Let’s talk about money, who has no idea where it’s gone, where the federal government gets its receipts from, and what happens when you leave politicians in charge of it.

This post is a miscellany — but this Change.org link explains why you should tell your legislator NOW to cut the (crap) funding of federal incentives to increase the welfare load, while claiming to be reducing it.

Cut TANF  / Title IV-D Programs which represent $4 billion of waste

TANF = “Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.”  Its funds are helping propagate and expand needless programs in the family law arena that hurt both fathers & mothers and definitely don’t produce what they promise, nor are they properly monitored.

Child Support nonprofits then run state, regional, and at least one national conferences on how to turn normal cases into Title IV-D (welfare) cases; then money goes into problems designed from top-down, not bottom-up.

Meanwhile (and parallel), associations comprised of Family Law professionals, themselves sometimes tax-dodging &/or not properly incorporated/registered nonprofits  hold conferences on how to profit from Title IV expansion, and force parents (and kids) into classes and programs they neither want, nor need, sometimes billing them for it.  Interest maintained in child support undistributed is lost, or retained improperly (which has been acknowledged at federal level, although you won’t find it on the evening news), leaving an incentive to NOT distribute funds.

Overall, it’s producing public blight and undermining due process.

A friend of mine put this Change.org information out, and NOW is the time to talk to legislators about this in common sense terms.   She summarizes:

Why this is Important

This letter is to request that you take action to cut spending on pork barrel spending on certain TANF [&]  IV-D programs which represent $4 billion untraceable dollars that no one keeps track of. These funds meant for needy children were diverted and wasted by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to non needs based programs available to all fathers engaged in the family court litigation industry—no matter how wealthy they are. These parents now ask Congress to take a stand to hold ACF’s defective leadership and the programs destroying families accountable by demanding the following budget cuts:

1. TANF Contingency Fund authorized under 403(b) Social Security Act for payment to States and other non-federal entities under Titles I, IV-D, X, XI, and XIV “to remain available until expended.” (p. 474)

(the “Contingency Fund” is Federal provision of money to states in years of economic downturn; it’s receipt is provisional depending on the states behavior & spending).

2. ID Code 75-1552-0-1-609, lines 0005 and 0009 [$990 million] (p. 473)

3. ID Code 75-1501-0-1-609 lines 0002, 0003 [Access and Visitation] [$1.7 billion] (p. 474)

Access and Visitation historically has been $10 million (not $1.7 billion) per year, and has even at that level been a source of protracted custody litigation, and a gender-specific (fathers emphasis) attempt to change the judicial process into an “out-come” based process, which is establishing another form of government, essentially.  Because doing this is illegal at the state level, the federal grants say they just “facilitate” programs to increase access and visitation of noncustodial parents.    The organization “Kids’ Turn” which I’ve highlighted (SF and San Diego, CA nonprofits) benefits from these grants, which fund “parent education” among other things.  It’s my understanding that most judges and family court lawyers are not really hurting for cash flow.  There are states trying to make “access visitation” programs mandatory for every custody modification, as I recall, and it was one of Obama’s promises (through HHS) to a fathers and families group to do this.  I’ve written plenty of this topic, search it on the blog….)

4. Discretionary “Child Support Incentives” to States [$305 million] (p. 475)

This is talking about the 66% Federal incentive to states for child support enforcement (which could also include such activities as fatherhood programs, marriage education, parenting classes, etc., as I understand it:)   This particular link refers to ARRA (I’m just providing general glossary of the concepts)

BACKGROUND:

A Federal match of 66 percent is available for State administrative costs of carrying out child support enforcement program activities under title IV-D of the Social Security Act (Act). ARRA temporarily changes the child support authorization language to allow States to use Federal incentive payments provided to States in accordance with Section 458 of the Act as their State share of expenditures eligible for Federal match. This change is effective October 1, 2008 through September 30, 2010. The requirements of Section 458(f) of the Social Security Act and 45 CFR 305.35 regarding “reinvestment” of incentive funds remain in effect.

This change is in effect for any incentive funds expended during FY 2009 and FY 2010, including incentives earned and not expended in prior years (i.e., prior to October 1, 2008). Incentive payments expended during FY 2008 (October 1, 2007-September 30, 2008) are not eligible for additional Federal funds.

5. ID Code 75–1512–0–1–506 “Healthy Families” [$1.7 billion] (p.476)

A family with its civil and legal rights intact is likely to be a healthy family.  What, really, are those being used for?

6. ID Code 75–1512–0–1–506 “Abstinence Education” [$1.7 billion] (p. 477)

Yes, former President George Bush lives:  Abstinence Education.

You know what that is?  Obviously it doesn’t apply to our Congressional Leaders (see previous US Presidents, Governors, and other legislators, or Rep. Weiner. Federal Grantswire says that entities “soliciting” to teach teenagers (and I kid you not, some parents caught in custody battles!) how not to have sex can get formula grants to do this:

Program Information Authorization (040): Title V, Section 510 of the Social Security Act. Objectives (050): To enable States to provide abstinence education, and at the option of the State, where appropriate, mentoring, counseling, and adult supervision to promote abstinence from sexual activity, with a focus on those groups which are most likely to bear children out-of-wedlock. The Affordable Health Care Act (ACA) appropriated funding for this program through FY 2014. Types of Assistance (060): FORMULA GRANTS Uses and Use Restrictions (070): Pursuant to Section 510(b)(2) of Title V of the Social Security Act, the term “abstinence education” means an educational or motivational program that: (A) has as its exclusive purpose, teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity; (B) teaches abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school age children; (C) teaches that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems; (D) teaches that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity

Turn off that recent movie, “What Number Are You?” in which a woman runs up sex with 20 men and believes that her odds of finding the right one are going to decrease if she goes over this….  Also turn off “Crazy Stupid Love” in which one ladies’ man teaches a monogamous jilted husband how to pick up women, which of course he does easily with a makeover and more domineering attitude.   Also pay no need to the endless procession of married Congressional leaders caught in the act, or trying to get some action going (Rep. Weiner using Congressional gym as backdrop for lewd photos of himself; LA Times, “New Half-naked Photos:  Rep. Weiner calls for press conference” June 6, 2011, just in time for Fathers’ Day…; some tweet’s of a man’s crotch were reported; he represents portions of Brooklyn & Quuens, and this was his 7th term…)

No, Abstinence education isn’t aimed at everyone.  And it’s not because those pushing it  as a group really do believe in abstinence for themselves:   It’s aimed at poor people who might have children that become welfare recipients, and while I won’t mention color, I’ll relate that the Congressional Record in passing welfare reform certainly did.  It’s not that we really disapprove of sex outside marriage, or promoting promiscuity as desirable, if not the ideal — but really, what this is about (besides the business angle of getting the grants — which probably aren’t tracked any better than the A/V grants or collected child support is) is allegedly the  public debt load, and as a friend of mine put it, the ruling elite which — face it (or look at Congress), still are white males, not wanting to lose their place in society by greater fertility among people of color.  By sharing the characteristics, poor white men, and with their participation in fatherhood ego-bolstering activity, can share in some of the trickle-down glory & control by programs that restore control over women and children who dismissed or left them, sometimes for very valid reasons…

(But I’m getting off from the budget angle here, sorry).

Seriously:

7. Line 0129 “Faith Based Initiatives” [$1 million] (p.479)

Struggling parents want things like jobs, housing, education, childcare, and access to medical care to help them weather the current economic crisis. Instead, these hard working families are forced to invest $4 Billion in irresponsible, extortion based, Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) programs that promote widespread Medicaid and child support fraud, protracted high conflict litigation, and bogus therapy programs.

Child support agencies deliberately withhold and mismanage billions of paid collected support, which starves children onto TANF and causes parents to be falsely prosecuted for nonpayment.

Good parents are being exploited, bankrupted, and emotionally destroyed while their kids are needlessly placed on the welfare, Medicaid, and foster care system rolls. Billions of dollars of child support remains unaccounted for nationwide.

These frivolous programs spend without restraint and direct money to places HHS cannot identify (as noted by the OIG and GOA reports on the second page.) There is no oversight. DHHS’s position is that once the money goes to the states, they are not responsible for oversight. Fraud is rampant, yet the OIG does nothing to enforce the laws to protect families.

90% of the parents paying child support are fathers. Using child support enforcement programs as a vehicle, these extortion based programs force fathers to elect between criminal penalties and inciting “high conflict” family court litigation to create a “need” for their own publicly funded services. These irresponsible programs cash in on the “incentives” by placing children in unstable homes, and then starve the entire family onto some sort of public assistance. We can identify no legitimate purpose for these programs and request that Congress take the following actions:

(for more, click on the link):

. . . .   Below here is me collecting various articles and thinking aloud about this whole mess.  Quite honestly, I’m tired!

You might be too if you lived in California!!

“Almost” comical, if I don’t think about it too hard:

Some Gov. Jerry Brown appointees get pension and paycheck

Gov. Jerry Brown had vowed to rein in pension costs. But some of his appointees are receiving double payments totaling more than $200,000 a year.

• 

Ann Ravel, the chairwoman of the California Fair Political Practices Commission,… (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

September 29, 2011|By Shane Goldmacher and Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Sacramento — Every month, Ann Ravel gets a paycheck from her salary as chairwoman of California’s ethics watchdog agency and a second, bigger check from her public pension as a retiree.

The double payments, which total more than $305,000 a year, represent the kind of costly pension perk that Gov. Jerry Brown has vowed to rein in.

. . .

But since he assumed office nine months ago, Brown has appointed numerous officials like Ravel to state jobs in which they can simultaneously collect a full salary and a public pension.

One is earning $234,000 in combined wages and pension to serve on California’s state’s unemployment board, which the governor wants to eliminate. Six Brown appointees to the state’s parole board are layering wages atop pensions.

“That should be against the law,” said Marcia Fritz, a certified public accountant and president of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, which seeks to end what she called “double dipping.”

“It violates the whole premise of having a retirement program,” she said.

California law forbids rank-and-file state employees to draw full-time government wages and state-administered retirement benefits at the same time. But an exemption exists for political appointees to more than a dozen powerful boards and commissions, where members can legally earn both.

Taxpayers are footing the bill. The state treasury must cover $3.51 billion this year for California’s beleaguered pension system, known as CalPERs, though payments to active state employees account for a fraction of that sum.

As a candidate, Brown pledged to stop pension abuses. In March, he rolled out a 12-point plan for reducing pension costs that included “limits on post-retirement public employment.”

But only six weeks earlier, the governor had appointed Ravel, 62, to chair the Fair Political Practices Commission

HEY, Isn’t that the group that ruled against county benefits going to California Judges, who by law were to be paid by the state?  Richard Fine, etc.?

ANyhow, it must be OK because Republicans do it too.

“The Republicans were doing it too,” said Ravel, a Democrat.

The same day Brown appointed Ravel, he also tapped Robert Dresser as the $132,179-a-year chairman of the state’s Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board.  Dresser, 70, defended taking the salary while receiving $102,955 in annual pension payments after decades as a state attorney.

“What I am doing is consistent with state policy and law,” he said.

“It is unclear from state records how often such appointments occur….”

It is unclear from state records how often such appointments occur, but previous governors also made them.

. . .

A group of GOP legislators sought to ban the double earnings in budget negotiations with Brown earlier this year.

When those talks collapsed, Republicans introduced their own measure, but it never received a hearing in the Democratic-controlled Legislature.

Now, taxpayers are stuck “paying for double dipping at the expense of real programs such as education and public safety,” said Sen. Tom Harman (R-Huntington Beach), one of the Republicans who had been in discussions with the governor.

The issue has come before the Legislature before. In 2009, state senators grilled Anthony Kane, a Schwarzenegger appointee to the parole board, about his retirement as a deputy prison warden and his subsequent collection of a pension and board salary.

