I thought it was time for a nice, short-winded

Post.  These are re-posts..  This is a pot-pourri, which pretty much also describes the feeding grounds of most courts these days…

(1)  Want to understand the courts? Read this: It’s “Foundational.”

(LINK is to my April 2010 post, “The Love of Money Spells Trouble,” which starts with a lead-in to Phoebe Factoids:)

Follow the trail!  Not your reptilian mammal brain!   Guess what reptiles are:  Cold-blooded.  They adapt to the environment.  Human beings are mammals.  They should be a little more independent.

Money is fine as a means to an end.  As an end itself, it tends to blind, and it gets pretty cold-hearted when that’s the end, forget the means…..and civil rights…

Despite all the hot-button, gut-wrenching, paper-selling issues in the news headlines, and on this blog, I consider my Phoebe Factoids post one of the most relevant.  It talks about what happened to two men who looked at the books, found them cooked, and some of the strategies to shut them up and shut them, their professions, and most especially, their story, down.

And I also noticed another link on this post, quoted here:

CPS Corruption and Human Trafficking Exposed in San Luis Obispo

Republicans Sam Blakeslee and Able Maldonado have teamed together for a child charity in the greater San Luis Obispo area named “The Family Care Connection”. While promoting this charity both politicians refuse to review corruption in the local CPS office.

Legislation gives states incentives under Title IV-E to increase the number of children adopted out from foster care.

OK?  Got it?  See yesterday’s post.  See life. Run, Jane, run.  See Spot jump.  Kids . . . $$ . . . Kids . . . . $$

Title IV funding provided to local CPS offices is being used for capturing and adopting out children. However, not all of these children are abused or neglected. Many children who are taken by CPS are not at risk or in any danger thus our Government is creating a form of “child trafficking”. Children are becoming a very “profitable commodity”.

This author is talking about the RICO aspect of current practices, and trust me, some legislation backs up some of those practices.  Beyond the legislation, are the loopholes that directs money to nonprofits where people steering that money also have a vested interest IN the nonprofits, or, are even employed by them.  For example, in CA, there’s that “First 5” funding — for kids, right?  But somehow, it, too had scandal following the use of taxpayer funds…

Under section 1962(b) of the RICO Act it unlawful for a person to acquire or maintain an interest in an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity. Since a RICO claim cannot be made in the absence of criminal activity many parents are being unjustly prosecuted in kangaroo courts so that children can remain in the “system”. Almost half of the children taken by CPS are being adopted out using this technique. Assemblyman Blakeslee and Senator Maldonado’s actions are protecting this practice by not responding to innocent desperate parents who have sought their assistance from improper removals by overeager Social Workers. These politicians have turned a blind eye to the CPS practices and to the children and families who are being abused by the CPS system they support.

Assemblyman Blakeslee’s office claims they have no involvement withCPS procedures, yet has contacted them when children from the “Family Care Network” are at risk of escaping foster care. Senator Maldonado thinks some parents are “terrorists” if they seek his help. Some children have chaperones with them at all times so they don’t try to run away to return home to their loving parents. The benefit of these unethical practices include: increased funding, full staffing, and support of their share of over 1.6 billion dollars would be lost if this corruption were exposed. This does not include the block grants exceeding 200 million dollars annually and other incentives. In a recent publication supported by Senator Maldonado and Assemblymember Sam Blakeslee The Family Care connection is asking people to write to Governor Schwarzenegger to speak out against a budget slash of 5% in foster care funding; while knowing the author of this article has been seeking their assistance for close to 6 months.

The standard practices of CPS offices throughout California and other states have been under scrutiny for the last several years. Since President Clinton placed into effect The Adoption Safe Families Act block grants have increased the number of children who are in the system. The state pays extra incentives for adopting out children over the age of 9 years old and additional funds if they require mental services or have other special needs. As a result of these block grants almost 50% of all children in CPS’s care are between the ages of 13-19 years old. Every day 36 children an hour are taken by CPS throughout the United States. In California alone more than 20% of all children are in foster care.

