Remember Shanesha Taylor, the woman who was in a horrible situation (and I don’t mean just living in Arizona), who was helped out by tons of anonymous souls on the internet. Well, here’s an update:
Shanesha Taylor’s tearful mug shot and her claims that she had to leave her two young sons in a hot car for a job interview helped generate about $114,000 in online donations.
But Taylor is now facing felony child abuse charges after she said she couldn’t provide $40,000 from the donated money for a trust fund for her children as negotiated with the prosecution.
So where did the money go?
According to a budget, the unemployed Taylor submitted to the court, she is blowing through the donations at a rate of nearly $4,200 a month.
Among the expenses Taylor claims she spends are $300 a month on clothes, another $300 on dining and entertainment, $160 on cable TV, $250 on household expenses and $500 on groceries.
Taylor is also reported to have spent $6,000 to help her children’s father finish a rap album at a Tempe music studio.
Her defense team got disgusted and quit, she’s facing new charges, and as far as I am concerned, she can rot in jail. Asshole.
*** Update ***
Taylor’s attorneys withdrew from the case on Thursday, and she met with the media after the brief hearing to try to explain why she has not placed some of the more than $114,000 she received from donors into the trusts, as the agreement with prosecutors required.
“I’m still the person that they thought I was,” Taylor said without an attorney present. “I’m still trying to do the best for my children.”
Taylor told reporters outside the courthouse that she still has $72,000 left of the donated funds and that she failed to meet the deadline for other reasons.
Taylor said one of the main reasons was that she disagreed with the terms of the trust fund, which would provide her children with money only if they attended post-secondary education.
“I can move the money over and put it into place, but if doesn’t take care of the children, it’s futile,” Taylor said. “It would lock them out of their money if they didn’t go to college.”
Taylor also said that Thursday’s deadline was moved up from the original November date too suddenly; she didn’t have time to put the $40,000 in because her account allows only $20,000 in withdrawals a month.
Taylor told reporters that her paid expenses up until this point include day care for her 6-month old and 2-year-old sons and rent. She denied allegations that she had spent money on designer clothes and purses.
But she did say that she had bought Kindles for the children. She also has been taking them to Chuck E. Cheese’s and McDonald’s once a week.
Taylor mentioned that the father of her youngest children, a sales technician, has been helping to support them, as well.
Just pu the money in the trust and make all this go away, fer crying out loud. And I rescind the asshole and jail bit. I was just upset that it seemed like she had blown this. And she needs a financial planner to keep this on the up and up.
the Conster
I’ll get excited about this after I find out what Jamie Dimon spends in a month.
kindness
It’s like my NPR donations. I did donate. Can I have my money back now?
Big ole hound
Surprise surprise. The court should have appointed an administrator. So many good hearted people told to go fuck themselves.
Mnemosyne
You know, except for the stupid loaning of money to her boyfriend (or ex? I couldn’t tell), those expenses don’t really seem out of line to me. $125 a week for groceries when you have two kids? $300 a month for clothes for yourself and two kids?
Belafon
Not the first time people have screwed up when they suddenly receive a lot of money. As for the rap album, I’m pretty sure he convinced her that they could make a lot of money if he finished it.
Mike in NC
Just following the Sarah Palin lifestyle.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
I want to see the other side of the story before getting outraged about this. As I recall, the organizer of the fundraiser said there were going to be protections so that she couldn’t just blow the money on parties. I seem to remember that her mother was going to be involved.
The list of budget items just sounds like a normal “set up a budget” list of estimates. Any kid going to college on financial aid does the same thing – that doesn’t mean that’s how the money was spent.
Anyway, haven’t we learned yet that TV news often gets things wrong in morality tales like this? Let’s just calm down, shall we?
:-(
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who also contributed and doesn’t regret it.)
mai naem mobile
Ive been following this for a while. The judge gave her a shitload of time to put the money the trust. The stupid woman could have put those kids in some expensive day care/preschool and nobody would have bitched but the selfish bitch blew through the money. And now we’ll hear for years about Shaneesha Taylor the kickstarter blah welfare queen. Fuck her. What a massive wasted opportunity. I know people who would have agreed to pay it forward for helping them finish collegel faster.
Kryptik, A Man Without A Country
@Mnemosyne:
That’s my exact thought too. The only genuinely stupid part the loan.
Well, that and the fact that cable TV is balls out too expensive in general.
Ferdzy
You know, those figures just don’t strike me as bizarre. I’m sure she and her children were very short of clothes, furniture, etc. I can see wanting to help her kid’s dad with his album – maybe she thought of it as an investment, and who knows? It might be.
Sure, she could plainly be budgeting better – she’s spending like she’s middle class; oh! the horror.
If her lawyers have quit I assume there’s more to the story, but like I said, the money she’s spending seems… not that strange.
Mayken
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: This! Thank you!
The Ancient Randonneur
Cole trolling his own blog? THAT would never happen, would it? But, yeah, instead of young bucks and T-Bone steaks we got a RAPPER trying make a RAP music record. Hide the women and children!
Think I’ll wait until I get all the facts confirmed by more than one source.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@mai naem mobile: This is the worst part. Someone will legitimately fuck up, need the help, and get a stone wall in response because this psychopath couldn’t be bothered to save 30% of her windfall for her kids.
And it will not be years, it will be a decade or two.
dmsilev
The expenses seem perfectly reasonable for a mother and a couple of kids, but at $4200 a month, it would have taken a couple of years to go through the donated cash (not counting any income she had during that time). Even subtracting the $6K to her boyfriend’s endeavor, there’s a lot of cash unaccounted for, and I suspect that’s where the story lies.
mai naem mobile
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: she says shes still got 60k left over and her reason for.not putting the money in a trust is because “well, what happens if my kids decide not to go to college?” Seriously, bitch? STFU and what if they don’t? What if they do? Why can’t you at least aspire to it?
Cacti
Brogressive Cole hates when the poors forget their place.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@mai naem mobile: So she should go to jail? Really?
I’m sorry, but I still can’t get outraged about this. If I were homeless, looking for a job, with kids, and had a sudden windfall, I’ll be nervous about locking the money up for a decade or more as well. She hasn’t exactly been treated well by the system out there.
Again, I’d like to see more before getting outraged. Do you have a good linkie?
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Cacti
Get lost on your way to Breitbart?
Cermet
Just $10 a day for dinning out and entertainment!? That’s all? Just $500 a MONTH! on food? That’s not exactly terrible if one buys beef (cuts) rather than hamburger. Cable is a little high but far from outrageous. These expenses are not out of line. AS for the rap song – oh, right; if she paid for one or two semesters of Community college that would be fine. This was for the children’s father. Yes, that might be outrageous but shouldn’t we see some context – the man might be good, and also, unable to find work. If she paid for a showing of his art (as in paintings or sculpture – very white “art”), wouldn’t most people say, oh, that was OK? I’ll judge after hearing more facts. Yes, she is going through the money rather fast but hardily does she deserve such harsh criticism without more details.
ruemara
@mai naem mobile: people who haven’t had money are terrible once they get it. Friends and family crawl out the woodwork and tack their needs onto yours. I’m not saying she’s justified, I’m saying there’s a cause.
And I second what I’m Not Sure is saying. Before I judge, I want details. I, too, fear the whole blah welfare kickstarter queen meme that has been developing around this.
John Cole +0
The 40k should have been off the top. That’s what I do not understand.
Cacti
@Cermet:
Kid Rock cut his first album using $10k from his old man.
mai naem mobile
This is happening in Phx so I’ve been hearing about it . One of her supporters was a local pastor who’s pretty well known and he was the last one who gave up on her. He said she’s just been blowing the money. No, you don’t fucking need cable when you’re poor and you sure as heck don’t need $160 worth of cable. I get cable here and they have promos for 99$ for phone, internet and basic+ cable.
Cacti
Also, unlike John Cole, I’ve practiced criminal law in Maricopa County, AZ.
Pardon me if I don’t just take the word of local prosecutors about their patience and forbearance concerning a person of color charged with a crime in their jurisdiction.
different-church-lady
Ah yes, the wonderful Left-Blogistan ritual of building up people into hero/victims and then tearing them a new one from outraged confusion when it’s discovered the emotional investment made was rather less than informed.
It would seem too many people get some kind of perverse enjoyment out of being marionettes of the media.
chopper
@Cermet:
$450/mo for dining out, entertainment and cable teevee sounds high for someone who’s unemployed. But I do think some of the reflexive reaction from people forgets exactly how much shit costs these days.
I mean you take your two kids to a movie with popcorn just once these days and you blow through the better part of 50 fucking dollars. Cable is a ripoff tho and a total luxury.
schrodinger's cat
Before burning her at the stake, I would like to know her side of the story.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@mai naem mobile: There’s that, and more to the point, it’s a fucking court order.
Ripley
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Likewise. Thanks for saying it so well.
Odd reactions: We loathe and distrust media accounts until we don’t.
Peej01
I’m not going to judge until we find out how much she had to pay to her lawyers.
Cacti
@mai naem mobile:
What else don’t the poors need, poverty cop?
Shakezula
@Cacti: No, no, you’re supposed to hop on the Outrage-a-Whirl because some complete stranger wasn’t perfect and allegedly did something you don’t approve of with other people’s money.
The fact that this person is a poor black woman means you also get three free rides on the Punch-Down-Go-Round.
samiam
Why no recent posts salivating over Griftwa1ds latest left wing trolling piece waxing poetically over how awesome Rand Paul is?
Are you trying to pretend you no longer have a poster on Griftwa1d hanging on your bedroom wall?
Joe Bauers
@Cacti:
Are you going to seriously make the argument that someone with kids and no job really needs cable TV at all, much less $160 a month worth of it?
chopper
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Also, it’s a trust, right? I assume that the money wouldn’t vanish if the kids decide not to go to college use-it-or-lose-it style.
EthylEster
Are all JC posts now required to end with “asshole”?
different-church-lady
@EthylEster: Only the ones that don’t start with “asshole”
chopper
@Joe Bauers:
Even tho cable (especially at 160/mo, Christ) is a luxury, come on. I can’t see crucifying this woman because she got cable.
SatanicPanic
OK, the rap album is indefensible, but really, the rest of it’s not that nuts.
Cacti
@Shakezula:
Reminds me of GOPers railing about how SNAP benefits can be used to purchase more than bread and water.
Not hard to see why Cole voted for Dubya twice.
lethargytartare
@Cacti:
cars, cell phones, or steak. probably her countertops are too nice now as well.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
AZ Central:
Yeah, let’s reinstate the felony charges and lock her up. Yeah. /snark.
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
Zandar
@EthylEster: The “Assholes” category demands it!
SatanicPanic
Can we get Bill Cosby to chime in on how she should pull up her pants?
Mayken
@Cacti: Yeah, this too. I’m sure there is more to this story but there is a lot of middle-class white privilege going on around here (present company excepted.)
Cacti
@Joe Bauers:
I feel ya.
Poors don’t need cable TV. They need a good, godly sorrow for their lack of wealth.
jibeaux
Yeah, sorry, there’s no good way to justify not being able to put a third of your donations away for your kids because you need cable TV and clothes and your ex needs a record. And if you’d rather face felony child abuse charges than come up with it, I don’t know what to tell you except your bluff is likely to be called and the gravy train to end.
chopper
@SatanicPanic:
This. The rest is really more representative of how expensive shit is.
To me it’s less ‘why is she spending that much on cable’ and more ‘why does cable cost that fucking much’.
lethargytartare
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
let’s see if anyone has the balls to retract their holier than thou bullshit now.
jibeaux
@Cacti: no one needs cable tv. I haven’t had it for years and it’s no loss at all. I might consider HBO Go if they did it a la carte, but they don’t. So, no, people do not need to be saying they can’t hold funds in trust for their children because they need HGTV that bad.
Cacti
Always enlightening to see “liberal” commenters call a black woman a “bitch” who needs to “STFU” because she’s poor and has cable TV service.
kindness
Balloon-Juice….On it’s way to GOS but will probably never get to FDL.
I can only hope.
Listen now. None of us who aren’t happy with how this woman is using her money are suggesting jail, burning at the stake or any such things. We just wish she would have been a tad more considerate as to her kids future needs. I don’t expect my money back. I’m happy to have helped when she did need it. I won’t donate to her again though for obvious reasons.
Joe Bauers
@chopper: It’s not *just* the cable. It’s the cable, the $300 for clothes, the $300 for dining and entertainment, $115 for internet with a separate $70 for mobile internet, the pastor who was helping her coming forward and saying he lined her up with jobs for which she simply didn’t show up, the rap album, her defense team quitting, and her refusal to comply with a court order that a chunk be set aside for her kids.
Not saying she should be crucified, just that I can understand people who gave her money feeling taken advantage of because she apparently confused strangers feeling that she was mistreated by the justice system and wanting to help with strangers wanting to give her free money just because.
John Cole +0
@The Ancient Randonneur:
I’m not trolling, I’m genuinely upset. I repeatedly stated I hoped a financial advisor was going to help, and I thought I read that one had been assigned.
And this isn’t about race unless you make it. You ever heard of Jack Whittaker?
lethargytartare
@jibeaux:
care to reexamine this bullshit after hearing her side?
Cacti
@chopper:
The price mentioned is pretty much Cox’s standard, non-promotional rate for basic cable bundled with internet service in the greater Phoenix area.
kc
Someone check her grocery cart! She’s probably buying T-bones and crab legs!
Always thought the requirement that she pay $40,000.00 to avoid a felony charge was bullshit anyway.
She’s paying for herself and two kids. The money she received may have disqualified them from receiving food stamps and similar benefits. I’d want to know a bit more before I go getting all outraged about this.
SeaBee
@Cacti:
There’s a difference between occasional indulgence for the sake of mental health, and flat out selfishness and stupidity. This is the latter. You’re wearing outrage blinders.
Cacti
@John Cole +0:
You’re genuinely a privileged blowhard who is poor shaming like a bog standard Republican.
Shakezula
@Cacti: There seem to be a lot of people (we’ll call them nosy pricks) who are baffled and outraged by the fact that they can’t dictate every moment of the lives of the poor, down to every cent they spend.
I’ve never heard a good explanation for why they should get to do so, because the question “What’s it to you, really?” produces incoherent sputtering about the .003 of their taxes that go to welfare programs.
different-church-lady
I wonder what George Zimmerman did with his donations.
Nom de Plume
Out of all the expenses, this is the bullshit one. As someone who grew up perfectly well-clothed based on one annual shopping trip, I don’t want to hear from people about how kids “go through clothes like you wouldn’t believe!”. No, they don’t go through $300 of clothes every month unless it’s your choice that they do.
Anyway, I suspect most of that clothing budget is not spent on the kids. I’m 100% with Cole on this one. When you receive a massive windfall based on the kindness of strangers, the only proper response is to use the money prudently. Put the $40k into a trust like you were court ordered to do, find a decent house in a decent neighborhood, make sure your kids have shoes and plenty to eat, then get a job. And tell your boyfriend to fund his own fucking album.
jibeaux
@lethargytartare: No. I’ve never gotten $114k falling from the sky. If I had, no one would have to plead with the world on my behalf to hear my side as to why I don’t have $40k for the kids that got me the donations, just a few months later.
chopper
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
If the terms of the trust are that they lose the money if the e kids don’t go to college then that’s unfair as shit. They shouldn’t have to go to college to get the money people donated without those conditions attached.
Mayken
@Cacti: Yeah, with “allies” like this, who needs fuckin’ racists and sexists.
My aunt has been on a fixed income and supports my adult cousin who is mentally ill but for varying reasons I won’t get into here but I’m sure you can imagine them only gets SNAP. I buy her a netflix subscription for xmas every year because even poor people deserve some fuckin’ entertainment and that saves her ~$150/year for something else. I tell her to spend it on something just for herself. She always spends on her son anyway. Sigh!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@jibeaux: Please read #42 for her side. Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
jibeaux
@Cacti:
send her some more money then. I have a feeling she’s going to be poor again quite soon, and will need it. Or else her cable might get cut off.
Pogonip
@Cacti: I’m not poor, I don’t need ( and don’t have) cable, and as far as I can see, nobody needs it. Many people WANT it, but that’s not the same thing.
Joe Bauers
@Cacti:
We’re not talking about debtor’s prisons, or work houses, or having no access to health care or education. We’re talking about cable TV. Is there nothing you would be willing to say a person with kids and no job might be reasonably expected to sacrifice? Or should everybody get a free middle class life? If so, sign me up, because my job is hard and I’d prefer sitting around all day watching HBO to working.
lethargytartare
@kc:
I agree – they’re treating this like she won 100K in a lottery and it’s all prize money and she’s gonna get a nice 50K + benefits job tomorrow if she just tries hard enough.. So is Cole.
it’s barely 3 years of expenses for her family, and she’s supposed to freeze 1/3 until her kids go to college? Good luck on that if they’re going hungry again in 2 years.
chopper
@jibeaux:
Nobody ‘needs’ clothes that fit or aren’t stained or worn. There’s a lot of stuff people don’t ‘need’. Come on.
Cacti
@kindness:
Wrong.
Poor shamer Cole hopes she rots in jail.
Trollhattan
@different-church-lady: Ammo, Bud Lite and ammo. Also, too, ammo.
Alex
Perhaps this is an object lesson in not treating isolated individuals as moral avatars on whom we project our preconceived biases.
Perhaps John Cole might learn to apply this object lesson to other situations where he spouts off and makes wild accusations. Maybe – and this is being very optimistic – he’ll even exercise some humility before he launches into one of his juvenile, irresponsible rants about police officers in this country.
Maybe ranting about something because it is cathartic and makes you feel self-righteous is precisely – precisely – when one should check their own rash impulses.
RobertB
It’s a rags => riches => rags story, about as old as money. I remember a story about a gentleman who lived in southern WV, who’s story ended up in the National Enquirer. He was so broke that he was diving into the Guyandotte River to find lumps of coal to sell for food for his kids. Fast forward a couple of months, and he had gotten a million bucks worth of donations, completely unasked for. Fast forward a couple of years, and there was a story in the news about Coal Diving Guy having all of his new possessions (all bought on credit) repossessed. A customized van, a boat, a 3-wheeler, the whole thing, gone.