“That was not my goal, to retire and come back and be a commissioner. That wasn’t the plan,” Kane said, according to a hearing transcript.

The state Senate declined to confirm Kane then. Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), one of Kane’s questioners, pledged new legislation to end the exemption for political appointees.

He never introduced such a bill.

NO — He introduced a bill to retroactively immunize California Judiciary for taking county-paid bribes in cases before them where the County was a party — that’s the SBX-211 that got rammed through right around the time, these guys were getting REAL fed up with Mr. Fine’s whistleblowing…..I blogged it.

WHILE WE’re HERE — about those Judicial Disclosures (Form 700s):

Fair Political Practices Commission Described (Chairman is salaried, the other 4 are paid $100/day).  THe Political Reform Act was passed by a ballot measure in 1974, to:

The Political Reform Act is designed to assure that:

• State and local government serve all citizens equally, without regard to status or wealth

• Public officials perform their duties impartially, without bias because of personal financial interests or the interests of financial supporters

• Public officials disclose income and assets that could be affected by official actions and disqualify themselves from participating in decisions when they have conflicts of interest

• Election campaign receipts and expenditures are fully and truthfully disclosed so voters are informed and improper practices are inhibited

• Elections are fair

• No laws or practices favor incumbents

• The state ballot pamphlet gives useful information about state measures so voters can be less dependent on paid advertising for information

• The activity of those who lobby the state legislature is regulated and finances disclosed to prevent improper influence on public officials

(etc.).

Link to Info on “Statement of Economic INterests (form 700) forms.”

A statement of Economic Interest (FORM 700) is a state form on which state and local government officials publicly disclose their personal assets andincome that may be materially affected by their official acts. Agency employees, including some public officials who are designated in a conflict of interest code are required to disclose certain financial interests according to the disclosure categories assigned to that position in their agency’s conflict of interest code.

Certain public officials, including public officials who manage public investments, are required to disclose all financial interest. These officials make full economic disclosure in accordance with state law, rather than their agency’s conflict of interest code.

Download Form 700 from the Fair Political Practices Commission.

Judges file with the clerk of their court; retired judges are to file directly with the FPPC (in California).  Now we know where to get those forms from, too.   2010 RonKayinLA Article  summarizes the California Judicial Scandal in taking county benefits payments while ruling over cases involving the count(ies)  “No man is permitted to try a case where he has an interest in the outcome.”

Here’s a Fair Political Practices Commission article (also in the LA Times) reporting on how a well-known campaign manager witha  modest lifestyle was engaging in some very illegal practices for major politicians, including Senator Dianne Feinstein, whose daughter, the Hon. Katherine Feinstein, presides over the SF Unified Court system, which was recently closing all those courtrooms for lack of cash, and arguing with the AOC / Judicial Council about how to keep some of them open…

Dubious Durkee Doings?  (my title):

ARticle 1 — Sept. 23, 2011:

Dianne Feinstein’s campaign sues bank and Kinde Durkee, alleging fraud [Updated]

Sen. Dianne Feinstein is suing her former treasurer and her campaign’s bank for fraud and breach of contract, alleging that the bank was complicit in a massive fraud case that has rocked the political world.

The suit was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Friday against First California Bank, Feinstein’s former treasurer Kinde Durkee and her company, Durkee & Associates.

Durkee was arrested Sept. 2 on a federal fraud charge after allegedly embezzling possibly millions of dollars from her clients, who include Feinstein and many other prominent California Democrats.

The complaint alleges that First California Bank was “at the heart of the illegal transfer out of plaintiffs’ accounts.” It quotes a letter from the bank to clients acknowledging that it appears Durkee had commingled funds and made transfers between accounts and that the balances credited to any given account may not accurately reflect the funds belonging to the associated campaigns.

“Despite knowledge of this pervasive pattern of misconduct, First California Bank continued to provide banking services to Durkee and Durkee & Associates, LLC, for many years, happy to collect the fees and interest generated by the scores of accounts Durkee maintained at the bank,” the complaint stated, going on to suggest that other banks and professionals may also have been complicit.

The complaint cites multiple instances of checks written without authorization and misreported fund balances, including a balance summary dated July 2 that reported Feinstein’s Senate account had a balance of $2.3 million when, in fact, its balance was about $266,000. Bill Carrick, Feinstein’s longtime campaign consultant, said the full extent of the funds taken from Feinstein’s account is still unknown because the bank has not handed over records.

ARTICLE TWO

The politicians and consultants who trusted the Long Beach resident with millions of dollars saw little to hint that she might become vilified as the ‘Bernie Madoff of campaign finance treasurers.

(after descriptions of what a modest and low-profile lifestyle she and her husband led….)

…As the treasurer considered the “platinum standard” in California, Durkee oversaw at least 360 bank accounts for almost 100 candidates, six dozen political action committees, about 60 Democratic clubs and committees and a handful of nonprofits. The ongoing federal investigation has triggered turmoil in state Democratic circles, with politicians, including members of the Los Angeles City Council and Congress, locked out of their accounts and worried that millions of dollars may be lost. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein had $5.2 million, according to Durkee’s last report, but the bank can find just $662,101.

“I never saw her driving a Ferrari. She lived a very non-pretentious life,” said state Sen. Louis Correa (D-Santa Ana), who met her when he first ran for office 17 years ago. “You see a persona and then you see this, and the picture doesn’t fit.”

The image that emerges from Durkee’s political world is of an intentionally low-profile player who rarely discussed her personal life. She had a sweet voice and a pedigree that inspired trust. She was the protege of a Los Angeles accountant {{Glazer}} who had a national reputation for his ethical standards and the daughter of a beloved Lutheran minister memorialized as “gracious, warm, caring and ever-present.”

Ya gotta watch out for the religious ones, I keep telling us!

Durkee registered Durkee & Associates as a limited liability corporation four years after Glazer’s death. She lists herself as the owner and her husband and her two sisters as members. The firm’s website said it had been in business since 1972. Her rates were cheap and politicians found her responsive.

The top one here? (which shows a Burbank address):

“Everybody knew Kinde Durkee was the person to go to,” said state Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod (D-Chino). “She was just the nicest person you could ever talk to.”

Federal investigators say Durkee admitted she had misappropriated money for years and filed false campaign finance reports. A Times review of those campaign records for about 180 state and federal committees found that she reported they had $9.8 million in cash on June 30. But First California Bank put the value of all Durkee-controlled accounts it could identify on Sept. 21 at $2.5 million. Durkee also had at least one account at City National Bank.

Durkee’s arrest on suspicion of mail fraud stemmed from the allegation that she drained $677,181 from an assemblyman’s account and, making about 30 complicated transfers, used it to pay business and personal expenses.

…

Durkee has been accused of covering up for an employee who embezzled. Two years ago, state Sen.Christine Kehoe (D-San Diego) learned from state auditors that a Durkee employee had embezzled $57,166 from her campaign. She called for a criminal investigation in a six-page letter that detailed how Durkee failed to tell her of the theft and filed reports that did not disclose it. A state audit concluded that the same employee siphoned $8,244 from state Board of Equalization member Jerome Horton, but again Durkee’s firm did not report it. Durkee paid at least some of the money back.

The treasurer rarely drew much media attention. But in 2007, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Durkee was the treasurer of Californians for Obama, which raised more than $10,000 but spent much of it on expenses, including payments to Durkee’s firm. Asked to explain her involvement, a Durkee representative said: “She does not talk to reporters.” In 2009, the news broke that Kehoe had fired Durkee.

Durkee did have a public record that her loyal clients simply brushed aside. Since 2002, the state Fair Political Practices Commission has assessed fines 11 times against committees that used Durkee as treasurer. Durkee typically cooperated with these investigations, sometimes accepting blame and paying the fine. Earlier this year, she did just that, agreeing to pay $13,000. But that case became her firm’s undoing.

A commission investigator noticed that Durkee appeared to shift money from client accounts to her firm’s without permission and shuttle some back when needed to cover checks. The FBI was alerted.

john.hoeffel@latimes.com
patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com
jean.merl@latimes.com
Times staff writers Abby Sewell and Richard Simon contributed to this report.  Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

November 16, 2010 (Can’t wait to read the November, 2011 version of this letter):

from the Department of the Treasury, Financial Management Services, courtesy David A. Lebryk, Commissioner

“Dear Citizens of the United States” —

[Summarized annual report].  

In accordance with the provisions of Section 114(a) of the Act of September 12, 1950 (31 U.S.C. 3513(a)), I am transmitting herewith the Combined Statement of Receipts, Outlays, and Balances of the United States Government for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2010.

This statement presents budget results and the cash-related assets and liabilities of the Federal Government with supporting details.

• We have receipts of  $2,161.7 billion, which is $57.4 billion more than 2009
• We have outlays of   $3,456.0 billion,  which is $64.1 billion less than 2009 outlays
• Obviously, the “outlay” number is bigger than the “intake” — by $1,294.3 billion, but that was less than last year.

(for those of you who had a public school education, but somehow made it to this page anyhow, I note that there was no decimal given on the $3,456 billion.  By supplying one, I get $1,294.3 (not .2) billion, but after a while, billion, trillion, it tends to blur, right?…  0.1 Bill is only $100 million, that ain’t a whole lot overall.

WHOSE MONEY IS IT?  WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?    42% INCOME TAX (on individual wage-earning persons), 9% CORPORATE TAXES

WHO DECIDES HOW THIS MONEY IS SPENT, REALLY?

Foundations & Corporations that influence political campaigns, politicians, and “craft” legislation to favor their interests.  

Have you heard of ‘ALEC”  – American Legislative Exchange Council” ??

In their terms:

Our Mission

The mission of the American Legislative Exchange Council is…

…to advance the Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty, through a nonpartisan public-private partnership of America’s state legislators, members of the private sector, the federal government, and general public.

…to promote these principles by developing policies that ensure the powers of government are derived from, and assigned to, first the People, then the States, and finally, the Federal Government.

…to enlist state legislators from all parties and members of the private sector who share ALEC’s mission.

…to conduct a policy making program that unites members of the public and private sectors in a dynamic partnership to support research, policy development, and dissemination activities.

…to prepare the next generation of political leadership through educational programs that promote the principles of Jeffersonian democracy, which are necessary for a free society.

History . . . . if you can spell Neo-Con, very Big Business:

Former ALEC chairmen (a roster of legislators….)

More than 30 years ago, a small group of state legislators and conservative policy advocates met in Chicago to implement a vision: A nonpartisan membership association for conservative state lawmakers who shared a common belief in limited government, free markets, federalism, and individual liberty. Their vision and initiative resulted in the creation of a voluntary membership association for people who believed that government closest to the people was fundamentally more effective, more just, and a better guarantor of freedom than the distant, bloated federal government in Washington, D.C.
At that meeting, in September 1973, state legislators, including then Illinois State Rep. Henry Hyde, conservative activist Paul Weyrich, and Lou Barnett, a veteran of then Gov. Ronald Reagan’s 1968 presidential campaign, together with a handful of others, launched the American Legislative Exchange Council. Among those who were involved with ALEC in its formative years were: Robert Kasten and Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin; John Engler of Michigan; Terry Branstad of Iowa, and John Kasich of Ohio, all of whom moved on to become governors or members of Congress. Congressional members who were active during this same period included Senators John Buckley of New York and Jesse Helms of North Carolina, and Congressmen Phil Crane of Illinois and Jack Kemp of New York.

