FYI:  In re budget crisis……

For your viewing pleasure and information.

http://www.taggs.hhs.gov/AdvancedSearchResults.cfm

This unbelievably patronizing budget, focused on healthy marriages, head starts, responsible fatherhood, parenting classes, and forcing adults who separated — often for the woman’s, or the man’s own safety and sanity —  to stay joined at the hip (through “access/visitation grants — more on this below), and thereafter trying to manage “high-conflict relationships” — through the court system – is (collectively) the truly most IRresponsible father(land) I have yet met.  

Most irresponsible fathers will affect a family line, and those individuals who come into contact with members of that family line, through work or otherwise.  This, however, respresents an unbelievably presumptuous and dishonest treatment of the portion of the American public that, by maintaining taxpaying employement or employEES, including many who populate and staff its institutions, pays its bills.

At some point it is simply responsible to admit that a relationship has failed, and separate.  ESPECIALLY in cases involving battering, domestic violence, or other forms of abuse.  Or  even, say, ongoing promiscuity  — or refusal to participate in supporting the household — on the part of one or both partners.  Generally speaking it’s one more than another.  One person has been “used.”  This is a horrible example for any children involved, and a real drain on the community, which often has to make up the gap.  But the principle of cutting one’s losses can come to the rescue, and stop the process before another family is dead, or homeless, or traumatized out of social functionality.

When it comes to hazardous JOBS, if there is an alternative, a person is allowed to of his or her own free will, QUIT.

I admit that some people take relationships casually, and perhaps when these people are identified, their LOCAL communities should address the issue.  But good grief — to try to force this on an entire NATION, and bill the entire nation (those who pay taxes) to fund the concept that there should be a chicken in every pot (yet we have vegetarians), and  a biologically related FATHER in every child’s life, no matter whether this is good for the kid, or the mother or not — that’s budget suicide, and sometimes suicide for him, and death for the Moms too, or children.  This is the story the headlines are telling us.  Some people don’t handle stress and relationships well, and are better off kept away from the person they hate to the point of having committed crimes against their partner.  Rather than face their personal demons, they externalize, blame (“demonize”) someone else, and then attack and attempt to destroy them, and people associated with them.

I am sorry to say this, but this at times includes the children.  When a situation has become dangerous to a parent, then to suddenly proclaim “Kids need their Dads no matter what!” is social insanity.  And, presently, policy.  

Why not when it comes to hazardous marriages?  WHY??  oh WHY??? is the Federal Government encouraging the States encouraging the Courts (with help from “faith-based” organizations and “Community Action Organizations” and other nonprofits of dubious parentage) to rake divorcing families over the coals in order to recreate a United States in which EVERY child has a Dad in his or her life, and EVERY mother has either a MAN in her life (if he’s alive), OR the Government telling her how to raise her children and educate her children (and by virtue of this, her lifestyle?   To be permanently punished for a poor choice of spouse or partner, when one has otherwise behaved in an upright and responsible citizenhood fashion, is abusive, and a sign Federal Government In Loco Parentis having totally forgotten its own origins:  “of, by for the people” and “consent of the governed.”   It has lost its mind — or, has NOT lost its mind, and is of a mind to leech a living off its own people by creating a constant source of conflict, between the courts, promoting this “fatherhood” thing (alongside most fundamentalist religions) and the nationwide school curriculum saying “It’s Elementary” (etc.) that some families have two parents of the same sex, and anyone who disagrees is committing a hate crime.   

It seems to me that in both institutions – courts, and schools — a habitual undermining of basic civil rights, as well as promotion of a certain “religion” (in one place, the nuclear family, in the other, the dismantling of the traditional nuclear family [if indeed this ever existed], both practically and as to teaching), and at the other end — as people come of age to procreate, which appears to be a more engaging activity than the studies in many public schools — as if an afterthought, now that some of these parents are on welfare, this same government then wants to now teach them how to be parents, especially Dads.  Moms are taught by default how to make babies for government studies and programs; the fodder for Ph.D. “Child Development Scholars” and other therapists.

