Help! Hearing in MD Senate to determine future of International dating

[Maxx2]

This Michael Parrotte guy impresses me. Imagine a guy with no personal motives who stands up against 1st and 5th Amendment rights violation legislation? It's so two hundred and thirty five years ago! Michael Parrotte for US Senate!

[GregfromGa]

This Michael Parrotte guy impresses me. Imagine a guy with no personal motives who stands up against 1st and 5th Amendment rights violation legislation? It's so two hundred and thirty five years ago! Michael Parrotte for US Senate!

I'm impressed as hell as well. That's one heck of a first post. I wonder why he is so passionate about this bill. What could it be?

[Maxx2]

I have talked with him. He is exceptionally intelligent and articulate. From what I gathered he strongly dislikes BS and being pushed around by all these naive and misinformed politicians with these laws they cook up. I mean having to submit your fingerprints to a FBI data base so you can write a letter to a woman in another country?  What's next?

[BC]

I have talked with him. He is exceptionally intelligent and articulate. From what I gathered he strongly dislikes BS and being pushed around by all these naive and misinformed politicians with these laws they cook up. I mean having to submit your fingerprints to a FBI data base so you can write a letter to a woman in another country?  What's next?

Yeah, may seem senseless but as long as the majority of folks really don't care such laws will pass and the small minority affected will just have to bite the bullet.

Domocracy [sic] at it's best.

Get used to it.

Remember all the huff and puff with IMBRA?

[michael.parrotte]

Any one that would like to submit their opposition can do so by sending me a one page letter stating the major point which you oppose. (Please see email below) I will print out 40 copies and deliver them to the proper office in Annapolis by 12 noon on Wednesday. Please send your letter by Tuesday evening.
Thanks,
Any question? - Call me at 301-305-5050 or 301-695-8004


Any help or support is greatly appreciated!!!
Michael



From: Jenkins, Charles Delegate
Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2010 6:03 PM
To: Michael Parrotte
Cc: Jenkins, Charles Delegate
Subject: HB65/SB129

Michael,

Pursuant to our conversation, the protocol for when passed bills cross over to the opposite Chamber, is that only the sponsor provides very limited testimony and is present to respond to questions from the Committee.  As you know, session ends on April 12th and this is done in the interest of time constraints.

You and others concerned about these bills can still develop written testimony and attend the bill hearing (not provide oral testimony).  As we discussed, SB129 is scheduled to be heard by the Economic Matters Committee on Wednesday, March 24th.  Hearings begin at 1 p.m. 

Testimony needs to be dropped off in the committee room by noon. 

•   Each person needs to provide 40 copies of their testimony to the Economic Matters Committee in the House of Delegates.

•   Each person’s testimony should have the Bill Number with “support or oppose” (Oppose SB129) (Oppose HB65) in bold on the top right of the first page of testimony. 

•   Testimony should be brief and limited to one page, if possible.  Since you have five individuals, you could coordinate to ensure that the testimony does not repeat itself.

Currently, HB 65 has not yet been scheduled in the Senate.  I left a message with Andrew Johnston to alert me once this bill has been scheduled.

With all that said, you could still approach one of the SB129 sponsors to ask if they would ask the Economic Matters Committee Chairman if he would allow the sponsor to bring one person from the public to offer new testimony.

Lisa Baugher
Legislative Staff

[BillyB]

Thanks for stopping by Michael. I'm sure you're a busy man with your business and burning a lot of hours on the internet to stop something that will affect others more than yourself. I'm sure some people are still questioning your motives to work so hard for something with little or no personal gain. Some people give money to charity or donate their time for a good cause. Doesn't always mean there's selfish reasons involved.

I noticed you live in Frederick, Maryland. I went to school there when my dad was stationed at Ft. Detrick. Good luck on winning the battle. Please stop by again and let us know the results as most of us don't keep up with politics in Maryland.

