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

Post title: NAATPN, Inc (2000ff, Total Current Assets, $0) and Caffee, Caffee and Associates PHF, Inc. (Hattiesburg MS, 2003ff, Total Assets $0, Tax Filings Questionable), and others trying to squeeze a California Race-Based Stop-Smoking Network (AATEN) into that recipe. (with short-link ending “-7rm,” started 8/15/2017).   [Published 8/28/2017 evening and as usual may be updated for clarity, basic copyediting, or length (splitting)//LGH].

In my world, entity or non-entity is a very big deal; I don’t like the pretense that a “non-” is a real one. Or that those real entities whose track record of filing is absymal and whose IRS returns that do show up are themselves questionable (which in this case includes both groups mentioned in post title) are appropriate role models for training and technical assistance, consulting, or promoting a cause, even a noble cause.  If people or groups want to lead, steer, or serve as positive front groups for social policy, let them first show credibility — not just the ability to parrot, to make friends in high places without specifying how this was done.

The alleged cause is not being helped much by very highly-positioned, and “flush” foundations continuing to churn the tobacco litigation master settlement agreement, RICO and other tobacco lawsuits, and exploit the networks formed as a result of it, and doing this as publicized through centers of dubious fiscal independence from law school “centers,” thus creating another barrier to disclosing conflicts of interest among the sponsors and more work for the public to untangle the mess.

I also don’t like* having to then figure out, which I’ve been attempting, how to present it coherently on my own non-sponsored blog.

I’m ready to publish now, just about two weeks later (8/28/2017), and have yet to locate any real entity called “CALIFORNIA” “CALIFORNIA’s” or “….OF CALIFORNIA” associated with any “group” by the name of “African American Tobacco Education Network” although it was repeatedly referenced as if it were real.  Just one example from within this post:  ~RI State Legislature May 3 2005 Commends Bell Caffee’s African American Tobacco Educatn Network of CA (a non-entity?) for Not in Mamas Kitchen H6451 (printed Aug 2017) (two-page pdf, click page icon to see if first click doesn’t produce it.  Two annotated images; my comments raise the question of “Who IS it?” and why not mention an real, identifiable entity where one is available instead of one strangely “not found” when looked up?

What does this say about the state legislators who will make resolutions without fact-checking first?

Click image (as needed) to enlarge, or see nearby pdf link for the whole resolution (it’s not long…)

Here also (shown near bottom of this post again) is a 1996 article referring to just the “African American Tobacco Education Network” without the word “California,” but quoting the same person (whose corporate entities identified so far are in NC and MS):

Rise of Discount Cigarette Stores Vexes Health Officials  January 27, 1996 | JILL LEOVY | SPECIAL TO THE (Los Angeles) TIMES

…Brenda Bell Caffee, coordinator for African-American Tobacco Education Network, contends that discount cigarettes are aimed at the poor and at minorities. Rates of smoking among African Americans are among the highest of any ethnic group in California, according to the CDC…

So where was the link to either the entity she’s associated with (or its website), or the CDC claim? It may be a program or project, rather than a corporation or association.   That’s the problem I have with journalism style attempting to put together facts into a story line– just not, typically, the fiscal or corporate filing facts.  The hunt is always for a person with knowledge of the situation to quote, and an organization name to stick alongside the quote lending an air of authority on the facts…  Whether or not the organization ends up existing, or has $10M, $1M, or $0 assets if it does exist, or is fiscally independent of government grants, doesn’t typically make it into the story.

A previous quote, 1995,  (again, from near the bottom of this post) repeats the association, but with the word “California” prefixed:

…Brenda Bell Caffee, coordinator of the California African American Tobacco Education Network, said her group became aware of the cigarette brand last month through a computer bulletin board for African Americans in California.

Where’s the evidence other than allegations that it existed, of the group?

Also as a Californian (currently and for over one generation now), I have certain issues with people from North Carolina, South Carolina and Mississippi and/or Georgia with known connections and support from a law-school nonprofit in St. Paul, Minnesota characterizing themselves as representing the best interests of people who, like I do, actually live in this state and must deal with some of the crazy policies set in place through social engineering here since 1996 Welfare Reform, PRWORA, let alone since the (two years later) Tobacco Litigation Master Settlement Agreement, not to mention the (in this state) increasing consolidation of control of the courts at the top level and in the administrative sector over time,** some of which I blogged about four years ago as it pertained to AFCC inordinate influence over family, divorce and custody courts, and ongoing reversal and erosion of whatever gains were made by laws against domestic violence and spousal battery.

(**Lockyer-Isenberg Trial Court Unification Act of 1997 (<==2005 Fact Sheet (partial image shown below) from Courts.CA.gov on this); then consolidation of already statewide Family Court Services with Children’s Services ca. 2000/2001 into the “CFCC” (Center for Families and Children in the Courts) under the Administrative Offices of the Courts (AOC), and gradual but consistent movement of operational (jursidictional?) responsibility for the court buildings, employees, and judges away from local upwards towards the state level — and we are a large state.)

(2pp, Click image to read the rest)

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