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

The “All-Gender World” reference is at the bottom; “All-Gender” bathrooms are showing up in California, which is by grammar declaration there are more than two genders.  Oregon went one step further and became the first state to allow this option on drivers’ licenses.  It does make one wonder about the logic of continuing the gender wars and their funding, if the USA is about to go “All-Gender.”  Just a little humor and call to reason there. The rest of my two-part title reflects the main post content.

1. The War Against Women(‘s Rights) in an All-Gender World? 2. Organization Names and Name Changes Distract from their Coordinated Agenda, but Operations and Strategy Reveal Agenda (So, LOOK at the Books, and KEEP Looking). (case-sensitive shortlink ending “-73P”) <==Title.

Fathers’ Day (now, last Sunday).  Bit of a tough time to write a post without going sarcastic about fathers’ rights organizations, possibly offending those who had positive relationships with their own fathers.

I did, basically, other than he didn’t live long enough which I must admit was possibly a factor in why the man I married felt it was OK to slap and throw around, in other words threaten, injure his own pregnant wife, and his own wife raising their two small children, for years until I stopped at least THAT behavior by having him physically separated from where we lived (legal intervention). it did not stop the stalking, and as it turned out, a similar battle had to be fought again, over wider territory, with the same man and his now widened sphere of support, and dramatically lessened financial obligations i.e., demands upon his personal time, and backed by initially two, later FOUR (if you include in-laws) of my own relatives who’d picked a battle to distract from the one I’d just won some ground in — stopping the domestic violence.  

So, during those married (in-home abuse) and post-separation times (family court litigation which continued long after the protective order was removed, reproducing many — not all — of the problem / work interference situations of the marriage, and adding legal costs, ongoing intimidation, and parenting drain on time and resources),  I got a first-hand lesson of how married men (both relatives and some friends), religious men including pastors who knew about the battering at the time it was occurring and others or people who attended gatherings led by pastors, with rare exception/s most single men in my acquaintance through work, and in general MEN often just do not intervene with one of their “kind,” (gender) known to be assaulting his own wife in front of the kids and apart from them, and/or while maintaining economic control making it nearly impossible to flee.  And/or causing major life and work difficulties for single mothers afterwards. I can see why they might not (having their own work and personal/social lives to lead), or why they might, being aware that domestic violence or family violence prevention organizations exist (if they are aware), wrongfully assume some of these are effective once the divorce process begins.

The other factor is, stepping in between a person targeting a woman for abuse and the abuser, puts himself repeatedly at risk for collateral damages, as do some officers stepping in between incidents in process.  This condition, facilitated in large part through the family court process itself and its tendency to strip off restraining orders and focus on “co-parenting” once the process begins, starts to isolate the single mothers from other sources of support they may have already established — including (I found) through their work lives.

Many of the above men might support battered women or such women post-separation, morally, or in some ways during those times socially (or more accurately, permit their wives to where there were wives), but there is a problem with the situation.  It becomes a personal war! Men willing to assault and batter their wives then confronted in this legally don’t automatically change their heads, hearts, or intents, and (I’m speaking from experience here, 21st century), the act of supporting a woman who the other is intent on “getting even with” or destroying, is met with boundary violations of supporters, or enough increased pressure on the woman that more support is required, tending to isolate and drive would-be helpers away. Just as acts of independence, initiative, or self-improvement are met with escalations to counter this.

I’m indebted to one unnamed (and not otherwise described in this post) individual who helped for years post-separation, and took some personal heat from my family for doing so, not to mention significant inconvenience, with nothing to show for it than, I gather, a sense of having adhered to his own moral, social, and charitable values.

I later got a hard lesson in how my own country, at least those in power, still primarily men (see Congress, for example) still seem to view women, in general, as well as how women in power — including in feminist or DV circles as lawyers, professors at major universities (incl. at some of their law schools) — or those running major violence “prevention” organizations — may preach and establish network after network “until the day goes down,” and run public media campaigns against domestic violence, and, case in point locally, “Coaching Boys into Men,” but
at the end of the day” make sure to let the family law situation run its course, not outing HHS fatherhood, access visitation grants, or nonprofits like themselves, very profitably as 501©3s, fill a niche in the fathers’ rights armor — the need to be seen as respecting domestic violence issues and having some women “on board,”  (a niche in the conflict zone), while not actually revealing the “supply lines” of the continuing conflicts (<==This sentence revised post-publication to clarify meaning).

The more nonprofit websites and Forms 990 (or audited financial statements, where available) I looked at, the clearer the situation becomes. I doubt one post could explain it, but this one has some of the evidence.