[michael.parrotte]

Well if anyone has questions about my motives they are free to call, email, or fax me and I would be happy to respond.
And if they are in the area I would be more than happy to meet and talk about the issue.
This matter is SO MICH bigger than the issue of International Marriage Agencies; it is about how far the government is going to get involved in every little aspect of people’s personal lives. Especially in areas that they know NOTHING about.
This Bill is such a great example of how everything can go wrong.
Every politician that swore an oath on the constitution should be appalled by this legislation but the reality is that is has support from Democrats and Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives, Men and Women.
And they have basically one thing in common- when you actually speak to them and ask any questions it is clear they know nothing about this issue and have not really even read let alone thought about this legislation.
It is not so much an ideological problem as it is a systemic problem.

Michael Parrotte
301-695-8004
800-777-7006
301-663-8950 fax

AGV Sports Group
Frederick, Maryland

[Maxx2]

It will be interesting to see how his visit to the Maryland State legislature hearing went today. It's amazing how these politicians are passing all these bills to regulate our lives but the vast majority of the people just sit there and do nothing. 20,000 new IRS agent prying through our bank accounts to see if we have health care they approve of and it's just <<shrugs>>

[hemingway]

Well if anyone has questions about my motives they are free to call, email, or fax me and I would be happy to respond.
And if they are in the area I would be more than happy to meet and talk about the issue.
This matter is SO MICH bigger than the issue of International Marriage Agencies; it is about how far the government is going to get involved in every little aspect of people’s personal lives. Especially in areas that they know NOTHING about.
This Bill is such a great example of how everything can go wrong.
Every politician that swore an oath on the constitution should be appalled by this legislation but the reality is that is has support from Democrats and Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives, Men and Women.
And they have basically one thing in common- when you actually speak to them and ask any questions it is clear they know nothing about this issue and have not really even read let alone thought about this legislation.
It is not so much an ideological problem as it is a systemic problem.

Michael Parrotte
301-695-8004
800-777-7006
301-663-8950 fax

AGV Sports Group
Frederick, Maryland

Many westerners of the WWII era somehow got the idea that financial status, owning property and unconstrained consumerism would lead to sustainable success. The destruction of western culture is probably a strong motivator for normal western men who are seeking women from FSU and other European cultures. Gee, some women actually value the well-being of their children and family more than social status or how big of a house they live in.

Ironically, the same people who screech about this Maryland law are often the same ones who preach the need for unconstrained consumerism in the US, that puts international corporations in charge of how and where citizens live, which is how we got into this mess...they call it free market capitalism.

[Maxx2]

Many westerners of the WWII era somehow got the idea that financial status, owning property and unconstrained consumerism would lead to sustainable success. The destruction of western culture is probably a strong motivator for normal western men who are seeking women from FSU and other European cultures. Gee, some women actually value the well-being of their children and family more than social status or how big of a house they live in.

Ironically, the same people who screech about this Maryland law are often the same ones who preach the need for unconstrained consumerism in the US, that puts international corporations in charge of how and where citizens live, which is how we got into this mess...they call it free market capitalism.

Actually I am quite the opposite of what you assessed. It is rigged market capitalism but sold to us as free market capitalism.

"The Father of  Reaganomics" Dr Paul Craig Roberts just recently said this (and I agree with him):

Paul Craig Roberts

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

There was a time when the pen was mightier than the sword. That was a time when people believed in truth and regarded truth as an independent power and not as an auxiliary for government, class, race, ideological, personal, or financial interest.

Today Americans are ruled by propaganda. Americans have little regard for truth, little access to it, and little ability to recognize it.
Truth is an unwelcome entity. It is disturbing. It is off limits. Those who speak it run the risk of being branded “anti-American,” “anti-semite” or “conspiracy theorist.”

Truth is an inconvenience for government and for the interest groups whose campaign contributions control government.
Truth is an inconvenience for prosecutors who want convictions, not the discovery of innocence or guilt.
Truth is inconvenient for ideologues.

Today many whose goal once was the discovery of truth are now paid handsomely to hide it. “Free market economists” are paid to sell offshoring to the American people. High-productivity, high value-added American jobs are denigrated as dirty, old industrial jobs. Relicts from long ago, we are best shed of them. Their place has been taken by “the New Economy,” a mythical economy that allegedly consists of high-tech white collar jobs in which Americans innovate and finance activities that occur offshore. All Americans need in order to participate in this “new economy” are finance degrees from Ivy League universities, and then they will work on Wall Street at million dollar jobs.