This is an industry, which has grown by huge proportions and must be reined in. The Gestapo type tactics currently being used by County and State agencies to increase revenue from federal sources may provide jobs today for the local economy but is having a negative impact on many levels. Good families are being torn apart and children are dying under the State’s care. When CPS takes children in error they rarely return them right away. The families are subjected to endless classes and programs whether or not they are guilty. The parents suffer great financial hardships because they are forced to retain expensive independent legal counsel. Many families lose their jobs and their homes trying to get their children out of the system. Some attorney’s are working in collision with CPS and help keep children in the system because it’s profitable, but most will agree that CPS is in fact corrupt.

Common practices of CPS agencies include: Not investigating before removing a child, taking children into state custody based upon here say, taking children from school without a “Protective Custody Warrant”, manipulating the Court system in criminal cases against the parents who are improperly prosecuted, obstruction of justice, fabricating documents, omitting facts, coercing minors, deception, isolating children from their parents, breaking bonds, traumatizing children, negative therapy, and placing children in unsafe foster homes. Children are not being evaluated right away by a doctor or seeing child advocates such as CASA. Social workers have been known to go on “witch hunts” against parents, influencing doctors, and ruining parents medical files. Many CPS agencies work in collusion with therapists who give parents false “mental conditions” which is used against them in court. Family court is “secret” so there is no jury or fair trial. Children are being heard in Judges chambers so many testimonies cannot be documented on Court record.

PLS.  NOTICE THIS:

Many judges who rule on family court cases also sit on the boards of phony nonprofit organizations created to generate state adoption/foster care grants via federal funding. San Luis Obispo CPS has politicians heading non-profit organizations and Judges hosting “Adoption Saturdays”. California’s 2003 Little Hoover Commission Report said up to 70 percent of children in foster care should never have been removed from their homes in the first place. Children who complain about foster care or beg to go home are either placed on psychotropic medication and are sometimes sent out of State. California’s website for children up for adoption can be found at: www.adoptuskids.org

Dr. Moore who is the National Director of legislative affairs for the American Family Rights Association is heading up chapters under the NAACP. Children’s rights organizations, parents, and independent non-profit agencies are also joining in the fight against CPS corruption and human trafficking. Senator Nancy Schaffer recently passed a new law that went into effect in Oklahoma and we in California are hopeful that our state will soon follow.

Senator Nancy Schaffer is now history — and HERS needs to be told, as well….  Her work isn’t, just her physical body, and her husband’s.

(2)

“The Profit in Non-profits and two men in Georgia — Lessons from Phoebe Factoids“

NOT-FOR-PROFIT hospitals are actually for-profit hospitals, according to the new documentary Do No Harm. Rebecca Schanberg, who produced and directed this insightful film, tells the story of the two men who blew the whistle on Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, Ga

Charles Rehberg, a certified public accountant, and John Bagnato, a surgeon, are two ethical, humble and honest guys who stumble across financial information showing that Putney Hospital has $2.6 billion in cash and transferred millions to offshore bank accounts in the Cayman Islands.

. . .

June 17, 2009 | Issue 700

Surgeon Dr. John Bagnato stands outside Puntney Memorial Hospital in Albany, Ga.  (PHOTO above)

NOT-FOR-PROFIT hospitals are actually for-profit hospitals, according to the new documentary Do No Harm. Rebecca Schanberg, who produced and directed this insightful film, tells the story of the two men who blew the whistle on Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, Ga.

{{READ the whole link….}}

Rehberg and Bagnato discover that the hospital charges the uninsured more than the insured and aggressively hounds and sues patients who can’t pay. As a result, thousands of patients have had their wages garnished, leaving many of them destitute. This is how hospital executives get rich–on the backs of poor, uninsured patients.

