were all domestic violence cases. I was shocked at how many there were compared to the other kinds of offenses. Almost all offenders were given a slap on the wrist with just probation and a few had to attend an anger management class.

It made me sick to my stomach that most of these men were free to go back home and repeat their crimes when they got in to the next argument with their spouses. What made matters worse, most of these men were non-english speaking latino, and had little if any understanding of what was being said by the judge at these proceedings. My friend and I just could’nt believe what we had witnessed, never having been exposed to this issue and how it is dealt with in the courts.

OMG! I had the teevee on CNN for some reason. Don’t ask me why, but I listened to Barbi trying to sound real serious-like. But she was spewing some bullshit about is ‘Obama ready…yada,yada,yada’ I couldn’t take it. Didn’t hear her say “McCain” once. Did you? She was campaigning for 2012.

McCain’s got them both well scripted by now.

I love it when Gregory’s on – it gives me a chance to go back and watch The Daily Show and Colbert from the night before…

Thank you Christy.

Heh. I must admit the photo of the student didn’t endear me to the place. *g*

I have experience on 2 boards, one being SUNY-NP Foundation. Gives me some notion of how difficult it is to run a school. But it sounds like they have the requisite raw materials and the will and the work to put it together.

Yummo!

She is delusional if she thinks that a major Republic loss won’t be tied to her.

Yeah, she’s toast too just like McCrazy. She’s just too stupid to see it.

I work part time as an advocate at NDVH. The second part of your comment is the answer. They had someone to call. And this is a huge milestone.

Another thing about VAWA is that it provides a way for immigrant victims of DV to get their permanent residency independent of their abuser, who often is already a permanent resident and is using the threat of deportation as a means of control.

I only saw the “preview” where she was smacking around the reporter about a question about qualifications. “Who wrote that? Who wrote that question? I need to speak to them.” acting all tough. The reporter said, “National Review…”

“Palin not qualified” is now a bigger concern than “continuing Bush policies” ahahahaahahah!!!

I worked with VAWA first hand with homeless, immigrant populations with Albuquerque Health Care for the Homeless – It was a fucking godsend (can you say fuck and god in the same sentence?

She’s gonna have her witch doctor put a spell on whomever it was. She’s all about the revenge. I offer Troopergate as evidence.

One of the most frustrating aspects of domestic violence cases is that the conduct which leads to a criminal charge is most often witnessed solely by the abuser and the person being abused, and sometimes young children. Trying to get testimony from someone who is terrified of retribution can be really, really tough — and makes medical exams and additional evidence gathering by police officers all the more important on the scene. Also, if you have a situation where you have two people who have a long history of calling the cops on each other, accusing each other of abuse and this, that, or the other thing — over a history of various partners all doing the same thing (yes, it happens, ad nauseum) — then it can be infinitely more difficult to sort out fact from fiction in charges and trying to figure out what is appropriate.

Where you have a victim who refuses to testify and she’s your main evidence of misconduct, sometimes the best you can do is to secure a plea on a lesser charge so that the next time the abuser comes in, you have a means to lean on him for something more the next go round. Plus, it limits access to firearms and at least gets them into some counseling on some level.

It really sucks, but sometimes it can be all you can do when you have an uncooperative victim. And that happens way too frequently. SIGH

Sadly, for my now seven year-old son, some family courts are in a state of backlash. I don’t know if the Fathers’ Rights guys have gotten traction or what.

All I can tell you is I came away from my protection order, divorce and custody hearings wishing I’d waited for my then-husband to hit me, hard. He had only strangled me and thrown me out in the February snow–neither of which required a doctor’s care or left a mark.

I, perhaps stupidly, certainly pridefully, sought out an attorney rather than going to the local shelter and using their advocacy system. I had money of my own and didn’t feel right using space and expertise that others less fortunate needed. This attorney negotiated with my husband’s attorney and made the protection order go away–before I learned I could have extended it for up to two years. This only emboldened my husband who began his reign of terror again. When I applied for another PFA, this time the Guardian ad Litem intervened, promising to get my ex-husband into a batterers’ intervention program, and again making the PFA go away. He never went to the BIP and that Guardian had to resign before being removed for bias.

Later, the court dinged me for bringing frivolous PFAs by stripping me, a teacher for a dozen years, of any say in my son’s education.

How could this happen? She must really be crazy, you’re saying, for this to have happened. Well, yes and no. Of course I’m crazed that my ex-husband’s family lied on the stand and our son is paying the price. Lied and lied and lied. Oh yeah, and made shit up, too.

As my attorney–now a superior court judge–said, “There’s not much you can do when people hijack the system and lie.”

(((((leolabeth)))))) That is infuriating.