Let’s talk JUST a little bit about Paul Weyrich.  Here’s a nice photo from Wikipedia, and some data:

Paul M. Weyrich (October 7, 1942 – December 18, 2008^[1][2][3][4]) was an American conservative political activist and commentator, most notable as a figurehead of the New Right. He co-founded the Heritage Foundation,^[5] a conservative think tank and the Free Congress Foundation, another conservative think tank. He switched from the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church to that of Melkite Greek Catholic Church and was ordained protodeacon.  (Protodeacon is an honorific rank given to certain married deacons in Eastern Christian churches. )

In 1966,^[5] he became press secretary^{[citation needed]} to RepublicanU.S. SenatorGordon L. Allott of Colorado.^[5] While serving in this capacity, he met Jack Wilson, an aide of Joseph Coors, patriarch of the Coors brewing family. Frustrated with the state of public policy research, they founded Analysis and Research Inc., in 1971, but this organization failed to gain traction.

(Weyrich)….Founding the Heritage Foundation

Can you spell, Unification Church monies, National Parenting Day and Sun Myung Moon?  ???

Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a New Rightthink tank. Its stated mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of “free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.” It is widely considered one of the world’s most influential public policy research institutes.

History

The Foundation wields considerable influence in Washington, and enjoyed particular prominence during the Reagan administration. Its initial funding was provided by Joseph Coors, of the Coors beer empire, and Richard Mellon Scaife, heir of the Mellon industrial and banking fortune. The Foundation maintains strong ties with the London Institute of Economic Affairsand the Mont Pelerin Society.

With a long history of receiving large donations from overseas, Heritage continues to rake in a minimum of several hundred thousand dollars from Taiwan and South Korea each year.

In autumn of 1988, the South Korean National Assembly uncovered a document revealing that Korean intelligence gave $2.2 million to the Heritage Foundation on the sly during the early 1980s. Heritage officials “categorically deny” the accusation.

Heritage’s latest annual report does acknowledge a $400,000 grant from the Korean conglomerate Samsung. Another donor, the Korea Foundation – which conduits money from the South Korean government – has given Heritage almost $1 million in the past three years.

. . .

Meanwhile, there was also a connection between Heritage and the Rev Sun Myung Moon (founder of the Moonies). This first appeared in a 1975 congressional investigation on the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) activities in the US.

The report noted, “In 1975, Ed Feulner … was introduced to KCIA station chief Kim Yung Hwan by Neil Salonen and Dan Feffernan of the Freedom Leadership foundation”.

Salonen was head of Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church in the United States. The Freedom Leadership Foundation (FLF), a political arm of Moon’s Unification network, was linked to the World Anti- Communist League.

In the early 1980s, the KCIA began making donations to Heritage Foundation. In turn, Heritage established an Asian Studies Center.

And

AND I want to point out (again) along with the ultra-conservative influence and agenda, the same funders and policy-influencers at this 501(c)3 are often — VERY often — found also behind fatherhood and fathers’ rights institutes at universities, projects to demonstrate how fatherhood will reduce welfare roles, “Fragile Families” studies, etc., etc.

Another set of factoids, these are from “Sourcewatch” on the Heritage Foundation:  I posting a LARGE section for effect.  Remember, above, the 9% corporate tax (and that this group is a NONProfit….)

Funding

The Heritage Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation. In its annual report it states that “we rely on the financial contributions of the gemeral public: individuals, foundations and corporations. We accept no government funds and perform no contract work.”

2006 Budget

In calendar year 2006 the Heritage Foundation spent over $40.5 million on its operations. That year the foundation raised over $25 million from individual contributors and $13.1 million from foundations.

While corporations provided only $1.5 million – 4% of Heritage’s contributions in 2006 – they none the less have significant interest in the foundations policy output. There’s defense contractors Boeing and Lockheed Martin, finance and insurance companies such as Allstate Insurance, Mortgage Insurance Companies of America, and American International Group (AIG), auto company Honda, tobacco company Altria Group (Philip Morris), drug and medical companies Johnson & Johnson,GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, and Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, oil companies ChevronTexaco and Exxon Mobil, software giant Microsoft, and chipping in over $100,000 each, Alticor (Amway), Pfizer, PhRMA, and United Parcel Service (UPS). ^[2]

Historical funding

Between 1985 and 2003, Media Transparency reports that the following funders provided $57,497,537 (unadjusted for inflation) to the Heritage Foundation [4]:

• Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
• Scaife Foundations: Sarah Mellon Scaife, Scaife Family, Carthage
• John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.
• Castle Rock Foundation
• JM Foundation
• Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation
• Philip M. McKenna Foundation, Inc.
• Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation
• Roe Foundation
• Rodney Fund
• Ruth and Lovett Peters Foundation
• Orville D. and Ruth A. Merillat Foundation
• Bill and Berniece Grewcock Foundation
• Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation
• William H. Donner Foundation
• Walton Family Foundation  (as in, Wal-Mart….)
• Armstrong Foundation
• John Templeton Foundation
• William E. Simon Foundation

Right Web says of the Heritage Foundation:

“The foundation received $2. 2 million from the Federation of Korean Industries in the early 1980s. Initially it was believed this donation came from the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (which would make the Heritage Foundation a foreign agent of Korea), but the Federation later stated that the donation came at the encouragement of the KCIA.”

“The Heritage Foundation’s income has increased every year since 1981. The progression has been: 1981–$7. 1 million; 1982-$8. 6 million; 1983–$10. 6 million; 1984–$10. 7 million; 1985-$11. 6 million; 1986–$14. 0 million; 1987–$14. 3 million; and 1988–$14. 6 million. In 1988, foundations provided 38 percent of Heritage’s income, individuals provided 34 percent, and corporations gave 17 percent; the remainder came from investments and sales of materials.”[5]

That information came from “ALEC EXPOSED” …..

ALEC Corporations

ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. (ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board.) They fund almost all of ALEC’s operations. Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law. ALEC describes itself as a “unique,” “unparalleled” and “unmatched” organization. It might be right. It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, yet corporations had pushed the people out the door. Learn more at ALECexposed.org.

So here comes Paul Weyrich:

In 1973, persuading Joseph Coors to put the money in, Weyrich and Edwin Feulner founded the Heritage Foundation as a think tank^[5] to counter liberal views on taxation and regulation, which they considered to be anti-business. While the organization was at first only minimally influential, it has grown into one of the world’s largest public policy research institutes and has been hugely influential in advancing conservative policies. The following year, again with support from Coors, Weyrich founded the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress (CSFC),^[5] an organization that trained and mobilized conservative activists, recruited conservative candidates, and raised funds for conservative causes.

Under Weyrich, the CSFC proved highly innovative. It was among the first grassroots organizations to raise funds extensively through direct mailcampaigns. It also was one of the first organizations to tap into evangelical Christian churches as places to recruit and cultivate activists and support for social conservative causes. In 1977, Weyrich co-founded Christian Voice with Robert Grant. Two years later, with Jerry Falwell, he founded the Moral Majority. Weyrich coined the phrase “Moral Majority”.^[8]

Over the next two decades, Weyrich founded, co-founded, or held prominent roles in a number of other notable conservative organizations. Among them, he was founder of the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization of state legislators; a co-founder of the Council for National Policy, a strategy-formulating organization for social conservatives; co-publisher of the magazineConservative Digest; and national chairman of Coalitions for America, an association of conservative activist organizations. The CSFC, reorganized into the Free Congress Foundation, also remained active.

Under the auspices of the FCF, he founded the Washington, D.C.–based satellitetelevision stationNational Empowerment Television (NET), later relaunched as the for-profit channel, “America’s Voice”, in 1997. That same year, Weyrich was forced out of the network he had founded when the network’s head persuaded its board to force out Weyrich in a hostile takeover. Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates says this was “apparently for his divisive behavior in attacking GOP pragmatists”.^[9]

From 1989 to 1996, he was also president of the Krieble Institute, a unit of the FCF that trained activists to support democracy movements and establish small businesses in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.^{[citation needed]}

Frustrated with public indifference to the Lewinsky scandal, Weyrich wrote a letter in February 1999 stating that he believed conservatives had lost the culture war, urging a separatist strategy where conservatives ought to live apart from corrupted mainstream society and form their own parallel institutions:

More from the ALEC website “History” page….

From Clearinghouses to Think Tanks

Following the end of the Reagan Administration, the Task Forces, under the leadership of Delaware State Senator Jim Neal, gradually began to shift from clearinghouses of ideas submitted by ALEC members into freestanding think tanks and model bill movers. They began to actively solicit more input from private sector members, seizing upon ALEC’s long-time philosophy that the private sector should be an ally rather than an adversary in developing sound public policy.

To date, ALEC’s Task Forces have considered, written and approved hundreds of model bills on a wide range of issues, model legislation that will frame the debate today and far into the future. Each year, close to 1,000 bills, based at least in part on ALEC Model Legislation, are introduced in the states. Of these, an average of 20 percent become law.

http://notseeamerica.com/ALEC-Alumni.html 

Wisconsin’s history and public policy reflects the red/blue divide. It is the state that gave birth to the Republican Party, which supported slavery abolition, and the John Birch Society, which opposed the civil rights movement. In the first half of the 20th Century, the state elected both progressive hero Robert “Fighting Bob” LaFollette and right-wing extremist Joe McCarthy. It is the state that elected both former Senator Russ Feingold (D) and Representative Paul Ryan (R).

Wisconsin also produced Paul Weyrich, who in 1973 co-founded both the Heritage Foundation and ALEC (and in subsequent years, Free Congress and Moral Majority). Weyrich’s ALEC, it seems, has been a factory for many of the state’s most recent right-wing policy initiatives.

Wisconsin’s Progressive Traditions Resist For-Profit Prisons and Bail-Bonds

Elements of Wisconsin’s criminal justice system reflect Wisconsin’s progressive traditions. Since 1979, Wisconsin has been ahead of most U.S. states in banning commercial bail-bonding (46 states still use it), joining the rest of the world in recognizing the practice as unacceptable (it is criminalized in countries like England and Canada). Posting another person’s bail for profit has a record of corrupting the sentencing process, and puts the decision of whether an accused person goes free in the hands of a profit-oriented business.

…Both the for-profit prison industry and the for-profit bail-bond industries have done so through ALEC, the national organization that facilitates corporate-sponsored “model bills” for legislators to introduce in their states.

ALEC and For-Profit Criminal Justice

The American Bail Coalition (ABC), the for-profit bail bond industry’s national organization and lobbying wing, calls ALEC the industry’s “life preserver”. ABC pays for ALEC membership, and a representative sits on the ALEC corporate board (the “Private Enterprise Board”) as well as ALEC’sExecutive Committee. The trade group boasts that “during its two decade involvement with ALEC, ABC has written 12 model bills fortifying the commercial bail industry.”

The nation’s largest private prison operator CCA is also an ALEC member and funder, and pays for a seat on the “Public Safety Task Force” that approves ALEC model legislation dealing with crime and penalties. Since the late 1980s and 1990s, ALEC has created model bills that lengthen sentences, which have dramatically increased incarceration rates, and bills that privatize prisons, putting more of those inmates under the control of for-profit corporations.

Wisconsin politicians have long ties to ALEC. Former Governor Tommy Thompson was involved in ALEC’s early years. Milwaukee’s groundbreaking “school choice” program was based on ALEC model legislation. ALEC alum Scott Walker’s first act upon becoming governor was to introduce an omnibus “tort reform” bill mirroring many ALEC bills. But, the state’s progressive traditions have thus far trumped efforts by ALEC’s Wisconsin legislators to open the state to commercial bail-bonding and private prison industries. But they are still trying.

ALEC Exposed

Almost always drafted outside of the state with little or no input from state residents (but significant input from corporate interests), ALEC bills have made substantial changes to laws in all 50 states and in some ways determined how state taxpayer dollars are allocated. The full list of legislative membership in ALEC is not public, and legislators introduce ALEC bills in the legislator’s own name. ALEC conferences allow elected officials to hobnob with some of the wealthiest corporations in the world, often behind closed doors and without public scrutiny. This secrecy has prevented state residents from holding their elected leaders accountable for passing laws that serve out-of-state corporate interests at the expense of the individuals that live, work, and vote in the state.

