Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History

Publicizing my new page, HHS Grantees, Just Georgia, Just HMRF (CFDA 93086), May 13, 2016, Report Run. Take a look!  You will see it in the right sidebar, atop a list labeled “Vital Info/Links.” Scroll or “page-down” below a green-background rectangle of text (“Contributions Appreciated” section) to find “Vital Links.”

Also see this related (or, “what inspired it”) 5/12/2016 post:  Despite Truly Funky Tax Returns, HHS Remains Loyal (2010-2015) to One Faith-Based (under Two Diff’t EIN#s, ONE of which the IRS acknowledges#) in Stone Mountain–or is it Conyers?– Georgia

But first and FYI in the cream-colored, fine-print, maroon-bordered box right below, I also put a link to a “Congressional Research Service” (CRS) 12/11/2012 Report showing the Origins of HHS, certain Presidential Powers, and some Recent Developing Trends, and possibly already passed, House and Senate bills re-instituting those Presidential Powers (odd capitalization there deliberate).

I might start posting this link at the top of ALL posts until the message sinks in that existing federal agencies are in a state of constant transition, and sometimes re-organization, and we ought to get a basic read on where they came from — and in which direction they are now going.  For, example, does this direction EVER include reducing budgets based on having actually solved any problems they were set up to solve, or curtailing grants streams the grants streams were set up to resolve? And if not, does that not reflect (badly) on either the operation of, or perhaps even the original intentions of, those who pushed for the funding streams in the first place? (“Who” entails both individuals and corporate, often nonprofit “persons” run by certain individuals).

Or, are we going continue, as we do now, sponsoring an UNENDING stream of funding for the behavioral/mental health/social control categories** relating to the family court systems:

Batterer Intervention Programming seeking to further classify Batterer typologies, and simultaneously and opposing the concept that battering is actually “bad,” while attempting to behaviorally modify the batterers, AND, co-parenting coaching in an UNENDING stream attempting to change the behavior of the spouse or parent that protests battering, AND an Unending stream of grants encouraging teenagers to abstain from sex as a way out of poverty (using money diverted from funds that might otherwise more directly help their parents out of poverty, i.e., “TANF”) (“Abstinence Education”) AND so forth.[*as opposed to “medical research and development” or “curtailing the outbreak of contagious diseases” category under which the public health system originated..]

Thus, through these self-contradictory funding streams, the public is forced to separately fund under the banner of men’s rights (to their families, i.e., families as property rights), and women’s rights to not be assaulted or subjected to violence in the name of family (i.e., women, including mothers and the children they have given birth to NOT as an adjunct form of property owned by the men, including fathers), and the institutions (family courts) in which the staged custody battles take place, propped up in part (and — I do show this — the larger part) by Healthy Marriage/Responsible Fatherhood funding, and at that point NOT significantly protected by the Domestic Violence Prevention funding.

Meanwhile, as this built-in funding and “federal policy position” conflict facilitates generation after generation of children growing up witnessing abuse and experienced adults somewhat confused on whether or not it’s a crime, or a social disease, or the fault of their mothers’ or fathers’ lack of “communications skills,” obviously, there is from the USDOJ a Defending Children’s Initiative, plus Task force on Children Exposed to Violence.

Some of these children then, periodically, may run away, which then can be blamed on the mother and generate more criminal cases.  She can be hunted down, or they can be hunted down, at which point the Reunification Services can be ordered — a good deal, if you’re in that business.

The runaway children, and I’m talking now about those  running away from the abusive households to which the family courts “re-aligned” them under Promoting Healthy Marriage, Access and Visitation (etc.) at times MAY enter the foster care system (more HHS funding), OR, they may become runaway youth and end up, temporarily, in a transitional housing for youth shelter.  FYI, one of mine, shortly after reaching the age of majority and having apparently, outlived her fiscal and psychological utility for my “ex” (i.e., reducing significant child support arrears), the family court system (ordering more personnel — a GAL — into the mix, and engendering through poor decision-making, the “left-behind” parent’s [in my case, that was me, the mother] need to keep coming back to court hoping to regain contact with the separated children), which itself then “supports” the rationale to further streamline procedures, reduce legal protections to due process, based on “the courts are overloaded.”

Meanwhile, and I am still talking primarily HHS funding — the “smart ones” who may not necessarily have a strong overlap with the “honest” ones or those with a high personal sense of ethics regarding their own accountability, or understanding of the downside of diverting private nonprofits with private agenda — these “smart ones” (or, politically connected ones) — instead of choosing “just one of the above” can — and my Georgia-based page SHOWS (Excerpts below also validate in part) — are simply positioning themselves, AS ARE STATE AGENCIES, to say, “come through us, government — come to us, clients” and take Abstinence Education, Responsible Fatherhood/Healthy Marriage, AND Family Violence Prevention.

