Archive for the ‘Context of Custody Switch’ Category
War comes home: Waterboarding a 4 yr old
QUIZ:
Do you think it was a MOTHER or a FATHER that did this?
Was there an enabling 2nd woman around at the time?
As I say, there is approximately one a week coming to the press.
How cast iron is your stomach? Because if you can’t stomach what’s happening to this society and why, there may come a time when the blinkers must come off, and concerns worse than foreclosure, or inflation, become paramount in one’s life..
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This reference comes from a newspaper via Michael Moore website, and from this site referenced below. I hope you will take some time to read her comments 9n this case on the Michael Moore site (linked on the title to this article, below).
February 8th, 2010 2:54 PM
U.S. soldier Joshua Tabor waterboards his daughter, 4, because she couldn’t recite alphabet: police
By Brian Kates / New York Daily News
A GI waterboarded his 4-year-old daughter in their suburban Tacoma, Wash., home because she couldn’t recite the alphabet, police reported.
Joshua Tabor, 27, allegedly admitted to police he used the torture technique because his daughter was terrified of water and he was furious she didn’t know her ABCs.
Tabor was arrested Sunday and charged with assault of a child.
Tabor, a soldier at the Lewis-McChord base in Tacoma, Wash., told police he held the little girl’s head backward in a sink of water, Yelm Police Chief Todd Stancil told the the local newspaper, the Nisqually Valley News.
Stancil said Tabor had admitted to using this means of punishment three to four times.
Police found the little girl locked in a bathroom with bruises on her back and scratch marks on her neck and throat.
Asked how she got the bruises, the girl is said to have replied, “Daddy did it.”
Police did not release Tabor’s rank or the nature of his military service. His base is home to units that have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The girl, who was not identified, had been in Tabor’s court-ordered custody for about a month and a half.
After his arrest, she was placed in the care of Child Protective services, Stancil said. She had moved to Yelm from Montana where she lived with her grandparents. Her mother lives in Kansas.
Cops arrested Tabor after neighborhood residents reported him walking around his neighborhood drunk, wearing a Kevlar Army helmet and threatening to break windows.
Tabor’s girlfriend told police that Tabor has an anger problem and beats his daughter, Stancil said.
Tabor reportedly said his girlfriend helped hold the girl down in the water. She had not been charged.
The couple has a 2-month-old child together, Stancil said
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I’ve been speaking about this sad profit-making practice for few years now. [1], [2], [3] My latest speeches are posted at:
http://www.selfrepresentedfool.org/id79.html
References:
[1] Dr. Sidiakina, N.A. (2010) STOP Family Courts’ Torture And Abuse of Protective Parents And Self-Represented Parties:
http://www.selfrepresentedfool.org/id79.html
[2] Dr. Sidiakina, N.A. (2009) Family Courts’ Reliance on Parental Alienation Syndrome Theory Turns Normal Children Into Mental Retards:
http://www.selfrepresentedfool.org/id79.html
[3] Dr. Sidiakina, N.A. (2009) The Family Courts’ System in California Turns Children into Slaves:
http://www.selfrepresentedfool.org/id79.html
ANYONE want to track that case? Why did the mother of this 4 year old move to Kansas (or him to Washington)? When, where and why was this little girl in Montana, with “grandparents.”
For the uninformed, “grandparents” in custody battles, particularly any ones that involved domestic violence or child abuse, or allegations of it, come in TWO brands:
1. His (in which case, what kind of sense does it make putting a kid in the custody of the parents who raised a man that has been abusive? Or woman?)
2. Hers (another factor to consider is that SOME families respond to the breakup of their child’s relationship, or marriage, differently than others. Some families support their biological (adult) child, others turn on them. This becomes interesting when one figures that one generation of poor boundaries, and lack of understanding that it’s wrong to hit may produce an adult woman who doesn’t have the greatest boundaries in marriage. Or, other scenarios may include a young adult child needing so desperately to get away from an abusive (or simply emotionally bloodless/cold) family of origin she mistakes lust for love. Or doesn’t mistake it, but simply takes the closest apparent exit.