For me, Moral #1 of the story, for both of these stories, is to not ties conditions real or imagined to a gift. Moral #2 is that money management isn’t an innate human ability. I grew up broke, and my money management skills are just about good enough to guarantee moist cat food in my old age.
the Conster
To all those who say that she doesn’t “need” cable can fucking shove it. 24 hours/day of unlimited access to entertainment costs $5.33/day, and that price is actually on the low end of cable costs. Let’s all assume the worst of her and feel better about our own always smart, careful, principled, long term choices.
jibeaux
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: dude. That’s less than half the money, she’s paying for full time day care but didn’t mention a job, she could have started with the $20k and explained about the monthly limitation, and holding it up because you’re not sure of the college intentions of an infant is a damn excuse. Move the money before it’s fucking gone.
Shakezula
@John Cole +0:
Why?
Cacti
@Pogonip:
But you’re commenting on the internet.
Poor people don’t need internet access, and as far as I can see, nobody needs it. Many people WANT it, but that’s not the same thing.
El Caganer
The monthly expenses shown in the post don’t look all that high to me. If she’s ‘blowing through the donations,’ money’s got to be going somewhere else. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot to this story, and the business with the funds for her kids isn’t explained very well. A bit premature for finger-wagging outrage.
lethargytartare
@jibeaux:
ahh, I get it – she’s LUCKY to be an out-of-work single mom. And therefore you should get to decide what she does with money freely donated to her.
yeah, that’s not patronizing, privileged bullshit at all.
be careful not to fall off that pretty horse.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike in NC: DING DING DING DING DING
SatanicPanic
@Joe Bauers: “Or should everybody get a free middle class life?”
Yes.
jibeaux
@chopper: sure. And cable is pretty much top of the list. CN fucking N? You need that shit less than you need a singing fish on your wall.
different-church-lady
@Alex: Are you trying to subvert the entire raison d’etre of the political blogsphere?
Also:
Nominated for comment of the year.
eemom
I didn’t give her any money, but she can have my cable.
jibeaux
@lethargytartare:she’s lucky people helped her out.
like I said, you should send her more real soon. The half she has left won’t last much longer.
Paul in KY
@schrodinger’s cat: Me too.
SatanicPanic
@lethargytartare: And it’s a great point that the requirement it go to school is BS paternalism.
smintheus
Parents who leave their kids locked in cars in a desert, for whatever reason, aren’t the people you’d expect to show good judgment in other things. She was in a terrible situation, but leaving her kids inside a death trap made it a lot worse.
Mnemosyne
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Taking her kids to Chuck E. Cheese? Burn her! Burn her!
And, yes, if the terms of the trust are that the money can only be used for college, then it’s bullshit and I can’t blame her for not wanting to put the money in.
Shakezula
@Pogonip: Yeah!
I don’t have a car so I don’t think anyone else needs one.
Trollhattan
@jibeaux: My singing fish sings stock values, so win+win.
different-church-lady
@Cacti:
But how else are they going to see how much contempt we have for them?
Cacti
@smintheus:
I think it had to with her being homeless, having a job interview, and not having childcare.
But keep those self-righteous, middle class fingers wagging. It’s fun to feel superior.
Gin & Tonic
@chopper: I read that as post-secondary, not “college.” Going to a community college for a year or to a technical school to become a welder or something sound to me (who hasn’t read the proposed trust agreement) like viable (and smart) alternatives.
lethargytartare
@Joe Bauers:
man, it’s like a return to Balloon Juice 2004 up in here.
Could all of you moral scolds please get together and put together a Miss Manners book we can give poor people on what you think they’re allowed to do with their money so I don’t have to listen to this bullshit anymore?
Xboxershorts
I made this point elsewhere and I’ll make it again here.
I am almost 100% certain that the great public school system (snark on) of Arizona most assuredly did it’s best to provide top of the line fiscal and financial training for Shanesha and that, obviously, she has applied all that great financial know how to this sudden windfall of money…..(snark off)
Paul in KY
@different-church-lady: Spent it on guns and bulletproof clothes. Also some fake cop badges.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Read her side. Sorry. The only issue here (I don’t give a shit about the cable, pastor, defense team and blown-off job interviews and everything else) is that there’s a court order, and she is telling the court to fuck off.
The court explained repeatedly what the consequences would be for failing to fund the trust fund. She has chosen not to do that. I honestly don’t know what to say. You can’t tell a court that, sorry, you know what’s best. She’s going to go to jail for felony child abuse, is going to lose ALL that money when it happens, and this time it is 100% on her.
ETA: sadly, the long-term damage to society is that there will be other folks in similar straits who will need help, and will not get it (or get much less), because of her actions.
Eric U.
there are organizations that set up pooled trusts with administrators for very little money. They are needed because of the ridiculous medicaid rules on assets. I also see no reason to force her kids to go to college to get this money. Set the trust up for a list of reasons that are reasonable so the administrator knows what to release money for
I am guessing the bank could figure out how to fund the trust if she persisted, but probably just said no.
Omnes Omnibus
Maybe her choices don’t match the Platonic ideal, but the expenses don’t seem all that horrible to me. Perhaps we should hold off on the pillory.
Shakezula
@Gin & Tonic: What if they decide they want to join the army?
Cacti
@lethargytartare:
Also had to pay her lawyers out of it.
I’m sure ones who “left in disgust” pocketed a handsome fee for their services.
Mnemosyne
@Gin & Tonic:
Community college or technical school won’t cost $40,000 + interest by the time the kids are grown up (at least, one hopes not). So what happens to the rest of the money that isn’t used for education?
SatanicPanic
@smintheus: We talked about this back when it was news and it’s not that hot in March, even in Arizona.
The Sailor
@Joe Bauers: “We’re not talking about debtor’s prisons, or work houses”
No, just prison. Based on what prosecutors said.
And Cole wants her to get a financial manager, gosh, they come free, don’t they?
jibeaux
@Mnemosyne: it’s unlikely that’s an ironclad requirement. Even in a 529 you can generally transfer to another dependent if one doesnt use it. Regardless, she agreed to it previously with her defense team, she just won’t actually DO it. Her defense attorneys quit.
smintheus
@Cacti: She locked her kids in a hot car. I don’t see how that can be excused. If there were no alternative, then the solution was to bring them along to the interview.
Cacti
@SatanicPanic:
Yup. Average daytime highs for Phoenix in March is mid to high 70s. Hardly life threatening, even inside a car.
MuckJagger
I’d like to be on her side, but to me there are three big things preventing that: the defense team quitting is one; I’ve worked for lawyers most of my adult life, and by far most of them will work with you long after they probably shouldn’t.
The second is “not showing up for jobs.” I’d like more info on that, but that sounds multiple, not singular.
The rap album is completely off-the-wall. If I had a windfall like that from people’s donation to my sob story and I spent $6,000 of it on pot, I’d deserve all the scorn I’d get.
Fool me three times…
sparrow
@Mnemosyne: Presumably the kids would need to eat. Going to college + working full time to pay rent sucks pretty hard. Hell, support them all the way through PhD or med school if you have to.
I won’t comment on the expenses (I have shown less than excellent financial management myself), but ignoring the court order is not only stupid, it’s sad. She has zero faith or interest in her kids going to college.
SiubhanDuinne
One thing I learned a long time ago is that whenever I give any kind of gift, whether it’s a charitable or political donation, a birthday present to a friend, a handout to a homeless person, a restaurant tip, whatever — once it’s out of my hands, I no longer have an opinion about how it is used or spent.
Saves me an awful lot of anguish, all told.
beth
What happens to the money if the kids don’t go to college? It’s not like it can go back to the donors 18 years later – does the mom get it then?
Cacti
@smintheus:
I’ve lived in Mesa/Tempe/Scottsdale for the past 8-years now. March is not a hot month by Arizona or non-Arizona standards.
But maybe you can tell me something about March weather here that I haven’t learned from years of firsthand experience.
jibeaux
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Not only that, it’s a court condition she agreed to, for Petes sake. She negotiated it, with counsel. It’s not indicative of a good outcome for these boys.
Tiny Tim
Outside of introductory offers, you really can’t get cable tv+internet for less than $150 where I live, unless you want to have the annual “threaten to cancel” negotiation with the customer service person, which might bring it down to $110 or so.
smintheus
@SatanicPanic: Ok, but a daily high of 80 degrees is still hot enough to fry kids in a short time inside a locked car.
glory b
@Mnemosyne: Hey, I’ve got 2 kids (in their late teens & twenties now), and, given transportation, child care, food, rent/mortgage, utlilties, it doesn’t strike me as excessive at all.
What’s wrong with learning a trade? Why do we think that college is the be-all and end-all? And I say this as a person with a graduate education.
The money for the kids’ father’s project was stupid, but I’ve wasted more than that at that age.
Color me, “meh.”
Mnemosyne
@jibeaux:
I would be interested to find out what the actual terms are. Since it was dictated by the prosecution, I don’t know that we can be sure that it was favorable to her or her children or sufficiently flexible.
I suspect the reason she doesn’t want to put the money in trust is because she thinks she’s going to need it in the near future, and she’s probably right. When someone has been poor all of their lives, it’s really hard to convince them that it’s a good idea to put money out of their reach.
jibeaux
@The Sailor: she has an agreement to avoid prosecution conditioned on putting away a trust fund for the kids. She accepted this agreement and had legal counsel. She will not actually do it and the designated funds may soon be spent. What exactly is the prosecution supposed to do?
grandpa john
@jibeaux: Really? How many of the fine posters here put a third of their annual earnings into savings or investment, I sure as hell was never able too or is that part snark?
cckids
@RobertB: Agreed. I don’t know all the facts about her story, and I only donated a tiny amount, so not bitching there. I’m quite sure that not every dime has been spent responsibly,that is just human nature.
I refer the “let her rot” people to Linda Tirado’s essay “This is Why Poor People’s Bad Decisions Make Perfect Sense”. When you’ve been poor, or with uncertain income for a long time, it changes the way you think & act. That isn’t a moral judgement, it is just a fact. Add to that the reality that financial education in this country is catch-as-catch-can at best. If you grew up in a family that made poor financial decisions (for whatever reason), you don’t have much guidance to work from.
The court should have appointed a financial advisor (many would have worked for a minor fee, or pro bono for the publicity) to help guide her through this. $114K is a lot of money, but not exactly enough to set her up for life.
Now, as someone above said, if her preacher is setting up job interviews & she’s just not showing up; that is bad manners, as well as a bad idea.
SatanicPanic
@smintheus: It was 71 degrees and she had the windows cracked.
jibeaux
@Mnemosyne: I’m sure she probably will need it if she’s got the kids in day care while turning down job interviews.
When you’re felony charges, yes, the prosecution generally has the upper hand. It seems like an eminently reasonable deal to me to avoid felony charges, but nonetheless if she didn’t want it, she could take her chances with a trial. But she didnt, she took the deal.
smintheus
@Cacti: If the temp was 80 degrees, within 20 minutes the temp inside a car would be about 109 degrees. And it would be up to 115 in 30 minutes.
kc
Another perspective.
grandpa john
@Cacti: Cable TV has now become the new Welfare Cadillac
Mnemosyne
@sparrow:
And I can’t really blame her for that. How many people in her family (or even her circle of friends) do you think have gone to college? It probably seems like an impossible dream to her, and that the court is taking her money away for something that’s never going to happen. Putting her in jail (as the prosecutors are threatening) is not going to fix that.
jibeaux
@grandpa john: they aren’t her annual earnings. They were a one-time deal which she received in no small part because of her kids, and she agreed under court order to do so.
MuckJagger
@smintheus:
And this is a one-year-old we’re talking about, right?
Joe Bauers
@lethargytartare:
I suppose we could, but then you’d just be all indignant that they were expected to actually read it for themselves.
All this time I’ve heard conservatives talking about liberals believing that people should get to lay around all day and live off of other people’s money, and I always thought those were strawman liberals. I never thought I’d actually hear people arguing that cable TV is a basic human right.
dance around in your bones
Ya know what ya get in CA on food stamps? (They call it EBT now) – $200. For one person.. Livin’ large. doncha know.
Cacti
@Mnemosyne:
About Maricopa County prosecutors…
Up until 2010, the county attorney’s office (responsible for all felony prosecutions), was headed by Andrew Thomas. Andrew Thomas and his top two deputies were disbarred for official misconduct, including malicious prosecutions against political foes. They maintain a tight working relationship with Joe Arpaio, America’s most fascist law enforcement official.
That’s who the prosecution is in this case.
smintheus
@SatanicPanic: Even at that temp, within 20 minutes the inside temp would be well over 100 degrees. Cracking windows has little effect in slowing that surge in inside temp down, as studies have shown.
Zandar
Teachable moment, John.
SatanicPanic
@kc: lol seriously, people are siding with Arizona prosecutors here in how this woman should handle her money. Should we ask Joe Arpaio’s opinion while we’re at it?
gopher2b
Frankly, making her put $40,000 into a trust account for her kids if they go to college is stupid. So, in 14-18 years, each of her kid’s will receive $20k for college? What will that even get them at that point: books and 3 courses? She (and her kids) would be far better off if she used the money to put herself through school (assuming she needs it).
These prosecutors are way-overstepping their bounds here. The clothing and food budgets are not a lot, especially for a family that probably started at zero in both categories.
sparrow
@Mnemosyne: I call bullshit on not knowing *anyone* who went to college, or being unaware of the idea that it is something to aspire to. I’m not saying it’s a magic wand, but it is still the best way to improve your socioeconomic standing.
Mayken
@sparrow: Gee, I cannot imagine why a poor, homeless black woman would have reservations that her kids might be able to go to college or wouldn’t have faith in a system that has failed her and her kids.
Mandalay
@mai naem mobile:
The progessive liberals at BJ are a work in progress.
Nom de Plume
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Yeah, for some odd reason the “stop poor-shaming” crowd here doesn’t seem to want to address this part of it. Defying the court order (which was designed to benefit her children), not turning up for job interviews…none of these actions are defensible in any way. We are constantly told (and I’m one of the people saying it) that poor people just need a leg up and second chance in life. Well, she got one hell of a second chance, and she’s pissing it away.
Cacti
@gopher2b:
In 2014, $20,000 would be half a bachelor’s degree at Arizona State University.
grandpa john
@John Cole +0: All of which reemphasizes a basic fact that is as old as recorded history, You don’t drop a large sum of money into the laps of people who have never had any and no knowledge of how to handle sudden wealth, without also providing oversight and help in managing it.
The general history of many lottery winners is ample proof of this
Shakezula
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes. That’s how transactions work in the real world. You don’t maintain control over money you give to someone else.
jibeaux
@SatanicPanic: An agreement to drop felony child abuse charges conditioned on putting away 1/3 of donations received for your kids’ benefit actually for your kids, is a criminal defendant wet dream. If she didn’t want those terms, she could’ve gone to trial. And apparently she will.
Jamey
@SatanicPanic: If the person in question is a she, he’d probably tell her to pull down her pants…
lethargytartare
@jibeaux:
she didn’t “agree” to anything.
She was coerced by an entire state that threatened to jail here and take away her children unless she did what they told her to do with money people fvcking DONATED to her.
You, Cole, and the rest of the high horse mfers here can kiss my ass and go get a job working for Joe Arpaio.
SatanicPanic
@smintheus: Well they should be dead now then, right? I wonder why they’re not. Maybe someone who lives out of their car has some idea of what temperatures in their car are actually like.
Mnemosyne
@sparrow:
There is an entire layer of poor and working-class people in this country who did not go to college and don’t have anyone in their social circles who went to college. Sure, they know that college exists, but it’s something that rich people do.
My stepmother is from a working-class family. Neither she, nor any of her kids, nor any of her relatives went to college. She took a couple of community college courses as an adult, but they were too hard and she dropped out. And we’re white. It’s not nearly as unusual as you seem to think.
SatanicPanic
@Nom de Plume: This country has a history of doing stupid things “for the children”, especially children of color, so I’m fine with someone pushing back on that.
Shakezula
@lethargytartare:
Hey look, the court ordered her to do something and she did it. Complete free will, amirite?
Cacti
@SatanicPanic:
The Salem witch trials were for the children.
smintheus
@SatanicPanic: No. They *could* be dead.
cckids
@smintheus: Perhaps you need to read the article linked above. Quote :
Yes, it was a bad choice. Are you serious about her taking the kids into the interview? WTF? That is a guarantee that not only would she not get the job, she wouldn’t get the interview either. She tried to get a sitter, the person let her down.
And as a desert dweller too, 70 degrees on a cloudy day = uncomfortable, not deadly.
Get back to me when this prosecutor goes after the white middle class people who forget their kids in the car & they DIE. Then is is usually “they’ve suffered enough” and no charges.
Cacti
Too bad she isn’t rich and white.
She could just plead affluenza.
grandpa john
@Cacti: yeah, unfortunately we live in the US of A where greed and profit margins @RobertB: is uppermost
Just Some Fuckhead
We can fix this with another fundraiser.
jayjaybear
Jesus Christ, the white/middle-class privilege in this thread is blinding me!
Cacti
@cckids:
A lot of “let them eat cake” advice in this thread.
SatanicPanic
@smintheus: But they’re not. Which leads me to think that she had a better idea of what was up. I grew up in the desert, so this is just not that crazy to me. Plus the weather report I could find was reporting it was overcast that day. Seriously, there’s no circumstance you can imagine the inside of a car in late march is not a mortally dangerous place?
grandpa john
@RobertB: In the world that the majority of us live in, its called reality
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Joe Bauers: And yet here we are.
@Nom de Plume: Like I said, it’s her life to ruin, but the sad part is that the next person who needs help is going to find it a lot harder to get it. And that’s fucking wrong.
Shazza
@different-church-lady:
I wondered about that too. Also are they going to see what Darren Wilson buys with his?
Another Holocene Human
You fell for it HOOK LINE AND SINKER, Cole.
Check yourself before you wreck yourself.
Btw, any of my fellow whites who are paying attention? This is part of the mind control game that the white supremacist power structure plays to keep the majority of whites supporting white supremacy.
