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

TITLE (may change, the link won’t): Two Plaintiffs’ Counsel Nonprofits for Class Action Lawsuit (℅ Center for Investigative Reporting article) short-link ends “-95X”.  Post started about June 24, 2018, publication was July 31st.  Currently over 12,000 words (which may or may not be adjusted later) and without tags. This blogger has been busy elsewhere for a few weeks...

I am taking the occasion of sustained media (print, digital, TV) focus on a certain situation to emphasize the importance of looking up nonprofits — their websites, and their business, charitable and tax filings, where possible — involved in headline news.

I’m constantly consciousness-raising about just how many headlines involve nonprofits, typically several at a time.

The current sustained media attention on the certain situation provides me yet another opportunity to show how active pursuit of nonprofits’ identities and accounts (tax returns, etc.) quickly and easily sheds light on that landscape and the larger one.

I’ve picked just one article from one source, a nonprofit ‘Center for Investigative Reporting” featuring a lawsuit referencing two more nonprofits, but each of them is related to yet more.

Within a few minutes of starting the lookup on one of the two, it became quickly clear that two existed under similar, but not identical business names, and a “switcheroo” of the names had occurred.

The other one has been around since the late 1970s; its formation coincides (follows not long after) the formation of other nonprofits (and the establishment of certain federal offices and bureaus, following passage of a federal act) focused on Juvenile Justice about the same time. (see the OJJDP funding, about, and legislation pages).

Generally, readers are intended and through reporting conditioned to focus on the causes, not the communicators, but being habitually oblivious to the communicators is a form of blindness. Just look closer, that’s an individual decision, and take the mental blinders off!

Looking up nonprofits takes some time (it gets easier with practice), but as basic, pro-active self-education fast-tracks anyone into reasonably objective** useful, relevant information unlikely to be included in standard journalism covering the issues and who holds which positions on those issues. This understanding I believe is a better bargaining point to change public policy where it’s routinely violating people’s rights and getting people injured, killed or financially enslaved.

This understanding also shows deeper underlying issues and a more specific, concrete and (if used consistently to compare) language with which to discuss them. Acquiring this understanding (by forming the habit of looking for and looking up those nonprofits) develops highly transferable skills (of observation, analysis, independence of thought) in anyone who starts and continues down this path.

Without this understanding, people advocating, often rallying or marching, for systems change are not even talking about as much as the chronic rights-violators already know and have normalized and rationalized about their own operations.

People can too easily be divided into factions and made unable to resist or restrain ever-expanding corruption and protect ourselves from its effects, no matter how much that word, “corruption,” is tossed around. Understanding the nonprofit sector is a bedrock understanding to the relationship of the individuals governed to their own government (and I’m talking primarily the USA).

Please! become conscious, actively aware, in general, and pursue AND talk openly about specifics when following ANY cause or headlines, of the nonprofit sector as a sector and how it’s managed, runs, evolves, expands, and campaigns.

Coming intentionally face-to-face with this type of information I’ve found adds another layer of understanding which accumulates depth rapidly. The longer one looks, more levels of the understanding.   The process of getting in front of that information is a transferable skill which leads to more independent thinking and less confusion.

The same amount of time invested over months, or years, into “current news” without ever coming face to face, personally exposed to, the format and appearance (not to mention contents) of financial statements, tax returns, corporate filings (or lack thereof) means  perception of who and what one is reading about is guaranteed to be shallower for most people — including white-collar professionals and specialists in certain fields!  It’s a matter of descriptive language, points of reference (perspectives), scope and evaluation.

Regardless of cause, function and/or political persuasions, the nonprofit = tax-exempt sector generally operates on the same side of the ledger as government, whose profits aren’t taxed either, leaving — pardon me for using the word “citizens” and “taxpayers” here, but it seems to apply — taxpayers and citizens supporting governments## (government entities) AND through our forced support of government {and through the public/private partnering, granting, contracting and sub-contracting so prevalent, the non-profit, tax-exempt sector also) on the OTHER side.

The massive population, employed or unemployed, young or old, is still a RESOURCE for the programming of government in cooperation with the private sector (including the private sector’s nonprofit operations). We, even as warm bodies individually at times not producing major income tax receipts, collectively are still the substance and material for all kinds of behavioral modification, social science R&D, pharmaceutical demonstrations also, and major career paths in certain fields — whether as academics (writing up the studies) or “management” (dealing individually with clients) and so forth.

We also collectively fund these studies through both tax receipts and consumption of services or products (private and/or public) and in general fund the careers, often up through PhD level (see state university systems, federal grants), and when graduates then work in government entities — which can include academia at the college/university level and does include K-12 public school systems — [school districts are specialized government entities] or individually or for corporations contracting with them, also the ongoing salaries .

The ability to tax and control, influence and “incentivize” such a massive population, whether in the (public) school systems or housing projects or the family courts, prisons, social services, etc. -is a major focus for programs and initiatives of the philanthropic sector this century, and certainly much of the last one.  Remember: The US Constitution was amended to enable federal income tax amendment USA, the date is 1913… Social Security Act, 1934. Last major restructuring of the Social Security Act, 1996 (a.k.a. “Welfare Reform”or “PRWORA”).

Establishing per-capita income tax with it, from the start included exemption from the same for certain kinds of organizations, right??  So there were taxed people and untaxed associations, corporations, and entities at least from that point forward.

See also, James Brooks Dill (1854-1910) and his role in the Corporation Trust Company, and helping large entities work around the anti-trust laws of the time, starting with making New Jersey’s laws among the most liberal (and bringing increased revenues to the State, not to mention also to Mr. Dill; after which Delaware’s liberalized corporation laws surpassed New Jersey’s in its “race to the bottom” thus attracting major corporations).

I posted on the impact of the Corporation Trust Company in my only post of June, 2018 as it came up in considering database quality for nonprofits, and the attempt to establish a single “Multi-State Registration and Filing Portal.”

Imagine (it already happened, but think about it!) this being arranged shortly before passage of the Amendment to the US Constitution setting in place the income tax, and setting the stage for large-scale tax-exempt entities of national influence also.

• 

  “James Dill: Corporation Law without Regret” in Legal History Blog (6/20/2018)

  “James Dill: Corporation Law Without Regret” http://legalhistoryblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/ james-dill-corporation-law-without.html See bottom of the annotated image; Dill knew what he was doing in making it known that NJ was the state (and he was the service-provider) in which to get around restrictive laws and nosy state attorneys-general concerned about potential monopolies and a muckraking journalist helped unintentionally with the PR…

And,

• Schiller, Elizabeth Ann, “James Brooks Dill: Father of the Trusts” (2009). Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs). 901. http://scholarship.shu.edu/dissertations/901

Page 1, Introduction to James Brooks Dill: Father of the Trusts (2009)

Page 2, Introduction to James Brooks Dill: Father of the Trusts (2009) (a few lines of text omitted from p.1 to p.2)

Title Page, James Brooks Dill: Father of the Trusts by Elizabeth Ann Schiller, Seton Hall University

Now, routinely, almost any news article will contain several references, especially if experts are quoted, to a nonprofit, probably some academia, and some government program. In addition, if the (if read on-line) website is not itself run by a nonprofit organization (such as the “Center for Investigative Reporting” here) but a major for-profit (such as the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal’s owners), the corporation or LLC is likely to have an associated tax-exempt foundation (i.e., nonprofit”) — as are the family members for the larger ones, their own private family tax-exempt foundations too. That’s just common sense for reducing corporate (or partnership, or trust) taxes, exercising influence on communities and positive PR for the owners, to the extent that they publicize the work.