I don’t know about this case. I’m just providing the links.
Do you (“Gentle readers”) Understand the power of multiplication? Any good business person, network marketer, or affiliate of any product, should understand the principle.
Well, guess where these incidents are ‘bred’? The Family Courts ARE the incubators for sure. They are a hotbed of profit — for some. Not the four year olds, of course…
LOOK: A need is a market niche. If problems were simply solved in the most direct, honest, and sensible way, there goes a business opportunity, and it would have to knock on other doors.
What better constant stream of cash than a SYSTEM which generates problems? And when people are MANDATED to go through it, basically, unless their marriages are intact (and 1 out of 2, approximately, in the US aren’t), there’s practically No Exit.
We have in this one case, apparently a vet applying Boot Camp procedures (and worse) to a kid. Thankfully, this one got caught.
Go figure!
Haiti, Idaho, 33 traumatized kids, 10 arrested Baptists and ChurchThink
(A)
I am going to start posting this, I think, at the top of every post:
https://commerce.guidestar.org/GuideStar/newaccount.aspx
Know thyself, and Know Thy Nonprofits (including churches). ONE way to know someone is to take a look at their books. I mean Income, Expense, Assets & Liabilities, and request proof of who got which services.
Register for FREE with Guidestar, and start looking things up. That’s what the 2 men from Albany, GA did in the nonprofit hospital scam…
Do a local audit. After all, if you pay taxes, aren’t those YOUR taxes? And if a tax-exempt organization is tax-exempt and NOT providing whatever actually qualifies them for tax-exempt status (presumably a healthy does of altruism and concern for the common good, or picking up some of what the government can’t cover itself….) (say WHAT is government for, again? Health? and Human Services ??? Linguistic transformations, etc….).
and
(B)
OK, not one of my best post titles, but who could resist this article?
‘Right Thing’ or Recklessness?
Arrests of Baptists stir debate about trafficking
By Frank Bajak and Paisley Dodds
Associated Press Posted: 01/31/2010 08:39:52 PM PST Updated: 01/31/2010 10:34:56 PM PSTPORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Ten U.S. Baptists arrested trying to take 33 children out of earthquake-shattered Haiti say they were just trying to do the right thing, applying Christian principles to save Haitian children.
Prime Minister Max Bellerive said Sunday he was outraged by the group’s “illegal trafficking of children” in a country long afflicted by the scourge and by foreign meddling.
One thing I’ve noticed about people intent on grabbing children is a total insensitivity to their former culture or values, let alone parentage…
But the hard reality on the ground in this desperately poor country — especially after the catastrophic Jan. 12 quake — is that some parents openly attest to their willingness to part with their children if it will mean a better life.
It was a sentiment expressed by all but one of some 20 Haitian parents interviewed at a tent camp Sunday that teemed with children whose toys were hewed from garbage. {{“hewed”? Isn’t that what you do to trees?}}
“Some parents I know have already given their children to foreigners,” said Adonis Helman, 44. “I’ve been thinking how I will choose which one I may give — probably my youngest.”
Haiti’s overwhelmed government has halted all adoptions unless they were in motion before the quake amid fears that parentless or lost children are more vulnerable than ever to being seized and sold.
Without proper documents and concerted efforts to track down their parents, they could be forever separated from family members able and willing to care for them. Bellerive’s personal authorization is now required for the departure of any child.
The orphanage where the children were later taken said at least some of the kids have living parents, who were apparently told that the children were going on an extended holiday from the post-quake misery.
The church group’s own mission statement said it planned to spend only hours in the devastated capital, quickly identifying children without immediate families and busing them to a rented hotel in the Dominican Republic without bothering to get permission from the Haitian government.
Whatever its intentions, other child welfare organizations in Haiti called the plan reckless.
The church members, most from Idaho, said they were only trying to rescue abandoned and traumatized children.
IDAHO has a family court system. There are certainly traumatized children being manufactured over there — why not practice this form of “love” locally, or have CPS and other agencies already marked out this territory? There are battered mothers on the verge of poverty and homelessness there. Were they simply in need of kids without going through the approval process? Or is the Bill of Rights over here getting in the way?