And then, just like in a John Grisham novel, things get legal, ugly and scary. Rehberg walks out to the parking lot after work one night, and a vehicle pulls up and blocks his car. Two men jump out, identify themselves as FBI agents, call out his name and say that they have been investigating him. The men–who in reality were no longer with the FBI–say they work for Putney and ask him to get in their car and go to a meeting. If he cooperates, they promise the hospital won’t file a lawsuit against him.

Wisely, Rehberg doesn’t get in the car. As they leave, he’s warned, “If you’re not smart enough to do this for yourself, you should for your wife Wanda and your lovely family.” A bodyguard is hired to watch over Rehberg’s family.

Bagnato receives suspicious e-mails and phone calls from someone who hangs up every time he and his wife pick up, and the lock in his front door falls out.

The scare tactics and intimidation don’t work, and Bagnato and Rehberg hire Dickie Scruggs, the famous lawyer, who filed a class-action lawsuit against the tobacco companies and won one of the largest settlements ever.

Putney Hospital lawyers go on the offensive and file a lawsuit for $66 million against Rehberg. Next, the two men are indicted on trumped-up, ludicrous criminal charges of burglary, assault and harassing phone calls. Eventually, the charges are dismissed.

When someone gets inbetween the cash flow and the recipients, then the fangs come out, and we see who is really concerned about WHAT.

The word “nonprofit” is a tax designation.  Get it?  It’s a TAX designation, meaning this group pays LESS taxes, and others who do, pick up the tab if it comes to social services… “NONprofit” basically means, the US favors this set of organizations, as opposed to the poor sucker wage earners hoping to make it to retirement without being outsourced….  I’m not saying all wage-earning is bad; work is honorable, and the products and buildings we use are many of them valuable.  However, not enough people are talking about the alternatives to “jobs” just as our Presidents are not likely to talk about the very real alternatives to paying IT to educate everyone’s kids who can’t escape to something better, and calls that “Education” and “No Child Left Behind” and “Race to the Top,” when it’s nothing of the sort, on all three counts.  It’s a set of incentives to reform the landscape through re-setting values in the schools.

The tax, courts, child support, prison, and educational systems (from daycare on up) are interdependent.  They couldn’t function without each other.

So the question becomes, who’s in the driver’s seat?

I have answered that to my satisfaction, after full-immersion “baptism” in this system, and the answer is, primarily, the foundations…

JUST EVEN GOOGLE “Foundation and family law” and you will come up with something interesting.  Here’s one in Texas, talking about itself:

Legislative Mission

Founded in 2001, the Texas Family Law Foundation’s mission is to improve the family law practice and jurisprudence of the State of Texas. Since its inception, the Foundation’s involvement in the legislative process has increased, but the Foundation really took on the leadership role for family law policy in Texas during the 2009 Legislative Session.

The Foundation’s successes to date include:

• Passed multiple bills proposed by the Family Law Section, including the bill that repealed “economic contribution” and a family law omnibus bill which included reforming the parent coordinator laws, possession and access issues, and military deployment.
• Defeated and repaired numerous bills potentially damaging to family law and neutralized issues that would have been very dangerous to Texas families and the people that represent them.
• Becoming the go-to source for legislative staff and members on family law questions.
• Foundation analysis of over 300 bills filed in the Texas Legislature.
• Volunteer cooperation with our professional lobby staff to monitor each and every committee hearing on legislation affecting your practice. Read first-hand accounts from three of our volunteers:
  • Lynn Kamin, Jenkins & Kamin, L.L.P., Houston, Texas
  • JoAl Cannon Sheridan, Ausley, Algert, Robertson & Flores, Austin, Texas
  • Brian Webb, Webb & Associates, Dallas, Texas
• And most importantly, establishing a reputation of competence and reliability with Texas Senators, Representatives and their staffs. See what some of them had to say about us!

The Foundation’s leadership and volunteers work with our lobbying team to maintain an active presence at the State Capitol to protect your clients’ rights and your practice. While you represent your clients at the courthouse, we represent them at the Capitol. We also represent you by:

• Monitoring changes in statutes and regulations and alerting you of any potential effects on your practice.
• Communicating the importance of your issues to elected officials.
• Shaping family law practice and jurisprudence in Texas.