The difference among sectors is less political preferences than where on the tax continuum any person exists. A primary common characteristic between governments and nonprofits, which are by definition in the “private” sector — beyond trading resources and policy-making status back and forth (and among their respective leaders over time) — is that neither sector pays corporate taxes as entities, while most people — the masses, including those working as employees FOR public (government entities) or nonprofits, ARE taxed on their income, depending on how much and from which sources it comes.

We “the masses” are also at many levels forced to consume specific services provided by various governments, throughout a lifetime through other forms and to pay off investments in infrastructure, etc. The justification of this taxation is always for the common good, including defense, and to fund government.  THAT justification gets interesting and a lot less logical when one starts looking as much at balance sheets showing total owned assets & liabilities as at budgets, which speak in terms of revenues – expenses.

Measures for Justice website (inc. 2011, entity address in NY, CEO Amy Bach) page showing its Supporting organizations, alphabetically. Notice #1 is Ballmer Group, #2 is the US Department of Justice (under which “BJA” Bureau of Justice Assistance exists).

THE BALLMER Group RECENTLY CAME TO MY ATTENTION (through nonprofit lookup — and finding none where there sounded like there should be some).  Looking at its website (not much on it) and for it on-line, I became aware of USAFacts.org.

Measures for Justice Institute (EIN#452119421) Click to enlarge. Notice it’s gradually growing. FYI, another backer is Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, and (not majority) some US DOJ grants.

FOR EXAMPLE: In recent (not related to this post) exploration of a somewhat new (2011) nonprofit’s (“Measures for Justice Institute, Inc.”) backers and the backers’ partners, I ran across “the Ballmer Group.”

Looking (for about a half day) through the documentation, it’s clear that Ballmer and those involved with this project want the focus on USA’s BUDGET not USA’s BALANCE SHEET. As a billionaire and obviously  investor — surely knows about not just his private foundation’s accounting formats (i.e., about revenue-producing assets and ways to minimize taxation on them, about having investments in multiple entities, etc.) but no doubt also governmental accounting forms, that is “Comprehensive Annual Financial Statements” and their specific structure, BUT  DOES HE or the website PROMOTE THIS?  NO!  

Post update (pre-publication) July 15, 2018, I re-confirmed that “Ballmer Group” and “The Ballmer Group” (not to mention “The Ballmer Group Philanthropy”) are indeed trade names of “Ballmer Giving LLC” (registered as a Washington company — not nonprofit — only 2014) and (one of the above dbas/trade names) of “Polpat LLC.”  Steven Ballmer is not listed as a “Governor” of Ballmer Giving LLC.  Mark Rising is.

Here’s a “slideshow image gallery” including Washington State  Dept .of Revenue (trademark and “Governors”) and USPTO searches. Essentially owners of the LLC “Ballmer Giving” (registered only late 2014, i.e., when Ballmer resigned from running Microsoft) are providing evaluating and consulting services to philanthropies, i.e., potential donors.  (Click any image and navigate directly to next or previous ones. State ones are the first three, USPTO the last three).

Above images: Again, I finally returned to “USPTO.gov” basic word search (for trademarks — not trade names) and looked for only the single word “Ballmer.”  Two active trademarks surfaced, one of which showed the logo as found on Measures for Justice and other philanthropies.  The USPTO definitions confirm that this LLC is providing philanthropic SERVICES and business evaluations for other donors about potential programs.  Read the “Goods & Services” details, and then notice it was only filed VERY recently (July 2018!) and was only used in commerce, it says, since a year ago last February (i.e., February 2017).  

While personally Ballmer and his wife may donate substantially, they probably do this as individuals (obtaining that tax exemption) while the LLC, which doesn’t have to make its tax returns and financial reports public, and isn’t (that we can see so far) listed as a “disregarded entity” on Schedule R of some other foundation, meaning, basically equivalent to that foundation). What Ballmer Giving LLC appears to be doing is steering grants, for-profit, through consulting or evaluation. It may be investing alone or mutually with others it advises in distressed areas to increase ownership of those assets and blend funding streams, probably, with public funds for housing or HHS + DOJ type services.  Look at the website — it’s very basic, very “closed-corporation” (doesn’t disclose much) and specifically says it doesn’t accept grant solicitations.  It lends a major name to other donors and foundations.

Read Ballmer’s Wikipedia to see his academic major (math economics) and undergraduate education (Harvard) and graduate (Stanford until he dropped out to get involved with Microsoft (?). The business model above is definitely associated with Harvard Business School (Bain/Bridgespan, etc.). The nonprofit sector realizes that public funds are a substantial income stream, as is their own sector, over time.

5/31/2017, “Business Insider” article calls “Ballmer Group” “their charitable foundation. Nope.  It doesn’t seem to be, but per USPTO.gov is owned by Ballmer Giving LLC and consults for other foundations, per USPTO.gov and Washington State DOR filings; it’s a trade name (“dba”) per WA State (not USPTO.gov) owned by two different LLCs, only one of which (Polpat LLC) shows Steven Ballmer as “Governor”

Nevertheless, the “Business Insider” May 31, 2017 article I showed above specifically calls “Ballmer Group” or “The Ballmer Group” a charitable foundation.  From what I can tell, that’s false. Outside possibility  making it true: if in some other state (or otherwise not showing up as searched on Washington State DOR) a legitimate “charitable foundation” exists which is ALSO using “Ballmer Group” as its dba.  (If you become aware of one, please let me know!) Meanwhile, here’s that quote, enlarged.

I really wanted to talk about and explore USAFacts, the Ballmer style of philanthropy (and “Measures for Justice”) during more recent revisions of this post (which has been in draft for several weeks now). I started to write it up, particularly after finding out how hard it was to locate the billionaire philanthropist’s actual organization dispensing all the grants, BUT, I’ve moved that to its own post now…  Here’s that link and current version of its title:

Another area of less and less confusion as times goes on (IF one makes this habit) is whether it’s just a few rogue powerful nonprofits or, as a whole, the nonprofit sector AS A SECTOR functioning  (unethically, and amorally, even if technically legal) to establish, spread, and maintain economic empires across state (and country) lines, mislead the public at will (depending on the cause or initiative) as to power, size and influence, and obscure the financial footprints while doing so.