“In this chaos the government is in right now, we were just trying to do the right thing,” the group’s spokeswoman, Laura Silsby, said at Haiti’s judicial police headquarters, where she and others were taken after their arrest Friday night trying to cross the border into the Dominican Republic in a bus.
Silsby, 40, admitted she had not obtained the proper Haitian documents for the children, whose names were written on pink tape on their shirts.
Dang those pesky laws. The “right thing” in this case was obviously to ignore them, or be totally unconscious that such restraints might exist, and be appropriate.
The children, ages 2 months to 12 years old, were taken to an orphanage run by Austrian-based SOS Children’s Villages, where spokesman George Willeit said they arrived “very hungry, very thirsty.”
WERE taken, or HAD been taken? Did the church go to this orphanage to get some abandoned traumatized kids? Or were they taken here after the Haiti-fleeing church folk were caught?
A 2- to 3-month old baby was dehydrated and had to be hospitalized, he said. An orphanage worker held and caressed another, older baby, who was feverish and looked disoriented.
“One (8-year-old) girl was crying, and saying, ‘I am not an orphan. I still have my parents.’ And she thought she was going on a summer camp or a boarding school or something like that,” Willeit said.
The orphanage was working to reunite the children with their families, joining a concerted effort by the Haitian government, the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other nongovernment organizations.
In Idaho, the Rev. Clint Henry denied that his Central Valley Baptist Church had anything to do with child trafficking and said he didn’t believe such reports. He urged his tearful congregation to pray to God to “help them as they seek to resist the accusations of Satan and the lies that he would want them to believe and the fears that he would want to plant into their heart.”
{{pls. note on my blogroll link to copyright use…}}
And there, my friends, you have a typical church reaction to being confronted on violations of laws by its members. It wasn’t the members’ illegal activities that count, but Satan that motivated whoever reported them.
That US/THEM mentality is the breeding ground for gangs as much as other areas. Add to it the herd mentality, and people with needy children in the emotional portion of their thinking, and voila — an overseas trip comes together.
I promised in an earlier blog I’d make up for having failed to offend ALL groups, so this is part of my delivery.
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(C)
Miscellaneous programs in Idaho (Taggs.hhs.gov. These were REALLY random selections of CFDA programs I thought some of those church folk might want to get involved in, some of which refer to adoptions…
Number of rows returned: 40
Rows 1 through 40 displayed.
Records Searched: 161306
Award Number | Award Title | OPDIV | Program Office | Sum of Actions |
1001ID1407 | FY 2010 ADOPTION ASSISTANCE | ACF | CB | $ 3,149,636 |
SM059054 | MADISON CARES | SAMHSA | CMHS | $ 996,964 |
90RG0083 | REFUGEE MICROENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT | ACF | ORR | $ 200,000 |
0901IDAIPP | FY 2009 ADOPTION INCENTIVE PAYMENT PROGRAM | ACF | CB | $ 356,800 |
0901IDCJA1 | 2009 CJA | ACF | CB | $ 130,414 |
90RX0090 | REFUGEE PREVENTIVE HEALTH | ACF | ORR | $ 128,085 |
09PAIDFPSS | 2009 | ACF | CB | $ 38,214 |
09PCIDFPSS | 2009 | ACF | CB | $ 23,032 |
0901IDCA01 | 2009 NCCAN | ACF | CB | $ 178,963 |
0901IDFPSS | 2009 | ACF | CB | $ 1,217,307 |
90RU0163 | UNANTICIPATED ARRIVIALS | ACF | ORR | $ 451,468 |
0911IDFPCV | 2009 FPSSCV | ACF | CB | $ 36,142 |
0901ID1407 | FY 2009 ADOPTION ASSISTANCE | ACF | CB | $ 5,207,087 |
0801IDCJA1 | 2008 CJA | ACF | CB | $ 130,413 |
08PAIDFPSS | 2008 PSSF | ACF | CB | $ 38,432 |
0801IDAIPP | FY 2008 ADOPTION INCENTIVE PAYMENT PROGRAM | ACF | CB | $ 72,000 |