OK, now that that’s out of my system, how this relates to

the “Gold Rush” in the “Golden State,”. . . .

I’ve posted below, for only ONE state, and only TWO “Categories of Federal Domestic Assistance” (“CFDA”), and from only ONE major U.S. Exeuctive Branch Department, “Health and Human Services.” These are (some of) the many types of grants given for  redesigning the U.S. family.  Apparently the also significant U.S. Dept. of Education didn’t do a good enough job the first time through (either that, or it’s them “foreigners” (meaning, any group whose feet hit these shores en masse after your particular ethnic group did, except Native Americans…).  We need to constantly make and remake the family til we get it right one of these days.

Again, this is only SOME of where your funding for the local public schools, homeless assistance, or law enforcement, or other social services went.  It went in large part into social engineering programs.

OH, by the way, these programs are also compromising due process in the courts ~~even in the family courts which exist primarily to compromise evidence for conciliation to start with!~~ so they are affecting civil and legal rights under the U.S. Constitution.  That we let this happen is probably a factor of the educational system (and NOT accidental over the decades….), which teaches us neither, really, how government NOR the economy actually operate.  Nor is it real good at uncensored history, especially the history of its own self (dating to a little while after the Civil War, and before women got the vote).

So, this time, I searched:

• CFDA #s: 93086 (healthy marriage), 93597 (Access Visitation Grants to states)
• California Only (California has largest court system)
• All Years, All Recipients, All etc..

I usually cannot get the chart to confine itself to the margins of this post — it goes off into the “blogroll” area and becomes unreadable.

It’s better to view the original site; to this end, welcome to a research tool.  Don’t you want to know WHY some fathers are committing homicide/suicide in desparation over the economy, or (overentitled?) outrage at being ousted, or because they have been publically humiliated in some fashion their psyches could not or would not handle.  Why a decade after this started, can’t we keep up with the family fatalities before the next generation of irresponsible (because, and ONLY because, according to this viewpoint, they were) fatherless Dads is born? 

(Present CEO of the nation that styles itself as leader of the ostensibly Free World excepted).

NOTE:  Mothers are used to being put down, humiliated, forced to beg, and treated like second class citizens for so long, we are not typically going off the deep end over loss of social status by murdering our kids, our spouses, or if they’re not available, someone else associated with them will do.  Women as a whole or men as a whole are not culprits.  We come in different colors, income levels, temperaments, and psyches.  ON THE OTHER HAND, given this, a governmental attempt to define us, our relationships, and our children, is going to be resisted.  It’s a recipe for ongoing conflict, and economic drain.  I suggest ALL U.S. Citizens take a serious look at this.  Here’s ONE underestimated tool.  

In almost seven years in the system, I didn’t find ONE entity apart from this site, point me to this federal department.  One humble but FULL website did.   http://www.nafcj.net.  The site didn’t get my attention (no gov’t grants helped its design, or press), but what it said did.

MOST organizations that say “prevention of violence” in them or “stop abuse” or “battered women” or even “family court reform” or something similar, don’t even mention this TAGGS site or point us to investigate its activities.  Father’s groups naturally wouldn’t, or they could no longer claim that concerns about certain social epidemics just “emerged.”  They did nothing of the sort — they were urged, publicized, promoted, and proclaimed, from Top Down, in typical government style.  I have now gotten to the point of finding out UP FRONT before I deal with any nonprofit or “let us help you” group, who is funding them.  You should too.  Ignorance ain’t bliss.  And it’s got to be a sin (faith-community or no faith-community) to fail to inform women in trauma filing protective orders about all the cooks in the kitchen.

SO . . . .. 

ARE YOU A U.S. CITIZEN OR RESIDENT?  THEN

THIS PAGE IS YOUR FRIEND — PLEASE GET ACQUAINTED

 IT IS A RHETORIC RADAR.  IT IS A DOGMA DETECTOR.  