Think about it (I’ve seen it so often!) … Small ones can be made to seem larger, and large can be made to seem more “grassroots” than they really are. … Completely dependent (whether on private or public contributions & grants) ones can be made to seem more independent than they are, and for some of the largest family-controlled foundations, around, inter-relatedness (as defined by the IRS under (Form 990s, Schedule R, “Related Organizations, Pts. I, II, III and IV; Form 990PFs, by the simple question — are you related, in IRS terms, to another entity).  …

These organizations, generally, are studying the public and what influences it to back, consent to, and (if necessary) donate time or funds to which causes.  Isn’t about time we started studying back — and following the funding, financing and organizing tactics, and speaking to it — instead of arguing the spoon-fed, PR-sponsored rhetoric ensuring we’ll never get to the same — unless we’re (sic) already involved and on the payroll?

The primary purpose of establishing any tax-exempt organization is — face it — TAX EXEMPTION!

The justification could be almost anything… tax-exemption attracts money from others with interest in one’s cause — or in the case of the extremely wealthy, a passionate urge and often intergenerationally-transmitted skill in reducing taxes on their “non-charitable use” income-producing assets, thus retaining (social class and) greater overall control of wealth and with it, power — power to also hire employees (or not), subcontractors, and change society to “the way it should be,” while maintaining the (in my opinion) illusion of occupying the moral high ground against, ‘evil’ or ‘incompetent’ government (which, however, provides them the tax-exempt status to start with), or “the other guys” (politically or on some other dividing line)…

So, let’s look up nonprofits more often, and then talk about those findings, not for pay, but because it’s essential information for our day and time and country. (If your country, “Dear Reader”  — I have a sense of followers from the UK, France, and some other countries — is not the USA, then translate the concepts into any other country which taxes citizens earning wages but does NOT tax all corporations, i.e., seeks to control the economy privately while taxing public (mass population) through the various exempt or not-exempt designations…)

Who else does these look-ups out of curiosity when consuming on-line information and news? Who else understands that accounting and business + government entities’ evolving organizations & collaborations matter as much (if not even more) when it comes to the courts and justice as much as rhetoric and specific causes referring instead to provision of services?

One focus is the balance sheet, the other is the budgets and statement of activities. It seems most people are clueless or “turned off” by reference to balance sheets and governmental financial statements and find it more fun and inspiring to organize around pictures and current news (pro/con)..

Multi-billionaires like the Ballmers and friends (in similar social classes as to wealth) are only too glad — as “The Ballmer Group’s” evasive and oversimplified website (NO financial posted, nor it is listed except possibly as a dba, meaning that to find a tax return, one would have to know the owner of that dba) and the USAFacts.org balance-sheet-avoidance and “CAFR as a reporting form”-avoidance show — to continue this routine.

I wish I’d started the look-ups two decades ago. I only started about one decade ago, but have never regretted the journey. The knowledge, again, is cumulative, but the process requires personal initiative and motive.  I cannot provide the hunger for anyone else.  I can only tempt with findings and say, emphatically, “now go do your own hunting, gathering, AND chewing on, processing, what is found or acquired, before the information is extinct and the landscape so changed that we cannot envision a time before (for example) family courts, or welfare reform policies, or when the difference between a BUDGET and a BALANCE SHEET in government operations was ever publicized and meant for the public to understand…if indeed it ever was….

Click to enlarge. This image has been posted before on the blog and at least a few times on Twitter this past season.

Click to enlarge. “OFA” is “Office of Family Assistance” under “ACF” under HHS. The OFA distributes welfare funds under “TANF” (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), etc. This image from my recent Twitter threads (“LetUsGetHonest”). I discovered that SoulPancake (media company in partnership with The Ad Council and HHS and a “resource center” mischaracterized as a partner, the NRFC) was in fact about four different California LLCs, one bought by “Participant Media” (also under various different names + management LLCs) itself under “JeffSkollGroup,” Mr. Skoll’s fortune having been made around “eBay,” initially under Pierre Omidyar, and being a Canadian billionaire. etc. All this targeted to reduce the public welfare debt in the USA, allegedly, and motivating noncustodial fathers to pay their child support better...[?].

Without this process and the independence/ awareness it leads to in this age** of socially engineered consent intended to bypass INFORMED consent I think we can “kiss justice goodbye” along with representative government, liberty, and all those things the United States of America*** supposedly values and protects. 

(**“…this age of socially engineered consent” = at least a century! — see Edward Bernays, Freud’s nephew, the role of advertising agencies in this consumer-driven culture, Albert Lasker, Lord & Thomas (Chicago), and his widow Mary Lasker’s role in bulking up the “NIH,” etc.).  Or see (previously posted on this blog) “The manipulation of the American mind: Edward Bernays and the birth of public relations..” in “The Conversation.com”).  If it worked in wartime, why not in peace also?  The word “propaganda” (properly in my opinion!) had a negative connotation — so “public relations” was the euphemistic substitute. “Wiki” shows how Bernays was Freud’s “double nephew”:

Edward Bernays was the son of Ely Bernays and Anna Freud Bernays. His great grandfather was Isaac Bernays, chief rabbi of Hamburg. Bernays was a “double nephew” of Viennese psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud—by virtue of his mother, Freud’s sister, and of his father’s sister, Martha Bernays Freud, who married Sigmund.

Keeping the family close…

The Bernays family moved from Vienna to the United States in the 1890s. Ely Bernays became a grain exporter at the Manhattan Produce Exchange, then sent for his wife and children.^[6]

(From Edward Bernays’ Wiki, accessed 7-15-2018)

(From TheConversation.com, 7-9-2015, on Edward Bernays + the birth of public relations).

(***I live here, I blog mostly about things here!)

The Mary Lasker Papers:  Mary Lasker and the Growth of the NIH (from NLM.NIH.Gov; previously blogged).

In the twenty-five years after World War II, the United States built the largest medical research enterprise in the world, with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as its centerpiece. Notwithstanding a dominant political creed that questioned the role of the state in society, the country went further than any other nation in erecting a centralized, government-financed institutional framework for biomedical research. Mary Lasker was a key part of this enterprise: she developed a compelling political rationale for federal sponsorship of medical research, built a powerful lobby that won large research appropriations, and pushed NIH into new scientific directions, at times in opposition to the scientific establishment.

Until World War II, medical research in the United States was modest in scale. It was conducted at universities, non-profit institutes, or private companies, with only a few federal grants-in-aid.

Click this and nearby images to enlarge. “DELTA Impact Recipients” (3 images, copied recently from CDC Center for Prevention of Injury/Violence Prevention website. Note that the recipients are themselves 501©3s (mostly) who would be funded by both HHS (block grants to statewide coalitions) and/or the DOJ, but being privately controlled, they could also take private funding. Grants to battered women’s shelters are mixed (as to program definition) with “Family Violence Prevention and Services.” Notably, shelters are usually FULL and turning people away.