2007 marked a new beginning – for the Foundation and for Texas Family Lawyers! Join now and help us grow!

Many people, though they hear the words, don’t know what a Foundation is, or its purpose.  For those who are clueless (except that watching Television, one can notice several PBS shows may be supported in part by them):

For example, from “Creating a Family Foundation” (2006)

(“GP Solo:  Law Trends & News:  Estate Planning.”):

An initial inquiry should address the client’s vision for this new foundation. Will it seek contributions from the public or be funded by one family? Does the client wish to retain control? Private foundations best suit clients who plan to fund the foundation themselves and control its operations. Although this article focuses on the formation and operation of a private non-operating foundation, several alternatives to a private foundation may be a better fit for an individual client. An understanding of the client’s intentions and goals for the future can help the practitioner properly advise the client and guide the client to the appropriate vehicle for its philanthropic vision. These alternatives include private operating foundations (created to directly carry on one or more charitable activities), supporting organizations (organized and operated to support one or more public charities), and publicly supported charities (which must meet specific support tests to maintain favorable public charity status). Another consideration is for the client to establish a donor advised fund with a community foundation. With a donor advised fund, a donor has the ability to recommend the charitable recipients of its fund without the burdens associated with the administration of a private foundation.

The client should be advised that the private foundation requires ongoing monitoring and administration and that many transactions between the donor and the foundation will be prohibited. Despite the restrictions, the advantages of the private foundation make it attractive to the wealthy client. The most important advantage is the degree of control the client can exert over the foundation.

Foundation, Fund, Nonprofit:  Community, Charitable, etc.  — these are legal and business terms that more of us ought to understand, because a good deal of these foundations and funds can put a politician — or a policy — in place.  There seems to be no question that some were very active in plummetting (propelling?) Senator Obama in Chicago to President Obama in Washington, D.C. — and many of them deal with real estate, also.

Wikipedia “foundation”

See also: Private foundation

A foundation (also a charitable foundation) is a legal categorization of nonprofit organizations that will typically either donate funds and support to other organizations, or provide the source of funding for its own charitable purposes.

This type of non-profit organization differs from a private foundation which is typically endowed by an individual or family.

(AND:)

Foundations in civil law

The term “foundation,” in general, is used to describe a distinct legal entity.

Foundations as legal structures (legal entities) and/or legal persons (legal personality), may have a diversity of forms and may follow diverse regulations depending on the jurisdiction where they are created.

In some jurisdictions, a foundation may acquire its legal personality when it is entered in a public registry, while in other countries a foundation may acquire legal personality by the mere action of creation through a required document. Unlike a company, foundations have no shareholders, though they may have a board, an assembly and voting members. A foundation may hold assets in its own name for the purposes set out in its constitutive documents, and its administration and operation are carried out in accordance with its statutes or articles of association rather than fiduciary principles. The foundation has a distinct patrimony independent of its founder.

Foundations are often set up for charitable purposes, family patrimony and collective purposes.

FOUNDATIONS get things done, yet can get it done without directly tying “whodunit” to the results.  A foundation has no “shareholders” (meaning, they don’t control, either).  It may hold assets in its own name, meaning, protects wealth for whoever funds it (etc.)

OK, now let’s look at some of the players in the Family Law / End DV Field:

• Family Violence Prevention Fund

It took me a while to understand, this is a FUND.  It can do whatever the hell it wants to, including promoting fatherhood while claiming to prevent “family” violence and eliminating, almost, the discussion of mothers in policy talk, in accord with who’s FUNDING the fund and which grants it can get from HHS (believe me, that’s plenty…).