08PCIDFPSS | 2008 PSSF | ACF | CB | $ 23,164 |
0811IDFPCV | 2008 FPSSCV | ACF | CB | $ 18,717 |
0801IDCA01 | 2008 NCCAN | ACF | CB | $ 174,928 |
0801IDFPSS | 2008 PSSF | ACF | CB | $ 1,260,832 |
0801ID1407 | FY 2008 ADOPTION ASSISTANCE | ACF | CB | $ 4,468,573 |
10YO0052 | STREET OUTREACH PROGRAM | ACF | FYSB | $ 150,000 |
90CU0011 | IMPROVING POSITIVE OUTCOMES FOR CHILDREN THROUGH FAMILY DRUG COURT | ACF | CB | $ 2,575,000 |
0701IDCJA1 | 2007 CJA | ACF | CB | $ 124,244 |
90ZI0068 | REFUGEE MICROENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT | ACF | ORR | $ 603,054 |
0701IDAIPP | FY 2007 ADOPTION INCENTIVE PAYMENT PROGRAM | ACF | CB | $ 68,000 |
90RL0137 | SERVICES TO OLDER REFUGEES | ACF | ORR | $ 435,183 |
90ZR0004 | REFUGEE AGRICULTURAL PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM | ACF | ORR | $ 303,582 |
90RT0123 | TARGETED ASSISTANCE | ACF | ORR | $ 633,376 |
90RG0062 | REFUGEE MICROENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT | ACF | ORR | $ 760,000 |
90ZE0092 | REFUGEE SCHOOL IMPACT | ACF | ORR | $ 660,000 |
90RX0186 | REFUGEE PREVENTIVE HEALTH | ACF | ORR | $ 240,000 |
07PCIDFPSS | 2007 PSSF | ACF | CB | $ 25,188 |
0701ID00FP | 2007 PSSF | ACF | CB | $ 1,336,795 |
0701IDAEGP | 2007 AEGP | ACF | FYSB | $ 208,264 |
H21MC07735 | TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY IMPLEMENTATION | HRSA | MCHB | $ 568,600 |
0701ID01FP | 2007 PSSF | ACF | CB | $ 41,791 |
0701IDCA01 | 2007 NCCAN | ACF | CB | $ 171,365 |
0701ID1407 | FY 2007 ADOPTION ASSISTANCE | ACF | CB | $ 3,792,023 |
0301ID00FP | 2003 PSSF | ACF | CB | $ 1,067,762 |
C’ouer D’alene city blogspot (in Idaho) has this on Child Abduction Prevention:
Although the Coeur d’Alene Police Department receives very few cases of child abduction, the correct response and investigation of missing or abducted children remain a high priority for the department. Last year, Chief Wayne Longo spearheaded up-to-date training in Amber Alert for all members of the police department. Idaho State Police and Kootenai County Central Dispatch have been vital in offering and providing such training in the use of the statewide Amber Alert system. This training initiative has assisted officers in responding quickly and appropriately to these types of cases.
In the fall of 2007, Chief Longo attended a two-day workshop in Alexandria, Virginia, hosted by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). NCMEC, a non-profit entity supported by corporate sponsorships and grants, paid for all expenses associated with the training.
The executive-level training has a focus on a standardized law enforcement response and policies nation wide in child abduction cases. NCMEC also offered additional information and resources such as “Team Adam” to local law enforcement agencies.
Team Adam is a deployment of retired police officers specifically trained in child abduction who respond to a community and assist local law enforcement in the case of an abducted child.. . .
In 2005, Chief Longo was part of a multi-agency team that investigated the devastating Groene case that sent shock waves through North Idaho and the nation. In the past year, the FBI requested that he travel around the nation with other commanders involved in this investigation to share the lessons learned from that difficult case with other law enforcement leaders. FBI Special Agent Mike Genecko, Major Travis Chaney of the KCSD, FBI Supervisor Don Robinson, and assistant US Attorneys have accompanied him. The FBI has paid the expenses associated with all of the trips. Important lessons learned in Idaho are shared with our counterparts around the nation to assist other jurisdictions with best practices and ideas. The concept of cooperation and the Unified/Incident command system (Chief Longo refers to it as the “Blurring of the Patch”) are strongly emphasized.