Join the minority … lot more emotionally healthy and we throw good parties.
grandpa john
@jibeaux: No mention of who is looking after the kids while job hunting? Hell thats what caused her problem to start with
cckids
For those who couldn’t hack the Huffington link to Linda Tirado, here is a quote that encapsulates at least some of the issue here:
smintheus
@cckids: Is your beef with the study whose results I linked to? It shows that 70 degrees outside is not a safe temp for a locked car after just 20 minutes. Would you lock small kids in a car?
It was a very dangerous thing to decide to do to her kids. Not surprising that she lacks judgment in other things.
SatanicPanic
@smintheus: statistics do not apply to individuals
Shakezula
That’s what happens when you listen to strawman liberals.
Assuming this is true: If you don’t think it is fucked up that the people would refuse to give to a charity because of her mistakes, that’s fucking wrong.
Tractarian
How long until John Cole retracts the retraction of the retraction?
Let this be a lesson to us all: Let all the facts play out before you blurt your opinion all over the internets.
kc
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
From the article I linked to above, a portion of her statement:
Cacti
@smintheus:
Says the poster who said she should take her kids into a job interview.
Omnes Omnibus
@smintheus: The only choices she had in the situation were bad. In a situation like that, she was guaranteed to make a bad choice. I find it hard to falt her for that. As for the rest, failing to follow a court order is a bad idea, but what she does with the money outside of that is her choice not ours.
jibeaux
@Shakezula: she didn’t do it, I think is the point. She agreed to avoid prosecution. She could have gone to trial if she preferred. I’m sorry, but there isn’t much else the prosecution can do if you violate the terms of the agreement other than reinstate the prosecution.
Another Holocene Human
How much time did she have with counsel at $$$/hr? Did she understand what she was agreeing to? At what point did she realize the terms might be a problem?
This woman has probably done all of her accounting in cash her entire life, for one thing. For another thing, she knows that nothing is certain, especially not that your child is going to be an academic superstar. She’s probably also freaking out because her family is her support system and she and them probably distrust the courts and the lawyers a great deal.
Steve in the ATL
@the Conster: @Cacti: I agree with you. Obviously there’s a lot we don’t know yet and we can all agree that cable is way too expensive and that no one actually NEEDS cable, but cable is a pretty cheap, convenient, and constant source of entertainment for kids and adults. A “Barney” video was a great way for the wife and I to get a few moments of peace from our little ones.
smintheus
@SatanicPanic: Sounds like Republican scientific denialism. When you study car temp rises, and even moderate outside temps always rise quickly above 100 degrees, every single time, there’s got to be some solid evidence to the contrary before anybody gets to just sweep that away.
D58826
@dmsilev: It seems to me that we are dumping a lot on this woman. If she was such a financial expert she might not have been homeless in the first place. The mistake wasn’t in helping her with money it was in not making sure she had the necessary resources/mentor/whatever to handle the money properly. This isn’t the first time a person in her circumstances has come in for grief over how she (and it seems to usually be she). Not so long ago there was a raft of criticism about how one of the 9/11 widows spent her settlement money. Monday morning quarterbacking and second guess other peoples choices is a good water cooler topic.
There really is no comparison with Jamie Dimion. After all he is a wall street banker and if he misplaces a few billion dollars of his depositors money, well that is just how business works. There is always more for him to to lose next week. Its not like its HIS money
lethargytartare
@Joe Bauers:
how much money does one have to have for it to be okay to own cable? Can she listen to the radio, or would the hit on her electric bill be too high for your tastes? Can she read to her children by lamplight, candlelight, or only in the summer when the sun’s still out when she gets home from her 2nd job?
so in addition to the miss manners book, we’re also going to need you to provide a table listing income level next to approved forms of entertainment.
you know, just so you don’t think even less of those nast poors.
dance around in your bones
Jeebus, my son-in-law makes about $200,000 a year and makes ‘poor financial decisions’. It ain’t that hard to do..I think about all the $$$$ that they waste every month as I am struggling to get by on practically nothing.
I can’t slam them too much, they have helped me out considerably after my husband died, but – ok. I think I’ve said too much, oh yeah.
Pogonip
@Cacti: Oddly enough, I have seen several news stories lately saying that Internet access is a necessity these days. I am not so sure I agree, but I do think poor people need both Internet and cell phone because it’s apparently darn near impossible to get a job without them. I have still seen nothing here convincing me that cable TV is a need rather than a want.
I think what Shanesa Taylor needs is financial advice, right now, while she can still afford it. You can’t expect her to know what to do with a windfall. I wouldn’t and I am a lot better off than she is. I also think that people insisting she should have cable TV, and everything else she wants, even though it’s pissing off those who have the power to send her to jail, are morons. There is such a thing as flying under the radar. My advice to her, should she be reading this, would be to get financial advice and to cancel the cable and act properly penitent in any other way she can manage, especially since she lives in an area where they seem to really hate poor people. And she should get out of that area as soon as the law loses interest in her.
Another Holocene Human
Ding ding ding, plus everything else she just said. I deal with people dealing with her hell every single day plus she has been dragged through a bunch of additional punitive “fuck the poors” nonsense. Middle class people have no earthly idea. She is dealing with CPS, hell the fuck o. Of course some of y’all would love to see her just give up her children. It’s the American way.
Absolutely everything she just said is real stuff that happens to real people in the bottom 40% in America. Listen … or don’t. Keep bitching that the bottom 40% are lazy goodfornothings who won’t vote. Go on.
Mandalay
@jayjaybear:
Yep. Any perception that this is a progressive blog gets shattered with threads like this. We do real good for while, with OPs on cooking and gardening and Republican misbehavior, but the cockroaches have to come out eventually.
Steve in the ATL
@Joe Bauers:
Standard Republican projection. They believe that people should get to lie around all day and live off money their parents or grandparents made.
SatanicPanic
@smintheus: ” every single time” – this is just wrong. Again, statistics don’t apply to individuals.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@kc: Thank you for posting that.
Cheers,
Scott.
Cacti
@Steve in the ATL:
It doesn’t get much more Republican than getting on your high horse about poor people enjoying any sort of luxury in their day to day existence.
$150 a month for cable works out to about $5 a day per month. A single trip to the movie theatre for a family of 4 would be $40 just for the tickets. Get a large popcorn and a couple of drinks and you’re up around $60. And all of that buys you about 2-hours of entertainment.
grandpa john
@jibeaux: @different-church-lady: What I like about this thread is the attitudes and assumptions made by people here who in other threads dwell on the lack of empathy towards the poor shown by the republicans
Mirror reflections sometimes show us things that we really don’t want to see
jibeaux
@Another Holocene Human: Unanswered questions. But at this point, I would advise her legally to put the money aside and note for the record that she would like the chance at a subsequent hearing, to negotiate a fallback designation for the money in the event it is not needed for college. The court should be much more amenable to that argument if the money is set aside. Trust terms can be changed. Arguing over it after you’ve agreed to it but before you’ve funded it isn’t going to fly.
Howard Beale IV
@kc: Cole’s only excuse here is TL;DR.
And it’s your typical white privledge excuse, too. Details-who needs ’em?
Shakezula
@jibeaux: If your initial comment weren’t
I might find your concern about procedure a little more convincing.
But speaking of procedure:
False.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@cckids: I’ve read her piece before. I get it. What I get even more is that, having grown up poor with a single mother (who also grew up poor), it’s an excuse.
Not a reason, but an excuse. A beautifully crafted excuse to get and stay poor.
We ate beans and tortilla chips and dressed in rags for five fucking years for my mother to put herself through college. We learned the hard way what luxuries, like clothes not from a thrift store, can truly cost. We also learned how having a little bit of restraint pays off big time in the long run.
My mother, brother, and I are all college graduates and are the first ever from either side of the family.
So I “get” the excuse, but I know what it is. It’s a gorgeously written bullshit excuse made by a determined lifetime loser.
cckids
@smintheus: Your study is based on a sunny day, this was a cloudy day. I can tell you first hand, that alone makes for AT LEAST 20-25 degrees difference. Results can be seen by, I guess, REALITY, in that neither of the boys died or were in distress when found.
And again, I ask you if you truly believe that if she took 2 children under the age of 2 into an interview, the manager would smile & be ok with that. Two kids who were just woken up from a nap. Sounds like a winning idea to me.
I have (luckily) never been in that position myself. I have had to do things I’m sure you consider equally morally reprehensible because, again, REALITY strikes. Wishing for a perfect suburban lifestyle with hot & cold running caregivers does not make it happen.
Mnemosyne
@smintheus:
Do you have the actual weather report from that day from which you are making your calculations, or are you making assumptions based on average temperatures?
kc
@jibeaux:
If you read her statement, she seems to be saying she didn’t exactly agree to that “agreement.” That aside, it’s not like the prosecutor’s only choice is to prosecute her for felony child abuse. Esp. considering the kids were otherwise well cared for, she has no drug history, has apparently attended court-ordered counseling (for which she’s paid $3,600.00), and probably doesn’t qualify for any other financial assistance right now b/c of the donations.
jibeaux
@grandpa john: empathy is important. I have a lot of empathy for these kids, none of this bodes well for them.
D58826
@dance around in your bones: @Another Holocene Human: I think there is a link between these two comments that oft times gets over looked. Everyone makes stupid decisions but you are in a better position to deal with them when you make 200k a year than when you make 15k a year. The margin for error, the resources to help out, the medical/legal/etc resources are just not there for someone making 15k.
different-church-lady
@grandpa john: What I find perversely entertaining about this thread is watching a bunch of people who don’t wish to admit she might be a fuck-up argue with a bunch of people who don’t wish to admit she might not be as much of a fuck-up as they need her to be, with both camps doing so from emotionally over-invested poor decisions of their own.
Pogonip
@Mnemosyne: Me too. For years the only people I knew who went to college were my doctor, and my uncle the lawyer. Many readers may be too young to remember a time when average people didn’t attend college unless, like my uncle, they wanted to enter a profession. Most people just finished high school and got a job or became housewives or alternated between one and the other.
The Thin Black Duke
God, some of you people are disgusting.
mai naem
@Cacti: But god forbid she aspire for the kid to go to college on scholarship right? If those kids graduate in the top 1 percent of their HS in AZ, they get a free ride at UA,ASU and NAU but that’ll never happen to these kids right????
Shanesha Taylor is 35. She’s not 19 or 21 or even 25. She’s old enough to know better. Don’t fucking tell me about poor shaming. This is $110K falling from the sky and she gets a second chance to fix stuff and get her life on track. I happen to live in Phoenix so I kind of have an idea about expenses. It’s not Manhattan. She could have bought a cheap condo in an ok area for under $40K. She could have gone to a local vo tech school(this is a legit school attached to a community college not some rip off private school) and gotten into a <1 yr program for something useful and decent paying. No, I don't think you need cable. BTW on her expenses her cable is $160 and her internet is $70 so she is so stupid that she couldn't even bundle the internet and cable. I know plenty of people who get satellite at ~$45/mo for a year and switch from Dish to Direct year to year to keep the $45 rate. Furthermore, nobody would have given a shit about this if she had put the 60K away. She brought this up on herself.
Shakezula
@D58826: And if you make 200 million a year you can get your pet Congress critters to bail you out.
I call it the Trickle up theory of economics.
jibeaux
@kc: what else could they do? I don’t think an order seizing her assets is likely. Misdemeanor charges, I guess. Hopefully she’ll just put the money aside and not find out.
Another Holocene Human
@Pogonip: Internet and cell phone or maybe internet on your (larger) cell phone are a necessity to get a job.
Cable tv is an inexpensive pacifier to keep the children from getting up to whatever. She may not realize she can get internet TV or doesn’t have money for the equipment and think it’s worth it.
Most of the poor people I know who got computers ended up having them be completely 0wned by viruses and even by malicious neighbors (true story) thanks to Bill Gates and the hardware people. What I have seen:
Purchasing a laptop if in school and then paying for VOIP. This is an educational investment. So many do online classes as well that internet (to turn in assignments, chat with classmates and prof, etc) is necessary at home and at work. Hence VOIP.
Getting a really big phone with an unlimited data plan. The phone is a lot up front but some of the monthly rates aren’t so bad, depends on area and providers. You can use the internet to communicate with state government, employers, stay on top of bills, etc. If not in school this may be the sole internet device.
Desktop computer: useless brick. Probably bought with installment payments and high hopes. Internet Explorer viruses take over as soon as you boot up.
Cable plugs into wall and takes no special equipment. This woman is trying to stay out of trouble, so no “ghetto” hookups, no $1 DVDs out the back of a truck. It has to be cash over the table. Is the cable bill highway robbery? Sure, but … yeah. It’s the cheapest entertainment option there is, aside from the Kindles she got the kids and hopefully locked down a bit. Kindles are a cheap echo of the iPads the elites have their kids playing with. (I personally don’t understand it and would advocate the first several years of life being unplugged but I guess I’m a young old fogey.)
This argument has been made over and over … I guess if she was saavy like y’alls she could get Roku. But with hours of enforced indoor time, every drop of gas accounted for, and only so much energy available per day, it’s the easiest kid pacifier there is. Snob out, but … didn’t see anyone showing up to scold the rich kid I babysat who had every Disney princess movie and watched Disney whatnot daily.
eemom
@different-church-lady:
Yeah, what you said. An unusual amount of energy being invested, even for this place.
different-church-lady
@Shakezula:
Couldn’t let that go unfixed.
Shakezula
@mai naem:
Oh in that case, better throw her ass in jail. If she’s one of those people who leaves a light on when she leaves the room, make her break rocks!
Omnes Omnibus
@jibeaux: Prosecutors have lots of options. One is to bring the matter to the court get an order to show cause why she shouldn’t be found to be in contempt of court. That way the court gets her side of the story and sees that she is complying with much of the plea agreement, reads her the riot act, and things move on.
dance around in your bones
@D58826: That is SO fucking true. When you’ve got a lot of dinero it’s easy to blow it on $30 bottles of vodka or $80 of ‘doggie day care’ or some fucking massage that would cost me a week’s worth of money.
I do NOT fault this woman for the choices she had to make to try and provide for herself and her kids. Just getting tangled up in the court system is fucked enough….it sounds like she tried to do the right thing, and I don’t get people busting on her for it.
It’s like “Pull up yer bootstraps” bullshit., What it you ain’t got no boots???!!!
Another Holocene Human
@jibeaux: I liked the “I can only withdraw $20,000 a month.” (I’ve had accounts that let me withdraw less, btw. I finally switched banks, but I had good credit, so that was easy.)
Did the legal beagles’ delicate stomachs curl up in disgust at this peasant pronouncement?
The law, in its majesty, allows both rich and poor to attempt to withdraw insane sums on short notice.
Shakezula
@different-church-lady: Heh. How about Old Faithful Economics?
kc
@jibeaux:
Well, they could just drop the charges like they did for that dude who brought a loaded AR-15 into an airport and pointed it at two women.
grandpa john
@SatanicPanic: So what happened is an Arizona example of Zero Tolerance taken to extremes by overzealous prosecutors trying to embellish their resume as being tough on crime to run for higher office.
Since this is in Arizona I can’t help but have a feeling that if she were white , she would not have been cited nor prosecuted for this
Another Holocene Human
@Shakezula: I’m sure her landlord is like, totally cool and all with satellites being tacked up all over their property. Sure it’s, like, a clause in the lease.
33. Since I’m, like, totally chill and the chillest ‘lord ever, I mean you moved in here with, like, almost no notice, right? I’m totally cool with whatever cut-rate, janky-behind satellite company you find out about on late-night TV coming in here and drilling holes in my property. Find your monthly entertainment channel bliss. It’s all good.
cckids
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I get it, though it isn’t entirely an excuse. When you have a college degree & you are still dirt poor, it is difficult to hold onto that hope that by denying yourself small luxuries you’ll come out ahead.
That ethos, that education & hard work will pay off & you’ll get ahead, has taken hard, hard hits since the days of Reagan. It doesn’t always work out that way anymore. Health problems (which are part of what put Tirado where she was) play a huge role, but other issues can have a similar effect. The ability to mentally keep on when everything you do seems to come to nothing is not something everyone has. I commend your mom & you for getting through it.
jibeaux
@Another Holocene Human: I am not trying to litigate this issue infinitely, but they’re 2 and 6 months. Don’t need cable or kindles, and the attention span for tv is probably 10 minutes. A 2 year old isn’t going to know PBS or a $5 DVD from cable.
kc
@different-church-lady:
Sorry, I’m just not willing to write her off as a fuck-up based on selective information put out by a pissy right wing Arizona prosecutor.
dance around in your bones
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Whoa, dude.Way to be empathetic
@D58826: I wrote a long and pithy comment in response to your remark that FYWP just disappeared into a black hole.
Perhaps it will emerge some day, and you can enjoy my brilliance :)
Another Holocene Human
@grandpa john: Given the crap white Arizonans seem to get up to on a daily basis, I feel confident that you are correct, sir!
And boy, if this court had ever poked into my (comfortably middle class) parents’ finances, there would be some ‘splaining to do.
Wait … a court did get into my (maternal) family’s finances … and they thought the deal they did to hustle assets away from Medicaid was AOK. Sure, they ought to have set up a medical trust for my disabled uncle but since my other uncle was such a clean cut All-American former punt-pass-kick star they figured he had a face they could trust.
God only knows where that money is now. Hope my mom and uncle never give grandma reason to spin in her grave.
D58826
We spend a lot of time on this blog complaining about crooked bankers and crooked lawyers and crooked politicians and credit card agreements that make Louie the Loan shark envious. But how many have their knickers in a knot because this woman wasn’t able to outsmart all of the financial sharks that infect our society.
jibeaux
@kc: according to that article, charges are deferred pending certain conditions that must be met by April 2015. Should they not be met and the charges dropped anyway, you’ll have a good point, but too soon to know that right now.
different-church-lady
@kc: I’m not writing her off as a fuck up either. I’m only willing to consider that as a plausible possibility.
SatanicPanic
@kc: She might be a fuck-up. I’m just not willing to jump ahead to calling her an asshole and I definitely don’t think she deserves to go to jail. Nothing I’ve seen so far suggests she deserves jail time.