ALSO, in this post, the excerpts and quotes I show regarding welfare reform and pushing marriage/fatherhood programming prove that it was not, as we’ve been led to believe or as some imply, really a political issue. Marriage/fatherhood and promoting it through social services seems to be the one area both progressive and conservative foundations could and did agree on, and did not radically protest at the time.  Major foundations from sides are also engaged in it, as we speak.  Nothing like a politically incorrect, but instinctively and historically gut-level felt common enemy [independent women with equal access to power, nationwide, single mothers not made financially dependent on either men, or the state [controlled by men], bottom-line, women] that while you can’t get away with it by direct name-calling, but can by indirect name-calling ([female-headed households, “fatherlessness,” out-of-wedlock childbearing].

This gut-level fear/hate to the point of being willing to wage a war over it sentiment is unacceptable (at least to mainstream liberals) on “in-your-face” on mainstream media, but in private conferences, and networks until the funding is in place, and letting the public think it’s a political (Left/Right, Democrat/Republican) issue to keep the public debates off-track, constantly — no problem!  (<==Another post-publication rewrite to clarify some double-negatives and conditional sentences.  If that didn’t clarify, just move on to the exhibits!]

Wait til you see the exhibits, and my annotations before you mentally dismiss the above statement.  I was surprised, too, and have been (for years), but I believe when I see the evidence, time and again….

Instead of calling WOMEN and MOTHERS [not under control of or in relationships with “their” men] bad, although it basically communicates this anyhow, it coined a term, “fatherlessness” (a sort of paper tiger) and threw programming and millions of dollars against it, and, unilaterally, just about, marriage good; having children outside marriage, bad.  Then went after “fatherlessness” in both married, and unmarried households where the children lived with their mothers.     I have many exhibits today, so let’s get right down to it.

The attempt to distinguish itself from right-wing extremists was under way.  Let the public fight them, and not notice the other networks being set in place…..

Tough not to be mis-taken as going after the entire male gender as a whole, or all fathers.

1. The War Against Women(‘s Rights) in an All-Gender World? 2. Organization Names and Name Changes Distract from their Coordinated Agenda, but Operations and Strategy Reveal Agenda (So, LOOK at the Books, and KEEP Looking). (case-sensitive, shortlink ending “-73P”) <==Title.

This confusion of usage discourages anyone taking the appropriately tough stand against the legitimacy and honesty of the premises allegedly underlying the practice, research, and profession of “fatherhood” created post- and pre-welfare reform of 1996, and spread rapidly (helped in part by certain groups NOT reporting on it consistently) through the modern electronic marvel called the Internet and with it, websites providing downloadable (fatherhood) curricula, resource centers (sometimes called “Clearinghouses”) and holding webinars for certification, etc., etc.

Another source muddying understanding of government vs. “not-government” (and so, private business or enterprise) arises when not just one, but whole series of private organizations with public officials’ names in their legal business names is said, and portrays itself as actually representing U.S. citizens’ best interests while networking, as they do, together in conferences to determine policy which are then fed (having avoided the normal means for citizen input to legislators, or such public officials) in the policy formation process.   (See recent post.  Link repeated below): Why Bother To Unravel the Proliferation of Private Associations Representing Public Offices? …. (with case-sensitive short-link ending “-6ZS”) (published June 16, 2017 and lists several of them, details a few of them…, like these two, in fact a “two-for-one” combo):

Notice top concept on banner is organization by REGION. Below that are ten topic areas. Mimics, in some ways, HHS Regional Centers, and OpDivs (only HHS is restricted to “Health and Human Services” whereas CSG as you can see, isn’t.)

At the same street address as CSG, but a legally separate entity whose tax returns you basically can’t (unlike CSG’s) read — because it’s been filing Form 990-N postcards instead, is a still influential “CSG Justice Center, Inc.” with a different logo:

Our Supporters

The work of the CSG Justice Center is made possible through the generous support of a diverse collection of sources. Over the past three decades, we have received significant federal funding from the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That support has spanned four administrations and reflects deep bipartisan support in Congress for the issue areas on which we focus. Dozens of private foundations—local, regional, and national in focus—have also awarded grants to the CSG Justice Center. In addition, the private sector, such as companies working in health, telecommunications, and banking, have contributed financial support to our organization. A growing number of state governments (such as Texas, Pennsylvania, and Georgia) and local governments (such as Seattle, Harris County, TX, and Baltimore County, MD) contract with the CSG Justice Center for an array of services. Click here to see a full list of our past and present funders.Follow the CSG Justice Center on Twitter at @CSGJC or on Facebook at @CSGJusticeCenter.