IT IS A GULLIBILITY REDUCER**

EDUCATE THYSELF!

http://taggs.hhs.gov

**

For example, when Glenn Sacks, Jeffrey Leving, Esq.   Sen. Evan Bayh, or President Obama — or any noble-sounding nonprofit (or government agency) such as “American Coalition for Fathers and Children“  [Doesn’t THAT sound worthy, and united and concerned about, well, FAMILIES??] — writes, blogs, or receives high-profile press coverage stating that we need MORE money to stop the woefully underfunded fatherhood movement (as if this was a new crisis the U.S. (i.e., taxes) hadn’t already poured millions into, without addressing, for example, how the US being the world’s largest jailer MIGHT relate to why SOME kids are fatherless) you will realize when they are simply lying.  

Or, whether they are actually quoting each other and playing Good Cop, Bad Cop {{pretending to fight with each other and be more separate in intent than they actually are}} to confuse the viewers (see ACFC link above).  Broad allegations and statements are made without links or cites, such as this, (date, 2007):

AUTHORS:  Glenn Sacks, Mike McCormick:

The biggest problem with the Responsible Fatherhood Act, however, is that it reflects its authors’ misunderstanding of fatherlessness. Obama says he seeks to “make it easier” for men who choose to be responsible fathers, but his bill ignores the biggest roadblock fathers face—CLAIM: a family law system which does little to protect the loving bonds these dads share with their children.

FACT:  The duty of any COURT system [[HINT:  JUDICIAL branch, not LEGISLATIVE — remember this??]] is to protect the existing laws, not re-write them.  To determine and allocate consequences for people who violate laws, especially intentionally and repeatedly.  

To make sure that due process happens and evidence is considered as to whether the EXISTING laws have been (a) observed or (b) violated.  There are also RULES for many courts, to aid in the process.

FACT:  The primary characteristic of the “family law SYSTEM” is the prominent use of outside the courtroom decision making.  Even the Acronym of this organization “ACFC” is modeled after another organization “AFCC” which title means “Association of Family and Conciliation Courts,” an international organization of dubious tax-compliance history until someone caught them operating out of the Los Angeles County Courthouse without a separate EIN (IRS Tax) # — i.e., until they got caught in an audit — and drenched with psychologists, mediators, & custody evaluators holding international!! conferences, with judges and attorneys (conflict of interest there, anyone?) publishing, promoting, and proclaiming all kinds of theories (and making alliances) that the average low-income litigant is naively unaware of, not invited to, and not encouraged to know about.   All of this is patronizingly, ostensibly, for the greater good, or the country, the families, and I suppose apple pie, too.  As such, these experts don’t trouble to tell ignorant litigants about their alliances, or how much profit is made from the conferences, books, trainings, and publications. 

IRONICALLY, IN 1992, per this source, the courts are drenched with:

2.Due Process Violations 

a. Lack of procedural and evidentiary due process,since the Family Code was 

separated from the Code of Civil Procedure and the Evidence Code in 

1994. 

b. Attorneys quit prematurely in violation of procedural and ethical laws. 

c. Orders issued after ex parte hearings an/or in chambers meetings or upon 

the judge’s discretion without proper notice and evidentiary hearing. 

d. Removal of testimony from the court (where it should be) under the guise 

of mediation and evaluation.There is no control over the mediation and 

evaluation processes, no public debate of the issues, and no record of evi- 

dence. Once an evaluation report is issued, the court makes few discre- 

tionary decisions and rubber stamps the report. 

e. Presumption that the parents are “equal” upon dissolution in spite of evi- 

dence to the contrary

Or, whether (possibly) having used one of themselves for a specific purpose, they then turn and backstab the same person.  Kind of like a high-conflict, divorcing bitter spouse might.

Now you, too (I ALREADY DID), can have a catharsis (SHOCK) of understanding of WHY there is “Disorder in the Courts” and certain systems appear broken, when they aren’t really.  They are doing exactly what they were designed to do — create a cash flow and ongoing transfer of wealth from the taxpaying public into the hands of the “experts” and away from two working parents (whether cohabiting, married, or not) to children, their offspring.

Here’s the “TAGGS”  site.

Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System

(You didn’t expect to pass Big Brother 101 without learning a few acronyms, did you?)

Welcome!

The Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) is an extensive tool developed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Grants. The TAGGS database is a central repository for grants awarded by the twelve {{12, count’em, 12}} HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs). TAGGS tracks obligated grant funds at the transaction level.

NOTE:  To actually find out what those transactions were used for will take a little more legwork, locally.

What’s New

Several new search pages have been added and grouped under the new Search menu.

 

TAGGS FY 2008 Annual Report – The TAGGS FY 2008 Annual Report is now available on the Annual Reports Page. The annual report contains summary information about the HHS Grants Programs tracked by TAGGS. The annual report is available in Microsoft Word format.

TAGGS Advanced Search – The new TAGGS Advanced Search enables a very refined search through more than 500,000 grant awards. Criteria include keyword, award title, recipient name, agency, type, title, recipient name, and many other selections in a variety of combinations. Search results can be output and downloaded in Microsoft Excel format.

Abstracts Search by Keyword and Advanced Search – The two new Award Abstract Searches provide a search through more than 85,000 Grant Award Abstracts by keyword or by using the Advanced Search. The TAGGS Abstracts Search by Keyword search performs a full-text search of each available abstract based on the entered keywork. The TAGGS Abstracts Advanced Search enables search criteria such as keyword, agency, type, year, and state to be used in many combinations.

 

A search of all states resulted in nearly 1,500 results, which I doubt wordpress could handle the pageload.

I find the pattern below (try this link for a better view — OR, select the CFDA #s 93597 & 93086 ONLY, for California, and with the column titles you see below (scroll to bottom of the Advanced Search page to select) and it should come out the same).

Before you actually LOOK at this, consider yet another Fatherhood “whine,” dating to (originally) 06/30/2007 — after Father’s Day THAT year…):

“Yet most child custody arrangements provide fathers only a few days a month to spend with their children, and fighting for shared parenting is expensive and difficult. Custodial mothers frequently fail to honor visitation orders, and while the United States spends nearly $5 billion a year enforcing child support, there is no system in place to help enforce visitation orders. {{False}} In such cases, fathers must scrape together money for an attorney so they can go to court , and even then courts enforce visitation orders indifferently.

According to the Children’s Rights Council, a Washington, DC-based advocacy group, more than five million American children each year have their access to their noncustodial parents {{male, or female?}} interfered with or blocked by custodial parents.”

WHERE ARE THE LINKS TO THOSE ALLEGATIONS?

This is from:

@@@

Results 1 to 81 of 81 matches.

@@@

Does the word “Demonstration” raise an eyebrow for you?  Are you curious what a “Demonstration Priority Area” is, and whether your residing (if so) in one either aided or compromised due process in your particular family law case (if such be), or exercise of your civic duty of fatherhood (if such be).  

I wonder why a subset (Program Office OCSE) of a subset (OPDIV “ACF” — and ALL of these grants were ACF grants) of a subset (HHS) of the Executive Branch of the United States Government (Legislative, Executive, Judicial)– which the “OCSE” (Office of Child Support Enforcement) indeed IS — it IS in the Executive Branch of the US Government — is doing distributin cl

I wonder whether this information is posted at courthouses, or child support offices, like an “under Construction” would be at other sites?   I didn’t realize til, well, recently, that the last X years I spent in the family law system were part of someone else’s Demonstration Grant.  This is what we get for minding our own business, and failing to secure enough excess time in our daily schedules to ALSO mind the business of our elected representative governments, both Federal and State.  

We farmed out government to the government have ended up (our children, basically, and incomes) becoming someone else’s family farm.

Suggestion:

If fewer categories (column titles) are chosen, a search will produce interactive recipient names, or grant #s, and this will tell more about

the individual activities.  And gets pretty interesting . . . . . 

. . .  Dang it, I just slipped into bureaucratic passive and Impassive; the language is like a pheronome, or like stale air, if you hang around it too long, you begin exhaling in the same manner:  categories are chosen (I didn’t act), searches (not my choices) produced, just like a domestic dispute “arose” between two individuals, during a, er, ACF-facilitated “ACCESS” exchange between parents. 