Mandalay
@kc:
It’s obviously irrelevant for some posters here, but thanks for providing some relevant information.
I’ll check Michelle Malkin’s web site to see if “the bitch” has granite countertops.
Another Holocene Human
@kc: You know what? So what if she fucked up? How many options did she have? Maybe … I know this is hard to conceive because of the color of her skin … she’s not superwoman. Maybe … there’s an end to her emotional rope and she’s been there for a while now.
Maybe … she had a paranoid freakout with the lawyers and since they’ve never been in her shoes since she did hire somebody and wasn’t dealing with a court appointed attorney more harried and exhausted than she is they don’t fucking understand where that is coming from and don’t care.
ETA: so sorry, kc, this is directed at different church lady, piggybacking on what you said
SatanicPanic
@grandpa john: This.
Another Holocene Human
@Mandalay: She rented a house, it’s AZ which is flipper/housing bubble ground zero with its very very lax laws about RE sales prior to the crash.
So she probably does have granite countertops.
BURN THE WITCH!
Pogonip
@kc: Yes, I think the prosecutor is being way too hard on her, and that’s why I think her best long-term move is to get out of that area. There is very little margin for error, much less stupidity, when you are poor ( been there, done that). I’ve seen poor people go to jail for doing dumb things that probably would not even have attracted legal attention if they were “middle-class”. (I }#^%ing hate that term. There is no more middle class in America.). I’m on Shanesa’s side, she’s in an impossible situation.
But cable TV is still a want, not a need. Sorry.
Another Holocene Human
Granite releases Radon gas.
Hope the house has good ventilation.
mmm, lung cancer …
Another Holocene Human
@Pogonip: If her family is local, moving could be a really tall order.
lethargytartare
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I completely understand that you and your family are better than all those losers out there.
jibeaux
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t do criminal, but in my brief public defense experience I did not encounter that. If you say it’s an option, though, I’m sure it is.
boatboy_srq
Frankly I think this situation says a lot more about the minimum wage – and the “Starve Teh Poors” attitude of Reichwing pols and big business – than it does about the propriety of Taylor’s budgeting. $4K/mo will pay for a house, a car, food/clothes/sundries, daycare, but not a whole lot more than that. Ask most middle-class folks and I expect that they wouldn’t have an issue with that kind of household budget – and their problem comes from the funds being [gasp] charity. Reading between the lines it sounds like Taylor’s trying to live a near-middle-class life, with a decent home and good food and buying new (not used) stuff – and a lot of the whinging is just short of how-dare-she-live-like-a-real-person-after-we-gave-her-all-that-cash.
Joe Bauers
@lethargytartare:
God hell, you’re hilarious. You sound like a cardboard villain from an Ayn Rand novel, and here I thought her shit had no connection to reality.
different-church-lady
@Another Holocene Human:
As near as I can tell, not many, and all of them shitty. A condition which probably continues to this moment for her.
However, it is still possible for her to be well-meaning and beset, and have poor judgement as well. These things are not mutually exclusive.
Omnes Omnibus
@Pogonip:
So what? ChuckECheez is also a “want.” I don’t see why a poor person shouldn’t have a some “wants.”
D58826
@Another Holocene Human: Agreed. I’ve seen several articles about how much work it takes to survive being poor. This woman got into trouble because she could not afford to pop her kids into daycare while looking for a job. I’m sure if the Romney’s were caught late on the slopes at Aspen they would just call the babysitter (probably live-in) and told her they were running late. Heck I’ve had more than one co-worker have to bail out at the end of the day, with the issue still unresolved, because they had to pick up the kids at daycare. In spite of all the ink spilled and words spoken about family values, we still are a society of every man for himself and devil take the hindmost.
grandpa john
@kc: Isn’t it Amazing how many people don’t need to hear both sides of story before rendering judgement. Knowing what we know about Arizona. this article confirms the opinions I had already formed about the reality of the situation.
People like Montgomery makes me sincerely hope there is a Hell just so these amoral sociopaths can suffer like they made others suffer
jibeaux
Okay, I read this more, and the original terms were for $60k. In late October, she argued that it should be $35k, and succeeded in getting the order modified to $40k. She didn’t fund any of it and is now arguing the college angle.
She’s playing them. It’s not going to end well unless she moves the money very soon.
Another Holocene Human
@cckids: Willpower actually takes energy. It’s not some sort of infinite supply. Plus, poor people, especially under CPS scrutiny, feel a ton of pressure to provide children with “minimum standard” everything which may be very financially straining.
Have you ever dealt with CPS?
She can’t put a mattress on a floor, put a sleeping bag on top of it and crawl in with the kids. So frames, mattresses, rent for multi-bedroom digs as CPS requires as a bare minimum.
She can’t feed them nutrient-deficient gruel daily (she could feed herself that, authorities don’t care). But she isn’t getting WIC/stamps right now so she has to pay for it all with cash. And she probably would do anything to avoid giving them a deficient diet anyway.
The children must be supervised at all times. No exceptions. Childcare without public assistance is quite pricey. Weird hours have already fucked her out of jobs. Can’t do what my parents did, leave a 4 year old in charge of an 18 month old who thinks he’s a gibbon.
Welp, we’re already thousands of dollars in the hole here … cable is childcare when momma is home and has to take care of the keeping a sanitary environment … everything must be clean clean clean … or they take the kids away
There was a young white mother whose little child ran out of the trailer while she was doing laundry, opened the latch for the the gate around the retention pond, ran in and drowned. It was Fla, and they threw the book at her. Where are you supposed to put the children? In a cage? On your back? Cage, kids taken away. So you sit them in front of Cartoon Network.
Because a middle-class messy house with kids is not gonna be okay.
If CPS were nosing into my godson’s home they would be having a cow. His parents are hippies, and not that great at cleaning … regularly …
Another Holocene Human
@jibeaux: Playing them for what?
Pogonip
@D58826: You got that right. Poverty is a full-time job and then some. Even humdrum things take loads of planning because you have no margin for error. You have to be determined and lucky to squeeze out of the trap.
Mandalay
@grandpa john:
Indeed. This could and should have been a thread about government overreach, and the conduct of the County Attorney.
Pogonip
@Omnes Omnibus: Because it’s angering the people who have the power to send her to jail. Cut the damn cable, be properly penitential in court, and get the hell out of that jurisdiction ASAP.
jibeaux
@Another Holocene Human: Time. Trying to avoid moving the money, and avoid prosecution. If it’s been modified once and you’re back with a new excuse while you still haven’t done it, it’s not going to go well. I expect that’s why the lawyers quit.
Another Holocene Human
@different-church-lady: So we’re all libertarians now, if some poor slob isn’t an expert IN EVERY FIELD they are ripe to be judged to hell and back, right?
This woman is not a legal expert, that is clear. This woman has only so much emotional endurance and then she breaks, at least that has been the case for the last year or so, that is clear. This woman isn’t a pro at saving $20 here or $30 on cable/internet because she’s probably a lot more worried about her full schedule of condescending court ordered parenting and life classes.
This is starting to sound like the libertarian blogs decrying anyone whose mortgage blew up and they got foreclosed on but we can never feel any pity for because they should have known that RE agents aren’t fiduciaries and that the home inspector and property appraiser were either working for them, getting kickbacks from them, or on a company whitelist, that the loan officer was paid more to sell them a shittier loan, and that all that crap about retiring on your house was crap even though their career and academic background had nothing to do with houses or finance. Ha ha, they’re so stupid, hope they go bankrupt!
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Another Holocene Human: Christ I laughed my ass off at that. I had pretty much the same situation growing up. How my brother ended up becoming a professor with all the hard shots to the head he took as a kid…man, I just don’t know how it is possible. He seriously thought he could not be hurt, in spite of daily proof to the contrary.
Omnes Omnibus
@Pogonip: That may be the approach she should take in her situation, but I disagree with the idea that she she or any poor person should be allowed to have only the bare necessities to survive.
Shakezula
@kc:
He sounds so contrite-
I find it really implausible that the people claiming prosecution HAD to go forward have never encountered phrases such as “The prosecutor has decided not to press charges …” or “…decided to drop charges.” or even “… is unable to press charges because it missed a deadline for filing…”
grandpa john
@jibeaux:
check this link http://www.examiner.com/article/shanesha-taylor-stands-up-to-arizona-bill-montgomery-for-seizing-her-donations
and tell me about how much choice she had
tsquared2001
@The Thin Black Duke: Thank you. A brilliant synopsis of a sickening thread.
Another Holocene Human
@jibeaux: If anything hinky is going on it is probably family members putting an extreme amount of emotional pressure on the situation. Note that she had to pay them back FIRST. I realize everybody has bills to pay and they are all living paycheck to paycheck. But damn. Like anybody who is owed money, they see she has some and they want it now. Which is why the court isn’t wrong to make these sorts of demands.
Did I read “post secondary” correctly? Isn’t that grad school? How many kids are going to go onto grad school some day? Isn’t that a weird demand?
lethargytartare
@Joe Bauers:
fvck you. all I’m saying is having cable while poor isn’t a sign of moral turpitude you self-satisfied jackass.
cckids
@Another Holocene Human:
This. I’ve had minor dealings with CPS; my daughter’s nosy, rich-bitch Girl Scout leader learned that we were leaving our 4th & 6th grader alone for 4 or so hours at a time (sometimes after dark) when our oldest was in the hospital, in ICU, fighting for his life. She called CPS & reported us.
Now, since there are no laws stating at what age it is allowed to leave your child unattended, we were ok. More weight on our side was that we were white, college-educated (though still broke), well-spoken, all the stuff that CPS looks for. Also, had an inherently sympathetic situation. I’m under no illusions what could have happened if we were minorities, in a similar circumstance.
ETA: when I was in 4th grade, I was not only watching my 3 younger siblings while my parents worked, I was expected to cook dinner at least 3 nights a week. Other families paid me to take care of their kids. Different times.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@jibeaux:
I find your lack of empathy … disturbing.
This woman has been on the “not going to end well” road for months. She already spent 2 months in jail. She has been demonized by no-nothing commentators. She’s a minor celebrity and didn’t want to be (she didn’t setup the fundraiser – someone trying to help did). That celebrity has made it very hard for her to try to live a normal life.
She’s not “playing” anyone. She’s fighting to get out of the hole she’s in, a hole that caused the prosecutor to throw felony charges at her for the crime of trying to get a job and having a baby sitter stand her up.
That you see her actions, statements, etc., that we know about as anything other than her trying to do her best just flabbergasts me.
I lived in a car for a while with my mom and brother as a kid. I know what it’s like to be hungry and the only thing resembling food in the house is a box of pudding mix, and eating that. To live in a house with no electricity or heat in the winter and seeing the pipes freeze. I know what it’s like to have a mother who would and did do anything in her power to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads and despite all of her efforts, fail at times. People can end up in those straits even if they have a good education, can manage money, and tried to make all the best choices. Bad things happen.
Think a little more about what it’s like to be in her shoes. Don’t assume you know the full story based on what’s been reported. Who has the power in her relationships that we’re reading about? Why are they using that power against her? Would they do that if Shanesha was their mother?
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
jibeaux
I’m going to leave this and get shit done, but I am sympathetic to poverty being hard, to budgeting being hard, to wanting and needing to spend money once you get it. I’m not a perfect budgeter. But when you’re trying for a second time to get a court order benefiting your kids modified, it doesn’t look good. $745 a month on vehicle expenses and $6k to your ex and $275 on cable and internet make it look all the more like you’re running out the clock. There’s empathy, and there’s being a sucker, and the court is unlikely to be suckered, which means she’ll be prosecuted, which could’ve been avoided without that much difficulty.
Cacti
@mai naem:
Speaking of let them eat cake solutions, what an awesome idea!
Just plan for your kids to beat out 99% of their class mates and get a free ride to college.
Maybe she should start buying Powerball tickets too and aspire to hit the jackpot. Somebody has to win, right?
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Omnes Omnibus: They do. But yielding to the temptation keeps you poor, full stop. If there’s anything I learned from growing up poor, it was that. You gotta live like a fucking monk. And that’s hard. Much harder than most people can imagine. But you have to.
Others have said it and I will too: she needs to deal with her current legal situation as quickly as possible and then get the fuck out of AZ. That’s no place for a single black woman with kids, her and her kids were born targets and they’ll be that for the rest of their lives if they stay. That’s another problem she simply doesn’t need, on top of being poor.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Holocene Human: Post secondary is post high school.
grandpa john
@Nom de Plume: About that court order you might want to check this out http://www.examiner.com/article/shanesha-taylor-stands-up-to-arizona-bill-montgomery-for-seizing-her-donations
jibeaux
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I don’t know if you’ve spent much time in court, but trying to get an order modified in your favor a second time when you haven’t put a penny towards complying with the order isn’t going to go well. $114,000 should’ve been a game changer for her, but unless she acts soon, she’s going to trial on those charges, which helps no one, and that should be very clear to her. Hopefully she’ll do the right thing.
Omnes Omnibus
@jibeaux: I do agree that, in her current situation, she needs to move money into the trusts very quickly.
Pogonip
@Omnes Omnibus: That seems to be the way it is in her jurisdiction, though, which is why my advice to her is to get out ASAP.
Another Holocene Human
Eh, that Examiner article is making me reconsider even that much …
Damn
http://www.examiner.com/article/shanesha-taylor-stands-up-to-arizona-bill-montgomery-for-seizing-her-donations
It’s not a well-written article, really buries the lede, but scroll down.
skerry
@kc: Wow. Everyone should read that article. It shows another side and brings up some nuances that I haven’t seen discussed here.
My first thought when it was mentioned that she had turned down jobs was “what about child care?” I’ve worked and juggled being a single mother of 3 kids like this woman. Unlike this woman, I had a master’s degree in engineering and made a salary that supported, at various times, a nanny, in-home day-care and commercial day care. I had financial support from their fathers. I took a personal finance class in college and did a decent job budgeting. It was still difficult and there were job assignments and travel that I just could not do. How is she supposed to work weekends or nights with 3 young kids?
Some of you need to open your hearts.
ETA: She is a vet. Where are all the “support the troops” people hiding?
CONGRATULATIONS!
@grandpa john: Look, the prosecutor is a world-class dick and the order (which I agree with in spirit, providing for the future of your kids is a good thing) is clearly designed to do nothing but fuck her over (the prosecutor damn well doesn’t think her kids will go to college, amirite?). Sadly, the reality of the situation is that asshole prosecutor is holding all the cards here and there isn’t jackshit anyone can do about that. She can comply or go to jail is what we’re down to here.
cat
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
The way our zero-sum society is structured there is a limit to the number of people who can escape poverty.
Are there enough colleges to educate every one? Nope.
Mass transit lines in case you don’t know how to drive? Nope.
Even enough jobs to employee every working age person? Nope.
These are just the big easy ones without tackling discrimination.
So kindly go DIAF you survivor biased fucktard.
John S.
I applaud Cacti for his/her epic trolling on this thread for the poor woman who could do no wrong. Bravo!
Cacti
@skerry:
But she’s poor, black, and has cable TV.
I know everything I need to know about her.
D58826
@Another Holocene Human: Maybe she is trying to ‘play them’/ In the dog eat dog world that she probably lives in that is probably the only set of rules she knows. The one who is sharpest at playing the game survives. And the operative word is ‘sharpest’. No morality play here just nature bloody in tooth and nail survival.
jibeaux
@Omnes Omnibus: and i agree with you that outside the order, what she does with the money isn’t really my business. It mostly aggravates me for the kids’ sake. The money is likely to be gone before she gets a job and they’ll be right back to square one.
Another Holocene Human
From the article. Christ.
This is Maricopa County we’re talking about. So what in another jurisdiction might sound hysterical sounds about right to me.
Hell, where I live ‘everybody’ knows you don’t go to court with a local lawyer. They are too chummy with prosecutors/judges/other side’s lawyers and will fuck you.
wasabi gasp
It’s hard to knock a poor person for mismanaging a pile of found money. But, it’s also hard to find logic in her objection to the education requirement of the trust. She could have just considered it a forty thousand dollar get out of jail free card that comes with an education for her kids as a bonus. I say sentence her to shaving Steve’s ass until John says no mas.
Cacti
@John S.:
Someday I hope to graduate from the balloon-juice school of progressive politics, where poor minority women are “bitches” who need to “STFU” and “rot in jail”.
Another Holocene Human
@D58826: @jibeaux:
Did you read the article, with Ms. Taylor’s own words and what the journalist/activist has personally verified?
Y’all are projecting big time. This lady is well-spoken and expresses herself in a logical manner.
Another Holocene Human
@wasabi gasp: Why did the court force her into 24 weeks of mandatory classes?
Twenty four weeks!
Could you pay for that right now?
I could, but I’d be dipping into savings that are meant for when I can’t work any more!!
And I don’t have childcare expenses.
Mayken
@Mnemosyne: Yep. This.
My mother’s family is all backwoods Idaho rednecks and she was the first one on either side for generations to finish high school much less go to college. To date I’m the only girl in that family tree to get a college degree, my brother is the only boy. We are talking about a hundred people or so here. The town most of my mom’s family still lives in has an average education level of 6th grade. 6th. Grade. Most of the them drop out, get married and have kids – not necessarily in that order – and work the farms or (vanishingly) the factories in that area.
So, yeah, I can well imaging not actually knowing anyone personally who has gone to or graduated college even in the first fuckin’ world (hah, hah!) that is America.
Another Holocene Human
@cat:
Take a marker to the board and write that out 100 times with good penmanship.
Alex
Truly, it must be said, near and far, never was there anyone whose heart bled more than our Cacti. Nor has anyone been able to speak with such unique knowledge of how the weather operates inside of cars in Arizona. We are a blessed people to be graced by such a person.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@grandpa john: Thanks for the link. She’s caught in a truly disturbing piece. :-(
Cheers,
Scott.
pat
@kc:
THANK YOU!!!!
Now all of the poor-shaming idiots who have already posted should be reconsidering their opinions.
This money was a GIFT. No one should be telling her how to spend it, and threatening to send her to prison on charges that have ALREADY been dismissed sounds like double jeopardy, doesn’t it?