(Where I found CSG Justice Center, Inc’s EIN# off-site)

Providing a list of funding agencies, foundations, and private companies is nice, but that’s not what readers, and citizens who fund those AGENCIES through tax receipts deserve — which is accounting statements for money received, with (a) EIN# (b) Donor dates © donor amounts, (d) grant OR contract purposes, (e) audited financial statements FOR the CSG Justice Center, Inc., if appropriate — and judging by what its telling IRS (which minimizes its revenues received) ALL of that above must be giving it just tiny bits at a time over four decades — or it’s hiding how much it actually is receiving. The failure to offer up financial information (even an EIN#!) by a nonprofit entity, especially one like this associated with CSG (above), is a red flag.

The CSG Justice Center has a well-developed website reporting yet more collaborative and interagency councils at the federal level, like this one. https://csgjusticecenter.org/nrrc/projects/firc/snapshots/

Federal Interagency Reentry Council

The Reentry Council, established in January 2011, represents a significant executive branch commitment to coordinating reentry efforts and advancing effective reentry policies. It is premised on the recognition that many federal agencies have a major stake in prisoner reentry. The reentry population is one we are already working with — not only in our prisons, jails, and juvenile facilities, but in our emergency rooms, homeless shelters, unemployment lines, child support offices, veterans’ hospitals, and elsewhere. When we extend out to the children and families of returning prisoners, the intersection is even greater.

A chief focus of the Reentry Council is to remove federal barriers to successful reentry, so that motivated individuals – who have served their time and paid their debts – are able to compete for a job, attain stable housing, support their children and their families, and contribute to their communities. Reentry Council agencies are taking concrete steps towards these ends, to not only reduce recidivism and high correctional costs but also to improve public health, child welfare, employment, education, housing and other key reintegration outcomes.

The federal agency (not private nonprofit named after “state governments”) HHS, under HMRF.ACF.HHS.Gov also had a natural focus on Prisoner Re-entry underneath its marriage/fatherhood programming (next few images. Notice that the top of the page says HMRF, but the links and content includes Re-Entry programming.  Some pages I’ve excerpted read “last reviewed June 16, 2017.”  Notice the funding is $150M/Year for 5-year period, and it at least lists how many organizations got the grants.  It doesn’t, however (also notice) suggest to the reader where they might go look up some more — like at TAGGS.hhs.gov!

1 of 4 (see also pdf listing that year’s grantees by type and state). Note left sidebar and reference to ReFORM (re-entry programming)

2 of 4 from HMRF.ACF.HHS.gov

3 of 4 from HMRF.ACF.HHS.GOV (and “see more” links at bottom of each successive page)

Click to read the whole list (about 2pp) from in pdf formta. Shown is just the Re-entry portion.

[And more like them where these entities showed up…]

That 6/16/17 post tells why it is important to unravel by doing so for two or three big (widely networked, and long-standing) ones, such as the “Council of State Governments” and American Public Human Services Association” and its “affiliate” entities, one focused on TANF, and the at-large member of that particular network (from Oklahoma DHS) was also found Sept. 2015 (therefore I found… again…) participating in a PEERTA network where well-known fathers’ rights group (reframed now as “families” not just fathers, while still pushing the same basic idea and initiative, and boasting about its networking with others who also do), CFUF.org.  See that post for details; several images involved.

I first started noticing these (as I recall) promoting fatherhood initiatives directly to the governors in conference (National Governors’ Association), but this wasn’t put on-line and once on-line, pointed out, that I’m aware of,  by ANY protective parents, family violence prevention, domestic violence prevention, feminist anti-domestic violence lawyer famous in the field or, from what I can tell, any of the nonprofit entities formed by the same….

…(for example, DVLEAP, or National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women, or at the time, Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, or even (Florida) family lawyer Elizabeth Kates (advertising with Lisa Marie Macci, family law appeals statewide), whose “LizLibrary” arguing against parental alienation and many interesting, and still relevant issues, is or at least I know was when I was more involved on-line networking, before focusing primarily on this blog, well-known in “protective mothers'” circles (those who were blogging the issues) ranks.

Before I show, the NGA’s work promoting fatherhood and fathers’ rights nationwide via the state’s governors (which I doubt shows up on lizlibrary), I went back to look at LizLibrary.org.

I should probably address the situation in a new post, one of these days.
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