We, the undersigned, demand an immediate investigation into the conduct of the Texas Attorney General’s office as regards Richard David Kennedy. Mr. Kennedy has been afflicted with Bipolar Disorder since his late teens, and has lived a very difficult life as a consequence. By the time he was officially diagnosed in 2000, his life was already in shambles. Under protest to the TAG, he was unable to keep his ex-wife from taking his daughter to Maryland in 1986. (It was not considered illegal then.) As a result of his disorder, Mr. Kennedy has never enjoyed what most people would regard as a modest lifestyle and was consequently helpless to take any legal action against his former wife with regard to deprivation of visitation rights. He did, however, and at great personal sacrifice, manage to move to Maryland, where he remained for three years for the sole purpose to be near his daughter, until his job was downsized, due to the economy at the time, and his own mother fell terminally ill. Finally, after an Administrative Law Judge summarily ruled in his favor in 2004, he was granted SSDI benefits, only to have those same benefits garnished as a result of being declared a dead-beat dad by the TAG’s office. The TAG has been taking 50% of his benefits- benefits he earned over the years, ever since. Heaping unnecessary insult on rather serious injury, he has recently been notified by the Social Security Administration that he had 30 days in which to resolve to their satisfaction a felony warrant that had been issued for his arrest because of a bounced check he wrote for child support in 2001. He was physically homeless at the time. As it turned out, the felony was a class B misdemeanor issued by the Bexar County Sheriff at the behest of the TAG. Why it was even sent to SSA, or by whom will undoubtedly be kept a mystery to him. Mr. Kennedy is now living in a converted garage communal living atmosphere, where he pays $280 in rent and tries to exist on $480/month and food stamps. In addition to losing physical contact with his daughter, and living on half of a less than substantially below poverty SSDI benefit, he has also now emotionally lost his daughter, as a result of what can only be mom-speak. One the last occasion he spoke to his daughter in a lengthy telephone conversation, she was sixteen years old and exhibited great fondness and interest in her father. On this same occasion, her mother flatly denied him and his then wife to visit his daughter in Maryland or allow her to go to Texas to visit them. Astonishingly, Mr. Kennedy now has in his possession an email from his daughter that strongly suggests she has, and still is, receiving little, if any, of the support monies that have been diverted on her behalf. This same email, received when she was 24, after his ex-wife abruptly moved again leaving no forwarding address 8 years before, reflects a decidedly different tone and tenure in her attitude towards him. We strongly believe that Richard Kennedy, who many regard as a very gifted writer and is still somehow managing to survive these extreme conditions and circumstances, has and is being wrongfully and inhumanly treated by the blanket laws and wholesale system of classification of the office of the Texas Attorney General. He has already lost more than enough by almost any standard and is, in our estimation, entitled to immediate relief, as well as an apology from the TAG and possibly even reparations. Is this what our tax monies are being used for...To further destroy a human life A person who has hurt no one... A man who has given more than most back to a world he entered into 60 years ago....We as taxpayers are ASHAMED to think that this is what our country not only allows, but stands behind. We also fervently believe the TAG needs to seriously rethink its current policies, so as to be more circumspect, before indiscriminately punishing legitimately disabled individuals with such inequitable and inhumane burdens. Stop this NOW! Before, at the very hands of the SYSTEM, you finally terminate what's left of the meager dignity of a man, who has in reality done nothing wrong to warrant this kind of over-kill. This petition will be sent to the following: President-elect Barack Obama Senator John Cornyn Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison Governor Rick Perry Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott State Senator Royce West State Representative Terri Hodge Anyone wishing to do more than just sign this petition is encouraged to visit the Petition Sponsor page in the upper right-hand corner. (http://rdk1421.googlepages.com/thekennedydefensesupportfund) ***WRITTEN WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF A FEW GOOD FRIENDS***