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

ANY post may be further edited (as in, condensed, or expanded, or both) after publishing.  Blogger’s privilege!  

A Health System Flush With Cash — because ‘Smoking Causes Cancer’ (1998 Tobacco Class Action Litigation MSA Payments, and Tobacco-Related Taxes Impact ‘in perpetuity’ on Systems Affecting Family Courts) ((Begun Early June; Publ. Aug. 7, 2019) post short-link ends “-a6m.”  Currently 5,200 words, having just been shortened (split), but this one is still a bit complex. Following the funds has been made complex. Last update, Sunday, August 11, 2019.

This post represents a preview to the preview of a draft which when published may be found, with a short-link ending “-9PC,” HERE:

I was working towards getting that one published, while (as usual) stating my concerns and explaining the basis for them.  Neither this post nor that one are  “PC” / politically correct no matter which political party you may favor.

re: ‘TWO HELPFUL LINKS’ — Image from TopRightSidebar, ‘GO TO POSTS’ widget, shows TOC 2019 & 2018 + ‘Key Posts 2012-2017’ (LGH, @ Sept. 1, 2019)

To understand this post (and when published [it finally was: Aug. 28?, 2019], that one) it may help to realize how much time I spend “underground,”  looking at organizations and their interactions with government using both their own descriptions (however mis-leading) and the ones available to me as a common person with normal internet access (i.e., not most specialty-journals, i.e., JSTOR, Wiley, many other publishers catering to the social science or legal sectors).

Not being in academia, or a member of some ‘consortium’ on specific problem-solving topics, I mostly look at public-access databases, whether on state or federal agency websites, at IRS.gov listings, and, where possible, tax-return databases (for USA), where tax returns may be posted.  Or, at times, financial statements of an organization of interest.  Because my lookups feature things that do NOT require special membership or journal subscriptions, I can say that those with basic internet access and willing (or able) to put in some personal time, can, and could have, found out the things I am reporting.  Why so many haven’t may vary by personality, motivation, or opportunity.

I may seem “alarmist” but be properly alarmed about things which have missed observation while people are busy reading mainstream media on their favorite subject matter and following the thought-leaders often featured in them, for a good, general-interest story line.

In this post, I will be talking about some very large numbers.  They are still just numbers…**

…Their sheer size (see post title) is itself a message.  Then, there’s a message in who, if anyone, is  reporting anything credible about them, and in where the force of those numbers ($$) is applied, through whom, and how.

But, like welfare reform of 1996 and subsequent varieties, it is a United-States-specific situation (while impacting other countries and I imagine echoed by campaigns in other countries also; in fact WHO is known to be involved in the quit-smoking field, and as recently as 2009 the United States apparently became subject to a treaty related to this, which I posted in 2017 the first time I worked through much of this tobacco litigation situation).

Below in this post, I remind us of the American Legacy Foundation (now called “Truth Initiative Foundation,” dba “Truth Initiative,” which seems an even more grandiose title than “American Legacy” (and minus even any geographic or political/country reference).  I had posted a link to a pdf which I’d in (it turns out) in late July, 2017, of its FY 2002 Form 990 IRS tax return (not the first one).  I’d posted on this almost exactly two years ago (as I write on this update).  Among several posts at the time, the level of detail on this next one will reward anyone who goes through it with better understanding of current, ongoing situations in the U.S. government.

By that I don’t mean just this Presidential Administration but the major, and often invasive, role the state (in the form of the DHHS) takes in dominating most of us, and between US DHHS and the USDOE (which, you may recall (or, see ALLgov.com or any other history) from 1953 -1980 used to be both under one federal department called “HEW — Health, Education, and Welfare.”

Another way to look at this — it was built up substantially after World War II.

More recent changes nationally and internationally (Brexit, mass shootings & the prospective of major changes in gun control legislation**, executive-branch USA initiated trade war with China affecting US farmers who sell much food to it (today’s local headlines…) continue fast, and furious, and altering fundamental relationships between (and within) countries I realize — but it really does help comprehension to take an overview (timeline) of key players in key federal agencies, and see mass movements in action from a structural/operational viewpoint.

**Searching just “gun safety” on this blog (for the posts I remembered writing, but not exactly when), one from December, 2017, comes up (I plan to off-ramp this next section to its own post, soon, however for which post is likely up (to be published) next, see the very bottom of this post…).

[SECTION REMOVED; PENDING POLISHING OF ITS DESTINATION POST, IT IS NOW OFF-LINE, THOUGH I HAVE BEEN DISCUSSING IT ON TWITTER, TO A DEGREE.  August 10, 2019.]

Here, doing the “drill-down” (looking at actual nonprofit filings and how organizations refer to themselves and any related entities (or don’t when ought to) quickly leads to information which speaks loudly about their character (founders & funders’ intents as seen by design and, again, their reporting).