A visit to the “About” menu on ALEC’s website will give you a sense of the organization’s history, its current members, and its funders. But to get to the true depths of collusive corruption, you need to visit the site’s “model legislation” page, the gateway to all the bills ALEC has drafted. Unsurprisingly, you can’t view that legislation unless you’re a member.Alas, becoming a member of ALEC isn’t so easy. You have to be an elected Republican legislator (PDF) who pays roughly $100 per biennium to join after being thoroughly vetted, or you can become a “private sector” member (PDF) by paying a few thousand dollars minimum depending on which legislative domains are of the most interest to you.You can’t find out which Wisconsin Republican politicians are members of ALEC unless you’re a member because ALEC won’t provide it. You could ask Wisconsin representatives, but you won’t get an honest answer. Loopholes in Wisconsin’s strict open meetings laws (PDF) were created by Democrats and Republicans alike to allow them to push their own party’s agendas. Because of these loopholes, Wisconsin Republicans are able to hold secret meetings with ALEC to plan their lopsided legislative strategies whenever they want with no public knowledge or intervention.

ALEC’s partners play an important role in Wisconsin and other states in pushing their dreamt up legislation aimed at enriching them while destroying everyone else. The State Policy Network (SPN) is important to ALEC because they coordinate the activities of a wide variety of conservative “think tanks” at the state level throughout the U.S. Many publications from these “think tanks” can be accessed and downloaded from the SPN website.

For Wisconsinites, two important SPN members to note include the MacIver Institute for Public Policy, and the Wisconsin Policy R

Read more: http://digitaljournal.com/article/305144#ixzz1ZfX2Veb6

Income security— Income security benefits are paid to the aged, the disabled, the unemployed and low-income families. Included within this classification are programs such as general retirement and disability, public assistance [TANF, right?] and unemployment compensation. Outlays for these benefits were $624 billion in fiscal 2010—an increase of 16.9 percent or $90.1 billion over the fiscal 2009 level.

Miscellaneous Asset Accounts:

1012 U.S. Treasury Miscellaneous Assets  $20,685,324.88  twenty-point-six million

1016 Federal Reserve Banks, Deferred Items  $1,375,803.06  (I dont know meaning of the term “Deferred Items.”)

1053 U.S. Treasury – Owned Gold  $11,041,058,821.09  eleven-point-oh-four-one million

1054 Gold Certificate Fund, Board Of Governors Of The Federal Reserve System2  $-11,036,836,601.1 negative eleven-point-oh-three-six million

1423 U.S. Currency With The International Monetary Fund  $143,609,533.65

(and etc.. such as …..)  1670 Receivable For Forged, Or Incorrect Payment Of All U.S. Government Checks 1840 Deposits In Transit To The Treasury Account 1869 Deposit In Suspense, Electronic Funds Transfer 1870 E-Commerce Collections 1875 Undistributed Disbursing Transactions

(Agencies Reporting On Statement Of Transactions, FMS-224 – Revised)

Total Miscellaneous Asset Accounts  $-483,509,607.91  (ie, in the hole just under $500 million)

Total Asset Accounts  (including other than “Misc.”) – $1,135,885,827,712.54

Footnotes 1, 2:   “1/ Major sources of information used to determine Treasury’s operating cash include Federal Reserve Banks, the Treasury Regional Finance Centers, The Internal Revenue Service Centers, the Bureau of Public Debt and various electronic systems. Deposits are reflected as received andWithdrawals are reflected as processed.

2/ The difference between Gold and Gold Certificates represents 100,000 fine troy ounces of unmonetized gold held by the U.S. Mint as assurance that Gold Certificates are fully backed by Reserve Gold.

PART TWO, or is it FIVE?

If the average citizen did what some court-affiliated corporations and political appointees regularly do, they’d be in jail.

Here’s a link to some that are, courtesy the IRS:

The IRS Reports some Recent Trophies

“Examples of General Fraud Investigations — Fiscal Year 2011“

For those of us whose minds don’t naturally run towards, how can I get away with it, the fine distinctions between:  tax evasion, money laundering, embezzlement, a Ponzi scheme, and obstruction of IRS investigation of income tax evasions, mail fraud, straightfoward stealing through forging signatures (being in position such as bookkeeper or accountant, and able to do so), or simply flat-out “stealing state funds” this roster of recent IRS deadbeats is sort of a primer.

Many of these closely resemble some behaviors that appear (got to clear myself on this one!) to characterize the initial start-up behavior of the main court organization Association of Family & Conciliation Courts, in Los Angeles.

I’m putting this “primer” up because the approach “but they just don’t understand my case” has not been working for most parents.  Put yourself in the judge’s shoes, a little more, by understanding court operations.  It is the parents’ turn to start understanding how the courts actually work, meaning, who’s running them, and how they are financed. And get over the idea that one can be guaranteed whoever is wearing the black robes and manning a gavel, is per se of noble character, though I’m sure many ARE.   Respect the position, but make sure those in it — and the administrative agencies surrounding them — are held accountable!

“Class is in session — pay attention!”

In this example, a Minnesota State Auditor abused her position to enrich herself, some relatives, and a check-cashing company that helped with the conspiracy.  This auditor got audited, and has to pay it back:

Former Minnesota Department of Revenue Employee Sentenced For Stealing $1.9 Million in State Funds

On September 7, 2011, in Minneapolis, Minn., Pamela Marie Dellis, of Lindstrom, was sentenced to 60 months in prison for conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering. Dellis was charged along with two co-defendants on January 7, 2011, and pleaded guilty on March 7, 2011. On August 9, 2011, Dellis’s niece, Laurie R. Sondrall, of Minneapolis, was sentenced to 27 months on one count of conspiracy. Dellis’s sister, Nancy T. Sondrall, of Brooklyn Center, awaits sentencing. All three defendants will be required to pay back more than $1.9 million in restitution.

In their plea agreements, the defendants admitted that from January 12, 2005, through September 17, 2010, they conspired to defraud the State of Minnesota by embezzling funds by creating false tax refund checks. According to court documents, as an auditor with the Minnesota Department of Revenue, Dellis’s job, in part, was to process tax overpayments. In numerous instances, however, she falsified records to create the impression that a taxpayer was owed a refund due to an overpayment when, in fact, that was not the case. Then, she drafted a refund check or a “transfer of funds,” made payable to her sister or niece, for the false refund amount. Dellis admitted using variations of her co-conspirators’ names on the checks and transfers to make it more difficult to detect that the refunds were not legitimate.*** To cash the checks, Dellis and her co-conspirators sometimes sought the services of a check-cashing business and then divided the check proceeds. On other occasions, the checks were deposited into an account, in an effort to conceal the source of the funds, and then withdrawn and shared by the co-conspirators. In all, Dellis was responsible for more than 200 fraudulent tax refund payments, totaling approximately $1.9 million.

*** parallel from the family court system in Los Angeles, as investigated by Kelly O’Meara.  I admire this woman’s work, whose credits include:

For her work, The National Foundation for Women Legislators named O’Meara Investigative Reporter of the Year in 2001 and the following year, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights gave her their International Human Rights Award.

Other major investigative reports that O’Meara filed while at Insight include a 12-part series entitled How the Money Works, that probed Federal agency financial reporting. Her examinations of annual updates of department and agency audits focusing on missing money showed that trillions go unaccounted for at agencies such as the Department of Defense and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In another series, U.S. Money Laundering, O’Meara looked at Enron, the Bank of New York and an estimated $500 billion of annual money laundering in the U.S. financial system. She also explored the relationship between Washington and capital markets.

In her series, Local Government Corruption, O’Meara investigated corruption in county governments and the judiciary, specifically the County of Los Angeles court system. She was the first reporter to break the story of the Los Angeles judges’ slush fund account and trigger an independent audit of that account, which has since been transferred to the county. **She received the 1999 Friend of the Child Award from the California Protective Parents Association for her articles on the Los Angeles family courts.

(**where it is STILL unaccounted for….)   Another investigative story might be WHY so many so-called children’s advocates chose to ignore this information in building their reform movements.  Don’t get me started….  The same groups also by and large ignored Mr. Fine while he was sitting improperly jailed for reporting it!

Here’s another one:

California Man Sentenced on Tax Charges

On July 29, 2011, in Sacramento, Calif., Owen Charles, of Pleasant Hill, was sentenced to 51 months in prison. Charles was convicted on January 14, 2011, of tax evasion, fraudulent use of a social security number and false statements to a federal agency. According to testimony presented at trial, Charles claimed to believe that the law only required him to pay income tax on his federal retirement.  An IRS audit determined that between 2001 and 2003, he had failed to pay more than $1.2 million in taxes, interest, and penalties on income from, among other things, real estate sales and rental properties. 

A person who can sell real estate and function as a landlord is smart enough to understand that income is taxable….  If $1.2 million was the taxes, interest, and penalties, what was the actual income?

Upon learning that he was being audited, Charles took measures to frustrate IRS collection efforts.  He did three “cash out” refinances of his million-dollar Benicia home; he moved money into nominee accounts; and he disguised his control of those accounts by using a false social security number, shell corporate names, and another person’s name.  In 2001, Charles wired more than $900,000 to a bank account in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Charles also claimed to have been living under a vow of poverty while driving luxury vehicles and controlling more than $1 million in assets.       

Unbelievable.   The fraudulent use of a social security number has been cited in child support cases as well; see “How To Destroy a Nuclear Physicist” and Maximus recycling an old child support case (after his kids were emancipated) and going after him, again:

In 1998, two years after Tony’s youngest child was emancipated, Maximus/Child Support Enforcement created a case in which Mary Ann was alleged to have had a male child two (2) months before that she claimed was Tony’s. At this point Tony had had no contact with Mary Ann for 20 years.

Notice of this action by Maximus/Child Support Enforcement appeared to be a “recycling” of the original 1991 case without providing justification for the action. Tony requested a DNA paternity test but that was immediately denied by Maximus/Child Support Enforcement in Tennessee on the basis that the “mother” would not allow a paternity test to be done.

Eventually, Tony was able to avoid this obligation by proving to the Missouri Court that he could not have been anywhere near Mary Ann at the time of the conception and the case was dismissed. In addition, in 2004 he learned that the alleged child never existed. The last child that Mary Ann had was in 1991, after which she had her Fallopian tubes ligated. This information surfaced in conversations between Mary Ann, Tony, and Amanda in 2004.

As is common in cases such as Tony’s, child support enforcement never gives up. According to Maximus/Child Support Enforcement, a “Final Administrative Order” was filed in the St. Louis County Circuit Court in July 1999 claiming an “arrearage” of $11,000. A Tennessee case number was assigned in violation of federal law (one state cannot amend another state’s original court order for child support and make a new case out of it) and this practice is illegal per decree of the U. S.. Supreme Court.

Here are a few involving attorneys — such as, a former district attorney:

Former District Attorney Sentenced for Tax Evasion

On June 1, 2011, in Lafayette, La., Joseph Floyd Johnson was sentenced to 18 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $179,661 in restitution. Johnson was employed as an assistant district attorney with the Lafayette Parish District Attorney’s Office from 1995 until at least July 2010 and he was also engaged in the private practice of law beginning around 1989 until at least July 2010.  Based on the taxable income Johnson earned, he owed federal income tax.

According to his plea agreement, in November 2010, Johnson admitted that he willfully attempted to evade federal income tax by failing to prepare and submit a tax return for the tax year 2003 on or before April 15, 2004, as required by law. He also admitted to committing other acts such as concealing the nature, extent and location of his assets to the IRS, making false statements to IRS agents, placing funds and property in the names of nominees to attempt to hide the true ownership of the assets, making checks payable to others to conceal assets from the IRS, paying creditors instead of the government and depositing checks into a client trust account to conceal the nature of the funds and give the appearance that the funds were neither income nor assets.  According to the bill of information, as of July 2010, Johnson failed to file federal income tax returns for 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 despite the fact that he was required to do so by law.