“Our children are our most precious resource and it is the goal of the men and women of the Coeur d’Alene Police Department to provide the highest level of protection and service to our community,” Chief Longo stated. “This investigation [Groene] has forever changed all who were involved. The response by our community was unbelievable and continues to this day.”
The Coeur d’Alene Police Department encourages citizens to report any suspicious activity or information regarding a child abduction case. For more information on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, please visit their website at http://www.missingkids.com.
Posted by Victoria Bruno at 8:49 AM
(D)
Lessons from Luzerne County, PA:
Despite Red Flags About Judges, a Kickback Scheme Flourished
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — Things were different in the Luzerne County juvenile courtroom, and everyone knew it. Proceedings on average took less than two minutes. Detention center workers were told in advance how many juveniles to expect at the end of each day — even before hearings to determine their innocence or guilt. Lawyers told families not to bother hiring them. They would not be allowed to speak anyway.
The 56-foot yacht in Jupiter, Fla., used by the two judges.
“The judge’s whim is all that mattered in that courtroom,” said Marsha Levick, the legal director of the Juvenile Law Center, a child advocacy organization in Philadelphia, which began raising concerns about the court to state authorities in 1999. “The law was basically irrelevant.”
Last month, the law caught up with Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., 58, who ran that juvenile court for 12 years, and Judge Michael T. Conahan, 56, a colleague on the county’s Court of Common Pleas.
In what authorities are calling the biggest legal scandal in state history, the two judges pleaded guilty to tax evasion and wire fraud in a scheme that involved sending thousands of juveniles to two private detention centers in exchange for $2.6 million in kickbacks.
WHY WON’T CHURCHES START INVESTIGATING THIS TYPE OF ACTIVITY, FROM THE TOP TO THE BOTTOM? THEY CERTAINLY HAVE AUDITORS IN THEIR MIDST… AND AN AUDIT CAN STOP SOME THINGS, LIKE — CHILD-TRAFFICKING…. AND UN NECESSARY INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF U.S. CHILDREN!
On Thursday, the State Supreme Court ordered that the records be cleaned for hundreds of the 2,500 or so juveniles sentenced by Judge Ciavarella, and in the coming weeks, the two judges will be sentenced, under a plea agreement, to more than seven years in prison.
While the scandal continues to ripple nationally as legal experts debate whether juvenile courts have sufficient oversight, here in Luzerne County people are grappling with more immediate questions: How did two native sons, elected twice to the bench to protect children and serve justice, decide to do the opposite? And why did no one stop them?
Old Friends Hatch a Plan
It all started in June 2000 with a simple business proposition, according to the judges’ indictment and more than 40 interviews with courtroom workers, authorities and others.
Robert J. Powell, a wealthy personal-injury lawyer from Hazleton, Pa., and longtime friend of Judge Conahan, wanted to know how he might get a contract to build a private detention center. Judge Ciavarella thought he could help.
The two men agreed to meet and, according to prosecutors, somewhere in that conversation a plan was hatched that courthouse workers and county officials would later describe as a “freight train without brakes.”
First, Judge Ciavarella put Mr. Powell in touch with a developer who also happened to be an old friend, Robert K. Mericle, to start work on finding a site. Then, in January 2002 — the month Judge Conahan became president judge, giving him control of the courthouse budget — he signed a secret deal with Mr. Powell, agreeing that the court would pay $1.3 million in annual rent, on top of the tens of millions of dollars that the county and the state would pay to house the delinquent juveniles. And by the end of that year, Judge Conahan had gotten rid of the competition by eliminating financing for the county detention center.
“They were unstoppable,” said Judge Chester B. Muroski, who sent a letter to county commissioners raising concerns about detention costs, only to be transferred days later to another court by Judge Conahan. “I knew something was wrong, but they silenced all dissent.”
Other dissenters were also steamrolled.