I find it interesting that the “OCSE” is administering these grants designed to help noncustodial parents get more time with their children.

 OCSE is the “Office of Child Support Enforcement.”  I thought it wasn’t about the money, but about the best interests of the children, who need both parents in constant contact with them.  For example, nonpayment of child support is NOT a basis for withholding visitation of a child from the noncustodial parent.  Women are certainly told that loud and clear when pursuing child support arrears.  

Unfortunately, some parents can’t be trusted alone with their children.  For example, some kids get killed or stolen on overnight visitations which are not supervised.  On the other hands, some unsupervised parents (mostly Moms) also supposedly cause severe emotional distress to their children by actually following through when child abuse or other violence is reported, causing more “high conflict’ between the parties.  Which is “bad.”  “Bad” protective parent:  Here, let us order some parenting classes for you….A common, but costly solution appears to be switching the custody to the other parent, and forcing the reporting parent to pay to see her offspring.  

But one way to withhold visitation from a designated parent is if she (most likely)  cannot afford to pay to see her own children in a supervised visitation situation that arose AFTER something else (such as child abuse, or other domestic violence-related issues) has been reported or investigated.  I know mothers who cannot afford to see their children, after a custody switch. It does not seem to work both directions AFTER a custody switch (possibly enabled by some of these grants’ services).  Where’s the “healthy families” in that scenario?

If these whole movements (Healthy Marriage, or Responsible Fatherhood & Access Visitation, meaning, it supposedly takes a Village to raise a Child and BOTH Parents (especially Dads) to also do this, which the taxpayers should then fund) are about the CHILDREN and our SOCIETY, then somehow it seems a little odd that the agency entrusted to do this is the CHILD SUPPORT branch, not another one.

The fact, and that history of the matter is that it went kind of like this, as to finances:

1.  OOPS!  Welfare roles are too high!  (Personal Work and Responsibility welfare reform)

2.  Let’s go Collect Child Support — get those paternity tests and those deadbeat Dads.

3.   OOPS!  A lot of them are in jail, and others just don’t want to pay, they’ve moved on in life?  What can be done?

4.   Enter “Access Visitation” grants, in hope that more time with kids will result in more child support collected.  It’s all for the kids, after all.  If they get more time with the children, we will (artificially) “flex” the amount of child support actually due.

4B.  And the multiple assorted professionals all along the way, all of who are also of course in it for the kids and not the money.

5.    Who picks up the tab, in the long run, and what is it?  When custody switches are involved, then a parent who historically had been struggling or learning to manage a life (including a work life) around the children will then restructure the life differently, while the parent who just GOT the child will either restructure his (or her) work, or delegate the care of the child to someone else.

6.  Did I mention Head Start yet?

By the way, a lot of the funding below is what i call “Designer Families,” i.e., the US Government is actually studying US families (at the expense of the same families) to determine what they DO look like, to run some tests (see “DEMONSTRATION PROJECTS” below) and then report back (not to the consumer — to the experts, of course) on what the tests showed, and then expand the scope of the practice.  This, FYI, is business (perhaps not YOUR employer, but government) business as usual.  Something you don’t learn in grade school, or often in high school, unless your parent was a Senator or a Sociologist.  

Well, two can play that game.  Who wants to come out and play?  

Want some answers?  

Want to have some fun analyzing the analysts?

Let’s do it.

At least it would make some more interesting dinner conversation (assuming you still have dinner), or at a commuter bus stop (assuming you still have a job) than the latest office politics, or doom and gloom.  You can say, “Did you know that I now spend one-quarter (one-tenth, etc. — adjust according to your payscale) of my work day, which keeps me away from spending quality time with my kids, earning money for the government to spend getting other people who won’t or can’t pay child support to spend more time with their kids, in hopes that they will?  Or to keep them married when otherwise they’d divorce? Or just leave?”