Cacti
@Alex:
Hmmm…I smell a sock puppet.
Another Holocene Human
@wasabi gasp: You know, I gotta take back what she said about not trusting her lawyer because she’s at the end of her emotional rope and they don’t care.
It seems more clear that the lawyers who swooped in were predators, including the one who was hitting her up for campaign donations before she fired him, and now is lying about her. That’s way worse than I assumed at first and I would really challenge any of you to meekly go along with that. Also, turns out the trust is written up by a friend of the lawyer she has come to not trust because of his ties to the court. I wouldn’t agree to that. Come on.
Of course they threaten to start the whole ball rolling again. Same thing with labor unions. It’s all about raw power and how much they can get a compliant public to believe the right lies tossed out there.
Suzanne
I think multiple things can be true in this case. Taylor isn’t the most responsible person ever, but she should be allowed some luxuries without being hassled about it.
I do happen to think that putting the trust money aside until her kids go to college was a good idea, though. That was a bit of financial planning for her. She should be able to hang onto a third of it.
As a Phoenician, though, the cost of living here is relatively low. If she was being responsible, she could make her money go a long way.
Alex
@Cacti: What you smell is someone who acknowledges your wholesale investment in your own moral superiority.
Cacti
@Alex:
I’m sure “John S” will be along any moment to agree with you and give you high fives.
boatboy_srq
@Another Holocene Human: Well put.
There are enough of us here who’ve had similar eldercare issues. CPS (or whatever it’s called locally) can be a r#t-b#st#rd just because it can, and anyone can report anyone because “that’s not the way I’d care for my [insert dependent here]” and the agency is obligated to investigate. And constantly running scared because they could come knocking anytime and slap you with fines/penalties/whatever makes for poor decision-making even if you’re well-educated and non-blah: I daresay it takes 20+ IQ points off the top just because you feel like you’re constantly watched/judged, and a lot of your choices are driven by “will this look like abuse/neglect to a drive-by busybody no matter how benign it really is” more than “is X safe, sane and healthy”.
Mayken
@jibeaux: No, it depends on how the trust is setup. There are many trusts out there that cannot be revised once made and I don’t have faith that the government of AZ has her kids’ best interests at heart here. So I can totally get why she wouldn’t either. And I’m not a poor black woman who has been pretty well screwed by the system to date.
Mandalay
@skerry:
Exactly. In fact, where is anyone? From the very end of the article KC linked to:
dance around in your bones
@Another Holocene Human: Righteous,
Even dong the gawdamned laundry or shopping for groceries in your ‘food desert’ is a fucking bitch, if you’re a poor.
I know, I have to take city buses to my medical appts and what WOULD be a 10 minute car drive can take a whole fucking hour, There AND another hour back. Also, try walking to the grocery store on your fucking fractured hip and carrying the few groceries back with you,
Ok, fuck it. Imma gonna listen to music again. This shit just pisses me the fuck off……………………………………………………………..
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Another Holocene Human: Doesn’t matter because the choice she’s been given is very simple and stark: pay the money into the trust or take your chances before an all-white jury for felony child abuse.
I know what I would do.
Mandalay
@Another Holocene Human:
It certainly looks like she got shafted by her pro bono attorney, who seems to have been stroking the tummy of the prosecution all along:
grandpa john
@Mandalay: Yeah when some ones opinion is formed, revelation of exculpatory facts do tend to become irrelevant
mai naem mobile
@Cacti: i wish i had been more artful in my STFU bitch comment but i sure as heck did not mean it in a racist way. I would have said the same thing whether she was white or Asian. I say STFU because she has no aspirations for her kids. Fine, she had classes to go to and shes got CPS looking over her shoulder but she’s 35. She has internet as we all now know. Is she incapable of using the Google and figuring some of the financial stuff out? You got your self in trouble and you do whatever needs to be done to get out of the courts and CPS’ s hair.
dance around in your bones
@Another Holocene Human: Whoa,, some lawyers are predators????
Better call Saul! (Sorry, all you cool lawyers :)
pat
This is a really depressing thread.
I wish every one of the “she should have done this or that or else” jerks would spend a few weeks living in your car with two small children. Might develop a little empathy there.
EthylEster
@Mnemosyne wrote:
Don’t you have better things to do with your time?
I mean, besides posting here.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@cat: “survivor biased”?
Am I missing something here? That seems like it would be a good thing. Please explain.
Not about the DIAF part, I got that. But I’m genuinely curious about the rest.
grandpa john
@lethargytartare: yeah, at least you are not a sociopathic amoral asshole like some here
Suzanne
The issue for me is the trust. Everyone is saying that people who aren’t used to having money need financial planning help, and they’re right. Putting some of the money in a trust is designed to be a financial planning tool. It’s designed to lock it away so you can’t get to it on a bad night when your judgment might be failing. And tying it to college attendance gives them a nice, fat incentive to try to reach for that.
That left approximately $80K. In Phoenix, that is a shitload of money. I have two kids, and I spent $11K on daycare last year. That’s full-time. Housing here is pretty inexpensive. Taylor happens to live very near to where Mr. Suzanne works and teaches. It’s a working-class neighborhood. If she’s gone through her money that fast, I call shenanigans. Possibly not on her part—I wouldn’t be surprised if some of it was stolen.
She is certainly entitled to some luxuries. (Though her cable bill is like 3 times ours….not sure what’s going on there.)
I think some of the consternation cones because people weren’t donating money to HER. It was meant for her kids, and to better their lives. If people perceive that her spending isn’t bettering their lives, I don’t think that anger is misplaced. People weren’t giving Taylor money so she could have a more comfortable life, though I think that it would have been admirable if they had.
dance around in your bones
@pat: No fucking shit,
I (a pasty white, pretty well educated and not especially stupid) had to go to court once, because the farm we rented from the County specified that we were responsible for all the repairs and land taxes etc etc on said property.
Well, it was a pretty sweet deal until Prop 13 passed, and suddenly our land taxes went up from about went up about a bazillion percent (ok, ok, I exaggerate a bit). When we were in court I remember poking my husband’s side and saying “Tell the judge XYZ” and the judge asked me what I was saying?
And I said, “I don’t know why we even have to PAY the property tax because we are renters!!” To which he said “Good question! Lawyer for the County, can you explain that to me??!!”
Well, lawyer did, and we had to pay the damn tax, and I still wish we’d had the option of Calling Saul! I bet HE would’ve fixed it for us. Anyway, this is a long-winded way of saying that being in court is complicated, even if you’ve seen a zillion episodes of Law and Order or whatevs….It’s easier for those who are there every damn day of their lives. Including the bailiffs.
(Actually, I HAVE been in court a few other times, but those are tales for another day).
Mnemosyne
@EthylEster:
Nope. Don’t you?
D58826
My wife had MS for the last 22 years of her life. In the early years my Mom would look after her during the day. After her death we had a home heath care aide thru a local agency. Some of the aide were good and some not so much. Finally we had to put her in a nursing home because her condition had reached the point that it required 24 hr professional care. For a number of reasons, most of them beyond my control I was able to pay for her care myself. It was a combination of a good job/good medical plan/ not having a huge mortgage/etc. It was also the era of big bank mergers and I could just have easily been one of those laid off and facing a job hunt as a 50 something with a wife who would bring high medical bills to the company medical plan. We were lucky, at least financially. but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see how one small slip, one bad break and we could be like this woman living in a car. The boundary between a reasonable middle class life and living on the street has become dangerously thin.
Shakezula
@Mandalay: Well OBVIOUSLY she should have picked better attorneys. Or something. Maybe we should attack the donors for enabling her?
Mandalay
@Shakezula:
Maybe OBVIOUSLY with hindsight, but she was in a hole and an attorney offered to work for her for nothing. At that time I am sure that it wasn’t obvious that he would cut a lousy deal with the prosecution and then ditch her, but that is what he did.
I have absolutely no idea WTF you are talking about.
Shakezula
@pat: Now you’ve done it. People will be oozing out of the floorboards with stories about how easy it would be to live in a car because they went camping once and it was fun.
Shakezula
@Mandalay: Pardon. I am spoofing on the people who are acting like this woman stole the money they’d saved up for cancer treatments to support her luxury lifestyle.
dance around in your bones
@Shakezula: You go, girl :)
I just don’t understand the lack of empathy on this thread (by some) it just makes me cry. Anyway I’m listening to Bob Dylan ATM.
different-church-lady
@Another Holocene Human: You’re misreading me: I’m saying FAR too much judgement is being slung around in all directions. And that speaks poorly on everyone here. Nobody here has all the facts, nobody here is a witness, but everyone KNOWS THEY’RE RIGHT. It’s idiotic.
Pogonip
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Yes, exactly; you gotta live like a fucking monk. (I’m female so even the fucking was out; couldn’t risk becoming pregnant. :D. Contrary to American belief, it is possible to be happy while celibate, although not to keep a boyfriend.). And it is extremely difficult.
Nom de Plume
@pat:
I wish someone would give me a hundred and fourteen thousand fucking dollars, that’s what I wish. Might be able to move out of my one-bedroom apartment. But I’m sure if I pissed most of it away because it’s hard to be poor, and no one ever taught me how to handle money properly, you’d have my back. Right? Right?
dance around in your bones
@Nom de Plume: Gawd, No more BJ today, it’s music all the way.
Pogonip
@Pogonip: I meant it’s extremely difficult to live lIke a (non) fucking monk, not to remain celibate. It’s like anything else, you get used to it and it’s not so hard to give up short-term fun if you know you’re getting closer to your long-term goal.
grandpa john
@Suzanne: All trusts are not the same,Have you read the actual terms of this trust, drawn up by her lawyer without any input from her, a lawyer who should be disbarred for criminal misconduct
http://www.examiner.com/article/shanesha-taylor-stands-up-to-arizona-bill-montgomery-for-seizing-her-donations
pat
@Nom de Plume:
Frankly, my dear, I wouldn’t give a damn.
Suzanne
@grandpa john: The article repeatedly states that the money is hers to have now. I think the reason people are mad is because they weren’t really donating it to her. It was ultimately for her kids. Some people feel that she used too much of it for herself. She is human and probably not good with money, which isn’t surprising, but she obviously needs some unbiased financial advising. I really would not be surprised if people around her were stealing it, or at least coercing her.
I like the trust idea, specifically because it sets it aside for her kids, with an eye toward the future. The money, in many people’s minds, was never for her. Had she not had kids, no one would have given her a dime.
I have a feeling that the truth probably lies halfway in between “lazy spendthrift” and “let her spend all of it however she wants”. She’s entitled to some comforts without our judgment, and she probably also needs help making better decisions.
But what would REALLY make this go away is everyone deciding that all lives have worth and setting up a strong social safety net, so we aren’t confronted with having to crowdfund this woman’s childcare and rent.
Mandalay
@Shakezula: My bad, but some of the vile assholes posting on this thread have dulled my sense of humor.
Death Panel Truck
@Trollhattan:
FIFY.
Ella in New Mexico
@EthylEster:
Wow. That was jerky. Who the hell died and made you the frigging moderator?
Keith G
@Suzanne: Your comment here is a sane one and there are not a lot of others hereabouts. Cole’s original rant had his “Shoulda taken a few to get more info” hallmark. Yet a carte blanche support of Ms. Taylor’s actions might be an over-correction. Some of the expenditures seem from this angle to be unwise. Such would not make Taylor a bad person, just a person who may not have had enough practice in certain useful life skills. It is likely that she need a mentor and not another prosecution.
Mnemosyne
@Suzanne:
One of the reasons I feel very sympathetic towards her is that we just moved into a new apartment and had more than a bit of sticker shock when we realized how many purchases we’d put off that needed to be made Right Now (like a new refrigerator to replace our dying 20+ year old one).
She was living in her car and moved herself and her three children into a rental house, which pretty much means she needed to buy an entire houseful of furniture, including beds, dressers, etc. for the kids. As AHH said in one of her comments above, when you’re already under close scrutiny by Child Protective Services, you can’t half-ass it and have everyone sleeping on one mattress in the living room. You have to prove that you know how to do things right by making sure the whole place is furnished, everyone has their own bed, etc. So a lot of what she spent money on was for the kids, but people somehow aren’t making the connection between “money spent on clothing” and “needing clothes for yourself and your three kids.” Trust me, if she’s spending $300 a month on clothes, she ain’t buying anything designer, unless someone thinks Target is a designer brand.
ETA: I’m guessing she has made some bad financial decisions, but I suspect they’re more along the lines of “have to pay off a relative so they’ll stop bitching” than overspending on luxury goods.
Suzanne
@Keith G: Yes. But we’re all arguing about small-ball stuff right now. Shanesha Taylor is one flawed person swimming in an ocean of injustice and it’s not surprising that she might be an asshole. Many people are assholes, why should she be any different? To me, it’s not worth second-guessing someone’s choices when they’ve been caught in an unfair and inhumane situation from the start. A stronger safety net would mean that none of this would ever have been an issue.
pat
From the article linked by jl a long time back:
“I have evidence that Shanesha Taylor is not a drug addict and records of multiple tests, including hair follicle, urine and blood before and after her arrest. The New York Times also spoke with Child Protective Services to verify that the rumor that her son was born with drugs in his system is an absolutely false. She is a military veteran and never should have been homeless with a 6 month and 2 year old in the first place. Shanesha Taylor is the face of the working poor in America and the struggle that single mothers have in trying to survive while working and taking care of two babies in diapers.”
pat
More from that link: (too bad this is probably a dead thread….)
“Many of the donors have been down this path too which is why there were no conditions put on the use of the money. If you give someone a “gift”, it is for them to spend as they see fit. Period. Think about it, what if you received donations and the government tried to lock you out of it when the whole purpose of the fundraiser was to give you financial independence for awhile and a cushion? It is no one’s business how it is spent and certainly wrong to try and take almost all of it and lock it away “or else we’ll prosecute you after already dropping the charges.””
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Suzanne: The original fundraiser:
The donations weren’t for a trust fund for her kids.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
greenergood
If anyone gets to the end of this thread I’ll be amazed – haven’t read the whole thing myself, but just want to say that I’m white, brought up middle-class but have been pretty broke for most of my adult life. When my mom-in-law died nearly 10 years ago, she left us @£100,000 – and guess what – we spent most of it, not on a house or anything sensible. We spent it because we’d never had any wriggle-room money forever – we spent it on things like guitars and nice food and one or two foreign vacations and nice beer and wine and having dinner parties with friends that have more money than us, so we could finally entertain them, and clothing not out of Goodwill or other second-hand shops, and extra coal for heating rather than scouting round the beach for wood to burn. In other words, things that well-off people very rarely have to think about twice. So when well-off people look down their noses and say ”Oh well those poor people with a windfall should’ve been more scupulous in their financial planning’ I say ‘just try living without money and then suddenly having some.’ Unless you’re incredibly disciplined (something that rich people don’t have to be in regards to their finances), suddenly having money is just so much fun – of course it’s gone soon – Ms Taylor has actually been incredibly disciplined, especially without any financial guidance.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne: Yes, I agree with you. I just don’t think that the trust idea is bad on its face. It’s meant to help her from immediately acting on her impulses. $75K is a lot, and certainly more than a couple of years of expenses here. And there are ways to furnish a house and clothe your family relatively inexpensively. Ironically, Phoenix has had an explosion in used-clothing stores in the last year. I get a lot for the kids there myself.
greenergood
Sorry, not £100,000 – it was $80,000 – looking at wrong numbers – but it was still a s**tload of money as far as we were concerned! :-)
Ella in New Mexico
@grandpa john:
Thank you so much for that link. It really helped me understand exactly what this poor woman is facing. It IS sad that so many people will take the least amount of time to jump to the worst conclusions and say the most horrible things before they even do a tiny bit of research about the truth.
She’s getting totally and shamefully shafted by that scumbag prosecuting attorney with the help of her own attorneys. I really wish some big name lawyer would swoop in and take over her case.
God, she’s a veteran. You’d think THAT would count for something with these assholes. I donated a while ago. I’d do it again, given what I know. I really hope she is able to transcend this humiliation and make it.
Ella in New Mexico
@greenergood: Word. And I can totally relate.
Suzanne
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I am sure that many of the people who donated were doing so for her kids, even if indirectly, even if they didn’t say so. Hence the reason people are pissed. And I can assure you that people are pissed. This story comes up often here in PHX.
That brings up another larger issue, in that parents are expected to be hugely and unrealistically self-sacrificing. Especially mothers. But had she not had kids, I don’t think anyone would have given her money.
Death Panel Truck
@Mayken: I guess you’ve never heard the stories of poor black women who scrubbed floors all of their lives to provide for their children so they could get through high school. You know, the mothers who want their children to study hard and win scholarships so they can go to college and aspire to better things than scrubbing floors.
This woman seems to have no faith in her children. I’m not saying she should scrub floors, but she should want better things for her children than chronic unemployment and living off the largesse of strangers.
pat
I’m finally reading more of that link in the Examiner and I think all you judgemental assholes should read it, then send a note of apology to this woman, maybe with a bit of cash tucked in.
dance around in your bones
@greenergood:
Good on ya – what’s money for if not to be spent?? It was a few stocks left by my husband’s stepfather that funded our travels around the world (well, that, and a few other business adventures)….I would not have traded that experience for all the fucking $$ in the world :)
eta: I still say……. Better Call Saul!!!
Thanks, military dude!!!! (Somehow can’t spell Coronel the way I want to….)
Ella in New Mexico
@pat: Yep. Totally blew my mind, but then, there’s always the story behind the headlines anymore.
Mandalay
@Ella in New Mexico:
Yes, that is the real story here.
Hopefully some OP will revisit this story with a perspective more nuanced than “just put the money in the trust and make all this go away”.
Bonnie
I think making any thing contingent on children going to college is too high a bar for any one. I had a financial manager for a brief time; and, he felt very strongly about not using programs that depended on your kid going to college. Each kid is different and may not want to go to college. Then, what do you do if the money can only be used for that one thing?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Bonnie: Not only that, but she’s still looking for a job for crying out loud. What reasonable prosecutor would insist that she lock up $40k when she has no idea when, or if, she’ll be able to find reasonable employment. She may need that money in 6 months, not 16 years….