Much of what we call public policy is behavioral modification supplemented by public-funded public relations campaigns

, whether it’s to stop smoking, engage in safe sex, or value fathers more than mothers, to “stop violence before it starts” and reframe it as a pathology to be treated rather than a crime to be prosecuted.***
[Remembering the Advertising Council having benefitted from both campaigns to prevent family violence and to promote responsible fatherhood.. These are topics I’ve blogged, or Tweeted or both, over time. Two heavily annotated (colorful, with some yellow high-lit areas) images above]  ***CDC|Violence Preventn|Injury Center |‘Timeline of Violence as a Public Health Problem’| (1979ff) printed 2018Jun24

SO, LOOK UP NONPROFIT FILINGS!  The act of habitually acquiring even just this basic background information exposes a person to the sources of information where understanding beyond the exact topic will be absorbed peripherally.  Just by being there. It cannot be undervalued!

Regarding this post,”Two Plaintiffs’ Counsel Nonprofits for Class Action Lawsuit (℅ Center for Investigative Reporting article),” my point is not to argue the substance of the lawsuit (do I sound like a lawyer? I’m not!),But again, to encourage look-ups, or if you will, ‘Drill-downs” on nonprofits; and using this for an example.  In case anyone forgets, or gets lost on the “who, what, when, where,” I have more arguments along those lines further below, too.

I know the subject matter of forced drugging and separation of children from their parents suddenly, sometimes permanently, and without due process or legal justification is a common experience to many parents, some who (like me) may have lived in the USA all, others, most  or even just part of our lives as citizens.

For both kinds of separations, the justification has been protecting the nation, and if you think about it, reducing public debt burden.

For both kinds of separations, also, cash flow to and through private corporations and nonprofits IS involved, and financial incentives of service provider companies is strong. And both deal heavily (though neither exclusively) with the Department of Health and Human Services-administered funds and programs.

So, isn’t it far beyond time to become personally aware through personal involvement in coming face-to-face with how HHS records (TAGGS.hhs.gov), how states (and the District of Columbia) register charities and corporations, how charities and corporations do or do not, historically comply with state laws to get and StAY registered (and submit filings) and with common terms found on even the most basic IRS tax return, Page One, Part I summary as to the + – = (the plus, minus, and equals) of any entity?)

From my recent increased activity on Twitter (and following/followed by people with similar interests in the family courts and violence/safety issues) it seems to have produced a common response “This is NEWS?  It’s already happening within the USA…What about OUR children?”

The two nonprofits I’ll look at (briefly) here are:  [the] Center for Human Rights & Constitutional Law (in Los Angeles) and National Center for Youth Law (in Oakland, California), whose lawyers are Counsel for the Plaintiffs.

Cal Entity C1062900, CHR & Constitutional Law Foundation Registered 12/29/1981 with California Secretary of State, a “Domestic Nonprofit” current registered agent Peter A. Schey, current address in Los Angeles. (Note: the Entity # can be used in search for its EIN# at the California Office of Attorney General’s (OAG) Registry of Charitable Trusts (RCT) “Verification” page.

I decided to do this post the moment I saw two separate nonprofit entities with similar names, the same registered agent at the same street address and a mid-stream (1997) name change under the Los Angeles nonprofit.  Briefly, the “Center for Human Rights _(etc)_” was formed in 1981, with a specific entity # and EIN#, then changed its name to add “Foundation” allowing a separate entity then named “Center” to start up in 1997 — IF I have the timeline right by memory.

Cal Entity C2003501, CHR & Constitutional Law , Inc., Registered 03/07/1997 with California Secretary of State, a “Domestic Nonprofit” current registered agent Peter A. Schey, current address in Los Angeles. (Note: the Entity # can be used in search for its EIN# at the California Office of Attorney General’s (OAG) Registry of Charitable Trusts (RCT) “Verification” page.

Why do that? Normally, a foundation is added later, as a nonprofit grows in size or activities, to formalize the support aspects.  Here, the original organization was re-habbed/re-named as “foundation” and a new one, with different entity# and EIN# formed under the now-available old name.

The Oakland nonprofit “National Center for Youth Law” <*> sounds familiar from my blogging. I will look up and include its filings also in this post (assuming it is a registered organization, and not a center at some other entity), but as of writing this introduction, haven’t yet.

<*>Youth law overlaps many times with “Family Courts” and organizations involved in running them, i.e., the “National Council of Family and Juvenile Courts, Inc.” in Nevada, a significant player in “family violence prevention” and taking funding for it as a “resource center on custody and visitation” appropriated by Congress and administered as (both) grants and contracts through the US Dept. of Health and Human Services. (NCJFCJ has overlapping board membership with AFCC and now admits it in a long list of partners, on its latest annual report; obviously significant when it comes to Family Court and Domestic Violence issues).

“@NCJFCJ” promotings its Annual Report, with only a few attached “Financial Highlights.” Naturally it doesn’t promote its audited financial statements, but they can be found as a very fine-print link on the AR, or otherwise on its website, with some diligence.

Excerpt fron NCJFCJ’s 2016-2017 Annual Report, which it was showing on Twitter recently. Note “AFCC” is acknowledged as a partner.

NCJFCJ Annual Report 2017 (in flip-book format as provided by NCJFCJ on Twitter.  May need second click on this “pdf” (Blank page icon) to open the viewer.  A bit hard to read, though.  Nearby Image shows alpha list of “Partners” includes Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (“AFCC”) on first two lines.

Another nonprofit involved is the owner of the on-line reporting website and employee or contractor with the authors reporting on the class-action lawsuit, Center for Investigative Reporting (“CIR”).  CIR is searchable on this blog, probably in an incidental (not main focus) manner; I remember researching it and related organizations. I am not discussing it on this post, however so much on-line news can be sponsored also by nonprofit organizations or foundations, it’s always good to recognize and know something about the source.

Go to https://bit.ly/2tpF4I7. That’s my Twitter thread from 6/24/2018, responding to an earlier Tweet that day from “Reveal.org” (Center for Investigative Reporting in Emeryville, CA) (images below also). That thread contains a link (https://bit.ly/2K7F8XC ) to my first reply. Also you can check https://bit.ly/2MY1ybv  and probably the original tweet, https://bit.ly/2MRUpJRM <*>

It started, I believe, with this tweet (” the bitly” ending “2MRUpJRM“) (next image).

I share the horror, but realize this type of treatment in generally not limited to just the immigrant detainee/family separation situations… A sentiment also being expressed by other parents on Twitter as well.  We know, many from experience, and also from networking with each other to handle situations as they come up, over the years…

Link to the second large image below found on the first one: https://www.revealnews.org/blog/forced-drugging-migrant-childrens-accounts/ This link to the first one also found on Twitter thread above.

One question being, who or what is “Shiloh Treatment Center” near Houston? Surely this isn’t only for migrant children separated at the border from their asylum-seeking parents…(6/22/2018 at “Reveal.org.” Link, here, Click image to enlarge.)