The guys’ a public employee, an attorney and just figured he didn’t have to file income tax? ???

Minnesota Attorney Sentenced For Tax Evasion

On May 26, 2011, in Minneapolis, Minn., Samuel Alfred McCloud was sentenced to 18 months in prison and two years of supervised release on one count of tax evasion. McCloud was also ordered to cooperate with the Internal Revenue Service and the Minneapolis Department of Revenue in the assessment and collection of taxes, interest, and penalties owed by him.

McCloud pleaded guilty on December 9, 2010. In his plea agreement, he admitted concealing $595,000 from both the IRS and the Minnesota Department of Revenue. Between 2004 and 2006, McCloud worked at two law firms, but he instructed clients to write checks to him directly rather than making them payable to the law firms. McCloud admitted depositing or instructing others to deposit those checks in bank accounts held in the name of another person as well as in the name of several sham corporations. In addition to failing to report the income, McCloud failed to pay state or federal taxes on it.    

Cute.     Seems like no one wants to pay taxes.   Some form nonprofits, and others work and just attempt to flat-out hide their income.  Others think “large” in schemes to defraud the innocent . . . . . 

Do Not try to evade Income Taxes or any other kind of taxes illegally  For PEte’s sake don’t copy the AFCC folk and start forming all kinds of corporations to give an appearance of actually being more than (basically) one association with an agenda — getting as many mental health practitioners as possible a great retirement plan, and tax-deductible air fare and hotel accommodations in fun places to think up the next set of schemes to be forced on the parents and their children.

But there is nothing wrong with taking a hard look at who is paying the taxes, and asking WHY the conversation all over the TVs, and the Child Support Enforcement Agencies, and the Think Tanks is about “creating” and/or finding jobs, jobs, jobs — [which would produce income tax, income tax, income tax for the 42% of government receipts for its operations, which we can safely say are mostly run by corporations, corporations, corporations influencing legislators….] when the fact is, the wealthiest people don’t even work that many jobs — instead, they create family and other foundations (including in other countries), tax shelters, they start, develop, go public with and sometimes buy & sell corporations; they invest in stocks, trade commodities or currencies markets, and in the resulting spare time because their income is NOT tied to a 9 to 5 (or 7 to 7pm) jobs, can meet with each other to figure out what legislation will best suit their business interests — not yours, THEIRS.  And/or they have adequate technology to market their businesses and conduct videoconferences, etc.

They possess and work in an entirely different field of ideas, attitudes and expectations, one of which is to manage people and run business, or at times, countries…..

The U.S. Public Education system exists, in part, to make sure that not too many youngsters learn these skills, and to groom them for their appointed future as employEES — not business owners or day traders, or investors.  Heck, literacy and math, history and economics are hardly taught.  There iS, however, a values war being run through the schools, and the metal detectors, lack of privacy and civil rights, and herd-mentality-treatment and such communicate to the average student what his or her future just might be if that student does not color within the lines.    Scant mention is made of how much is paid to politicians campaigns to keep this system going.

I’ll bet THIS article is a good one (podcast, though).  Note:  “CCHR” appears to be a Scientology outfit, but neither Blumentield nor O’Meara are, that I’m aware of.

Watchdog Radio with guest Samuel Blumenfeld

2010-11-15_watchdog_radio_episode_46_with_samuel_blumenfeld.m4a

72.1 MB

Read more…

Where, Oh Where, has Los Angeles County’s Money gone?

This is good reading (and a decade old) in O’Meara’s / Insight’s follow-up on whether, say, is anyone at Los Angeles going to, er, pay some of those 30 years of back taxes?  And trying to get a few more answers about WHO knows how much cash is being collected.  Remember, this is “OLD” news, yet who even bothers to talk about it any more , and what (if anything) was resolved?

Found on a Yahoo Groups discussion: posted July 21, 2001:

A Financial Fiasco Is in the Making

---

By Kelly Patricia O’Meara  (July 30, 2001)

komeara@…

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An alleged slush fund for the Los Angeles Superior Court Judges Association may be the tip of an iceberg of misappropriation of government money in Los Angeles County.

“Put your concerns in writing and mail them to me.” Click; the line goes dead. The voice on the phone was that of Los Angeles Superior Court Presiding Judge James Basque* as Insight pressed him to explain whether the Los Angeles Superior Court Judges Association (LASCJA), of which he is the chairman, has made any attempt to pay 30 years of back taxes to county, state and federal authorities.  

(CHART inserts, mine, from the CA OAG site): Notice, it has no EIN#!

Organization Name	Registration Number	Record Type	Registration Status	City	State	Registration Type	Record Type
LOS ANGELES SUPERIOR COURT JUDGES ASSOCIATION	EX550137	Charity	Exempt – Active	LOS ANGELES	CA	Charity Registration	Charity
1

Below is the detailed data for the registrant you selected.
You may CLOSE this window to return to the Search Results and choose another registrant.Registrant Information

Full Name: LOS ANGELES SUPERIOR COURT JUDGES ASSOCIATION FEIN: Type: Mutual Benefit Corporate or Organization Number: 2062529

Registration Number: EX550137 Record Type: Charity Registration Type: Charity Registration Issue Date: 12/31/1990 Renewal Due Date: 5/15/1991 Registration Status: Exempt – Active Date This Status: Date of Last Renewal:

Address Information

Address Line 1: 111 N HILL ST RM 204 Phone: Address Line 2: Address Line 3: Address Line 4: LOS ANGELES CA 90012

Annual Renewal InformationRelated Documents

No Related Documents

Prerequisite Information

No Prerequisite Information

IRS Return Data

And the Secretary of Site record for the corporation shows 1997.  OK . . . . .

(and a different room….)

Which is most definitely the courthouse itself:

Stanley Mosk Courthouse

Central District Stanley Mosk Courthouse on Hill St. 111 North Hill St. Los Angeles, CA 90012

 It has been more than two years since Insight broke the story of the Los Angeles Superior Court judges earning money off the books by providing minimum continuing legal education (MCLE) classes to attorneys in the courtrooms. The fees collected were deposited into a private bank account that has come to be known as the $100,000 “coffee and flowers” fund (see “Is Justice for Sale in L.A.?,” May 3, 1999). 
       The problem with this arrangement is that, apparently to cover for the fact that the judges weren’t paying taxes on this income, whether earned or extorted, the LASCJA illegally used the employer-identification number (EIN) of the County of Los Angeles. In time the county politely asked the learned jurists to stop using that number. But no criminal charges were filed against the judges and no one raised the issue of making good on back taxes. So when Basque abruptly ended that telephone conversation, Insight decided to take another look at the status of that private bank account and to revisit the Los Angeles County Superior Court Finance Office. 

Insight put its “concerns” about those back taxes in writing, as requested by the presiding judge, and hand-delivered the formal request to his chambers. Basque neither responded to the questions nor agreed to a meeting, instead deferring to the county’s counsel, Frederick Bennett.** 

(notice, also the registered agent of this corporation / alleged nonprofit with no EIN#) (yet!)

Although Bennett says that he “has some background information concerning the [judges] association,” not once in his three-page response did he discuss whether the judges have made any attempt to pay what could amount to 30 years of back taxes and penalties. Instead, he obfuscates, rambling on that he is “informed and believes the association has used its own taxpayer’s identification number since approximately 1997, when the county auditor [J. Tyler McCauley] indicated that would be the better practice.” 

Which number is …. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ?  

For the LASCJA to use its own identification number, as required by law, is a “better practice?” What about it being illegal for the judges to have enjoyed their private income for so many years under the county’s EIN? Not a word. But Bennett continues to defend the judges by explaining that “the association does not pay taxes,” as he is “informed and believes that it is an organization exempt from taxes.”  

Bennett provided a copy of the LASCJA’s year 2000 federal IRS 990 Form indicating the organization’s tax-exempt status but advised that the information he was providing should be verified with the LASCJA’s attorney, John J. Collins of the Pasadena law firm of Collins, Muir and Traver.   

Collins had less information than Bennett. It appears that Collins can only speak about the LASCJA back to the winter of 1997, when he first began representing the association. Asked if he is aware of any efforts by the judges to pay taxes on these large sums of money earned during the 30-year period, Collins tells Insight: “I can’t speak about that because I don’t know they made any money.”   

(NOTE:  appears to be when it registered as a separate corporation, possibly because of prompting from some of these investigators….)

That assuredly is a lawyerly response, given that Collins admitted to having read Insight’s earlier article about the LASCJA which contained details about checks being deposited into the judges’ private Bank of America account. It at that time contained a little more than $100,000.
       Neither Collins nor the judges have addressed the issue that, based on the bank records, large sums of money may be owed in back taxes. Furthermore, based on correspondence from Collins, it is clear that the association’s counsel is much more informed about the status of the account than he lets on. 
Since Insight began looking into the “slush fund” of the Superior Court judges and their finance office, requests for information have been submitted by private citizens, including Marvin Bryer, a retired computer analyst in La Crescenta, Calif. He became involved in the Superior Court’s financial matters because of problems his daughter was having in a child-custody case. In February 1998, Bryer made a statutory request through Collins to inspect the LASCJA’s records. Collins refused, saying LASCJA “is not a public entity nor an exempt organization as defined under this statute.” He stated that “the Los Angeles Superior Court Judges Association is a private organization and its documents, including financial records and tax information, are confidential and not subject to disclosure.” 

While Collins says the LASCJA is a “private” organization, according to California Secretary of State Bill Jones, the association filed for tax-exempt status in December 1997 — well within the time frame of Bryer’s request for inspection of the records. When Insight reminded Collins about this correspondence, the lawyer once more stonewalled, saying: “I’m not giving you any opinion on that. That’s not part of my function. I’m not telling you what their legal status is. Everything that’s out there is a matter of public record. You’ve got the filings, the informational returns and that’s enough for you to come to your conclusions.” 

Meanwhile, the LASCJA continues to use the county courthouse for its private business. According to documents filed with the California secretary of state, the LASCJA lists the courthouse at 111 North Hill Street as its business address. Then there is a letter from Collins dated November 2000 stating that “the tax returns for 1998 and 1999 have been deposited in Room 119 [the Superior Court Finance Office] of the Central District Court. … you should ask for Mr. Alf Schonbach, who is the court administrator–finance and accounting.” Despite assurances from county auditor McCauley that the judges no longer were conducting their private business from the court premises, Collins continues to direct inquiries about the LASCJA to the court’s finance office.  

Schonbach long has been a key player in the oversight of the LASCJA account. And it is Schonbach who was in command of the Superior Court Finance Office when one of his underlings, Gregory Pentoney, and an attorney friend, Robert Fenton, cooked up a scheme to collect $5 million in unclaimed sums deposited — and long forgotten — in the county’s Condemnation and Interpleader [C&I] trust fund. Pentoney and Fenton pleaded guilty to one felony count of taking a bribe and receiving a bribe. Pentoney was sentenced to two years in state prison; Fenton received 16 months.

USlegal definition”  “Condemnation”

Condemnation suit is a judicial proceeding for the purpose of taking property by eminent domain for public use upon the payment of just compensation for such taking. It is also known as condemnation proceeding. Such a proceeding adjudicates all rights, including ownership and just compensation, as well as the right to take the property.

and “Interpleader”

Interpleader is the procedure when two parties are involved in a lawsuit over the right to collect a debt from a third party, who admits the money is owed but does not know which person to pay. The debtor deposits the funds with the court (“interpleads”), asks the court to dismiss him/her/it from the lawsuit and lets the claimants settle their dispute in court.