None of us know all the facts, but I’m having lots of trouble with the reasoning in too many of the posts here…
:-/
Let’s not forget that she was locked up for stupid reasons to begin with. She should not have been arrested, and she should not have been charged with a felony. She’s not the bad gal here…
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
MaryRC
@SiubhanDuinne: I agree with you about the tip, the birthday present and the gift to the homeless man — once I hand it over, it’s theirs. But charitable or political donations — I kind of like to know what’s being done with them. I know how’d I feel if I donated to a charity and then found that 85% of all donations goes back to the fundraisers (Cancer Fund of America comes to mind). I wouldn’t feel like donating to them again.
Denali
Thank you, Balloon Juice commenters, for clarifying an issue for me. I had been pondering whether to attach a note to a $250 check to my daughter(newly single mother, older than Shanesha), suggesting that it be used for her health insurance costs. Even though I know it upsets her to talk about her finances, her decisions in the past, have,shall we say, not been terribly responsible. So I hate to see very scarce funds used for dog biscuits for the dog she cannot afford. But you are right, a gift should not have strings attached. This is indeed a full service blog.
John S.
@Cacti:
Hey dipshit, I’ve been commenting on this blog under this handle for quite some time.
John S.
@Cacti
I’ve been commenting on this blog under this handle for quite some time. How long have you been trolling here?
Violet
@Suzanne: Completely agree with your comments in the thread. It’s most likely a mixed bag of an over-reaching prosecutor, bad legal advice, inexperience with money, etc., etc.
I’d forgotten she was a vet. Where are the veterans services folks? Are there more resources available to her because of her veteran status?
Suzanne
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: She left two young children completely unsupervised. I don’t think she deserved a felony charge, but I don’t think, for example, court-ordered parenting classes would have been an unjust punishment.
FWIW, i would say at least 50% of the businesses I’ve frequented in the last month are hiring. Some of that is seasonal, but quite a bit of it is permanent. PHX’s economy is really recovering. If she wants a job, I am sure she’ll find one. I can’t promise that she’ll be able to keep the same childcare arrangement that she has now. but there are 24-hour centers in the city.
D58826
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I don’t think we are dealing with a ‘reasonable prosecutor’ here. He got his face smacked when the story went viral. Now he wants his revenge. It looks a bit like the woman in Fla who tried to murder a piece of drywall. The prosecutor was willing to go for a 20 years sentence in the first trial but now that there is to be a second trial she is asking for 60 years. This is just petty vengeance by a 3rd rate hack politician with a law degree. The outcome of the first trial made her look bad, losing the Martin case didn’t help, so now its payback time.
Violet
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: She would not even be in this situation had she not had kids because she would have had no kids to leave in the car. However, had she not had kids she likely would not have received so many donations. People were moved by the story of the mother who couldn’t find childcare when she had a job interview. They weren’t moved by the story of the poor woman.
So, sure the fundraiser said the money went to her. Who else is it going to go to–the kids are very young minors. But “for her” is tied up in her role as mother and “for her” very likely means, in a lot of people’s minds, “for her family” and “for her kids.”
dance around in your bones
@D58826: My younger sister has MS and her husband just filed for divorce, She’s been in a wheelchair for years, and now he has a new girlfriend!
Stellar, dude!! Way to go!
(I’m so sorry about your wife )
Ella in New Mexico
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
This situation should go into a textbook about why it is just plain STUPID that our country now turns every single minute incident of poor judgement into literal freaking felonies. It starts the slippery slope to THIS KIND OF SHIT. And in the end, don’t forget: The donations were GIFTS to her, to use, however she wanted. Why the court thought it had any right to reach in and play God and decide how she spent it–well, like I said. Had there been any justice this thing would never have ended up in a criminal court in the first place.
Seriously, I can’t get over how screwed up this case has become. She’s described as “blowing through the donations at a rate of nearly $4,200 a month.” Uh, that’s a very middle class annual income of about $50K, and for a single parent, that’s actually hard to get by on in Phoenix. I know because I have several single parent friends who makes around that and still struggle every single month to get the needs for their kids met. And they don’t have “luxuries” to blame that on, either. People forget, you lose ALL the benefits of the safety net at that income–no free daycare, no subsidized health insurance, no food stamps, no rental or utility assistance. So you assume ALL those costs yourself. Try paying a $400 a month electric bill on that income, with a very reasonable $1200/month rent, student loans of about $350. That’s HALF the amount she has budgeted for things that are not flexible.
After that, it’s only $114K, for God’s sake. It’s really not going to go that far, even if she is a miser with it And I agree with the financial advisers who say they’d not recommend a giant $40K college fund for a lower-middle income family anyway–it’d be better spent on advancing her own training, or a down payment on a house to give them the long term financial stability.
Violet
@dance around in your bones: An adult who I knew when I was in high school did the same thing. He worked with a group I was involved in and I knew him and his wife. She was diagnosed with MS at that time. A few years later they moved and shortly after that they divorced. I don’t know how much the MS played into it. They had a young daughter. The wife was in a wheelchair by the time they moved.
I’ve heard of people getting divorced so the ill spouse can access government resources without the other spouse losing all their money, or something. It’s a fucked up situation. Sorry about your sister.
Ella in New Mexico
@Suzanne:
I don’t think any of us here should presume that those places will work for her, for any number of reasons. In any case, that’s no longer the point here. Her civil rights are being violated all over the place in this situation. I don’t give a shit if she spend next two years sitting on her ass in her living room eating Cheetos and watching her kids play with matches. The issue now is that this is HER money, not the frigging malicious prosecutors or the unethical defense attorney who literally forced her to sign something he did NO due diligence on and was clearly not in her best interest.
pat
@Death Panel Truck:
Really? REALLY????? Scrubbing floors so the kids can go to college? How about coming into the 21st century where if she were scrubbing floors she would be getting less than $8 an hour and college would cost in excess of $100,000. (yeah, I’m guessing)
Violet
From the Examiner article linked multiple times, not sure this part got posted:
It’s an estimate and it’s still a lot of money but she didn’t have $114,000 to spend or put in a trust or whatever.
Suzanne
@Ella in New Mexico: I was a single mom in Phoenix on way less than $50K/year. It can be done for significantly less. $1200/month rent is exorbitant for here. She can get a really nice 2-bedroom apartment for $850/month. $400/month for power is only likely in a large house at the height of the summer. $200/month is more likely. She could make that money last for five years, if she was so inclined.
A huge reason that people live here is low cost of living. If she makes good choices, she can be pretty secure.
I think we can be good liberals while still wanting her to make responsible choices of her own accord.
pat
@Bonnie:
Yeah, exactly why I didn’t start college funds for my nephews. When I got the details, it did not seem like a good deal.
Cacti
@pat:
At $20,000 for each kid, that wouldn’t be enough to put them through a bachelor’s program at any public university in the State of Arizona in 2014. Much less 10+ years down the road.
Suzanne
@Ella in New Mexico: I give a shit if she eats Cheetos and her kids play with matches. She was given that money to improve her kids’ lives. I think that it is not unreasonable for people to expect to see her use it toward good ends. Even after taxes, that’s a fuckload of money.
Mnemosyne
@Denali:
It’s the difference between “here’s a check for your health insurance” and “here’s a gift, but this is what I think you should spend it on.” I think it’s totally legit to offer to pay her health insurance, but it’s a slightly different conversation.
pat
I didn’t donate at the time, but if I had I would think that the money goes to HER so she can build a better life with her kids. This trust fund thing just makes me feel like the prosecuter thought SHE didn’t DESERVE all this money.
Can’t imagine why he would think that…..
Ella in New Mexico
@Suzanne:
I don’t want to get too off track with the monthly budget thing, but I would note that with three children, she might not be allowed to rent a two bedroom. She might have to get a three bedroom. I don’t live in Phoenix, but where I live, that is often the case. So $1000/month might be more likely than $850.
But no, I don’t REALLY want to see her do the Cheetohs and matches thing. That was just a touch of John Cole style hyperbole. I just can’t believe how completely unjust and corrupt the situation is against this woman.
And in any case, if what you say is accurate, then the costs of living there in Phoenix are markedly lower than what they are where I live her in my small city in NM, which is an added insult to my sense of justice.
pat
“I think we can be good liberals while still wanting her to make responsible choices of her own accord”
Yeah, as long as those “responsible choices” are exacly what I would have done in her place.
Keith G
@Ella in New Mexico:
I have had a lot of fun in Phoenix, but living in NM would be higher on my list. Your sense of justice need not feel this wound.
(No offense to Suzanne – If I could arrange it, I would leave Houston for a prolonged stint in NM, and I really dig Houston)
Suzanne
@pat: Um, have a nice, tall glass of fuck off. I said multiple times that I think she is entitled to some luxuries. Luxuries that, in fact, I don’t have. She can also be freaking careful with the money so her kids have the best future possible and she doesn’t end up living in her car again. If she doesn’t want to put it in trust for their college, how about smaller amounts every year? Or tie it to her own vocational training?
I am a liberal because I believe that we as individuals are stronger when we tie ourselves together with all manner of social bonds, and care for one another. None of that excludes also taking care of oneself and one’s kids.
Suzanne
@Keith G: Yeah, no need to feel wounded. Phoenix has the second-lowest cost of living of the major US metros, and there’s definitely some great things here, but if I could afford my lifestyle somewhere else, I’d probably move. But your money goes much further here than in other places. You can get a pretty dang nice house for under $200K, and a condo for $75K that’s not too bad. So she could be pretty secure for a while if she was careful with her dollars.
All this went down in Scottsdale, which is the Beverly Hills of PHX. Mr. Suzanne is a Scottsdale teacher, though he works in south Scottsdale, which is the one not-so-posh part. This is where Taylor got arrested. There are lots of working-class families there who I can guarantee you are not living on a household income of $50K/year. And other areas of the city are much, MUCH more affordable.
pat
@Suzanne:
“she is entitled to some luxuries. Luxuries that, in fact, I don’t have.”
Umm, would you like to enumerate the luxeries that you feel she is entitled too?
mai naem
@Suzanne: You’ve said what I wanted to say but express it way better than I ever will. When I was 19(young and dumb), I got a speeding ticket in a ticket happy town and didn’t take care of it. The ticket was, I think, a $125 ticket which ballooned to $950 by the time I took care of it. I didn’t go to jail thank god but I didn’t sit there and whine about it and argue with the judge about it. I made my payments and got done with it. Taylor is 35. When you are 35 and in trouble with the law(it doesn’t matter if its fair or whatever) and you are risking losing your kids, you do pretty much whatever the judge tells you and get the situation behind you. Also, if you have $114K come down from the sky and you’re 35, you use the google and find out whatever you can about trusts and financial planning. You can even watch Suzy Orman on cable. Hell, she might even have you on her show. Furthermore, she’s a vet. Do they not have veterans services that refer you to financial planners. I know I don’t sound empathetic but sometimes you need to help yourself.
I have a good friend/ex-co-worker – single mom(from a dysfunctional family) with one young kid, 2 yrs younger than Taylor – zero $$ from the kids father. She just graduated from ASU in May in a not so lucrative career. Anyhow, she never made more than $15/hr while going to school. She lived in a 2br/1 ba(not so nice neigborhood), then in a 3br/2ba(okay neighborhood) apt until she bought a 4br/2ba house in North Phx, middle class neighborhood while going to college. Took her 7 yrs to graduate with a bachelors. I don’t know how but she managed to stash away $18k in savings before she graduated. She was/is very frugal(not stingy) with her money(no cable!) I think Shanesha Taylor could take a lesson from my friend. BTW, you can definitely rent a3br/2 ba townhouse in Phx in an okay neighborhood for $800-$850. Possibly an older house if you searched around.
PGfan
It is really disheartening to read the slew of judgemental comments posted on this story, though they were intermixed with a number of people exhibiting both compassion and understanding.
As someone who’s gone through a very rough time financially I can tell you that unless and until you’ve been there you really don’t know what you are talking about. If you were poor 20 years ago your experience is only partly relevant as conditions have changed on several fronts in that time in terms of resources — fewer; expenses — much higher; predation and abuse by powerful institutions — off the charts; available jobs — much lower paying; unreasonable demands on workers — much higher.
I always see people in discussions about “how poor people should spend their money” piping in about costs of living in specific places or food costs or other things, entirely missing the point which is that when you don’t have enough money it shadows every minute of every day, and forces you to continually have to decide between bad choices. Its not that poor people have a good choice and a bad choice, and make the bad one. They face a continuous series of bad choices ALL THE TIME. If I pay this I can’t pay that: which is worse?
Add to that the penalites that accompany every misstep — from fees to shut-offs to getting thrown in jail for things most of you here would never tolerate.
Then live like that for sustained periods of time — under unrelenting stress and the judgements of comfortable people and see what it does to your head.
If you are in a position to pay your way out of problems in daily life then do not, I repeat, DO NOT think you know shit about the kinds of choices confronting this woman and millions like her.
pat
@mai naem:
I can not believe the number of posts here that are of the nature “I did it, why can’t she? (she must be dumb is the subtext)
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Suzanne: grandpa john’s Examiner link tells how much she spent on rent and the rest:
It’s not clear whether the $14.5k is just for the 1 year of rent ($1200/mo), or whether it includes the first, last, and deposit as well (which would be much less than $1200/mo average). Either way, it’s not as if she’s staying at the Four Seasons.
Please don’t continue to insinuate that she’s squandering the money. She’s not.
Cheers,
Scott.
dance around in your bones
@Violet:
Not the case with sister. But she’s got a lot of family support, her kids are adults now. so….not incredibly terrible.
But fucking terrible enough. I kinda blame my Mom. who was in a fundie Christian state when lil sis got preggers,. and BEGGED her NOT to get an abortion.. Like, yeah, my mom was gonna take care of the baby. Ha!
One of the reasons I am so fucking fierce about women making their OWN decisions about whether to have a baby or not.
Not that I thought like that when I was 17 and got pregnant with my boyfriend…..we got married as soon as I turned 18 and I never even contemplated an abortion. We went to Amsterdam to have our baby, which was pretty cool.
Ilya
@the Conster: So brave. Also, why are we still investigating murders in this country when everyone knows OJ got away with murder?
PGfan
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Good post.
Ella in New Mexico
@PGfan: Your comment is spot on. Now that I’ve been through a lot of things I never thought were likely to happen to me financially, I find that as I get older, I actually have MORE empathy for people who are “fiscally dumb”.
Ella in New Mexico
@Keith G:
Been here for almost 30 years and I still love New Mexico soooo much!! But for some reason we seem to be off the “truck route” or something and even with our tendency towards lower wages, we pay a lot more for things like groceries, gas and utilities here than in places I would assume would have higher costs of living. Albuquerque probably has the best cost of living for a major city in our state (with the exception of rental housing near the University, which is frigging outrageous).
I guess the Phoenix area is cheap because of how hard it is to get people to live in a pizza oven for 3/4 of the year. ;-)
PGfan
@Ella in New Mexico:
Same here. Which I should add — before i hit tough times I was probably as judgemental as anyone. I learned the hard way and hopefully will retain the lesson in future and in other areas.
But I do think it’s critically important for all of us who want to move this country in a constructive direction to grapple with the reality of what poverty is really like in this country today.
For those of you who haven’t experienced it, be grateful. But listen to those of us who have before you judge.
mai naem
@pat: I don’t think she’s that sharp. Or she’s really squandered the money. Either way she doesn’t look good. I wouldn’t have a problem with this if she was 21 but she’s old enough to educate herself. All she had to do was put away the $40K in an FDIC insured bank account and then gone back to court in a couple of years after she’d dealt with her legal issues. She didn’t even bother educating herself going from the $60K to the $40K and then asks to go down to $35K.@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: The rent’s $1038/mo. Its on the budget she gave the court. http://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/central-phoenix/shanesha-taylor-update-budget-shows-expenses-of-4kmonth
Look at the budget. And remember, nobody would have given a shit if she had put the $40K in the trust. $115 internet/$70 mobile internet/$75 cell phone/cable $160 and netflix $14. Seriously? Is this what you present to the judge?
YellowJournalism
@jibeaux: Child care is extremely hard to find on a last-minute notice, so I don’t blame her for enrolling them while she looks for work. If she interviewed for a job on a Monday, got the job and had to start Friday, most likely she would have to spend the rest of the week looking for care. Then there are deposits for the spots, registration fees, and many centers ask for the money in full before the children start and at the beginning of the month each month. I could see her spending a few grand a month on child care alone for a good center or day home.
As for her money-management skills, I agree with John that she should have been appointed an advisor. Most of those expenses are not unreasonable, but I suspect there’s more to that side of the story. I agree, too, that the college condition of the trust is unfair as college is not for everyone. Would trade school count? Special journeyman training?
wasabi gasp
@Another Holocene Human: How my comment inspired your two replies is unclear to me, but you seem to know more about this case than I, so let me ask some questions.
Did she leave her kids in a locked hot car like she was dehydrating some banana chips? Does she still have her freedom…with great potential of keeping it? Are her kids still alive…and will she be allowed to keep them? Are her salty tears worth over one hundred thousand dollars?
This woman needs to acknowledge that she is a very bad decision maker with a huge lucky star. She’s been given a very unique chance to change her and her children’s lives for the better. Wise-up classes seem to be a slap on the wrist. And she does need to wise up. Giving her children’s father six grand to lay down some stale beats doesn’t inspire great confidence in her transformation.
KS in MA
@RobertB:
Thank you.
pat
I am seriously shocked by the responses of the BJ community. We know very little of what this woman has gone through, we see one or two partial reports, and yet we are ready and able to offer all sorts of recommendations and condemnations, as if any of this hot air will affect the situation.
It seems she is caught up in a process that is stacked against her. And yet we pile on.
I hope she doesn’t see this thread.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@mai naem: Thanks for the link.
So she should be thrown back in jail because she spends a few hundred a year on internet service? Really?