Economists who were once respectable took money to contribute to this myth of “the New Economy.”
And not only economists sell their souls for filthy lucre. Recently we have had reports of medical doctors who, for money, have published in peer-reviewed journals concocted “studies” that hype this or that new medicine produced by pharmaceutical companies that paid for the “studies.”

The Council of Europe is investigating the drug companies’ role in hyping a false swine flu pandemic in order to gain billions of dollars in sales of the vaccine.
The media helped the US military hype its recent Marja offensive in Afghanistan, describing Marja as a city of 80,000 under Taliban control. It turns out that Marja is not urban but a collection of village farms.

And there is the global warming scandal, in which NGOs. the UN, and the nuclear industry colluded in concocting a doomsday scenario in order to create profit in pollution.

Wherever one looks, truth has fallen to money.

Wherever money is insufficient to bury the truth, ignorance, propaganda, and short memories finish the job.

I remember when, following CIA director William Colby’s testimony before the Church Committee in the mid-1970s, presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan issued executive orders preventing the CIA and U.S. black-op groups from assassinating foreign leaders. In 2010 the US Congress was told by Dennis Blair, head of national intelligence, that the US now assassinates its own citizens in addition to foreign leaders.

When Blair told the House Intelligence Committee that US citizens no longer needed to be arrested, charged, tried, and convicted of a capital crime, just murdered on suspicion alone of being a “threat,” he wasn’t impeached. No investigation pursued. Nothing happened. There was no Church Committee. In the mid-1970s the CIA got into trouble for plots to kill Castro. Today it is American citizens who are on the hit list. Whatever objections there might be don’t carry any weight. No one in government is in any trouble over the assassination of U.S. citizens by the U.S. government.

As an economist, I am astonished that the American economics profession has no awareness whatsoever that the U.S. economy has been destroyed by the offshoring of U.S. GDP to overseas countries. U.S. corporations, in pursuit of absolute advantage or lowest labor costs and maximum CEO “performance bonuses,” have moved the production of goods and services marketed to Americans to China, India, and elsewhere abroad. When I read economists describe offshoring as free trade based on comparative advantage, I realize that there is no intelligence or integrity in the American economics profession.

Intelligence and integrity have been purchased by money. The transnational or global U.S. corporations pay multi-million dollar compensation packages to top managers, who achieve these “performance awards” by replacing U.S. labor with foreign labor. While Washington worries about “the Muslim threat,” Wall Street, U.S. corporations and “free market” shills destroy the U.S. economy and the prospects of tens of millions of Americans.
Americans, or most of them, have proved to be putty in the hands of the police state.

Americans have bought into the government’s claim that security requires the suspension of civil liberties and accountable government. Astonishingly, Americans, or most of them, believe that civil liberties, such as habeas corpus and due process, protect “terrorists,” and not themselves. Many also believe that the Constitution is a tired old document that prevents government from exercising the kind of police state powers necessary to keep Americans safe and free.
Most Americans are unlikely to hear from anyone who would tell them any different.

I was associate editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal. I was Business Week’s first outside columnist, a position I held for 15 years. I was columnist for a decade for Scripps Howard News Service, carried in 300 newspapers. I was a columnist for the Washington Times and for newspapers in France and Italy and for a magazine in Germany. I was a contributor to the New York Times and a regular feature in the Los Angeles Times. Today I cannot publish in, or appear on, the American “mainstream media.”

For the last six years I have been banned from the “mainstream media.” My last column in the New York Times appeared in January, 2004, coauthored with Democratic U.S. Senator Charles Schumer representing New York. We addressed the offshoring of U.S. jobs. Our op-ed article produced a conference at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. and live coverage by C-Span. A debate was launched. No such thing could happen today.

For years I was a mainstay at the Washington Times, producing credibility for the Moony newspaper as a Business Week columnist, former Wall Street Journal editor, and former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. But when I began criticizing Bush’s wars of aggression, the order came down to Mary Lou Forbes to cancel my column.
The American corporate media does not serve the truth. It serves the government and the interest groups that empower the government.