For a reminder (I did post on this in 2016), the “FVPSA” (Family Violence Prevention Services Act) dates back to 1984 and involves primarily the agency HHS.   By contrast, the Violence Against WOMEN Act, was in 1994, and is commonly associated in the public mind, and in general, with the USDOJ’s “Office of Violence Against Women” which exists to implement grants from that Act.  BUT, organizations are free to take from both the USDOJ and the USDHHS, as they are free to take from apparently equal and apparently opposing sides from the staged “gender wars.”

At a certain point, it’s time to call those in the game — at the highest levels, not the lowest levels– at this game, and let our Congressmen and women know that we know what is that game.

In order to do that, I recommend those approaching Congress not show up dumber-than-dirt on who is the HHS, what is “Presidential Reorganization Authority” historically, and a few things about 1996 PRWORA welfare reform as it pertains to HMRF funding as administered through HHS.

So, you might want to bookmark this link and get back to it, and you might want to also mark out some time to read my confrontational and, in general, NOT popular among the domestic violence groups OR protective mothers’ groups* BLOG.

*Why not?  After all, I am indeed a survivor of domestic violence, becoming through those court actions, a “protective mother,” and even though several years down the road, after it became clear that the family court would facilitate a state of ongoing disruption, minus enforceable safety boundaries from the same individual, until suddenly, and temperamentally, switching custody.  Right now, I just discovered leading feminist jumping in to promote the term “Mothers of Lost Children” (and her book) and the same professionals which I have documented, refused to seriously discuss the “HHS / HMRF” factor inbetween their laments about badly behaving judges, GALs, and custody evaluators.

I learned, over time, that to perpetuate any form of abuse — and economic control is essential to trapping people in abusive relationships, marital or other — the art of, pardon me, bullshitting the bystanders– is an essential part. They need to call it something else — like “Marriage” or “Family.”  There also have to be effective means, utilized at the same time,  of silencing future outcries (dissents), just in case, some bystanders might DO something about the abuse, and cut into the privilege — and profits– involved in exploiting other human beings in the name of some social benefit.

Now, about that New Page, HHS Grantees, Just Georgia, Just HMRF (CFDA 93086), May 13, 2016, Report Run. Take a look!

That approximately 10,000 word PAGE (not post) is meant as an example, and a point of reference to how states are handling both the HMRF funding AND (as it turned out) the DV Funding, and just how centralized it is possible to become over time.  It currently is on top of my list of “Vital Links/Info” on the sidebar.

It is informative, and it does some detailed lookups on the very few grantees at this time, receiving straight CFDA 93086 grants.  As it turns out, some of these are also receiving the bulk of the “Family Violence Prevention/DISCRETIONARY” grants also, and as such have delivered coordinated control of that field over to the same agencies (and there are TWO referenced, which you will see, ONE of which also is handling the Healthy Marriage/Responsible Fatherhood grants).

Again, Title of the page:  “HHS Grantees, Just Georgia, Just HMRF (CFDA 93086), May 13, 2016, Report Run. Take a look!”

It takes along time to compile posts with tables like this, even with some hand-made shortcuts.

Any time you see a quote inside a box, tinted or highlit quotes or tables, and any time you see a 3-row run of someone’s “Form 990s” (IRS tax returns), know that I had to do this in html mode. Any time you see me posting that triple-row of Form 990s chart, it was first posted, then the colors artificially added back in, as they no longer copy on this software.  While there are some shortcuts for it, it still has to be done for each and every time.  Also, by and large, almost any table or chart of a business entity search result (except for California, for some reason) which you see displaying in solid lines — I had to add that in, individual html changes, self-taught.   I do not have the time to sit through coding classes in addition to the ongoing writing, and ongoing survival.  Nor am I positioned financially to hire others to do this.

I absolutely do NOT have the time, or a software program that can do this automatically, to track every single grantee in every single state, or summarize every single state’s operations.

Most family court survivors like myself, aren’t exactly rolling in free leisure time and discretionary finances.  That’s why it’s tempting to let advocacy groups do all the talking, thinking, analysis, and communicating with Congress, and instead take a participatory back-seat, follow-the-leader, follow-directions, help recruit followers and donors for advocacy groups for free, and for some, show up, wear a T-shirt, march on Congress as victims and protective parents (mothers, specifically), get photographed, post the photographs, and go back to recruiting others through social media to join that cult-like behavior.