It has no obligation to actually stop family violence, or even address accurately its causes, help victims of domestic violence, or address RICO in the courts.  I used to get more upset about it, til I realized that money rules, and it does what the (> > > >) it wants to, including continuing to talk the same talk, while women are getting blown away, or kids ending up on life support after OTHER grants to the family courts ensure that Bad Dads as well as Good Dads have access, and pay off the California Judicial Council (which receives this particular grants series) to make it happen, thereby corrupting the concept of law and evidence in the family law arena (if it was indeed there to start with).

And, this it has done, and a lot more.  For example, here’s they are doing best practices for a “domestic violence” court with others, including “Battered Women’s Justice Project”…

Creating a Domestic Violence Court: Guidelines and Best Practices

Supposedly this is a good thing.  I happen to disagree, along with others, but here’s the PDF reasoning:

. . . The court is a crucial part of this system, bearing the ultimate responsibility for case outcomes. Moreover, the court has the opportuni- ty to leverage this interaction in many ways: it can address the needs of the many vic- tims coming through its doors, providing them links to services; monitor the behavior of perpetrators and mandate them to appropriate interventions; and use the authority of the judge to demonstrate publicly the commitment that the system has to end- ing domestic violence. In recent years, the domestic violence court has emerged as an innovation with the potential to make the most of this opportunity for improved court response.

The domestic violence court, in which a specialized caseload is handled by dedicated judges and court staff and linked to key partners, such as victim advocacy groups, has been receiving substantial interest from policymakers, judges, court administrators, and agencies involved in domestic violence cases.. . .

((one can speculate as to many reasons why))

The court also can build on an extensive collaboration with agencies and community-based organizations, in an effort to strengthen the entire community’s response to domestic violence.

((and steer federal funding to them, yeah . . . . . ))

What’s so great about a “domestic violence” court?  It’s kind of lost on me…

Sources I’ve read, and my experience tells me, that a “domestic violence court” is not even a good thing to start with.  For example, see, JusticeWomen — in Northern California:

Someone asked for a feminist analysis of domestic violence court. Here’s ours:

Our DV Court, a Deceptive, Dangerous Sham

Our domestic violence court has been designed as a showcase judicial ghetto for dv cases, and, like all ghettos, it’s been stripped of its most essential functions and powers. s in many other counties, our domestic violence court was established in response to intense criticism of our criminal justice system’s handling of domestic violence cases. Also, as in many other counties, our domestic violence court is a sham, an elaborate dog-and-pony show designed to dupe the public and to preserve the dumping of victims, as much or worse than before. Here are the defects of domestic violence court as set up in our county and many other counties around the country: Like many domestic violence courts, ours only deals with misdemeanor cases. Defendants come into the court at arraignment and must enter a plea of “guilty” or “not guilty”. At this initial point, dv court is no different than any other court. The similarity ends there. If the defendant enters a plea of “not guilty”, the criminal case is immediately kicked out of dv court and sent back to a standard municipal court for adjudication. If the defendant pleads “guilty”, the dv court then sets a schedule for the now convicted perpetrator to report back again and again to the dv court for monitoring and supervision of his probation. n other words, dv court doesn’t really function as a court at all. It doesn’t decide guilt or innocence in domestic violence cases, doesn’t weigh evidence, examine witnesses, prosecute defendants, doesn’t undertake the rigorous search for truth that is the core work of a court, and it doesn’t conduct trials. In dv court, except on rare occasions, the victim’s voice and testimony isn’t heard. Our dv court is nothing more than an inflated probationary baby-sitter for convicted defendants. Granted the dv court has the power to throw the guy in jail if he doesn’t abide by the conditions of his probation. But overall, our dv court has been designed as a judicial ghetto for dv cases, and, like all ghettos, it’s been stripped of its most essential functions and powers. Precisely those functions and powers which victims most need to be wielded on her behalf. This eviscerated dv court ghetto, like many other dv courts, has the following disastrous consequences for victims and their cases: When the defendant pleads “not guilty”, and the criminal case is reassigned to a standard municipal court, the cases are handled back in muni court by a junior prosecutor and by muni court judges who are now more unfriendly to these cases than before there was a dv court. In addition to their previous virulent biases against dv cases, these judges are now also resentful at being strapped with cases they feel should be being handled in the dv court. So even worse than before, these muni court judges have a tendency to get rid of the dv cases as quickly as possible – all too frequently by outright dismissing the cases, no matter how strong the evidence, no matter how egregious the offense, no matter how long the criminal history  Not surprisingly, it took defense attorneys in our county less than five minutes to figure out what dv court meant for their clients, the domestic violence defendants. Defense attorneys began immediately explaining to their clients ‘how sweet it is’. Plead “not guilty”, they strongly advise their clients, get your case moved back into muni court, and you’ve got a great chance of walking free. In fact, the gutted functioning of our dv court has assured that the most intractable, hard core dv offenders have the greatest chance of going free.