Interesting . . . .

so, here is a Fenton Appeal on the case:

1. [PDF]

   IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA …

   caselaw.findlaw.com/data2/californiastatecases/B152057.PDF

   File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – Quick View
   Jul 1, 2002 – against Fenton and Pentoney. Fenton and Pentoney subsequently pled “no contest” to violating Penal Code sections 67.5 (bribing a ministerial …

   
   

And, moreover, here is Marv Byers (?)  Johnnypumphandle’s  commentary on the fact that the City of Glendale omitted a “Statement of Economic Interest” (for Fenton, while he was working as its City Attorney?); gets kind of like a mystery here, I understand!:

BEGIN of PUMPHANDLE QUOTE:

”

enton / Pentoney – arrested August 28, 1998

Latest News

January 25, 2001 – The case has been moved to Dept Q, Judge Wolf, and will now be heard on February 9 at 8:30 am. We understand that Judge Wolf has previously ruled favorably for Fenton.

January 11, 2001 – In a related case, LC043853, which is to be heard in the Van Nuys Court, Dept. C24 on January 25, 2001, Robert Fenton had sued the City of Glendale to recover his ‘costs’ in scamming money from the County of LA which was routed to the City of Glendale. The suit was tabled until the criminal case was resolved. As we all know, Fenton went to jail for his part in the bribery scheme. When he was working for the City of Glendale as their City Attorney (so he could act for Glendale in getting LA County funds), Glendale was required by law to have a Statement of Economic Interest on file for all public officials that represent the City. Guess what? Glendale took part in the scheme by ‘overlooking’ this requirement. The City of Glendale has no Statement of Economic Interest. If it were not for the crime committed while Fenton was in office, Glendale should only be sanctioned. But now, it looks like Glendale was in on the scheme an tried to hide Fenton’s connections. This is criminal activity that needs investigation by the State Attorney General’s office.

Older News

August 11, 2000. Robert Fenton was sentenced today to 16 months in the State Prison System. However, Judge Waldrip specified that Fenton was to be processed through the LA County Restitution Center (???) in order to earn back the fines that were placed on him. Sentencing for Gregory Pentoney was continued to September 8th at 1:30 pm in Judge Waldrip’s court. (8th floor, 700 Civic Center Drive, Santa Ana,CA).

4 Cases of Restitution came before Judge Waldrip. He denied restitution for Marvin Bryer, Rose Jensen, and the City of Glendale (Glendale has a suit pending against Fenton that would also address the restitution.). The Judge met with counsel for almost an hour prior to the sentencing to work out the details – Restitution was granted to the LA Superior Court in the amount of $24,000. Although, an estimate of $61,000 (for the interest on the stolen money) was claimed by the Superior Court, the figure of $24,000 was approved by the Judge – pending acceptance by the LA Superior Court which was not present at this hearing. $16,000 to be paid by Fenton – $8000 to be paid by Pentoney. Because of this seemingly high amount, the judge reduced Fenton’s fine from $10,000 to $5,000.

We believe that there are hundreds of cases that Fenton and Pentoney used to defraud LA County out of much more money than has been uncovered in this case. (Although there were many counts of theft in this case, all other counts but one were dismissed by Judge Waldrip.) The Crusaders will be looking into these many other cases to see if the money can be returned to the taxpayers.

So far, we have not determined that any of the money was returned to the County since the ‘return money’ checks we found were made out to the LA Superior Court which is funded by the State of California.

October 15, 1999 – Over a year later, Fenton and Pentoney’s bail has been reduced to $100,000 and now Pentoney (public defender Walter Katz) has filed a 170.1 to recuse all the judges in LA County. The recusal was granted by Judge Hess and the case is being moved to Orange County. All judges in LA County are unable to hear this case. (Does this mean they are all connected to the scheme? And why did it take a year to learn that all the judges must be disqualified in this case?)    . . . 

“Since substantial sums are involved due to compounding interest, municipalities and even private citizens working for the municipalities sometimes subsequently try to locate the cases in which they believe money is owed. But success is limited, the prosecutor said, because the county refuses to provide outsiders with a blanket list of all such cases.

Pentoney, however, is charged with providing that information to Fenton, who, between December 1995 and November 1996, submitted 99 requests for disbursements of more than $5 million from the trust accounts on behalf of various municipalities.”

END OF PUMPHANDLE QUOTE...

To understand this some (why not?), read the various Los Angeles articles describing the crime, and scheme — how Pentoney had to sell Fenton insider information about accounts that still had compounded interest due the municipalities in emininent domain cases.  In other words, a city (municipality) wants to grab some land.  They have to deposit money into an account (“condemnation”) until the case is finished, that money gets compounding interest.  I’m sure it adds up.  Sometimes the cities forget to collect the interest too — and then “bounty hunters” can go try and get it back.  Problem:  The county didn’t want to ” ‘fess up” where such funds were so cities could go get them back, even though those funds belonged to the cities….

Amazing what one finds looking for simple information.  I found this on a Yahoo groups “Family court reform” message — Marv Byer was looking for Gregory Pentoney’s ex-wife, who it appears he also cheated in a property matter, failed to disclose to a judge during the divorce, and guess what — it looks like Pentoney got custody of the children (because his ex-wife is paying him child support!)   As Pentoney went to jail, that meant the former Mrs. Pentoney ended up paying child support to the jailed Pentoney’s girlfriend.  Marv Byer wants to help her, and I can imagine is at the time rather peeved at having disc overed the scam affecting his own daughter’s custody case, no doubt….

Marv Bryer wants to know where to find Irene Pentoney, formerly married to
Gregory Pentoney of Los Angeles.

“You should have money coming to you. Your ex husband cheated you out of
community property. He is going to State prison for bribery.

While you were married, your husband failed to disclose that he had money in
escrow in a housing complex he was buying. It is located at 7336 Unit #66 in
Downey. He didn’t list it as community property, although he signed for it
while he was married to you.

He did not disclose the escrow account to the judge, and after the divorce he
lied on public record. He held up the final property closure until after the
divorce was final. Then he went to a notary and did a quit claim on the
property. He swore that he had made an error in his grant deed and he swore
he was NOT married when he signed. This is a lie. His statement is perjury.
In addition Pentoney quit claimed the property as a “gift” to himself as an
unmarried man and to his father and mother.

Then on March 8, 1995 Gregory Pentoney allowed Melissa Wall to start a
criminal enterprise from that property using a dba Morris and Associates
Bookkeeping Service. On Nov 1, 1996. the police raided the house and found
checks from Robert Fenton to Morris. The checks were confiscated by the DA
and are the subject matter of a bribery scheme and conviction. The case is
People vs Pentoney BA173392 in Orange County.

In case you’re a little mixed up:  Pentoney was the finance employee, Fenton was the outside attorney.  For Pentoney a.k.a. connected to “Morris and Associates” out of Pentoney-owned property( that he possibly cheated his ex-wife out of during a prior divorce) are paying FENTON, then was Morris and Associates a money laundering situation?

As I (again) read the “Beware AFCC” post of “stopcourtorderedchildabuse.” (FYI — itself a nonprofit claiming to be a nonprofit that I haven’t yet located…  and run by another AFCC member (at least at one point) family lawyer also running ANOTHER training operation, Child Abuse Solutions, claiming to be a nonprofit whose registration may be a PO box in Berkeley, but which nonprofit registration I haven’t found yet — and is in this same business, training court professionals….    ……     ) ..   The timeframe is very closely connecting this information with the origins of the AFCC, and connecting the origins of the AFCC (Los Angeles COunty Superior Court Judges Slush Fund) with the habit of tax evasion and other not so legal activity . . . . . ..  and then we learn that the bank account in question was Bank of America (formerly Security Pacific) which the man Charles Rossotti (See this post), also formerly IRS and with stock in the accounting used (then) in L.A. — it gets very interesting indeed.

HERE:  And I paste the relevant paragraphs into the link title (hover cursor to read)

While he was pleading not guilty, he and his parents sold the property in
violation of criminal forfeiture laws. There is criminal victim restitution
laws that appear to allow you, the former Mrs. Pentoney, to have a claim on
the sale of this property.

Even knowing that this is true, the DA nevertheless allowed Gregory Pentoney
to increase your child support that you will be paying to him while he is in
State prison, The money will go to his girl friend who is now his wife, and
who is caring for your child while Gregory Pentony is in prison. This is
wrong. Please contact us. “

AND HERE, (MOREOVER) IS MARV BRYER PUBLICIZING HOW THE PEOPLE V. PENTONEY TRIAL WAS SHIFTED, QUASHED, AND DISAPPEARED, ETC.  VERY INTERESTING READING. HE BELIEVED THAT THE PENTONEY CASE WAS KEY TO THE L.A. AREA “RICO,” AND PENTONEY’S.  HIS BAIL WENT SOMEHOW FROM $1.5 MILLION TO $100K.  BYER BELIEVES THEY LET HIM OFF SO HE WOULDN’T RAT THEM OUT.  

As a result of a series of Insight articles about theft from the C&I trust account, Schonbach was directed to produce a listing of the unclaimed funds and make it publicly available. This currently reflects a balance of a little more than $54 million but does not include the “zero-balance” cases, where principle [“principal”] has been paid but interest still is accruing. Insight’s articles also prompted the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in September 2000 to request a special audit of the C&I account — at a cost to taxpayers of $18,000 — which eventually was made public last February. (2001)

The accounting firm of Vasquez Farukhi & Co. conducted the special audit of the C&I trust account and stated it did not find “any material misstatements in the Condemnation and Interpleader Fund.” In other words, the C&I account is in good shape. But is it?   

For the purposes of defining the fund Vasquez Farukhi explained that the “SK4 [Condemnation and Interpleader Fund] was established by the County of Los Angeles for the Superior Court of the county to account for four types of deposits consisting of eminent domain [condemnation] deposits, interpleader [deposits for credit relief], nonbondsmen bail deposits and deposits made in compliance with judicial order.” Having been advised by Los Angeles County Treasurer Joe Spillane that the county takes in between $400 million and $600 million a year, financial analysts tell Insight it seems odd that the C&I fund audit would reflect a mere $54 million.   

Even more odd is that no one in the county government could provide Insight with a bottom-line figure of how much cash was collected through the C&I fund for fiscal 2000 alone. Spillane explained that he had little or no knowledge of the court’s finances. He receives a bottom-line figure from the auditor but has no clue about the deposit specifics. “We’re not looking,” explains Spillane, “for each of the individual deposits for each of the funds. That would be impossible.  

Impossible?  WHY?  

Any individual being audited would have to give a reconciliation, some backup documentation!  THis is part of good business practice.  I have seen other county records (in FL) where the transfers by clerks of the court are shown.  THey deal with huge amounts, but it’s their responsibility.       

  My function is to account for funds that are in the treasury, balance those to our bank accounts and our investments and have cash available for disbursement.” Spillane insists, “The auditor has the detail. I don’t know what is in the condemnation fund because it’s a fund that we don’t maintain.” Claiming to have exhausted his knowledge of how the money moves in Los Angeles, Spillane recommended that Insight speak with McCauley, the county auditor — a task easier said than done. 