America’s fate was sealed when the public and the anti-war movement bought the government’s 9/11 conspiracy theory. The government’s account of 9/11 is contradicted by much evidence. Nevertheless, this defining event of our time, which has launched the US on interminable wars of aggression and a domestic police state, is a taboo topic for investigation in the media. It is pointless to complain of war and a police state when one accepts the premise upon which they are based.
These trillion dollar wars have created financing problems for Washington’s deficits and threaten the U.S. dollar’s role as world reserve currency. The wars and the pressure that the budget deficits put on the dollar’s value have put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block. Former Goldman Sachs chairman and U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is after these protections for the elderly. Fed chairman Bernanke is also after them. The Republicans are after them as well. These protections are called “entitlements” as if they are some sort of welfare that people have not paid for in payroll taxes all their working lives.

With over 21 per cent unemployment as measured by the methodology of 1980, with American jobs, GDP, and technology having been given to China and India, with war being Washington’s greatest commitment, with the dollar over-burdened with debt, with civil liberty sacrificed to the “war on terror,” the liberty and prosperity of the American people have been thrown into the trash bin of history.

The militarism of the U.S. and Israeli states, and Wall Street and corporate greed, will now run their course. As the pen is censored and its might extinguished, I am signing off

[michael.parrotte]

MARYLAND DELEGATE JEANNIE HADDAWAY'S FAQs    ( e-mail:  jeannie.haddaway@house.state.md.us )
on International Marriage Brokers for HB 65/SB 129
 
With corrections for misrepresentations and false facts

                        1. Does House Bill 65 require a criminal background check?

The requirement for a criminal background check is part of current federal law under the International Marriage Brokers Act of 2005 (IMBRA).  House Bill 65 codifies this into State law and clarifies that the International Marriage Broker company is responsible for conducting the check.

INCORRECT- The federal law requires a sex offender search, not a criminal background check.  The federal law already requires the International Marriage broker to conduct this check and thus no clarification is needed by Maryland.  The premises stated here are therefore entirely false.

                        2. Does basic human rights information have to be given to a recruit?

Yes.  IMBRA (the federal law) requires that basic human rights information be given to the recruit.  House Bill 65 closes a loophole in federal law by specifying that the information must be given to the recruit in a language they understand.  The cost is born by the International Marriage Broker company.  However the Department of Justice and several human rights organizations already offer these materials in many languages for free.   

INCORRECT – The federal law specifies that the information must be given to the recruit in his or her native language.

                        3. Does this bill criminalize the writing of love letters?
 

No.  This bill does not criminalize the writing of love letters.  It does, however, specify that a recruit must consent to have their personal information given out.  This is an important consumer protection and privacy measure.

INCORRECT the answer is YES- as originally written it would have been a crime to write “love letters” if the US client did not first provide fingerprint, criminal, sex offender, and marital history records.

Delegate Haddaway sponsored a law that the Legislature passed because she believes it is an important consumer protection measure for foreigners who use international dating services.  The Maryland Legislature is spending Maryland tax dollars passing consumer protection laws for foreign nationals.  This may resonate with some voters in November.


                        4. Does this bill require men to get fingerprinted?

No. As amended, House Bill 65 does not contain ANY provisions related to fingerprinting.

MISLEADING- The Bills as originally written would have required Maryland residents to be fingerprinted and for that information to be provided to foreign nationals before any services were provide, including letter writing. The bills were only amended because of the enormous outcry from Maryland residents through letters, faxes, emails, telephones calls, letters to the editors of local newspapers, and radio talk show commentary.
 

                        5. Does HB65 affect popular on-line dating sites such as eHarmony and Match.com?
 

No. House Bill 65 only applies to services (both on-line and otherwise) that charge a fee based on gender or country of origin.  Since eHarmony and Match.com charge a fee to everyone, they would be exempt from this bill.

Yes it does- the bills do not exempt any company because they “charge a fee to everyone”. The bills attempt to exclude companies that have no difference in fees at any time based on gender. Thus would include “Valentine’s Day” or “Mother’s Day” specials or any type of promotion that took gender into consideration. Virtually all online dating business must take gender into consideration to balance the amount of male and female profiles. In additional all the niche dating sites like Ashley Madison, Elite Meeting, Seeking Millionaire, and many Adult sites have very different billing policies based on gender. All have some foreign nationals as members so they fall under the definition of IMB’s based on this Maryland legislation as currently drafted. The drafters of this legislation simply do not understand the business model of the online dating industry.
 