Domestic violence courts are not taken very seriously, all round.  They are revolving doors that spin people off right into the family law case, and that RO is going to come off pretty soon anyhow.  If it does NOT come off, and the woman is still alive (and has children), sooner or later the case will be consolidated with a divorce or dissolutiona ctions — and require, guess what — a CUSTODY plan — and there you have it.  Down the assembly line to the “it’s not violence, it’s just high-conflict” mentality of the Therapeutic Jurisprudence, like fish waiting to be flayed, gutted, and eaten by the fishermen.  Grants money goes to the headcount, business as usual.

if it stays on, seems like she can’t require it to be enforced anyhow — there is no such “right” created even by the presence of “mandatory” arrest policies.  See my blog, “What Decade Were These Stories?” and “Luzerne County…”  Jessica Gonzales (kids dead through unenforced order, despite her pleas and warnings:  THREE) tried, resulting in the city suing her, “Castle Rock. v. Gonzales,” then quoted by others to say the same thing:  tough luck!

BUT — FVPF is indeed a a FUND (a donor-advised one?  Probably, though I don’t know).

But FVPF can do whatever it feels like doing — because it’s got the prominent voice through prominent funding.  If they line up with the status quo, more funding.  Is this group likely to blog what I blog, and JUST a few others?  No way — it’d be cutting off the hand that feeds it.

Its programs — though I’d bet that a chunk of funding does indeed come from the VAWA stream, meaning stopping violence against WOMEN — don’t even mention women, except if they’re immigrant — in a heading, and sure as hell not “mothers” against whom much violence is directed, and which status (having a child with an abuser) makes women more vulnerable in many ways.  Here’s the list of “PROGRAMS”

PROGRAMS

• Children & Families
• Judicial
• Global Prevention
• Health Care
• Immigrant Women
• Public Communications
• Public Policy
• Teens
• Workplace

Not exactly  much about custody going to abusers, eh?

Here’s the link for a search on “fatherhood”

It is a Non-profit, Private, Non-Government Organization, per TAGGS:

FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION FUND

Address:

383 RHODE ISLAND STREET SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103-5177

Country Name:	United States of America
County Name:	SAN FRANCISCO
DHHS Region:	9
Type:	Other Social Services Organization
Class:	Non-Profit Private Non-Government Organizations

And, no matter how big the budget crisis, it’s getting its funding from the Feds to put out whatever its Non-Profit, Private Self feels like, and to neglect causative issues behind domestic violence and death to kids through the courts (or, trafficking through the courts) for the life of its funding — there is no law against this, from what I can tell:

From HHS to FVPF: $4,528,812 in 2010

(note year of support indicates ongoing grant)

ASTWH — whatever that is:  “DISCRETIONARY”

Got it?  Train and Technically Assist, Talk and Conference….

And another one:

Incidentally, this one appears to have started out small (like $31,000) and then — the very next year, $1.5 million.  Now you tell me what that’s about!  But this is how it sometimes works…

Now, however good, or bad, that “model” is, here comes GLASGOW, copying it, much the way (?) The UK began copying the one-stop, fast-food, made-to-order “Family Justice Centers,” a.k.a. a certain attorney’s (Casey Gwinn) personal retirement program, the second one (or is it vice versa?) being up in ALameda County, for which I had to post “Dubious Doings by District Attorneys.”