When the county controller, Steve Flood, leaked a state audit that described the state’s lease of the center as a “bad deal,” the center’s owner filed a “trade secrets” lawsuit against Mr. Flood, and Judge Conahan sealed the suit to limit other documents’ getting out. His decision was later overturned.
“Everyone began to assume that the judges had some vested interest in the private center because they were pushing it so doggedly,” one courthouse worker said. Virtually all former colleagues and courthouse workers would not allowed themselves to be identified because the federal investigation into the kickback scheme was ongoing and they feared for their jobs if they alienated former allies of the judges.
Mr. Powell has not been charged. His lawyer said that the judges had coerced him into paying the kickbacks and that he was cooperating with investigators.
The few officials who had concerns at the time say their hands were tied. Probation officers say they suspected that something was amiss but were overruled every time they requested lighter sentences or for sentences to be served at home. County commissioners were the only ones authorized to sign contracts for detention centers. But by eliminating money for the county center, Judge Conahan left them little alternative but to sign on to the deal for the private facility. . .
Stop the carpetbagging!
Prime Minister Max Bellerive said Sunday he was outraged by the group’s “illegal trafficking of children” in a country long afflicted by the scourge and by foreign meddling….
Haiti’s overwhelmed government has halted all adoptions unless they were in motion before the quake amid fears that parentless or lost children are more vulnerable than ever to being seized and sold.
Without proper documents and concerted efforts to track down their parents, they could be forever separated from family members able and willing to care for them. Bellerive’s personal authorization is now required for the departure of any child
Stocking Stuffers: 2009-2010 Status of Women, if Jesus had been born in CPS era, and Jurisdictionary plea.
California Commission on the Status of Women 2009
http://women.ca.gov/images/pdf/issues/1073.2009.2010publicpolicyagenda.pdf
HERE is the list Family Law is 9th.
2009-2010 Priorities • 1
Child Care • 2
Civil Rights • 3
Economic Security • 4
CalWORKS • 5
Education • 6
Employment • 8
Family Law • 9
Health • 10
Substance Abuse and Mental Health • 13
Long Term Care & Aging • 14
Reproductive Health • 15
Crisis Pregnancy Centers • 16
Teen Pregnancy and Parenting • 17
Violence • 17
Sexually Exploited Minors • 19
Teen Dating Violence • 20
Women and Girls in the CriminalJustice System • 20
Women and Corrections • 20
Girls in the Juvenile Justice System • 22
Women Veterans • 23
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This would be good reading, for sure…..
Family Law
California is failing to protect its most
vulnerable children.
[[Not that this is exactly breaking news…]]
Whether it is child support enforcement, the foster care system, or the family courts, the rights and safety of many women and
children are at risk.
[[In a masterful understatement, not mentioned here — many have also died, probably needlessly… Others remain in the custody of their abusers…In truth “at risk” is a diversionary phrase. They have died. What about THOSE? So, as to the living ones, then…]]
Courts are overburdened and
court personnel often lack knowledge and
resources needed to address the complex issues
of domestic violence and child abuse. [*] Women
often suffer financially and emotionally as a result
of unjust rulings. In order to improve outcomes for
children and families, the Commission supports
the following agenda:Legislative Proposals
1. Establish an independent state-level oversight
committee/commission to review child custody
proceedings to better inform public policy, with a
particular focus on cases with allegations of
child abuse or domestic violence (Priority)2. Establish a multidisciplinary team of professionals
with expertise in assessing child abuse
and domestic violence to evaluate cases when
child custody is in dispute and such allegations
are made against one of the parties
3. Strengthen the right of custodial parents to
relocate without the risk of losing custody of
children
4.Support a State General Fund appropriation to
backfill lost federal matching incentive funds for
administrative costs in the child support program**
5. Require judges, mediators, custody evaluators,
law enforcement officers and social workers to
receive education on how to coordinate and
interface with all appropriate agencies in child
custody cases as a means of preventing
systems from failing to meet the needs of
families
If you know my blog, you know I’m not into this solution, because I don’t think that’s the problem. I think that if these personnel receive MOTIVATION (not “education”) to do the right thing, when evidence is on the record, that would be a nice gift for this season….