LGH COMMENTS: Trump’s zero tolerance policy blamed for “zombie army of children forcibly injected with medications that make them dizzy, listless, even incapacitated.” (1) Odd word choice “army” connotates action, possible attack-on-command, danger to a chosen enemy, mobilization. The usage here would seem to be intended to inspire fear of such an army. But the drugging is making the children anything BUT an organized, militant, or assault-ready “army.” So why call them an “army”? || (2) Causation: Did Trump (first year in office, 2017!) ZT policy set up, staff, and fund places like Shiloh Treatment Centers, or did Rx interests?

Twitter June 24 Tweet from @MarinKat and (not showing the attachmts) my initial reply

Thanks for calling attention to this situation goes to @MarinKat (Kathleen Russell), despite otherwise my general and obvious (if you follow my blog or my @LetUsGetHonest Twitter account) opposition to her and Center for Judicial Excellence, Inc.’s (the Northern California nonprofit)’s approach to “Family Court Reform,” and, though I haven’t publicized  it much, I did notice, recent involvement with more local and much more recent’s “Center for Modern Courts, Inc.” (alongside divorcee?/father Joseph J. Sweeney)’s espousing similar focus.

Center for Modern Court Reform, INC relating (on its charitable registration? documents) that prior activities consisted of those run as “Court Reform, LLC” run by the same individual, Mr. Sweeney (which S.O.State records show stared in just 2015).

Center for Modern Courts, Inc. (Inc. Jan 2017 in California) See web address in top window frame (and related state-level filings; there are no tax returns yet) to identify the “OUR” in “Our Cause.” Incidental to main topic of this post (LGH, 6/25/2018)

The latter entity (Center for Modern Courts, Inc.) I only looked more closely at after being solicited through a Twitter follower to get involved (typically, to show up to picket the local county courthouse, i.e., rally). More on the Center for Modern Courts and that situation on a footnote to this post.  However I did notice that as to the rally, not including Persky, ALL three judges cited for “recall” at a recent rally just happened (?) to be women.

…I’m aware of the immigrant family forced separation of children situation in general (hard to miss!) but probably would’ve missed the specific “Reveal.org” link to the class action lawsuit with attorneys affiliated with the two nonprofits I want to look at in this post.

This time, I was starting with, as found on “Reveal.org,” a class-action lawsuit regarding a politically hot topic.  mainstream media is keeping the heat on this topic, which benefits BOTH conservative and progressive (Left/Right, Republican/Democrat) controlled media.

US District Court, Central District of California – Western Div. C ase NO. CV 85-4544-DMG (AGRs) MEMO in SUPPORT OF MOTION TO ENFORCE CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT. Hearing May 18, 2018. Jenny Lisette Flores et al., Plaintiffs v. Jefferson B. Sessions, Attorney General. || Plaintiffs’ Counsel (firms): Center for Human Rights & Constitutional Law, 256 S. Occidental Blvd, Los Angeles & National Center for Youth Law, 405 16th St. 15th Floor, Oakland, CA (and — see next image —  the Immigrant Law & the Civil Rights Clinics at UC-Davis School of Law)

US District Court, Central District of California – Western Div. C ase NO. CV 85-4544-DMG (AGRs) MEMO in SUPPORT OF MOTION TO ENFORCE CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT. Hearing May 18, 2018, third affiliation of Plaintiffs’ Counsel (two more attorneys as you can see) listed.. (p.2 of 30 of this document, “Filed 4/16/2018), Holly S. Cooper, Co-Director of Immigration Law Clinic, & Carter C. White, Director of Civil Rights Clinic, both clinics at UC-Davis School of Law.

It’s also affecting, at gut-level, many parents who deal every day and for years at a time with the American courts in the process of raising children and staying alive themselves, “USA-style,” that somehow when non-citizens are involved, the press springs into action; but when we are, it’s not dramatic enough or focused newsworthy — even when similar events are occurring, but more geographically dispersed.

I know we don’t mean to minimize the border families who were broken up.  BUT, I know plenty of (more typically) mothers in different states who just DO NOT KNOW where their own minor children are after enough rounds in the family court. Some were sent to institutions, to “reunification camps” (which I’ve already compared to indoctrination camps in Viet Nam on this blog), some are institutionalized and drugged, others just subjected to “therapy” to forget one parent and choose the other one.  Some are taken by the other parent and contact cut off, which happened to me, and estranged.  I’m STILL dealing with the possibility of how long this might be for my own children, as a parent old enough by now to be a grandparent — and possibly not even know it.

Some children, teens or younger run away, then are caught and sent back — again, by way of some form of “reunification camps” (Grazzini-Rucki case, Minnesota) while mother AND others who helped are criminalized, jailed, and their work lives and ability to own property or retain any earned income, destroyed… Some mothers who DID flee with children out of the country have been hunted down and brought back — by way of family courts.  Some who did not run (courts did not allow relocation) stayed close and ended up murdered — with, sometimes without, the children too — or the children, only — or ALL of the above and bystanders –or sometimes, just bystanders, with the intended target escaping, or close to it — by way of this “family values” culture.

How MUCH worse can it get than it already its?  Obviously, plenty — but it’s still at this level.

After just a bit of look-up, I saw that that a drill-down here (on the two plaintiffs’ counsel affiliated nonprofits) wouldn’t work on Twitter, and so started this post.

Recent Adjustments in My Writing Focus | Why the Personal Urgency to Convey “Drill-Down” Basics, esp. on the Family Courts, Fathers’ Rights &  DV Advocacy.

I’ve focused more on Twitter than this blog for about three months now (April, May, most of June), however towards the end of May, 2018 a serious attempt to get me “on the street” (temporarily homeless) overnight forced a rapid move, restructuring, and again the round of consulting 800 help numbers and resources to protect myself.  The context is abuse and apparent extortion, diversion of funds, by licensed professional fiduciaries; it’s been an issue now for three years, driving up expenses and driving back my options to correct that.  Those three years are a chapter in the longer history which [you don’t want to hear right now…and I don’t want to tell.. on this blog… I’ve had to tell (repeatedly) in the course of first, negotiating boundaries (directly with those involved) and in seeking help, of course.] <***>

In draft status, extensive commentary fine-print follows this “<***>.”  But I may “foot-note it” before publishing because it’s several paragraphs. We shall see….

Click image to enlarge; For 6/25/2018 Mercury news article “Bay Areas eye-popping definition of low-income rises again” click HERE

What, then about the many battered women, at times battered MEN, who are parents coming out of “coercive/controlling” or domestically violent relationships who are than hauled through family court for several years in a row, and (as in my case) starting out without significant assets of any worth, and at very moderate income levels in the first place?  But, in showing “women, men,” there is still a “Fatherhood.gov” as social policy; there is no corresponding (anywhere close to size of funding and scope of advocacy) media + advocacy campaign targeting positive outcomes during custody challenges for women so often coming from former abusers or abusers of their children in common.  “Motherlessness” is not thought to be a social scourge demanding a national policy to address it — “FATHERlessness” is.