Here’s Scotland’s “Domestic Abuse Court Pilot Program” report (2007..)

Scottland.gov.uk, yep:

Evaluation of The Pilot Domestic Abuse Court

Here’s a 2000 California Analysis, same idea — Domestic Violence Courts — and guess who’s writing it?  The same groups that are receiving the access/visitation funding:  CFCCs

CENTER FOR FAMILIES, CHILDREN & THE COURTS PROJECT STAFF

DIANE NUNN

Director

SUSAN HANKS

Supervising Court Services Analyst Coordinator for Special Services

BONNIE ROSE HOUGH

Senior Attorney

ISOLINA RICCI

Assistant Director

(and marriage/family therapist of 30 years)

{{Right here is the AFCC/PAS-Gardner/Co-Parenting, KIDS TURN, etc. connection.}}

Ms. (or Dr.?) Ricci’s Lecture series seems to include a time with Kids’ Turn (known to be an Access/Visitation Grants recipient through this very same organization — California Judicial Council, AOC, CFCC, which GETS the grants, and you can go right on the court side and see that Kids Turn is a recipient, and marketing a curriculum (internationally) which just happens to benefit from the A/V funding law…

Great to know that this person is going to represent the interests of battered women and abused children, and their legal rights, while a keynote speaker at the fatherhood conference, a HUGELY-funded (and paternalistic) movement known to be CONTRARY to those rights and deleterious to mothers & children’s health….  This is who is presiding over the great recommendation of “Domestic Violence Courts..”

(MANDATORY MEDIATION IS PROVEN WAY TO GET CHILDREN INTO CUSTODY OF A BATTERER, AND MANY DV ADVOCATES HAVE PROTESTED THIS.  IT HAPPENS TO BE HOW I LOST MY KIDS, WITHOUT REAL EVIDENCE, CAUSE OF ACTION, LEGAL BASIS FOR DOING SO.  RUN IT THROUGH THE MEDIATOR.  AND THE GRANTS TO THE COURTS FACILITATE THIS).

and:

(KIDS TURN was the brainchild of a judge or attorney around 1987 and is a prime promoter of PAS theory to explain away legitimate abuse claims.  It’s also a nonprofit that benefits from the whole setup….).  ….

Here’s a March 2005 CANADIAN publication recommending Isolini Ricci’s book right alongside a 1985 Richard Gardner book, pamphlet titled “High-Conflict Parenting.”  The section describing kinds of abuse vaguely suggests that one should “report to the authorities” the following behavior:

under:  “ANGER, ABUSE, POWER AND CONTROL

Intimidation includes threats to hurt or kill children, pets, or friends. Making a partner watch as children or pets are abused and not allowing him/her to intervene is another form of intimidation. In addition, this behavior includes the destruction of property, controlling what the other partner says, making the partner account for every minute or every action, threats to hurt anyone who helps the partner, threats to claim the partner is an unfit parent, and threats of suicide. These behaviors should be reported to the authorities.

BUT, oddly, not THIS — which is likely (as it is in the U.S.) a misdemeanor or felony crime, and could result in death if it escalates, and is categorized (at least THEORETICALLY) as “crime.” . . . .

Physical abuse includes pushing, grabbing, shoving, slapping, punching, kicking, breaking bones, knifing, shooting or use of other weapons; locking someone out of their home; abandoning someone in an unsafe place; and murder.

Those are NOT “report to the authority” behaviors in this “High-conflict” parenting manual citing Gardner and Ricci?  I’m “so glad” to know that the “Domestic Violence Courts” are under such watchful eyes as this person.

Here she is, 2010, at another AFCC conference (see my page on the AFCC and the foundations of family law), more business as usual healing broken relationships, and helping “change” the language of the law from caling crimes, crimes…. and reframing them as “conflict” and hence BOTH parent’s faults and requirement to somehow, “get over” for the sake of their children.