Several weeks passed before McCauley allowed a brief telephone interview and, while the agreed-upon focus of the conversation was to provide a bottom-line figure on the amount of cash being collected at the Superior Court, the auditor said he could provide few specifics. For those, he said, Insight would have to go to Schonbach in the Superior Court Finance Office. And, of course, Schonbach refused to discuss the court’s cash collections

SCHONBACH appears on the other timeline as well (to which I’m sure Bryer’s and some NAFCJ reporting went in as well):

Begin quote from:

History of the AFCC – Association of Family and Conciliation Courts

COURT CANCER METASTASIZES Metamorphosis of the Conference of Conciliation Courts into the Association of Family Conciliation Courts A Guide to Destroying Children BY MARV BRYER

1995:

• Also in May, Deputy Executive Officer to Auditor Judy Call (who is on the signature card for the LASCA and person who signed the checks to cash and to judges) sent a letter to Tyler McCauley, LA County Auditor- Controller (who is doing the audit). The letter stated that Judy wanted all the money transferred from the (Subject: transmission of administrative responsibility for the LA Superior Court Judges Account ) to transfer LASCA account to the judges. • LASCJA is still not registered at IRS or FTB or city. The only identity belonging to the account is the Auditor-Controller because the tax number is for LA County. None of the money has been reported to IRS. (just like if I used Marv’s SSN and opened an account…and then got a job using Marv’s SSN. He would be reported to IRS if he didn’t report taxes after cutting the W- 2. If I don’t pay taxes, they will come after the ID and Marv) a Federal crime

• Also in May, a letter saying Confidential from Tyler McCauley to John Clark, admitting that there was an attempt to charge Marv $2000 which Marv called extortion. Admitted that the checks that Pentenoy gave Marv should have gone into the Court revenue, not into the private fund for judges. • Marv’s daughter subpeoned the Auditor’s investigation file. The Auditor admits they are doing an investigation but refused to give the file to her.

1996

August 6, Marv sued Pentenoy and Patricia Higgins for fraud and lying about court money.

DA raided the court with a search warrant and shut down work in Finance Dept.

• November 1, DA raided Pentenoy’s office, car, home (which is the same as Morris and Associates) and Judy Call’s office, locked up the computers and home [of?] Robert Fenton in Encino (who was bribing Pentenoy) and hid evidence.

Reminder.  The L.A. County D.A.’s office around this time must’ve been Gil Garcetti’s, which was also sitting on undistributed child support, a.k.a., topic of Silva v. Garcetti lawsuit (Richard Fine). …  So while they are racing around to prosecute crime, remember who it is ….

(Marv was busily suing and now could not get to the evidence.) • November 7, DA made another raid on Finance Dept and took a package marked “Marvin Bryer”, Pentenoy had notes on Marv.(Unconstitutional because no new search warrant…still don’t know what first search warrant said)

{{how Marv knew this??}}

• Dec 10, the Daily Journal reported the raid. (Since 1900, LA has been stealing money from the public. Pentenoy had lists of all the money that was stolen in Eminent Domain (when take people’s money) and Interpleader Accounts. He and Al Schonbach take it to the dumpster, but Pentenoy went to the dumpster later and retrieved it.)

1997

Marv Bryer subpoenaed all bank statements.

The LA Superior Court Judges Association bank statements state they have been a customer since 1962.

This LASCJA has to be the beginnings of the AFCC.  It is doing the same thing and has the same behavioral problems, like ETHICS!

1998

LA Superior Court Judges Association corporation incorporated Jan 1, 1998  {{see  above, 12/10/1997, close enough}}….

Registered with IRS and Secty of State/FTB with a new EIN # after Marv subpoenaed the bank statements.

2000

Hypothesis: CCC became the AFCC which became the JMEF which became the LASCJA.

NOW I am back to the Kelly O’Meara article, above:  The same journalist then goes on to describe how a faulty computer system may have let about $59 billion go missing from HUD around 2000:

Perhaps taxpayers in Los Angeles will have time to find out what happened to all those millions.
Meanwhile, Insight pressed on trying to obtain a bottom-line figure for cash taken in by the court. McCauley’s office finally provided a 37-page computer printout that allegedly reflects the court’s cash deposits for fiscal 2000. Although the printout provides a monthly ending balance for credits and debits, the report provides no details about the source and amounts of the debits and credits represent, providing only the unauditable lump-sum transfers. 
       As one accountant put it, “This is archaic. It’s ridiculous to think that a county as large as Los Angeles can’t program an accounting system that reconciles the books on a daily basis and [that] also can easily produce specific information about various accounts and provide yearly fund balances. It’s just absurd.” 

Faulty Number Crunching

How could the books for the County of Los Angeles be in such a mess if the authorities there weren’t trying to hide something, critics ask. At least some of the problem appears to lay with the computing system. The Countywide Accounting and Purchasing System (CAPS) is a product of American Management Systems (AMS) and has been used in Los Angeles since 1987. IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti is the founder and former chairman of AMS and remains a major stockholder in the company that provides computing services not only to Los Angeles County but to key federal agencies, including the IRS. 

Charles Rossotti is Georgetown, Harvard, very smart, characterized with 5 others who founded AMS as “whiz kids.”

As Insight recently reported, due to severe problems with its AMS accounting system, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was unable to balance its books under the recently departed secretary Andrew Cuomo (see “Cuomo Leaves HUD in Shambles,” March 5) and, in 1999, was unable to account for $59 billion (see “Why Is $59 Billion Missing from HUD?” Nov. 6, 2000). ** Not surprisingly, under pressure from Insight, HUD since has decided to scrap the HUDCAPS computer program. But others have had similar problems with AMS finance systems, including the states of Mississippi and Kansas. Then again, as any auditor will be glad to confirm, there is nothing like institutionalized confusion to cover for and invite corruption.

(SMILE….)

** I started to read this $59 Billion article, and feel it should be on the post.  Look below…..

Results of search for “AMERICAN MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS” returned 9 entity records.  (likely no relation, but interesting enough….)

Entity Number	Date Filed	Status	Entity Name	Agent for Service of Process
C0602191	07/03/1970	SUSPENDED	AMERICAN BUSINESS MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS, INC.
C0941617	10/01/1979	DISSOLVED	AMERICAN DATA MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
C1170493	03/07/1983	SUSPENDED	AMERICAN ENERGY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS, INC.	LLOYD C OWNBEY JR
C1167394	01/21/1983	SUSPENDED	AMERICAN FACILITIES MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS, INC.	ANTHONY J THOMAS JR
C1132885	01/21/1983	DISSOLVED	AMERICAN PROFESSIONAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS	DAVID L ANDERSON
C1327378	12/28/1984	DISSOLVED	AMERICAN RECORDS MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS, INC.	JOHN L TUCKER
C1096092	11/09/1981	SURRENDER	AMERICAN STORES MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS COMPANY	C T CORPORATION SYSTEM
C0842796	04/05/1978	SUSPENDED	PAN AMERICAN MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS, INC.	** RESIGNED ON 03/18/1991
C1093417	10/21/1981	FORFEITED	SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT AMERICAN CORPORATION	** RESIGNED ON 10/31/1994

Modify Search New Search 

Charles Rossotti’s background sounds almost frighteningly competent.  HEre it is, in “The Carlyle Group.”  I have no idea what happened to AMS functioning in California, but imagine an archaic management system run by an IRS commissioner?  WHen the issue is getting the figures out so someone pays taxes on them?

http://www.carlyle.com/team/item5829.html  (Global ALTERNATIVE Asset Management….)

Charles O. Rossotti

Senior Advisor

Washington , DC

Segment :  Corporate Private Equity

Fund :  U.S. Buyout ,  U.S. Growth Capital

Industry  :  Technology & Business Services

Charles O. Rossotti is a Senior Advisor focusing primarily on investments in the fields of information technology and business services. He is based in Washington, DC.

Prior to joining Carlyle, Mr. Rossotti served from 1997 to 2002 as Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, the federal agency that serves 175 million taxpayers and employs 100,000 people. As a result of his leadership, the public’s rating of the IRS increased greatly and relationships of trust with Congress, tax professionals and business groups were restored, and the agency’s effectiveness turned around.

In 1970, Mr. Rossotti co-founded American Management Systems, Inc. and until 1997 served at various times as President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman. AMS grew through his tenure, becoming a major international business systems consulting and systems integration firm with revenues of more than $1 billion. AMS clients include Fortune 500 companies and federal, state and local government agencies in North America and Europe. In 1979, AMS was one of the first technology services firms to go public.

Mr. Rossotti earned his A.B. in economics, magna cum laude, from Georgetown University and his M.B.A., with high distinction, from Harvard Business School. In 1970, he received the Distinguished Civilian Service Medal from the Department of Defense. In 2002, he received the Alexander Hamilton Medal from the Department of Treasury. In 2003, he received an Alumni Achievement Award from Harvard Business School.

Mr. Rossotti is on the Board of Directors of Carlyle portfolio companies Apollo Global, Booz Allen Hamilton, Compusearch Software and Wall Street Institute. In addition, he currently serves on the Board of Directors of Bank of America Corporation and AES Corporation, a publicly-owned global electric power company.

In addition to his business activities, Mr. Rossotti serves on the Boards of Capital Partners for Education and the Comptroller General’s Advisory Committee of the Government Accountability Office (GAO). In 2005, he served as a member of President Bush’s advisory panel on reform of the income tax.

Not exactly too comforting that AMS (and this IRS commissioner) had a DOD background: Wikipedia:

But only after a year, Rossotti went to work for the Office of the Secretary of Defense. From 1965 to 1969, Rossotti worked for Robert McNamara, becoming Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Systems Analysis at age 29.

In 1970, Rossotti and several DOD colleagues co-founded American Management Systems, a technology and management consulting firm. Rossotti served as Chief Executive Officer from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s.

IRS Years

In 1997, Rossotti was named Commissioner of Internal Revenue by then President Bill Clinton where he served for 5 years.

He was considered a reformer, upgrading the agency’s technology, as well as turning the IRS into a more customer service oriented agency. Rossotti received a waiver from the Clinton administration that allowed him to retain his AMS stock in a blind trust.

More on “AMS” same source:

The company grew throughout the 1980s and 1990s, implementing key systems such as the accounting system for New York City and The Standard Procurement System for the United States Department of Defense. The company was acquired by CGI Group in 2004, with AMS’s federal defense business being acquired by CACI.

AMS was founded in 1970 by five former Defense Department “Whiz Kids”: Charles Rossotti, Ivan Selin, Frank Nicolai, Patrick W. Gross, and Jan Lodal.

If they were such whiz kids, then how come no one can find that money or the accounting for it, for Los Angeles that Insight was looking for?

The company’s initial headquarters were in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Arlington, Virginia. From its inception, much of AMS’s revenue was derived from contracts with federal agencies. The company grew quickly during the 1970s. During its first decade of operation, AMS focused its business on consulting and selling customized software to large government and corporate organizations. ^[1]

The company grew to over nine thousand employees, with many offices in both the United States and other countries. At one point in the 1990s, one quarter of the company’s revenue, albeit none of the profit, came from Europe.

I hope you find some of this detail interesting (I do….)

Lawsuits, divestiture, and sale

In 1999, the state government of Mississippi terminated an $11.2 million contract with AMS to modernize the state’s tax system and sued the company for $985 million in damages.^[3] A jury awarded the state $474.5 million in actual and punitive damages in August 2000, causing a drop in stock price from 44 3/8 to 14. The company subsequently settled the suit for $185 million.^[4]

Another customer, the Federal Thrift Investment Board, cancelled a contract in 2000 for a system to make Thrift Savings Plan data available online. The subsequent lawsuit was settled for $5 million in June 2003.^[5] A subsequent United States Senate investigation authored by senatorsSusan Collins and Joe Lieberman identified various reasons for four years of delays and cost overruns, including lack of formal agreement on a detailed design and problems with the structure of the contract.^[6]

In December 2002, AMS sold its Global Energy Group to Bangalore, India-based Wipro Technologies.

New CEO Alfred T. Mockett was hired by AMS in 2001 to grow the company’s sales from $1.1 billion to $3 billion a year, with a goal of becoming a top tier system integrator through growth and acquisitions, with an eventual goal of a “big bang merger of equals.” When this strategy proved unsuccessful, Mockett negotiated a sale of the firm. CGI, a Canadian company, was the primary purchaser, paying $858 million for the commercial business and all government business not related to national defense. The defense portion of AMS could not be sold to a foreign-based company so CACI purchased the defense and intelligence practice for $415 million.^[7] The AMS brand was retained by CGI for a time and the AMS website directed users to the CGI site. CGI’s United States headquarters are in Fairfax, Virginia.