Everyone talks about the $114,825 she got. She didn’t get $114k. She would have to pay federal and state income tax even if there were no additional fees for the fundraiser (above the ~ 3% for the credit card charges). She would have owed roughly $29k in taxes (around $25.4k federal and around $3.7k AZ). That brings the total down to $86k – after tax – at most. If she had $72k left on November 6 (according to the linky in #42) then it seems like she’s used very little of it, actually. (Maybe she hasn’t paid the taxes yet – dunno. She seems to generally have a good head on her shoulders, so I’d be surprised if she didn’t know that taxes would be due.).
$70 a month for “mobile internet” might be a weird payment, or it might not. I’m not willing to question her about it. Her gmail address is on the YouCaring page if you want to demand to know why she’s paying for that.
Again, her life is being ruined because she’s been charged with a felony for going for a job interview while being homeless and getting stood-up by a babysitter. Is a few hundred dollars a month in her budget the real scandal here?
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mayken
@Death Panel Truck: yes because the only two options are they go to college or they live off the largesse of strangers. /snark Not say they join the armed forces or become artists or learn a trade. Success looks different to different people. And college- as many many people know – is no panacea against poverty in the USA.
But that’s also beside the point that the money is actually needed now since she has still to get out from under the mountain on top of her and her kids right fucking now not 16 years from now.
Han
@mai naem: Mind sharing where you’re getting your information? Like where it says anywhere that this is a budget that she presented to a judge? Like where it has been documented ANYWHERE that she actually has made a single wrong move with the money? Because I see a whole lot of judgmental “recovering” republicans on this blog making a whole lot of assumptions on not much information and doing their best to create another myth for the right wing to go with the Cadillac-driving welfare queens and young bucks buying t-bones. And a whole lot of people on this thread ought to be FUCKING ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES for their poor skills at parsing facts out of sensationalistic “news” stories if not for being hypocritical pricks.
Han
I think the trust fund for the kids is asinine. A down payment on college in 16 years is nothing if you can’t eat today. How many people when laid off would immediately put a majority of their reserve fund money into a college fund for their toddlers so they couldn’t touch it? If the court said she had to get an annuity so it would last 5 years or something like that, it would at least make sense, not that I think they had any business trying to coerce her into doing this anyway. And why would it not make more sense for her to use the money to educate herself, so that she could get a better paying job and in 16 years be in a position to help with college expenses? This was just a way for the DA to punish her.
the Conster
@pat:
amen.
Shameful really. We need to punch up – way up -, not down.
mai naem
@Han: It’s from the local rag. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/scottsdale/2014/11/19/records-shanesha-taylor-spent-about-4k-a-month/19269669/
@Mayken: I understood it to say post-secondary not college.
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I don’t think she should go to jail but I don’t think it’s ok to leave your very young two kids alone in the car for an hour. She agreed to the $60k and then the $40k. If you are doing that then it’s in your best interest to at least appear that you are being careful with your money. BTW, I am guessing she wouldn’t have to pay regular taxes if any on the trust money because its for the kids’ education.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@mai naem:
I’m sure Shanesha didn’t think it was Ok either, but she felt she didn’t have any choice. Her children were never in danger.
There was a time when police would talk to a mother in that situation and get an explanation and give her a warning or maybe refer her to social services for assistance. It’s clear to me that the “serve and protect” motto isn’t being followed in the state’s actions with her.
As a kid of around 7, one day one of us (maybe 6 boys and girls) asked a neighbor for some matches “for my mother” and proceeded to start a small fire in the pine woods behind the apartment playground. When it got too big, we beat the fire down with pine branches. And then we tried it again. The last time, we couldn’t beat it down – it got too big. We ran. I was caught. The fire department was called, along with the police, and our mothers. We kids got a good scare about possibly going to jail. But nobody was charged with a felony and nobody was put under observation by Family and Children Services or similar.
Yes, kids playing with matches is bad. Throwing parents under the power of the state for it isn’t a sensible policy.
Similarly, things are “fucked up and bullshit” (to quote Atrios) when a parent is charged with a felony under these circumstances. Shanesha never should have been arrested, let alone charged with a felony and put in jail. She should have been talked to.
I think I’m done on this topic. Have a good evening, everyone.
Cheers,
Scott.
Han
@mai naem: Yeah, she didn’t file that with the judge. The prosecutor did. And if you look, it was a budget from an email she sent to her lawyer, with no context as to if it was a finished or working budget, and certainly not an accounting of how she’s spending her money. This would be the same lawyer who brokered the original deal before quitting on her, who has to stay on friendly terms with the prosecutor if he wants to continue getting overflow cases from the public defender, and would be the same lawyer who brought in Jarrett Maupin to work on her case. You know, the convicted felon who was running for office. The one Taylor is asserting coerced her into donating to his campaign fund and then getting pissed the donation wasn’t big enough. The one who is now claiming Taylor won’t take any of the jobs he worked so hard to arrange, and is as far as I can tell the only source for the “she paid for her baby daddy to cut a record”, because a concerned citizen called his office up (why?) to tell her lawyer (who?) this. Oh, and in addition to being a convicted felon, he’s also a Reverend, which of course means he’s her reverend. And what kind of person doesn’t listen to their Reverend?
Han
@Han: In fact, how the fuck did the prosecutor get his hands on an email sent to a lawyer from his client?
Suzanne
@PGfan: But for once in her life here, she is in a position where she can get caught up, where she doesn’t have to choose between food and rent, where she can get on her feet. I think she’s probably not good with money, but relatively few people are, and that certainly isn’t a crime.
But, whether or not she realized this when she accepted the money, there were some strings attached. The people who donated did so because they wanted to make sure that a loving mom who made one mistake wouldn’t have her kids ripped away and their lives ruined. They did not donate so she could fund a hip-hop record. Legally, you’re absolutely right, the money is hers and she can spend it as she likes. But people’s feelings don’t work like that, and I don’t think their reaction is wholly unreasonable.
I get that poverty has affected her judgment, and that we all do and have done stupid shit financially. I really do get it. I also understand that the prosecutor is fucked up. I live here. I hear about it daily. I also get that she deserved at most some parenting classes or a visit from CPS. None of that changes the fact that it looks like she’s either spending a lot of money, or she’s being taken advantage of, and throwing our hands up and saying that she should just do whatever the hell she wants to with it and that anyone who has an opinion about it is some sort of judgmental monster does not help her live a better life. It certainly does not improve the lives of her children, who depend on the rest of society to help give their mom the tools she needs to care for them.
She needs financial advising, and a steady job, she needs to not have some man in her life that would have the nerve to ask her for money for his rap album, and she does not need people to tell her that she should do whatever the fuck she wants to do.
Han
@Suzanne:
What makes you think this?
Could you point me to some evidence that she did this? As you live there and all, I’m sure you know the news sources better than I do.
toschek
I expect a bit more critical thought and a bit less knee jerk, racially tinged outrage directed at a woman who has suffered a lot and doesn’t have the benefit of a great education and misplaced self esteem. Believe it or not people who suddenly have a lot of money all at once after spending a lifetime having none don’t always spend it responsibly or wisely. She’s probably never been taught money management and here’s to hoping someone honest comes along and helps her learn for her children’s sake and her own.
In the meantime if you want to point and laugh, I advise you find a mirror. I’ve heard that sometimes, when the light is juuuuust right you can see a bougie dope with surprisingly reactionary sentiments.
pat
And so ends another skirmish in the War on the Poor.
KXB
@Nom de Plume:
Seriously, even if you count two growing kids, $300 a month just on clothes is crap. Growing up, we got clothes exactly twice a year – birthdays and holidays. Recently, when I saw my sneakers, shoes, and boots looking worn and dull, rather than buy new ones, I took them to a shoe repair shop, and paid one-third the price for new ones for all three. Saved a bundle and gave business to an immigrant businessman.
Cable TV is not a necessity – telling people (poor or otherwise) to get rid of it when expenses get too much is not heartlessness, but common sense. Throwing $7,000 on a rap album is just stupidity.
Everyone gets into tough situations. When I was unemployed and broke, I had to borrow money from my brother. He told me there was no rush to pay it off, but I did – although it took a long time.
lethargytartare
@pat:
zombie threading, but I think the actual subtext is:
“what’s happening to her has to be the result of her choices, or I will have to admit that the same thing could happen to me, and I’m too fvcking weak to accept that.”
KXB
@lethargytartare:
No, the subtext is that she was in a tough situation, she received help to a degree that is unimaginable for most, and she made a bunch of dumb, self-defeating decisions. Unless $7,000 on a rap album is a wise investment.
Corner Stone
What a fucking thread this one is. Are you fucking Republican assholes serious?
Corner Stone
“Hey there, sweet babies. Listen to mommy. I can’t fucking feed you or clothe just about right now, but in 15 years you will have the chance to maybe take a year’s worth of pay-for education. You won’t remember me then, but I hope you give a big Thank You to the AZ prosecutor for stipulating that I should have done something the court deemed just with money donated by private citizens. Those people really cared about you, baby, and wanted to punish me for daring to fucking feed, clothe and house you in ways they deemed inappropriate. Of course, according to them, I’m too stupid to know what the words “deemed” or “inappropriate” mean so this is kind of like an avatar of bullshit poor shamers doing their thing. Love you baby, ummmkay?”
Han
@KXB:
You have some proof of this, I suppose. Or do you like doing everything you can to help create the next right-wing bugaboo?
Corner Stone
This thread has made me want to choke a lot of motherfuckers. Fuck all you poor shamers. All you motherfuckers who want to say what’s just and right in that BS budget that actually can’t be actuals. You are no better than the people on the RWNJ edge who say the poors in the poor line should not have a cell phone. You are the same as the RWNJ edge who say poors should not have a decent meal in a soup kitchen cooked by a chef who did something beyond baseline with the donated ingredients. You are the same as the RWNJ edge who can’t do simple fucking math and understand simple fucking tax applications.
Bunch of god damn assholes. Fuck every single person on this thread who said she should not have spent a penny on X. Because, because, because.
Go sit the fuck down somewhere.
Corner Stone
@Suzanne:
Honestly, this is one of the weirdest things I have seen in this thread. That somehow the money spent was selfish in some way. Or that the people who gave money to her all thought that with money in the bank the kids would be A-OK even if the mom didn’t spend any of it on food, utilities, clothing, shelter or paying her debts to other family members.
What the F happens the next time she hits a bump? And let’s face it, she’s going to hit a big fucking bump even if she doesn’t go to prison.
What about the very poor social net she currently has, or did recently use? They are all going to look at each other and say, “Damn. Love that girl. But not this time.”
Social networks for poors are so fucking fragile. I spent almost two decades of my life where if you had put a gun to my face and told me to come up with $100 or die, you might as well as asked me to come up with $10,000.
It’s ridiculous. All financial advisors. And I mean every single fucking one that are paid to advise moderately wealthy people, all say, “take care of yourself first. Pay into your retirement first. There are decades left for others to make do. Your opportunities are limited.”
And yet, somehow, this poor was supposed to commit two-thirds of her foreseeable funds to something that may never actually happen 15 years later? When she could lose her children again in 6 to 9 months?
This is fucking crazy balls.
Corner Stone
Oh, fuck. That poor bitch has cable! I haven’t needed cable in years! Can you smell my superiority and disdain from here as I comment on an internet site?
Yes, that poor bitch deserves *some* luxuries, but just the ones I deem appropriate for that poor bitch. Wait a second, she bought actual Jell-O cups?! WTF! Why didn’t she buy gelatin from the slaughter house and flavoring packets from Dollar General? Fancy, fancy! Now who’s putting on airs?
God help her if for some fucking reason she had ever used a penny of this money for an abortion or other women’s health services.
Can you imagine the ear splitting outcry from the BJ commentariat?
Corner Stone
Man, I can just see her now. Breaking open that new bottle of Courvoisier, in her Victoria Secret undies. Eating fondue in the new glassed in deck area where the pot is fueled by hunnerd dollar bills being burned. Cackling gently about all the people she fooled while avoiding felony charges. This was the Inside Man score of a lifetime.
Damn, she’s hot.
Corner Stone
@Pogonip:
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!
“Harumph, Wilson! I’m not so sure the telegraph to each town is a necessity! Certainly those in remote locations should know who their betters are in some way!”
Corner Stone
@Pogonip:
Sweet Christ.
Corner Stone
@Pogonip:
My mom’s mom was crazy. And I do not mean this lightly. She saw ghosts and told stories about people that had no connection to reality.
But when my mom was sick, the only adult, and I mean the only fucking person who could make soup/anything and keep my sister and I alive while my mom was bed ridden, was this crazy ass old lady who probably hated us as much as she could with every breath.
I’d be dead now if my mom had moved away from the most meager network she ever had a chance at.
You fucking people. I’d punch every fucking one of you in the fucking face right now if I could.
Derrr, move! Derrr, give up your kids! Derrr, do exactly what I think is best for you! Derrr, I did it, and so can the general sense of “you”!
If she doesn’t have a PhD in 2.5 years I say we fucking lynch her for misuse of commonweal funds.
Oh, wait. Those were private donations, weren’t they?
Han
@Corner Stone: Probably should chill before you have an aneurysm, not that I don’t understand the sentiment. But what do you expect from a post where the OP even after consideration thinks she should just hand over the cash and make it all go away?
Corner Stone
@Han: This is not a liberal blog.
Corner Stone
@Han: Cole hasn’t ever been right from jump on basically anything.
That’s fine, I get that and I enjoy taking shots at him because he never seems to actually get it right away.
But, I mean, for fuck’s sake. People here are poor shaming? They are running down the list of news reported items, not fact checked or anything else, and factually challenged as to the amounts.
And then they start checking off the list of what is acceptable for this woman to have or to own or to spend on?
“Hmmm…$1200 is too much for you and your 3 children to live in a safe but working class neighborhood. Move to an $850 a month 2 BDRM condo where I say is good. Cable? WTF?! Cell phone? WTF?! Utilities? WTF?! Clothing? WTF?!”
Yeah, I could go on but this really torques my jaws.
Bunch of assholes using tiny measuring sticks to determine what’s right and exactly how they would have done it.
mai naem
@Corner Stone: . I wasn’t really following the Shanesha Taylor story closely. It was on the local NPR newscast, it seemed, practically everyday(“Shanesha Taylor has x days to put the money in the trust”.) What really po’d me was when the newscast had her saying “what if my kids decide not to go to college?” BTW, the reporting I’ve seen/heard specifically says post-secondary not college. The more stuff I read about Shanesha Taylor yesterday the worse her decisions looked. She left a 2 yr old and a 6 mo old in the car alone. Forget the hot/warm/cold part. She left them alone. She also tested positive for marijuana when she had her pregnancy test for the second kid(it’s in the NYT story.) CPS had to do something.I will guarantee you if stuff happened to any of her kids down the road, people on this thread would be bitching about why CPS didn’t do their job in this situation. She signed the court agreement. She’s a grown woman. She’s appears to have her faculties. She apparently didn’t read the agreement and didn’t ask any questions and is now asking for more donations for a defense fund(on her Twitter feed, she asks for donations to the “cause” from a bunch of celebrities including,no joke, Dinesh D’Souza). The father of her kids lives with her and contributes to the budget. She’s off government assistance(her words) but she doesn’t want a job that won’t pay more than the cost of childcare and she won’t work nights and she won’t work part time. Yes, we don’t have a good safety net but it’s the reality. She didn’t have gas to go to the job interview and now she has enough money for stuff like that. What if she hadn’t gotten the $100K? She’s got a real second chance here and she appears to be blowing it. I wish the judge should have ordered a public fiduciary for her. Maybe she would have made better decisions.
Corner Stone
@mai naem:
Are you for fucking real? You can’t be, right? This is some kind of snarky trolling I completely missed?
Corner Stone
@mai naem:
I have a PhD. I’m not troubled if my child decides to not go to college. At this point in time it could be a rational decision. In 15 years time? Who the F knows where we will be. And yeah, I have started a 529 for him. Voluntarily.
College does not equal protection.
Corner Stone
@mai naem:
Yeah, so a poor homeless woman knew exactly enough about the law to get where these terms were going to take her.
Man, I can’t fucking even with you.
Han
@Corner Stone:
Yeah, I know. I keep forgetting that.
That’s the part that really has me floored. Forget the reading for comprehension. At what point did the press become trustworthy, and do people not understand where this is taking place?
mai naem
@Corner Stone: That’s in the DK diary. She doesn’t want to work far. She doesn’t want to work nights. She doesn’t want to work part time. She doesn’t want a job that won’t cover her childcare costs. I personally know three couples where one works at night so that they don’t have to pay for child care. She got the $100K or whatever amount it is. She can’t get government assistance until she spends that money down(I am assuming that but that is usually how it works.) She’s upset that she signed an irrevocable trust with the kids’ money(in her twitter feed.) I don’t mean to sound holier than thou,but did the word irrevocable not set off any alarm bells? Also, if you are trying to get the trust reduced again from $40K to$ 35K, does it look good for the judge to look at that kind of budget ? I am talking purely about optics here.
Corner Stone
@mai naem:
I just wanted to make sure I read this correctly.
She should take a job that would put her in deficit, and eat away at the donation fund that some here prize so highly. She should take a job working nights that would demand some form of extracurricular childcare, either in cost or social net. She should take multiple part time jobs with shifting schedules, with no health care benefits and added costs for child care.
Just to satisfy you and the other poor shamers here. So her kids and their welfare actually don’t mean a fucking thing to any of you poor shamers.
Does anyone here start to get what they are saying?
Corner Stone
@mai naem:
Hmmm…something about this…seems…hmmm…
Alright. That’s it. I don’t know what kind of parody account this is but I have obviously fallen for it. No one outside of a Bill O’Reilly or Rush fan could say something like this twice and actually think they mean it.
mai naem
@Corner Stone: She’s 35. She has an associates degree. She’s an Air Force vet. She’s not some illiterate 18 year old high school dropout. She asked for the amount to go from 60 to 40 to 35. She couldn’t even be bothered to figure out what she needed when she went from 60 to 40 so she had to ask to go to 35.
Han
@mai naem:
Obviously.
If you were being forced to turn a huge sum of money over into an account with strictly limited use, and when looking at the details you saw no indication of a secondary means of disbursement of funds, wouldn’t this be an eminently prudent question to ask?