Rather than understanding that for the sake of the children, if it’s gotten that violent or abusive, already, the best thing is SEPARATION and go get the perpetrator some help WITHOUT using the kids as bait…

2010 Tenth Annual Texas AFCC Statewide Conference
October 15 & 16, 2010
University of Houston Law Center, Houston, Texas

Children Caught in the Conflict:
A Multidisciplinary PerspectiveFeaturing Keynote Speaker – Dr. Isolina Ricci, Ph.D.,
Author of Mom’s House, Dad’s House books
Presenting “Co-Parenting Today: The Professional’s Toolkit” 

Isolina Ricci, Ph.D, the author of Mom’s House, Dad’s House for Parents and Mom’s House, Dad’s House for Kids, is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 35 years experience in the fields of divorce, custody, co-parenting and mediation. Many of her pioneering concepts have now become accepted standards. For 14 years she headed the Statewide Office of Family Court Services for the California Administrative Office of the Courts serving all family court mediation and child custody services. She received her doctorate from Stanford University and has been honored by the Academy of Family Mediators and the International and California Association of Family and Conciliation Courts with their most prestigious awards for outstanding contributions and achievements.

She is the Director of CoParenting Today providing consultation, co-parent counseling, publications, and professional training where she integrates research on the brain, impulse control, resiliency, and motivation in her work. The audio book, Mom’s House, Dad’s House for Kids and a workbook for co-parents will be published in Fall 2010.

When this is the mentality behind “stopping violence” (and it’s being financially rewarded, and prestigious speaking conferences also), I have to say, it’s time for a little financial investigations, right?  And not to be cowed by the family alw system that set itself up to do precisely this — keep business COMING for the family law therapists, and income GOING for the parents, particuarly custodial mothers who, if contested in the courts, there exists a set of federal “facilitation” to help them lose their kids in the name of “Father knows Best”….

As a citizen, I can demand quite a bit from any nonprofit receiving public funding.  However, I cannot particularly stop the family foundations from spouting off on what they think is good for the rest of us.

Just a little reminder:

Pennsylvania ex-judge convicted of racketeering in ‘kids for cash’ kickback scam

Pa. judge guilty of racketeering in kickback case

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM | ASSOCIATED PRESS | Feb 18, 2011 7:19 PM CST in US

A former juvenile court judge who sent large numbers of children to detention centers was convicted Friday of racketeering for taking a $1 million kickback from the builder of the for-profit lockups, in what prosecutors said was a “kids for cash” scheme that ranks among the biggest courtroom frauds in U.S. history.

Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella, 61, left the bench in disgrace two years ago after he and a second judge, Michael Conahan, were accused of using juvenile delinquents as pawns in a plot to get rich. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has dismissed 4,000 juvenile convictions issued by Ciavarella, saying he sentenced young offenders without regard for their constitutional rights.

Federal prosecutors accused Ciavarella and Conahan of taking more than $2 million in bribes from the builder of the PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care detention centers and extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the facilities’ co-owner.

A federal jury in Scranton convicted Ciavarella of 12 counts, including racketeering, money laundering and conspiracy, but acquitted him of 27 counts, including extortion.

The AFCC has run and organized the family law arena to just about guarantee a ripe area for kickbacks in ordering the mediation, supervised visitation and parenting education series of grants to the courts, in order to “facilitate” noncustodial parents “access” — and in the process, any board members, originators, or other profiteers from some of the NONPROFITS that PROFIT from this, have access to both parent’s funding and federal funding, it seems.  (See my last post on double-payments).  How did this get rammed through?  Well, it’s kinda FOUNDATIONAL —

Like, Annie E. Casey, Scaife, etc.

Got it?  “Discretionary” (i.e., up to you, presumably within SOME guidelines…)

I’m beyond 6,000 characters, so that’s it for today, folks.  Next post, more on AFCC (compare with today’s reflection on some of their keynote speakers’ topics…)