Note:  Batterers/ violent partner-spouse abusers seem to have a love/hate relationship with having their targets maintain work and corresponding supportive, positive relationships with employers or clients (if self-employed) which might lead to enough financial independence to leave their (sorry @sses) should she (or he) get tired of being battered, degraded, threatened or otherwise treated like a sub-species of humanity..Mine certainly did. Credit was shut down under duress and obtained by him over MY work later in the marriage under worse duress. It was either work at your own risk (or, when a night job was involved, at the children’s, i.e., unreliable to even stay home and watch the little ones) of sudden retaliation” or “beg for crumbs for survival” if not working.  They LOVE, however, the relief of financial pressure upon themselves, i.e., income to the household.

---

GIVEN THIS DYNAMIC, UNDERSTAND THAT DESPITE THE VERY LARGE NUMBERS SHOWN HERE, IT SEEMS TO BE TALKING HOME OWNERSHIP AND STEADY EMPLOYMENT. MY PERSONAL INCOME NEVER APPROACHED THE BOTTOM LEVEL FOR LONG DURING THE (ABUSIVE) MARRIAGE, AND AFTERWARDS, THOUGH IT HAD EVERY INDICATOR OF BEING SUSTAINABLE IF I HAD SOME CONTROL OF THE COSTs of LIVING + LINE OF WORK, ONCE THE PROTECTION GOES OFF AND THE COURT CASE STARTED CHURNING, HOPE OF EVEN GETTING TO A HIGHER LEVEL KEPT DRAINING OFF. In my bringing this up, I am not even talking in terms of expecting to reach the upper-middle class salary (for other areas) which are somehow considered “low-income, Bay Area” according to HUD. We are talking, basic essentials, ongoing. Roof, food, transportation/communication, some clothing… enough hygiene not to get booted out of public places… or for work in public.

---

Click image to enlarge; For 6/25/2018 Mercury news article “Bay Areas eye-popping definition of low-income rises again” click HERE

Click image to enlarge; For 6/25/2018 Mercury news article “Bay Areas eye-popping definition of low-income rises again” click HERE

Again, my request THREE YEARS AGO to leave the area was economically sensible.  If I am not under court-order to stay here for the convenience of fiduciaries who control assets I need to survive and would rather have me here, is there any LEGAL basis (as might be if there were minor children and a visitation schedule) for an otherwise free American to be prevented from making a sound personal decision to move to an affordable geography (and possibly closer to adult children or other lifelong friends — and FURTHER FROM known abusive, coercive and dangerous personalities, in my case)  for a fresh and more affordable start in life?  Given that some resources exist with which this move could be made?  But, instead, and as I said, just said…

<***>Almost exactly three years ago (May/June 2015) I had under pressure from the same fiduciaries, then less than a half-year in their role,## (as a condition of any housing assistance) for projecting future expenses, admitted to plans and intention to move to lower-cost housing and geographic area, that is, out of state, having no more work or family reasons for staying here, and to initiate the move within the next three months.     

Not detailed here, but what followed immediately was shocking. It was a clear aggressive move to inflict damages, run up MY expenses, run up THEIR billings, and usurpation of a lease while withholding rental receipts was involved…..  Now it’s three years later, multiple attempts to get THESE individuals (as, previously succeeded, to get my own sister) OFF this trust for my own safety,and gain access of it myself for obvious reasons, has again escalated as I mentioned at the start of this (fine-print, different background-colors) comment. I am being extorted and believe that the latest round was an attempt hoping that the stress alone would solve their “problems” by “offing me,” within the last month..  In many ways, it feels like living with my ex-batterer, and dealing with my own sister, STILL… They cannot come up with legal justification, and wish to keep handing off control, increase “fees for friends” and refuse to give straight answers — or timely documentation of the condition of the trust, or to validate its expenses.  NOTE: A statement absent any supporting evidence is no better than the credibility of those reporting and their “hired hands.”  I have plenty of evidence of ongoing lies (gas-lighting and other kinds) from having insisted on written communications from near the start. The whole “licensing” situation lacks meaningful enforcement “teeth” (and budget). The people involved also are focused on vulnerable populations in the more classic definitions — as is the licensure descriptions at the state level also:  seniors, dependent adults, people under guardianship or conservatorships, mentally and physically disabled etc.

I am dealing thus with predators, and urgent (with or without their “permission” and if without their assistance, by some other means) to get free for what remains of my life, and I am presently mid-sixties.  I filed for protection from domestic violence just before turning 50 (having married and had children just about age 40, after college and established work life; serious battering started when pregnant with the second child and, at that time or shortly before it as I recall,  working part-time from home a situation I’d arranged with former full-time employer by streamlining their operations (involving better software) so I could do this.

I hadn’t planned to talk so much about this here, but the situation impacts how much time I can invest in this blog from here on out.

I know I’m not the only one, either for these particular individuals, or generally. For what it’s worth, a nonprofit I’d looked up (at the outset, ca. 2014) certifying fiduciaries in the state even made it onto the radar of “Last Week Tonight’s” John Oliver, June 6. (Short segment on youtube). I’ve been sent further information on others, other groups dealing in particular with guardianship abuse, BUT what about when there is no acknowledged guardianship appointment or dependency?

So, along the lines of continued blogging (and or “Tweeting” or other on-line activism) Before I stop or am forced to stop [again] for a period of months, or even a year, I want ALL people to understand just how harmful it is and has been for advocacy groups to WITHHOLD valuable information to “clients” and public consumers of information when they had access to it, knew its relevance, and when taking it account would shine a cold light on the basic agenda of such advocacy groups, showing it to be all but “null and void” as to relevance, and very probably intended more as a distraction from the most critical information, the ‘elephants in the room.’

I’m talking about what I’ve been blogging.  While it’s higher, wider and deeper than at first glance, it’s fair enough (as to the Family Courts) to condense this into just two or three basic facts which, as types of information which sufficiently signify and symbolize “something else going on”  to challenge the status quo of “fix the family courts…” and the existence of family courts in the first place.

I’ve condensed  the two basic types of information symbolically to “AFCC“** AND the federal incentives (HHS, specifically) under 1996 PRWORA.  (**Although AFCC doesn’t operate alone; there’s NCJFCJ and other organizations representing, as I’ve shown, most functional levels of public civil servants with authority over the use of public funds!)  AFCC represents court-connected membership association, and has indeed driven policy in the family courts for decades).  A drill-down at almost any level of “AFCC” also reveals the filing “anomalies” chameleon corporations, and habit of mis-stating reality in self-descriptions.

These two trends (added also to what I now call the “DV Cartel” as HHS-funded and under VAWA also DOJ-funded) are significant, historic movements to frame HOW criminal matters are being handled within the United State of America.  They also, if explored, lead to better understanding of public/private partnerships, and just how far, really, we are “up a creek without a paddle.”

Any of these basics, further explored, leads to much more information which turns the lights on as to the relationship of individuals (particularly citizens and taxpayers, or consumers of any form of government services, voluntary or mandatory) to government itself.