ONCE YOU START LOOKING (which certain groups are intent you should NOT bother to do — just take our advice, summarizes, and slogans), you will see the level of betrayal that SILENCE on these matters consists of.  If you ALSO start speaking, not just looking, expect to become a social outcast — which is good.  Detox from co-dependency on users, and get your hands on your own information — and consider, that is, ANALYZE it.

Mothers in the post-fatherhood-promotion era, defined as particularly since the 1980s and even more so, 1996, and thereafter, amplified further in 2001 thanks to the “Faith-based” movements which in this country, while complaining LOUDLY when religious groups they do NOT agree with get special privileges, have been a privileged sector for almost as long as the nation exists — and economically even more so since everyone else became subject to a personal income tax, and most (but not all) nonprofits, even though exempt for corporate taxes, still at least on paper and in theory, MUST file an IRS Form 990 which the public can read, and CAN without special procedures, be audited.  Religious organizations are harder for the IRS to audit, need to report less, but retain many privileges of regular nonprofits.

EXCERPTS from the new PAGE. I’m posting two tables, but don’t let that cheat yourself out of the rest of the information payload it delivers (including analysis of the situation, and as symbolic of what these grants are being used to accomplish overall, of two specific grantees on that list, although not all of them).

Go to the page, let the Excerpts below be a visual reminder of what it’s about and “What Time of Day” it is in the USA.

I discovered that at least one “More Than Conquerors, Inc.” executive director named as an HHS “Principal Investigator” had been, separately, promoting a marriage curriculum within Georgia which I identified as definitely coordinated with the former “Georgia Family Council,” meaning, a Focus on the Family operation claiming to have set up 12 marriage initiatives statewide.  I have also identified the MTCIGA.org tax reporting as either illiterate, or simply just irresponsible, and, in its own words, collaborating before starting to get its very own “HHS” HMRF (and abstinence — which seemed an obsession) grants, with “Rockdale Medical Center” — and failing to call their collaboration either what the State of Georgia, apparently, calls or previously called the same medical center, or HHS,   (see below, and the page) calls it — not a “Medical Center” but a “Hospital and Health System.”  So, despite its millions of dollars of HMRF being, compared to the whole, rather small– the influence with the symbiotic relationship with the Rockdale Medical Center (sic) still appears to be significant, and should be looked into.  Particularly if Rockdale was NOT operating as a nonprofit or in such a way where its books and tax returns could be viewed by the public.

I have already a post almost ready for publication, and which WILL be published shortly, on this Focus on the Family “business model” which continues coming to my attention because of the subject matter of this post.  

Reject Undefined and un-trackable terms (“Faith Based Organizations).

Know the Networks, and Use Business Entity and IRS Status Terms to Document Them.  Networks have many elements — money goes FROM one point TO another, or Allegedly so. Track the Setup, Track the Promoters, and You will also See the Network. 

This briefly summarizes (1) WHO obviously knew about the soon-to-become available PRWORA Healthy Marriage/Responsible Fatherhood Funding (two organizations) and (2) in brief, how Focus on the Family, despite tax returns saying “Privately funded” and “not affiliate,” ALSO knowing this, strategized its network of 501©3 + 501©4 + Umbrella coordinating tax-exempt “CitizenLink” out of Colorado Springs — to run HMRF programming and solicit money with the 501©3s which could then be moved at co-located 501©4s.

At least two posts already written, and to be published SOON, Show and Tell it again.  This is just a “fast-track” statement of what I’ve recently reviewed again, and written about. It came up in the context of Georgia…

Even understanding this type of networking, which goes right up to high-ranking Welfare Reform individuals (Ron Haskins, David Blankenhorn and his “Institute for American Values,” etc.) IS leverage with which to talk back to social science/population control rationale for curtailing diversions from welfare into preaching at the poor for “private profits in private pockets.”     Or, if you will, “Preserving the Plantation, Preaching the Work Ethic and Personal Responsibility, while Personally and System-wide, Demonstrating the Opposite.”

Example:  http://www.americanvalues.org/search/item.php?id=52.  Look at the date, the authorship, who is publishing (the nonprofit identified right here) and notice that four nonprofits, one of them called “Georgia Policy Council” (organization has had a namechange since) collaborated on this.  In 2000, the Institute for American Values also collaborated with a conference in Chicago intending to start a “Marriage Movement” — involving Diane Sollee’s “Smartmarriages.com” — and setting up for the next decade, keyed into the mere existence of these HHS FEDERAL GRANTS to the STATES under radically revised Social Security Act — the ability for any “Tom, Dick or Harry” to line up to line their pockets, some got millions, others got only thousands, but who didn’t get the actual help, was the targeted demographic sector — single mother households.**

Some links to “SMARTMARRIAGES.com” and that these conferences ended in 2010:

Fine print at the bottom of the page lets us know that the “Coalition” is in fact, a trade-mark owning LLC.  The owner of that LLC is one woman, or possibly one other person only (I haven’t looked recently — and anyone can look him/herself now to find out which), despite being called “The Coalition.”