**[NOTE: THIS NEXT SECTION LIKELY TO BE  NOW HAS BEEN SPUN OFF SOON, DUE TO NEW DISCOVERY DURING ROUTINE POST-PUBLICATION COPYEDITING.  MY POST IS ABOUT PAYING ATTENTION TO THE HEALTH INFRASTRUCTURE, DESPITE MASS SHOOTINGS/GUN CONTROL ISSUES AND DRAMATIC DISTURBING CURRENT EVENTS.  MANY HIGH-PROFILE EVENTS AND SCENARIOS ARE CAPABLE OF BEING SET UP TO PROVOKE BASIC POLITICAL RESPONSES WHILE A POPULATION IS IN TRAUMA. REGARDLESS OF WHO PERPETRATED WHAT, EXISTING ORGANIZATIONS AND POWER STRUCTURES ARE PERFECTLY CAPABLE OF EXPLOITING THINGS THEY MAY HAVE HAD NO HAND IN CAUSING (OR, MAY HAVE HAD SOME HAND IN SETTING THE SCENE FOR; EITHER WAY.  SOMETHING, AS INVESTIGATIVE BLOGGER ON DV TOPICS, I SEE DAILY, AND HAVE ALSO PERSONALLY EXPERIENCED FOR YEARS.]

My August 5, 2017 post (“An Alternate Viewpoint on the Anti-Smoking / Smoking Causes Cancer! Campaign and its Syndicated (?) Backers…”) (full title  — yes it’s longer and explains the first part — shown just below) is a good preview for the post you see now, which exists to previews another (pending) one asking some very hard questions — hard because they are in fact common sense questions with heavy consequences if actually answered — about the Family Law System.

I expect to re-post or at least Tweet a link to that well-developed one written almost exactly two years ago, knowing I may not be able to keep up that level of research much longer “pro bono.”

So much of our basic health infrastructure is, when you look closely, heavily about publicity, advertising and media campaigns.  Similar things could be said about the educationalestablishment (which this post goes into towards the bottom — the “RELs” (Regional Education Laboratories) — and in general, how scarce actual fiscal accountability can be and has been through-out.

“TruthInitiative.org” home page (top) viewed Aug. 7, 2019.

If you can understand some of the reported realities on such large-scope activities driven by so very few people, I hope that understanding just might transfer (and it must — soon!) how the same vast discrepancies in the number of family court “reformists” and the population of this country whose voice is NOT being heard about the family courts, in part because the history of those courts hasn’t been considered or understood, especially how heavily tied it is into the existing health apparatus.

It seems we want diversity in almost anything else, but when it comes to something this important, it’s basically one of only two sides, Pro/Con (for the courts).

That alone should signal something might be radically “off.”

And there are ways to look at some influential things which have NOT changed in decades — simply grown in size, scope, influence and (as this post says) the amount of assets privately controlled…with the public footing the bill, eventually…and/or up front.

I’ve been working diligently for some weeks on related but larger, in fact, macro-financed systems affecting the collective state (and county-level) health departments and agency systems which in turn influence the family courts.

Tobacco Settlement Payments to Counties and Cities, 1999-2019 (shows California only…). NOTE: One full page = one year’s worth; there are 20pp., so the total $$ showing at the top of page 1 first seen is for 1999 only. Some years have more columns (categories of payments) than others.… While CA and NY got the largest settlements (of those that signed on for the MSA), all other states and territories were also being paid..A separate quote below (from PHLC) says that by July 2018, these two states had received (combined) 25% of the total.  Thus, what you see about would be about 12.75% or one-eighth.  “Do the math….“

The Mary Lasker Papers (from profiles.NLM.nih.gov). I have posted this in context of big tobacco litigation, as I recall in 2017). See also her bio section there (wealthy ad agency owner Albert Lasker was nearly 60–nearly 20 yrs older– when they met after her prior divorce from an art gallery owner).

I’ve been revisiting the connections between tobacco litigation and tobacco-tax-revenue money and the expanding (yet consolidating) administrative levels of early-childhood  (starting at age “0” at the latest) development seeking to swaddle entire communities/ counties/ states with early childhood development theory, practice, resources (curricula) and of course interventions —

— the same fields which dovetail naturally with divorce and custody proceedings and social science R&D on poverty (and abuse, and juvenile delinquency, substance abuse, etc.) theory as this blog has been reporting for years now.  In these fields, psychology seems to reign supreme.

I’ve been trying to summarize, succinctly enough but still showing first, the billions of dollars per state per year, and “in perpetuity,” of extra financing which has been funneled through additional infrastructure (both public and private) set up specifically to handle it, and second, evidences of the impact.

CLASS ACTION MASTER SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT BETWEEN MOST STATES AND FIVE TERRITORIES AND USA’s LARGEST CIGARETTE MANUFACTURERS…

This doesn’t include, additionally, revenues from extra taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products some states (like California) enacted as well, then and/or later, all of which created revenue streams received SOMEWHERE within government and distributed FROM there, as authorized legislatively when those streams were created..

Master Settlement Agreement (<~From the Truth Initiative website): between 46 states and 5 territories (on one one hand) and the largest U.S. tobacco manfacturers and trade associations (on the other), after which, per this, 40 more tobacco companies joined.  State attorneys-general sought and apparently got, billions of dollars of payments every year going to the states based on costs of treating “smoking-related illnesses” (quotation from above link):

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