Or you could say, “Where do you think the HIGHEST grant for reducing abuse, poverty, drug use, and other social ills (i.e., promoting healthy marriages) went to in our state?  

They’ll probably name Los Angeles,  San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond, Sacramento (or other  urban area known for its homicide rates, or radical agenda).

And then you can surprise them with your inside knowledge:  

No:  “Leucadia.”

“Leucadia?  You’re kidding!”

“No, I’m not.  California Healthy Marriage Coalition, out of Leucadia, California got $2,400,000 last year alone to, er, well — well, they’re not in favor of same-sex marriages, let’s put it that way.  I don’t know where they stand on domestic violence, but they say — well, another group run by the same person says — he needs unconditional respect, and she needs unconditional love.  And those dang feminists, you know, are putting CONDITIONS on how he expresses his love, or whether they continue respecting him, in the form of these anti-violence allegations, and so forth….”

“In 2006, The California Healthy Marriages Coalition (CHMC) received a five-year, $11.9 Million grant from Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (HHS/ACF), the largest grant ever awarded by HHS/ACF in support of Healthy Marriages. 

{{{FYI:  “Through this funding, CHMC partners with a network of 23 faith- and community-based organizations (FBCOs) throughout California.  Each of CHMC’s funded partner organizations is a coalition consisting of many other FBCOs through which they deliver Marriage Education and Relationship Skills classes, enabling CHMC to reach California’s diverse population by traversing the key demographic dimensions of geography, ethnic/cultural differences, and agency-type FBCOs. “}}

“As a result of these efforts, CHMC expects to see a decline in the divorce/marriage ratio, a reduction in child abuse, domestic violence, poverty, criminal behavior, and an improvement in physical, emotional, and mental health.”

 

HEY!  IF I SAY I EXPECT TO SEE SOMETHING, CAN I GET A FEDERAL GRANT, TOO?  

I WILL MAKE UP A NICE NAME, AND USE BIG WORDS, STARTING SMALL WITH A DEMONSTRATION PROGRAM, AND THEN EXPANDING NATIONWIDE.  SEE BELOW FOR A TYPICAL PATTERN. . .

Now I’m curious.  Let’s see where they are on the $11.9 million….   In 2006 I was definitely on the wrong side of the politically correct agenda, obviously, in that I was trying to get UNMarried, complete a safe separation begun years earlier…. and retain housing . . . .  (Searched on “Principal Investigator,” pulled up an unrelated “Stoica”).  Well, maybe not a relative…)  (the name “Stoica” I picked out arbitrarily — well, actually because of the size of the grant — from the larger chart below).

The next RESPONSIBLE CITIZEN behavior then might be to ask, for example, what a particular grant recipient is doing with some of the funds, either on line, or hey, give them a call!  Say, “Hey!  $50,000 is more than I make per year, and a good part of this is being garnished to pay child support already.  Can you tell me what your group did last year with YOUR $50,000 — and who’s on the payroll?  I’d like to see a line item listing, or a few cancelled checks perhaps.  I mean, I work hard (yes, I’m sure you do), and I’d just like to know where my taxes are going.  Thanks!  Send the printout to _________________).” (And then install a security camera….)

Note:  In the example above (where I picked  one of the larger grants in the big chart, and searched on Principal Investigator)

In the next post (or so), I will, possibly, show how well all this Healing Families and getting Dads responsible has reduced Violence Against women SO much (in the same time period) that we really don’t need (?) VAWA to keep funding shelters, and other things to help them stay alive, or in one piece.  The momentum of the emerging (still???) Fatherhood movement and Responsibility Movement and Shared Parenting Movement, has really worked, and we now have significantly less separation violence, fewer family wipeouts, and children in the care of the other parent, with help in care of possibly a new girlfriend, or boyfriend, are faring better.  Like the 7 year old boy who was just taken off life support in Massachusetts, after his Dad came back into his life, possibly under one of these programs (although I didn’t investigate further on that one, I admit), after only 8 weeks summertime fun with his father.

In the matter of Designer Families by Federal Fiat, I think we do need to take a closer look.  How’s your state doing?