ABOUT | Diane Sollee, Director | CONTACT | Books/DVDs | Gift Certificates | Free Stuff | Jobs | © 2016 CMFCE, LLC.

The words Smart Marriages® and Smart Marriage® and the couple puzzle logo are registered trademarks of CMFCE, LLC The words smart marriages® and smart marriage® cannot be used in any context. The couple puzzle logo cannot be used in any representation whether multiples, changed perspective, etc in the context of marriage or relationships. Copyright (©) – CMFCE, LLC

 And in these posts, I will continue to demonstrate the level of economic “literacy” and reporting “honesty” from some of these organizations self-described as “faith-based” and apparently several of them hooked up with “Focus on the Family” (a $64M 501©3 out of Colorado Springs with a host of “disregarded entities” representing the television, print and radio operations which help contribute to its substantial PRIVATE Contributions base (one recent tax return I saw, the contributions for just one year were $81M).

There is also a system to how this one has coordinated efforts at the state level to influence legislation less than transparently through its “(StateName) Family Councils.”  The “combo” is typically one 501©3 and one (or more) 501©4s operating under Focus on the Family agenda, per state, with funds being transferred between 501©3 and 501©4s (PACs, in other words, who are allowed to lobby politically in ways a 501©3 cannot).

Below here are excerpts from the new page:

Formatting:   I used fine print (“Arial Narrow” in order to simplify the process of squishing the tables with the margins of a standard post on this blog, it may help to simply “ZoomIn” for viewing).

(Not on the associated “Page”) — I clicked on the HHS grant for “Georgia Coalition ON Domestic Violence” above, and found, and searched, this street address:

3420 NORMAN BERRY DR, STE 280 ATLANTA, GA 30354

This would appear to be an Extended-Stay Hotel near the Atlanta Airport, “The Staybridge Suites“.

It is also listed as the street and Suite# of Nancy Grigsby, and also shows up with the town labeled “Hapeville” but at the Atlanta Airport.

It is also the address which still shows on some lists of the statewide “CADV” groups — here’s one from UNC labeled “National Organization Information Centers” (Alpha by state) showing Georgia at the Berry Drive address, and in Fulton County.  Above, the organization must have moved recently and is now in “Decatur” Georgia.

Decatur, per Wikipedia, is the county seat of DeKalb County.  I see it also has three “sister cities” two in “Burkina Faso” and one in Peru.  None of this, however, tells us why HHS chose to use an incorrect organization name for GCADV in getting a well-known series of grants.  Maybe an “Attention Deficit” test to see if there was a deficit of public attention to TAGGS?

Decatur is a city in, and county seat of, DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. With a population of 20,148 in the 2013 census,^[2] the city is sometimes assumed to be larger since multiple zip codes in unincorporated DeKalb County bear the Decatur name. It is an intown suburb of Atlanta and part of the Atlanta Metropolitan Area, and its public transportation is served by three MARTA rail stations.

Decatur’s official motto is “A city of homes, schools and places of worship.”^[3] Prior to 2000, this motto was “A city of homes, schools, and churches.” Residents frequently refer to the unofficial motto of the town, “It’s greater in Decatur.”

I see in listing the national organizations, even “When Georgia Smiled/The Robin McGraw Revelation Foundation” (based in Los Angeles, think “Dr. Phil’s wife” and you’re pretty close) has a current address in Decatur, but HHS, based a lot closer, in WDC, for some reason isn’t using the current name OR street address.  (Foundation “Team” includes two McGraws, and the producer of the Dr. Phil Show, with advisory board members including the “NCJFCJ” (another organization HHS grants database ALSO choses not to label correctly, by its current for a VERY long time) legal name)..  This foundation is marketing, I see, an “ASPIRE” curriculum named after their news service, to reduce IPV in dating, etc.   Nothing like attaching a famous name to a cause and doing the knee-jerk response, with the popular networks, in the process of self-promotion.  Would this foundation bother to find out (or “out”) the HMRF funding?  Go figure why not.  Or, if you’re in the mood, gather some links, and write a letter asking what they know about this (HMRF funding to Los Angeles as a MAJOR metro area, is significant — try the Children’s Institute” or Homeboy Industries for starters) ….