                        6. Why do we need House Bill 65?

Part of the intent of the federal law (IMBRA) is to prevent people from obtaining multiple fiancé visas (i.e. human trafficking) and to prevent serial predators from bringing people into the country for the purpose of victimizing them.  House Bill 65 codifies and strengthens Maryland law by providing important consumer protection and domestic violence protection provisions.  If a recruit is going to be married to someone, they have the right to make an informed decision about who they are marrying.

Deliberately False Statement with no factual basis – There is no evidence of any relationship of any kind between “human trafficking” and international marriage agencies. This statement is both irresponsible and slanderous. In addition the Maryland politicians seem to think it is important for the foreign national to know who they are marrying but not for the US citizen.

This law does not affect people who are getting married.  This law as proposed affects people who are communicating by email, half a world away from each other, for the first time; before any relationship has been established at all.  This is exactly the point of contention.  These disclosures should be made at an appropriate time, such as during the K-1 visa application process, when there is intent by both parties to possibly wed.  That is the stated goal, but the law as written inserts itself before these people have even said “hello” to each other; at a point where the foreign national is not in a position of experiencing even a theoretical threat.  The foreign national is in his or her home town, 5000 to 7000 miles away from the Maryland resident writing him or her an email.  What danger could possibly exist at the point the law takes effect?


                        7. Are there any cases in Maryland?

Yes. One of the most famous cases involved Natalyia Fox who was brought to the United States by a company in Bethesda, Maryland called Encounters International.  She was matched with a man who had a known history of violence.  After her husband began abusing her, she reached out to Encounters International for help.  Encounters International told her that she should put up with it or go back to the Ukraine.  Additionally, the company claimed to “screen” their clients however they were not screening their clients at all. 
 

Deliberately False Statement with no factual basis – No company can “bring” a foreign national to the US.  The fiance and the petitioneer through the federal government are the only people who can do this.  Nataliya Derkach came to the US on a “K-1 “fiancé visa to marry Geoffrey Hermesman, an employee of the US State Department. The case referenced was a civil case for almost $500,000 between two Virginia residents. This was not a criminal case and the “alleged” abuse almost a decade ago did not occur anywhere in the State of Maryland. Her husband had NO known history of abuse and to this day has a clean criminal record. Mrs. Fox on the other hand has a criminal record for prostitution, narcotics trafficking, and immigration fraud. She was in the process of being deported at the time of the civil trial. Immigration fraud through marriage by claiming abuse is a rampant problem in the US, Canada, and Australia especially with women from the former USSR. This is apparently well known to most everyone except the drafters of this bill.

Michael Parrotte
michael@agvsport.com
Frederick, Maryland

[2tallbill]

Hello:
I am here to sound the alarm and request your help to defeat a draconian law that we are fighting in Maryland that would require citizens to submit to mandatory criminal background checks and provide their personal life history before they can initiate communicate with a foreigner. The law is patterned after the federal IMBRA law but the MD law is much more intrusive and overarching and would
prevent sending e mails, text messages, photographs or even statistics to a total stranger in a foreign country. Penalties for the new romance law include up to one year in jail!

The law was being rifled through the MD Legislature and had unanimously passed committees in the MD House and Senate. But a few MD citizens urgently built a small coalition with a firestorm of resistance with a number of e mails and phone calls. In a stunning development the MD legislature was so alarmed that they decided to hold a second hearing, a very rare event indeed.

If you value the principles of honesty, fairness and constitutional  issues , regardless of  your state of residence, we are asking your assistance by showing up for the second  hearing to be held in Annapolis, MD, probably within the next 10 days. We need single men and women, married couples, or anyone with a desire to discuss the topic of International dating in a positive light. You can make a difference and help defeat this horrific law! The ideal person should be able to speak clearly and politely for 3-5 minutes. We'll even draft  your words and ideas for you to make it easy. 

Fake news/thread/post, a state can't limit, tax, impair or forbid speech in the USA or beyond.