Holy fucking shit. You think she should take a job that pays less than her childcare? Much less the travel expense of getting the kids to daycare and going to that job? And you think SHE’S the one who doesn’t know how to be fiscally prudent?
You have no fucking clue what fiscal decisions she’s made since she got this money. And you obviously aren’t the person to be giving her financial advice. To quote someone from up above, seriously, bitch? STFU
Corner Stone
@mai naem:
What the fuck is wrong with you?
Corner Stone
@mai naem:
Let’s get something straight. Do you think there is something rational about a 35 yr old woman with children, who happens to be a veteran and obtained an associates degree, being homeless and living in her car with those children?
In our society, should this individual have fallen so far and so hard that it makes sense, to any non-asshole, that she was in her car?
Do you even get for one second what you are saying? She fucked up with a chance at a job, got nailed for it, and now is a fucking loser for not spending donated money the way you think she should?
Disregarding simple math and the reality of being a single mom starting from behind scratch?
mai naem
@Corner Stone: Okay, what is your advice to her? I am not asking this in a snarky way. I am asking this seriously.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@mai naem: You mention a NY Times story. I found This, from June, is a very detailed story.
As others have mentioned, the day was cool and cloudy on March 20. It was cloudy and 71F at noon.
I need to correct something. I said above that she was in jail for 2 months. That’s incorrect. She was in jail for 10 days. The judge prevented her from seeing kids for over 2 months.
She’s facing 14 years in prison (2 felonies, up to 7 years each).
On the other hand, 3 year old died in October:
Emphasis added.
:-(
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
pat
@KXB: @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
So the zombie thread has revived. Thank you. corner stone!!
And why, may I ask, was there no felony prosecution of the idiots who left a child in a hot car and the poor kid actually DIED???? Wonder what was the difference…. Is a mystery.
So a poor black woman gets a lot of money from donations and the courts and the prosecuter say oh, no, she’s POOR she doesn’t deserve all that money, we will have to set up a TRUST FUND of some sort so she can’t access half of it, because of course she is poor and wouldn’t know how to use it properly.
And lots of BJers fall for the same ruse.
As I said earlier, this is just another skirmish in The War on the Poor.
Disgusting.
Corner Stone
@mai naem: She’s poor and recently homeless with three kids. I am not ballsy enough to advise her as to what to do. That small amount of donated money (and yes, I know it’s a godsend to quite a few people in quite a few situations but honestly it burns quick even if you’re Scrooge McDuck), isn’t going to hold her steadfast for very long, no matter what she does. Unless she can sleep in a basement or room of a friend or family member, rent free.
She has to provide food, clothing, shelter, utilities, and a reasonable approximation at life for three other people.
I, personally, am stunned at people who demand she lock up 2/3rds of any available funds when she just got out of jail, and recently out of a car w/kids.
Those fucking funds charge fees. They charge to get money out, if needed. And what if she had tried in 12 months and the prosecutor had brought charges again?
This is ridiculous. Maybe she is not a financially based person. Why are we so quick to compare her to an illiterate?
The absolute best thing she can do is to plan how to get clean sheets and a sense of normalcy wrapped around her kids. If that means Nickelodeon and/or ESPN on the TV while they eat cereal then who the fuck are we to beat her down?
mai naem
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Okay, so Shanesha Taylor got treated differently because she had $100K in donations, I am assuming. And the prosecutor held a gun to her head to get her to sign the non prosecution deal.
pat
@Corner Stone:
Again, THANK YOU.
Corner Stone
@mai naem: I’m going to lock you up. I’m going to take your kids and put them in different homes far from you. I can do that because you fucked up. I am the last line of things you will see before you go behind bars.
Read this and sign it or I will punish you.
mai naem
@Corner Stone: I actually agree with you that the $100K is a relatively small amount of money which is actually why it would be smart for her to be frugal . It’s enough to make a difference in their lives but it’s not some Powerball prize where they could live off it for decades. I really do know three couple where one of the spouses works at night to minimize childcare expenses. And, I don’t expect her to go into a deficit which is the reason I mentioned the kids’ father living with her. According to her budget and the DK diary – she’s spending money on childcare. We can all wish for free childcare but chances are it is not going to happen while Shanesha Taylor’s kids need it. That’s the reality.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@mai naem: Um, they were going to charge her with 2 felonies that had a possible 14 year sentence unless she signed. And they apparently withheld the terms from her while her lawyer was negotiating them. It’s not like she was negotiating a record deal or something…
Shanesha was treated differently long before she had $100k in donations. Think about that before continuing to blame her.
We don’t have all the facts, so we should be careful about making inferences. We do have the NY Times story that shows that she’s a middle-class person whose finances were (mainly) destroyed by the bursting of the housing bubble – like millions of others. Any of us could hit a stretch of bad luck like that. Any of us.
It’s really easy to take isolated “facts” and say she should have done things differently. To blame her for her current circumstances. But she didn’t create the system that is crushing her. And the story about Hayden Nelson shows that the system in Arizona doesn’t have to crush parents when they make (or are forced to make) a mistake.
Maybe she should pay the $40k and cross her fingers. Maybe she’ll have a reasonable trial. Maybe. I don’t think we should assume, though, that the demand that she pay $60k or $40k or $35k into a fund that she won’t be able to touch for 15 years or more is reasonable or “for the children” or anything else other than an unconscionable punishment for the “crime” of being poor and being caught at it.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
mai naem
@Corner Stone: Oh, wait I’m out of jail so now can you reduce the trust amount from $60K to $40k and then I’ll ask you to go down to $35K, and I am sorry you gave me three months to do this, I just didn’t think to ask the institution for three months whether I could take out all of the money at one go.
Han
@mai naem:
We went over this yesterday, when I asked for a link, and then pointed out that the link you supplied did not say what you thought it said. Why do you keep lying by implying she gave this “budget” to the judge?
This is why the left is never going to get anywhere in this country. Once the right puts out a lie that the clueless find plausible, it’s impossible to shake it out of them. They keep believing it’s true, even when shown it’s not.
Corner Stone
@mai naem: I’m sorry. I’m a single dad and my child lives with me, so I’m having quite a bit of issues with your blase statements in this regard.
I work a very challenging schedule but am lucky, incredibly lucky, to have a family network that shifts and wraps around almost all of our combined needs.
At one point when I was married my ex worked nights. My mom came over and took care of our child while I was at work and she slept. I had so much of the benefit that it’s hard to describe. And, yeah, I paid my mom for her time and expenses but it was worth having someone we could trust absolutely.
I recognize this is not normal in today’s working class. We should all have some kind of trust/network like this. Isn’t this what we’re about?
The fact that we are beating her down for being poor and making the worst decisions out of the worst situations. And then punching down at her for giving her household some sense of normalcy…
What a bunch of fucking assholes.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@mai naem:
The best thing for her would be for the prosecutor to drop the charges and end the punishments and let her get on with her life so that she can get a job. She can’t save her way to a reasonable life while she doesn’t have a job. A few hundred dollars isn’t going to make any difference in how long she is able to afford to stay in the house she’s renting. A job is what she needs. It’s hard to start a new job if you’re called to court, or at risk of going to jail, or have to attend court-mandated classes, etc.
He has a job, IIRC. People have different constraints. When people change jobs they end up at the low end of the totem poll. What good would it do for him to work nights if he ended up getting laid off, or taking a cut in pay, or …? Just because others have been able to make things work a certain way doesn’t mean that she can, or should try to do the same thing.
Maybe she’s doing the best she can with the constraints she has. Maybe there’s no good solution for her, even with the money, and the bad choices have many unknowns.
Maybe people should cut her some slack, and instead raise holy Hell at the prosecutor instead.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
mai naem
@Han: Yes, the prosecution gave it to the judge. Yes, it’s wrong that they did it. But it’s out there. She herself said yesterday she has 72K left from the original amount. The original amount appears to range from 114K to 103K which means she has spent ~30K in less than 8 months which would work out to ~4K/mo.
Han
@mai naem:
Are you fucking kidding me? Yes, it’s out there! It would be irresponsible not to speculate! And take a grouping of numbers, that for all we know could be something she pulled off the ‘net to ask her attorney if that was the type of thing he wanted her to come up with before plugging in her own numbers, take this “budget” that means absolutely nothing without context, and decide it’s not a budget after all, but an accounting of disbursements. Un-fucking-real.
And if you’re willing to believe her that she has $72k left, why don’t you also believe her that she paid first/last month’s rent, deposit, and a YEAR’S worth of rent on her new home? Which would account for about half of that $30k in 8 months. Plus the hundreds, if not thousands she’s required to pay for the classes the court requires she take. I think she’s probably living pretty fucking frugally.
The woman has zero income until she gets a job that pays more than daycare, transportation expenses, and all the other expenses that come with having a job. She has no access to any other money. She doesn’t qualify for assistance, and her family is poor as well. I think with time she figured out how badly she was getting screwed, and is now desperately trying to figure out a way to get out of the situation. So while it may seem like she’s a scofflaw not following a court order, she knows that if she hands the money over, she’ll be living in her car again in a couple month’s time. CPS and the DA will see to that.
Corner Stone
@mai naem: This is clown shoe levels of argument.
toschek
Man does this thread make me angry. You Obama voters sure are an empathetic bunch. Has anyone here checked her countertops?
Corner Stone
@toschek:
Countertops, hell. People here are pissed off at the $.47 she spent for the pine scent car freshener she has hanging from her rearview mirror.
Corner Stone
@pat:
I’m not sure what it is about this situation that people here don’t get this fundamental thing? Why isn’t every single person here first asking why it is ok that the govt has stipulated that privately donated funds, highlight that “DONATED”, are somehow subject to being removed from her? Was it fraud? Was she selling candles for The Little Church of The Poor and those funds were the result of a scam? Did she ask for the money and say unless she reached a certain amount the Good Lord was going to bring her home? Maybe she was selling mortgage based securities, all backed by failed loans?
Hmmm…I wonder what it is about her and her donated funds that cause people to agree the government has a say in how they are applied….hmmm…
Corner Stone
Thought experiment. How many people here would be ok if someone going through cancer, held a successful charitable fundraiser for treatment, then had the govt say they had restrictions on how that money was used? They couldn’t start treatment until they put back a college fund for their kids.
Corner Stone
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Clearly. But the thing is though, that it’s not only that she won’t be able to touch it for 15 years or more, it’s that she will never be able to touch it. It’s being completely removed from her, forever. And while providing for children is a good thing, I don’t recall the govt knocking on my door and telling me when I got divorced that I had to put X amount into a post-secondary fund.
How much money did they mandate Zimmerman donate to some sort of rehabilitation out of the money that was donated to him?
pat
I’m waking up angry at what is happening to this woman, and angry at the clueless assholes here who think they know exactly where she SHOULD have spent the money.
Face it, she is being targeted by a power-hungry prosecuter, and has had very poor legal advice. And I’m sure she is not the only one being singled out. Remember the woman who was arrested (as I recall) because she let her 8-year old daughter walk alone to a nearby park?
What do you suppose these two women had in common, mmm?
mai naem
@Corner Stone: Hmmm….. maybe it’s because she signed a non-prosecution deal with the prosecutor with that stipulation. Maybe when she was out on bail, she should have read up on trusts. Maybe she should have talked to an accountant. She’s got three kids. When she takes her kids to the doctor with any issues, does she not ask any questions? And,oh yeah, since you guys keep on bringing up the asshole Zimmerman, he went to trial and got off. Remember that?? Taylor could have gone to trial. She made the initial choice not to. Now, she’s changed her mind and is going to look like a real sympathetic homeless woman during her child abuse trial. I’m sure the trial is going to help her in her job search.
Corner Stone
@mai naem: This is fucking pathetic. In a situation with absolutely no leverage and absolutely no power she’s the one in charge? Come the fuck on for a minute.
Maybe she should have sprouted wings out of her ass and flown to Atlantis? What do you think an accountant would tell her? “This deal seems shady and unfair. Don’t take it and spend all this money and more going to trial.”
She has nothing. And no one is going to help her. Her attorney didn’t, and I’m a little saddened the ACLU or some other legal org hasn’t jumped down his throat with both feet.
She just lost her kids for two months and was briefly in jail. Before that she was in a car with her kids. I’m fucking appalled at some of the shit being said here.
We often grouse that Republicans lack empathy. What does that say about a bunch of the comments on this thread?
pat
@Corner Stone:
Hear, hear. I am a fairly well-educated adult and when it comes to “trusts” I have to trust my lawyer.
I’m sure between finding and furnishing an apartment, buying a few items of clothing that they did not have when they were LIVING IN HER CAR… Yeah, she truly should have read up on trusts. On the internet, of course. Where else?
She had a lawyer. He failed her. And that’s HER fault?
Jesus, just try to put yourself in the position this woman was in. It’s called EMPATHY.
Corner Stone
This is nothing more, and nothing less, than another version of the welfare queen driving the caddy to the store to buy booze and T-bone steaks.
Poor black woman? Check
“Getting by on the system”? Check
Using funds *while poor* for unapproved items? Check
Frenzy whipped up by RWNJ’s? Check
Complete bullshit? Check
Live forever as a lesson to others? Check
I, for one, have fully learned my lesson. And I vow that from this day forth, I choose to never, ever become a poor black woman.
mai naem
@Corner Stone: Jeezus, She worked in the residential loan industry before the crash. She was in the Air Force. Between all this, she doesn’t know one legal/financial person who can help her? When she figured out she screwed up on the 60K trust and asked to reduce it to $40K she didn’t bother looking it up? She thought she got the insurance job. She felt she was smart enough to have her own insurance co. in 3 years. Yes, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect her to look stuff up and ask questions. She was not in jail when she made the deal. If the lawyer was being unethical, contact the Bar Association. She’s got shitty options and she isn’t helping herself.
Corner Stone
@mai naem: I can see where you would fit in the Milgram experiments.
What about this are you not fucking getting? She is a human being who is being squeezed with her kids as the leverage. She has no money, no legal training/assistance, no backup network. Nothing. NOTHING.
Get that through your stupid fucking skull. NOTHING.
It’s mighty high and tight of you and others here to sit back and say how shit should have gone down. Really? Thank you so very much. That’s immensely helpful.
They have all the leverage, all the power. The dynamic is not even close. Let’s humor your thoughts on her educating herself on trusts while looking for a way to get back to her kids. Ok, she understands them in and out. Now what? You think that fucking asshole AZ prosecutor is going to play even steven with her? Oh, Ms. Taylor, I see you have read and understood municipal code 3-b. I think you have a point and I concede. Good day, ma’am.
Maybe you should consider taking your own advice from comment #15.
mai naem
@Corner Stone: One of the pieces says that $10K of the $40K is for a childcare trust. She could have asked for an increase in that when she asked to go from the $60k to $40k.. And you are wrong – she says she has $72K even if you take out the $40K it leaves her $32K. The median family income for Maricopa County is $45K. With her BF’s income and the donations minus the $40K gives her more than a years median income. She’s got a fucking years income to go look for a job and get at least somewhat stable. She made some shitty decisions and she is extremely fucking lucky that she’s got that going for her.
Corner Stone
@mai naem: Get a grip, clown. She had almost $28K taken out of the $103K total donated (after INS). She then spent about $15K on a years worth of rent, $3600 on court mandated classes and other monies on other things that were necessary.
Now, use your pinky toes as needed and tell us again how much that leaves her.
But beyond all that bullshit, why the fuck are you ok with the govt coming along on the backend and mandating that ANY of the donated money must be stripped from her access?
You’re just a real treasure of empathy.
ETA, also, you keep talking about “couples” and now again about adding some other income to her situation. Don’t you think if there were another responsible adult aiding her that maybe she might not have been in her fucking car?
Get fucking real, here. She is a single mom.
Ohhhh, now I see. That’s what you want to punish her about. She should not have the temerity to have kids and be on her own. Or maybe she should have picked a more responsible partner?
Corner Stone
““We may very well find some of the money was spent that way,” Maupin says.”
This is who all of you are that are criticizing her. You’re this fucking clown interviewed by an AZ FOX affiliate who is the only person quoted in that whole blurb linked to above.
“We may very well”
Fucking disgusting.
Han
@Corner Stone: Well, Maupin is a convicted felon, so he oughta know…
mai naem
@Corner Stone: Nothing you say is going to change that she took the deal initially. She lives in a reddish county(any bets on Taylor’s voting participation although I’m sure it was too hard for her to vote with her being a single mom and all) where the County Prosecutor is not going to give her a free pass. If you think the Fox 10 piece is bad go look at the local rag, the local indy weekly rag, the local RW radio station website(“her sister is in prison for armed robbery and she sent her $200 from this money”, the$5-7K baby daddy rap record,”she tested positive for marijuana when she had her kid”, “ooh look at her manicured hands”, “she couldn’t go to Goodwill for her clothes?” ) AZ is a right to fuck you state with a ton of low paying jobs. If you get a non-professional job paying over $15/hr you are considered to have a great job. Forget benefits.There’s places that don’t pay you 1.5x on Xmas. Again, that’s the reality. The NYT piece says the kids’ father is living with her and making $10/hr and contributing to the family budget. The rent that she paid for a year is something she is going to use for a year. Look,she isn’t helping herself when she says she won’t work this and won’t work that and she isn’t helping herself when on her twitter feed she says she bought 3 tvs because she didn’t have any. She isn’t helping herself when she has pictures on her twitter account of her on the Today Show and NewsNation but,hey, she doesn’t have time to look for a job. You can keep on calling me a Republican(I seriously don’t think I have ever voted for a Republican not even my very moderate old gay mayor) but she would help herself if she would find a part time temp job so that it at least looks like she’s trying. I can tell you anecdotally that the local economy is improving. Construction has picked up, healthcare has picked up, State Farm has added jobs. I drive a lot for work and traffic has been noticeably heavier, even before gas prices went down. I’ve seen more new cars on the road. I have realtor friends who say real estate has picked up at certain price points. Investors who bought houses in 09 and 10 seem to be selling them. She should be able to find something.
And, yes, Maupin’s turned out to be an Al Sharpton kind of character(looks like a mini-me of Sharpton) and that’s not helping her situation.