Entities’ Ebb and Flow, Reorganization, Dams, Reservoirs, Irrigation.  And the effect of creation, dissolution, consolidation, spinoffs, and CHANGE upon flow of funding

It’s not that hard, but should be done promptly because neither sector is static; there is the history of such entities and their current, ongoing evolutions.  Once entities are identified and categorized:  PUBLIC or PRIVATE (and what they are doing separately or together), what’s more both are in motion, often reorganize, sometimes dissolve, or create new ones individually or jointly (of varying size and scope of activity) (example:  California used to have “redevelopment agencies.”  These were dissolved around 2012 creating “successor agencies” to each redevelopment agency). Some local municipalities or counties may create internal, or cross-jurisdiction “districts” (including SCHOOL Districts!).

Center for Human Rights & Constitutional Law (in Los Angeles)

and National Center for Youth Law (in Oakland, California)

PUBLIC =/= PRIVATE!  RIGHTS & RESPONSIBILITIES DIFFER BETWEEN SECTORS

Because U.S. government  has power to tax, power to incarcerate backed by force, and the duty to report  — but does not (as corporations, partnerships, trusts) PAY (federal) income or (state) “franchise” and other taxes to itself — and corporations, partnerships, trusts, businesses DO pay taxes to government unless they have organized and by permission are tax-exempt, whether or not any entity (however named, however old, however large or small), the first question to answer — after locating an actual entity when one is starting at the program, project, or initiative level as reported on any website — Yes or No, is it “government” (=public) or “not” (=private)?

US District Court, Central District of California – Western Div. C ase NO. CV 85-4544-DMG (AGRs) MEMO in SUPPORT OF MOTION TO ENFORCE CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT. Hearing May 18, 2018, third affiliation of Plaintiffs’ Counsel (two more attorneys as you can see) listed.. (p.2 of 30 of this document, “Filed 4/16/2018), Holly S. Cooper, Co-Director of Immigration Law Clinic, & Carter C. White, Director of Civil Rights Clinic, both clinics at UC-Davis School of Law.

In the case of this “Two Plaintiffs’ Counsel Nonprofits” article here, I chose to look only at those two nonprofits, less (and not really, here) at the Center for Investigative Reporting, but let’s acknowledge — here’s the third and fourth listed counsel for plaintiffs, (Holly S. Cooper & Carter C. White) and this is ℅ University of California Davis, associated with two different clinics within the law school– which, technically speaking, I THINK, is part of the state of California, i.e. closer to government than two nonprofit:  see University of California system.  I do not remember the exact details (see State of California “CAFR” to check it out), but here’s that image again (case # in caption and on top margin of the image).

I know how hard it is to track down “Centers” within Universities (not for lack of trying: see post series about a year or more ago on UC-Berkeley’s Center for Cities and Schools) and am just not dealing with it this time… BUT, it’s involved…

“Immigrant children forcibly injected with drugs, lawsuit claims” as reported on REVEAL.org, the nonprofit “Center for Investigative Reporting” (also searchable on this blog; I think I posted its financials in a different context)

REVEAL.org, Center for Investigative Reporting (“@reveal” on Twitter) shows Emeryville, CA address (SF Bay Area).

So, as I noticed on & am continuing from Twitter, this post looks at two Plaintiffs’ counsel nonprofits who filed on behalf of detained and drugged immigrants youth separated from parents at the border; a class action lawsuit.

Several of my replies and tweets (6/24/2018, today) contain attached images and keywords (Kids for Cash, Troubled Teen Industry, the “Judge Gorcya” case where three children were ordered into “juvie” for refusing to have lunch with their father; the Mary Ann Godboldo case (Detroit:  Risperdal and a S.W.A.T. Team at her house without a warrant were involved…), Troubled Teen industry, the parent company “UHS” (United Health Services) which operates psychiatric hospitals — and other residential treatment centers to which youths are sent, nationwide.

These relate to ongoing concern by parents routinely struggling already with these same issues, but by virtue of living here and having cases either in the family courts and/or at times, in dependency courts (i.e., “CPS”).  On Twitter several of these parents (including myself) have been commenting as I did particularly today — what’s now head-lining, occupying MAJOR mainstream media news outlets, and is subject I see of a class action lawsuit  regarding mistreatment of children and youth retained at United States (southern) border, incurring outrage (particularly in progressive circles) is what WE understand to be “business as usual” in mainstream America.

Please see my shortlinks (to Twitter threads) (https://bit.ly/2tpF4I7, https://bit.ly/2K7F8XC; for some of those. If viewing is an issue, follow me (“LetUsGetHonest”) temporarily and, if you wish, then “UNfollow.”  I’m no sociomedia expert and still not quite clear on who can see what on whose Twitter profile.

