Is This For Real?

UPDATE- CPS has been completely unaware of the number of children in their care! Instead of 416, they have 437! So did these 21 unknown (by CPS) children get their fair hearing?

The FLDS women complained that CPS workers were monitoring their prayer service, and on one occasion even started vacuuming during them. They requested privacy for group prayers. I do understand the judge's concerns here, she doesn't want them using the time to swap information or coach the children who are in attendance. But her solution was to direct CPS to find a mainstream LDS member to monitor their prayer services. This is like suggesting that a Catholic priest monitor a Lutheran because they're kind of the same:
Walther's suggestion comes just four days after an apostle for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints appealed to news media to make a "clear distinction" between the two groups and reiterated that they have no connection.
The LDS Church strenuously disavows polygamous groups such as the FLDS, with whom they share historical roots and a scriptural canon.
The church denounced polygamy as a practice in 1890 and 1904 and excommunicates members who support or practice it. Fundamentalist Mormons consider the LDS Church to be out of order for abandoning principles laid out by Joseph Smith, founder of the faith.
...John Walsh, who has studied both the LDS Church and fundamentalistgroups, said it was "problematic."
"To me it shows that the judge does not have a nuanced understanding of Mormon culture and of the very different churches that are part of the Mormon umbrella," said Walsh, who testified before Walther last week about FLDS practices.
"She is in essence saying that we want one branch of the schism to supervise the other branch, which in any other religion would be problematic."

And this does not instill confidence in the state case. They speak with such certainty that certain girls are under-age, that each individual child of the 416 are at risk for abuse- but it turns out the state has not known how many people it is holding in custody. There are not 416, but 437:

On Monday, CPS said an updated head count shows it has charge of 437 children. Of those, 77 are age 2 or younger.

How could they hold the hearing 'en masse' instead of individually and not even have an accurate accounting of the number of children in their charge?

Here are the judge's reasons for denying breastfeeding mothers the right to stay with their nursing babies:

"But every day in this country, we have mothers who go back to work after six weeks of maternity leave," she said.
"The court has made a determination that the environment those children were in was not safe," said Walther, adding that there is a shortage of suitable placements for infants in Texas.

The mothers were safe enough to stay with their babies for the last two weeks. And mothers who go back to work at 6 weeks have made a choice- a hard choice, in many cases, but it is a choice. And they know they are going back to work so they feed their babies appropriately so that the break will not be abrupt and traumatic for the babies.

Walther also ruled that the women and children would be allowed to use telephone lines set up at the Coliseum on Monday but only to visit with attorneys. She limited the children to half-hour conversations and the women to one-hour visits with counsel.

Updated:
About the fact that CPS has had 21 more kids in their care than they realized for the last three weeks, Grits for Breakfast points out:

This ridiculous news raises several questions: First, would it be accurate to assume that these 21 children have not received their mandatory 14 day hearing which the other 416 got (in minimalist, perfunctory fashion) last week? Since the judge refused to give individual hearings and grouped everyone together, maybe she'll say it won't matter. But CPS is now holding more kids than the court gave it permission to seize last week.

Grits is always more succinct than I (shoot, everybody is more succinct than I), and you should read the rest.

Says CPS:

“You can imagine with these many people and different locations, it was hard to get an exact count,” said Shari Pulliam, spokeswoman for the department. “We finally think we’ve got a count.”

Why, yes, Shari, I can imagine how you could hold 437 children in your custody for nearly 3 weeks, hold a legal hearing justifying your retention of these children in state custody and insist that the single group hearing was just the same as individual hearings as required by law, feed all those children, clothe them and provide proper educational matierals (because surely you're not just letting them have a three week break from school in violation of state education laws), and provide medical care as needed, and all this time never realize that you have 21 more children then you've realized. I can imagine it, truly I can. And every scenario I imagine begins and ends with gross incompetence on the part of CPS and law enforcement. Didn't you count these people as you loaded them on and off the bus? How about as they walked into the Baptist church building where they were first taken, and then later as they entered Fort Concho?

More at the Messenger and Advocate (okay, so not everybody is more succinct than I, but there are plenty of good links and comments here, information well worth your time).