Bloomberg profile of Mr. Rossotti and all the boards he’s on at age 7,

Or this one:

Watchdog Radio with guest Kelly O’Meara

2010-05-18_watchdog_radio_episode_22_with_kelly_omeara.m4a

58.2 MB

Read more…

GOOD work, Kelly O’Meara!  All these months I’ve been reading your name on just one or two articles, but I see that’s the high standard of ferretting out the facts is typical!

Here we go:

Why Is $59 Billion Missing From HUD?

Posted Nov. 6, 2000
By Kelly Patricia O Meara
Insight Magazine

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has earned a failing grade from the House Government Reform subcommittee on Government Management for the way the agency manages taxpayers’ money. Subcommittee chairman Stephen Horn, R-Calif., is said to be furious that HUD’s most recent financial report shows the agency is unable to balance its checkbook and cannot account for $59 billion.

For most Americans, it is incomprehensible that $59 billion could be missing from the ledger of a single agency. But despite years of earning failing grades — as well as years of being unable to account for tens of billions of dollars — the Clinton/Gore management team at HUD has continued to shell out hundreds of millions of dollars to the same contractors hired to ensure financial systems are in place and working. It doesn’t take a certified public accountant to see that HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo’s financial house is not in order, and Susan Gaffney, the inspector general (IG) of HUD, tells Insight, “It’s more serious than you know.”

This dire yet brutally honest evaluation by the IG came in response to questions about her testimony concerning HUD’s 1999 audit, delivered before Horn’s subcommittee in May. And HUD’s 1999 audit still has not been completed even as the agency is nearing the starting date for the 2000 audit. Instead, Gaffney submitted a 14-page “summary” for 1999, providing a laundry list of systemic reasons for HUD’s financial woes. Indeed, it took Insight a day and a half just to make sense of the IG’s simplified testimony concerning these financial shenanigans.

Beyond the fact that $59 billion is unaccounted for and that auditors have had to make manual adjustments to the checkbook system retroactively, it is glaringly apparent in the IG’s report that taxpayers should consider themselves lucky that the amount isn’t much higher. What also is more than evident is that the IG devoted most of her testimony to explaining failed processes at HUD rather than focusing on any specific examples of theft, conversion, embezzlement and other larceny.   . . . 

. . .

What the IG is saying is that HUD’s finances are in a shambles because, during 1999, the agency was converting to a new computer system, the field offices didn’t balance their checkbooks on a monthly basis and manual postings were made to the financial statements so late that the IG had no time to review whether the postings were correct. Gaffney does report in one section of her testimony that “242 adjustments, totaling about $59.6 billion, were made to adjust fiscal year 1999 activity.”

The IG, however, does not explain where the “adjustments” were made, for what services or from which region or field office. But she tells Insight that HUD’s financial problems stem from glitches within the agency’s computer systems.

THis next segment of quotations is long, but the same principle — seems to me — applies to the computer conversion of CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT to statewide, at just about this same time (late 1990s, and for California, it was not done by 1999, as I recall).  They say :  You keep the old system running alongside the new one until the kinks are worked out.  And you balance the books at least monthly.  Well, here’s how HUD — and the Housing Inspector chose to do it, instead:

According to one source familiar with HUD’s finances who spoke on condition that he not be identified, blaming computer glitches is what is done when they want to hide fraud. “The history of effort and expenditures that has been poured into correcting deficiencies at HUD does not support a theory of incompetence. If you don’t have decent accounting systems it’s because someone wants to make sure you don’t. It’s standard operating procedure that if one system is being replaced you keep the old one up and running while you work out the kinks in the new one — they’re run parallel. In this case, they took down a system that was running, replaced it with a system that wasn’t and then cried, ‘Oh, we can’t balance the books!’ They can’t say the resources don’t exist to correct the problem. If Cuomo can find hundreds of community builders to run around neighborhoods, he can find enough people to balance the checkbooks.”

And the source adds, “Furthermore, if I wanted to rip off HUD, this is exactly how I would do it. Don’t run parallel systems, don’t bother to balance the books and then radically reengineer the system all at the same time that you double the volume of work. It’s a system ripe for financial fraud.

Like the family law system also… and the OCSE.

The point is that you have to know what checks were authorized in a specific place and how they sort out, and if you balance the books monthly it becomes very easy to zero in on where the fraud is taking place. What the IG has missed is that it’s not about knowing a problem exists, it’s about fixing the problem — you want to know where and why you’re missing $59 billion. A huge computer system isn’t needed for HUD to balance the books; monthly statement reconciliation is all that is necessary.”

The source continues: “Everything that has transpired at HUD is not an accident, and it sure isn’t a computer glitch. When you take the different material violations of the most basic financial-management rules and compare them to the time and effort put in to have first-rate systems, it is impossible to explain it as anything other than significant financial fraud. The losses could be far greater than $59 billion, but they don’t know for sure because the audit isn’t completed. Secretary Cuomo is a very smart control freak, so it’s ludicrous to think that he doesn’t know what is going on.

Any more than the Charles Rossotti who co-founded AMS system that was in use in Los Angeles, and completely turned around the IRS; who is running the Carlyle Group now, on a whole lot of Boards (including Merrill Lynch) and who at age 29 after Georgetown and Harvard, was working for the Department of Defense on Systems  _____ (see this post).   Doesn’t know what’s going on?  I don’t think so!

There are several ways to correct these problems. Most are basic, but if you want to use the big sledgehammer, the Office of Management and Budget [OMB] and Congress have the ability to make HUD balance the books or [they] shut down the money supply. They are the guardians at the gate. But that is the most telling thing about this problem — OMB and the appropriators have been silent. This is exactly what happened right before the savings-and-loan scandal.”

I found out today that the OMB got moved to become the responsibility of the President (of the US) in 1970.  I put up the link to the U.S. Code requiring the Commissioner of the Treasury to report to the American public, where the money is…..

So is it possible that a problem within the agency’s computer systems is the cause of tens of billions of dollars being unaccounted for or missing? Not if you ask whistle-blower Jack Ballinger.

Change of focus to NYC Housing Authority, NYCHA — which is evidently under HUD:

In 1994 Ballinger began working for the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) as a contract inspector. He worked his way up through the system and was made manager of a new section, the Computer Operations and Reports Section. He was there only a few weeks when he became aware of major problems in payments to contractors. What he found was the main financial-management computer system, known as Financial Management Services (FMS), contained files verifying payments of more than $50 million on nearly 150 contracts that did not show up on the computer system used by the bookkeepers and investigators to track the services provided. Called CAD, this system should have been keeping track of the inspections, the inspector, dates of inspection and inspection results.

One system (FMS) tracks payments to vendors, the other (CAD) tracks the actual work.  FMS seems to be generating its own payments that don’t correspond to work done.  Now go back to the IRS General Fraud Investigations page, and notice that this is how fraud is sometimes done.

Realizing the gravity of the problem, Ballinger reported the missing files. Shortly thereafter the new section was disbanded, his staff was sent back to their previous positions and he was transferred to Coney Island as a boiler inspector. Nonetheless, he was joined in calling for an investigation by a dozen other “clean” inspectors. Ballinger first requested an investigation by the New York City Department of Investigations. When nothing happened, he contacted Bill DiBlasio, then the IG for HUD in New York (and now Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign manager); HUD IG Gaffney in Washington; Rep. Rick Lazio, R-N.Y.; and HUD Secretary Cuomo, whose agency provides more than 90 percent of the funding that NYCHA receives.

Despite overwhelming evidence of corruption — including audio- and videotapes of bribes being offered and accepted, as well as one inspector telling his story of an organized group of inspectors receiving bribes — there was no serious investigation of the misappropriation of funds within the NYCHA. “The IG,” says Ballinger, “said it was a paperwork mistake and cleared up. But not one person who looked at this could see it as a paperwork problem, and this has been going on for almost two years.

COnclusion:

Gaffney is saying that just about anyone can get into HUD’s financial system, including many who don’t have any business or authorization to be in it . Once in, intruders can change numbers, take money and engage in financial fraud without anyone catching or stopping them.

While Gaffney cannot force changes within HUD, as IG she can bring the problems to light. Unfortunately, the testimony she provided to Congress did little more than alert members to the already-known fact that there are serious financial-management problems under Cuomo at HUD. The IG’s report provides no specific data to help lawmakers, who have oversight of this agency, recommend appropriate and necessary changes. In fact, it is possible members of Congress had the same difficulty deciphering the IG’s testimony as everyone else with whom Insight has spoken. Despite the fact that the entire report by the IG to Congress deals with financial mismanagement at HUD, not once in all of her 14 pages of testimony did Gaffney so much as use the word “money.”

How much HUD’s missing $59 billion is of concern to lawmakers is anyone’s guess. Chairman Horn, as well as Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson of Tennessee and Senate Appropriations subcommittee on VA-HUD Chairman Kit Bond of Missouri, did not return Insight’s calls about these matters.

[again, Posted Nov. 6, 2000
By Kelly Patricia O Meara
Insight Magazine]

This has been a very long day, and post.  Please go to the Petition site and at least read it, understand that this is Business as Usual in the U.S. and sign to cut — at least specific to our interest here — pork from the TANF diversionary and incentive to prolong custody conflict monies.  THis is a measly $ 4 billion, but it’s affecting all of us to take these families out of the market, forcing some of them to become unwilling social burdens, as they fight for sanity and safety of their kids, while the groups running the place got started RIGHT HERE as I have (again) described — somewhere between a los angeles county judges association that didn’t feel like incorporating til caught, and the desire of would-be mental-health coaches to the world’s intention to exploit a captive audience situation through Conciliation Law.  To me, that’s what I spell RACKET, i.e., R.I.C.O. with this exception:

Kind of like ALEC (and aided by some of the same corporations that FUND ALEC), the AFCC/CRC/OCSE combination is basically setting up a parallel system of justice, altering the basic forms of government; they are taking the money (not paying taxes properly) and running with it.  Sometimes they take children too — do you realize how many children are actually lost in the foster care system?

The Lost Children

It took the death of Florida’s Rilya Wilson in the Spring of 2002 for the issue of children “missing” from foster care to garner national attention. It first came to light that the state of Florida had managed to lose track of nothing less than 500 of its foster care children. Some time thereafter, the body of 17-year-old Marissa Karp was found in Collier County Florida. She had run away from her state-designated foster family in April. The Collier County Sheriff’s Office explained to the St. Petersburg Times that she had been murdered.

Since August of 2002, officials in the states of California, Tennessee, and Michigan have disclosed that hundreds of children are similarly “missing” from their foster care systems.

The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services reported in August that 740 foster children were missing from its system.

Shortly thereafter, Michigan foster care officials announced that 300 foster children were missing from their foster care system. Governor John Engler declared that finding these children would be a “top priority.” As of November, 2002, the Family Independence Agency (as Michigan’s child protection agency is known) had managed to locate only 48 of these missing children.

“Anytime a child is missing, that’s a big concern for us and we make all the efforts we can to try and locate them as quickly as possible,” explained Carla Aaron, a spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services. Aaron reported in November of 2002 that nothing short of one out of every 20 foster children were missing from Tennessee’s foster care system. Tennessee officials reported that 98 percent of these 496 “lost children” were adolescent runaways.

Here is the article “The Lost Children,” much as it appeared on Lifting the Veil in 1997, with some minor subsequent edits having been made in 1998.

Read The Lost Children

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Last updated December 07, 2002

 

But that’s a topic for another day.  CHECK THIS OUT!

http://www.change.org/petitions/cut-tanf-title-iv-d-programs-which-represent-4billion-of-waste