The lawsuit identifies two nonprofits (and a center at UCDavis, which I’m not looking into for purposes of this post.  Nor am I dealing with the lawsuit content itself.  My interest is to show how routinely — as much as possible — looking just a little further illuminates any news story involving nonprofits — which most news stories do! — and all of this “looking just a little further” turns whoever does it into a better-informed and less easily manipulated human being than anyone who routinely reposts, retweets, reblogs WITHOUT looking it up.

 ~~~ NATIONAL CENTER FOR YOUTH LAW ~~~

Info here is just a start.  A very interesting organization started in 1978, legal domicile Washington D.C., but from the start, entity address in San Francisco with two of three original directors being from SF and one from St. Louis, Missouri.  The organization was obviously organized around and “caters” to the Legal Services Corporation Act, and its founding articles show Peter Sandmann (one of the two original SF directors) had already been “Special Committee on the Rights of the Child” and working with not only the “Youth Law Center” in SF but also with its pilot project (“OEO-funded) “Western States Project” in the early 1970s.  When the OEO (Office of Economic Opportunity?) relaxed the “Western State” geographic restriction, then the plan was for the project to go national.  Peter Bull, also then working for “Youth Law Center,” I see was Yale BA 1956, and Harvard LLB, 1961; Sandmann (a bit younger) had spent a year at London School of Economics.  This and more information available through reading its founding documents available through California Registry of Charitable Trusts.  I’d like to image-out (narrate) some of them, however for now, here’s that pdf, from which (once uploaded with a second click on the blank “page” icon) you can click on the pdfs under “related documents” towards the end to view any such document (990, RRF, or “miscellaneous” for any year) as well as look at its header information and schedule (year by year) of Gross Assets to Revenues and filing dates.  In general, this seems to be a stable organization.

I would like to point out, however, that whoever is filling out its tax returns is improperly calling it a “CA” legal domicile entity.  It’s not.  The legal entity is Washington D.C. and always has been.

Please tell some of NCYL’s high-profile directors (<==from youthlaw.org website, the whole list with bio blurbs…) (like Human Rights Hero and Harvard A.B., LLB Georgetown law faculty, Peter B. Edelman (married to Marian Wright Edelman), or (also attorney) Christopher Wu (<==his LinkedIn, see two images below for work history), who as I recall was also at the California AOC as a staff, a state Blue Ribbon Commission on Foster Care and  the “National Association of Counsel for Children” (NACC) which has also some “AFCC” conference and membership overlap; I do not recognize the other directors’ names)…what “legal domicile means”  — or explain to me how a legal domicile can be one thing for a corporation and another for the same corporation when it comes to the IRS…

(from: ABA Human Rights Magazine, [summer] 2005, Vol. 32) “Human Rights Hero“) To younger generations of antipoverty activists, Edelman may be best known for a moment of high drama. In September 1996, Edelman resigned his position as acting assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Despite having been a close friend of President Bill Clinton, Edelman left Clinton’s administration in visible protest because he felt strongly that the welfare legislation passed by Congress and signed by Clinton would undermine rather than strengthen the fight against poverty. “There was a great opportunity to make positive change,” Edelman recalled recently, “but they moved toward a more inhumane welfare system. . . . They destroyed the safety net.”

To judge Edelman solely by this act of principle and protest would be to ignore a career rich with commitment to fighting poverty and filled with opportunities to make a difference.

Edelman did not set out on the path of antipoverty crusader. Born in 1938, he grew up in a liberal family in Minnesota, the son of a lawyer who was a member of that state’s progressive Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. Edelman left Minneapolis to attend Harvard University and Harvard Law School. He then was picked to clerk for Justice Felix Frankfurter on the U.S. Supreme Court. Fate intervened when Frankfurter retired in the summer of 1962 and Edelman was invited to work instead for Justice Arthur Goldberg, who had replaced Frankfurter on the Court. ….

Goldberg urged Edelman to work for the administration of President Kennedy “because there wouldn’t be many administrations like it in my lifetime,” Edelman said. He went to work in the Justice Department under Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, beginning a five-year association that had a profound impact on his life.

When Robert Kennedy was elected as one of New York’s senators, Edelman became his legislative aide. Two experiences of that time remain seared in Edelman’s memory and gave him, as he puts it, “widespread exposure to problems I was literally unaware were there.”

Peter B. Edelman, Georgetown University web page

ABA Human Rights Magazine 2005 (Vo. 32), Human Rights Hero Peter B. Edelman.

Multi-page pdf; click twice to view: National Center for Youth Law (Calif OAG Details printed 7-31-2018, w access to 990s and RRF filings) EIN#942506933 CalEntity C909875

(Christopher Wu LinkedIn):

Christopher Wu’s LinkedIn shows him now at Casey Family Programs. See work history…

Christopher Wu’s LinkedIn. See work history..and how many years in which positions (1995-2013 Calif. Judicial Council; etc.).

…The RE: National Center for Youth Law’s California OAG Details pdf (Founding Documents) I’m following with a four- image gallery of:

its Secretary of State Filing (basic & second-level search results), i.e., “C0909675” showing clearly it’s a Washington, D.C. organization, then the State of California OAG Registry, showing its Oakland, California (current) address and EIN# 942506933, and last, a 990-finder (EIN# search) results showing the moderate and fairly stable size of Total Assets it has, 2014-2016..

Without narrating these images (for now) from the “Founding Documents” of NCYL, I think you still might find them interesting.  These are just a few I annotated some weeks ago in preparing for this blog post.  They may not be in order, but show some of the references to my paragraph earlier mentioning original directors Peter Sandmann and Peter Bull and various organizations they were involved in, as well as the focus on the Legal Services Corporation Act as a premise for this organization.  Also notice (up front) that it’s not just for “juvenile” situations, but also “family courts” as originally described. First image of this slideshow repeats the California OAG Search results (with EIN#) as a reminder which organization we’re talking about. That’s also where I got the founding documents from…

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

So, my main focus isn’t these two organizations.  I have been active on Twitter and just jumped in here, realizing it wouldn’t fit into another series of tweets with screen prints of half-sized, annotated search results from those above databases.  And I don’t see continuing to annotate screen prints as a functional way to Show and Tell on this blog, or on Twitter, indefinitely.

“EXPARTEPRESS.Com”

“Family Court and CPS Reform Movement Hits Mainstream” (5-18-2018 post, one of only two shown) on “ExpartePress.com” showed up on as a link on a Twitter account advertising a rally. It was fairly local (a few SF Bay Area counties mentioned) and, it says, organized by “Parents Against CPS Corruption” (another linked website) featuring more CPS than Family Court issues. Center for Modern Courts + CJE seem ideologically linked with it (focus on auditing the Commission on Judicial Performance and targeting specific judges for recall).  I looked more closely at “CMC” and related filings, case(s), this past May. However now several weeks later, I cannot retrace my former steps & lookups specifically between one under-developed website, another website & a Facebook group, etc.

FOOTNOTE “Center for Modern Court Reform, Inc.” “Court Reform LLC,” Joseph J. Sweeney (dissolution Evilsizor v. Sweeney), “Ex Parte Press” and where @MarinKat (Kathleen Russell of Center for Judicial Excellence) seems to fit in.

Jan. 18, 2017 article in The Recorder by Kathleen Russell of Center for Judicial Excellence (“Viewpoint: How Persky Case Shows the Need for More Data on Judicial Decision-Making“). Article (as I recall) also references Mr. Sweeney & his organization) The Recorder (“law.com”) has since “Archived” it (must subscribe to read more) but it’s also with thumbnail photos uploaded to CJE’s website:  (That image has url “2016/10” upload, but the printout on there is dated 2017. It happens…

Persky article as access from CJE Website (at LAW.com only opening paragraphs now viewable without a subscription/ it got archived…)

(URL website at top in window frame). This represents an LLC which is continued (though as a new entity) under the Inc. “Center for Modern Courts, Inc.” in California run in part by Mr. Sweeney.

This simply identifies some of the references in some of the lead-in paragraphs to this post. It’s interesting, I may not have Tweeted much of it yet, but I did look — as is my habit — when it came to my attention and up to a certain point, enough to identify who was behind which websites and, generally, any related agenda.

“Center for Modern Courts is a new Silicon Valley nonprofit…” (stretching the geography a bit, unless the usage “Silicon Valley” just refers to intended use of technology related to that associated with Silicon Valley. The nonprofit is in Contra Costa County; “Silicon Valley” technically is Santa Clara County (just south of San Francisco; see “Palo Alto, San Jose” etc.)

The focus on the Commission on Judicial Performance as opposed to macroeconomics (as to family courts — and this IS about family courts) relating to fathers’ rights funding by the U.S. government, and the undue influence or privately organized “Trade associations” such as the AFCC (and all that goes with it) is typical of the “CJE” approach also.

California Sec of State Filing for CMC, Inc. shows it’s only January 2017 — too soon to even see a tax return. It was preceded, says founding articles, by an LLC he also formed in 2015. Underlying dissolution case’s Evilsizor v. Sweeney shows the court went after wife’s parents assets over the parents’ opposition (she’s an attorney, they have wealth…)

(Wikipedia defining “Silicon Valley,”)

Some of the founding articles or from California Charitable Registration, on CMC describing its intended purposes which, eventually, might qualify it as a “Silicon Valley nonprofit.”