6. Allow children the opportunity to speak directly to the judge regarding their custody and visitation wishes and needs
And just hope that no undue influence has been applied outside the court…. (??? in a DV case??)
Administrative Proposals
7. Require judicial education regarding
• the dynamic of domestic violence and child
abuse, including the invalidity of the
“Parental Alienation Syndrome” (Priority)
• transgender individuals to prevent
discrimination in child custody matters due
to a parentʼs transgender status
8. Support a request for a Joint Legislative Audit
Committee to audit child custody cases involving
allegations of child abuse or domestic violence
9. Establish a judicial performance evaluation
system for appellate and trial court judges and
commissioners using American Bar Association
guidelines…
Study Proposals
10. An update of the 1987 “Senate Task Force On
Family Equity” report on family law
11. A study of gender fairness in the California
family courts
[added in 2011 commentary:]
[*]Viewing this post, over a year later, again (as then) phrases pop out, that somehow we, the public, are to understand ( believe) that Judges DON’T understand what we do — behaving like an out of control kindergartner in a marriage (or after sex has produced a child, producing whats’ called a mother, and a father, if not a family) and asserting dominance over pregnant, nursing, or mothers of young children — is wrong and dangerous to others than just the pregnant, nursing or mother of young children. Or, to fail to understand that real adult men, really do (and sometimes women, I fear & hear) molest children, and that’s a euphemism. IN such case, to continue this, they have to get rid of any parent who would stop this. The venue where this happens is “family” court.
All these people wanting to reform family court, and keep the professionals, while tossing off lives left and right (and some of the damage hit sthe community) and failing to account for usage of grants to the California Judicial Council/Administrative Office of the Courts / Center for Families & Children in the Courts (CFCC, or whatever the acronym) and from there, at a minimum, the “access/visitation” grants system spinning off of welfare reform, which criticizes women of color (primarily) for being poor, and determines to help men of color that have been made poor by the same type of mentality — and this system to supposedly reform welfare and help poor people, is being exploited by very RICH people, and a lot of powerful, white males, to keep their kids. See Nassau County, (NY). wife jailed for ‘alienating” her children. Nassau County, people….Different coast, same mentality.
Also (I learned in this 2010) the “fatherhood commissions” are legislated into various states. Now it’s time for “You, the people” to figure that out.
Or, keep paying taxes without expecting ANY, and I mean ANY accountability in a timely fashion to what the hell they are being used for. YOU take one day a week out of spa, or whatever (or something — like church, if it applies? — and get on-line and fact-check organizations like “Kids’ Turn” or others that are being marketed worldwide (now, in other countries) and funded by U.S. Federal $$, then having parents ordered into counseling, education, and in essence becoming the permanent “infants” (no matter their ages) to the everpresent BigBrother/”fatherland.”
[end of, added in 2011 commentary]
Ah, well.
No, This is closer to my legislative proposal, taken from an email from the author of “Jurisdictionary [TR]”. He waxes eloquent, but he talks about loving JUSTICE in addition to the natural human love we have for each other. He is talking about getting ourselves educated on how the justice system works. Not paying taxes to hire experts to talk to experts about how it SHOULD work and why it doesn’t (only). There is something individuals can do; teach themselves how it works! (Should be required with the marriage certificate, probably).
Love is manifested in many strange and wonderful forms.
There is the unmistakable, mystical love of a mother for her offspring, incomparable, impossible for us men to ever comprehend.
There is the love of a soldier for his comrades at arms, a power deep within the heart that motivates the impossible and sometimes galantly gives the soldier’s final gift.
And, there are other forms of love too many to list here.
Yet, in that mix of many forms of love there is an adoration that dwells deep in the breast of every one of us: the love of honor, the love of peace, and the love of justice that has rules by which our peace and shared prosperity can be fashioned and preserved both for ourselves and those who follow after, justice that is not perverted by the persuasion of power nor undermined by the influence of base motives.
Justice is, perhaps, the greatest of our American ideals.
We must immediately decide for justice that has rules.
We must unquestioningly decide and seek every practical mechanism we can find to promote the ideal of justice that has rules … not for one or a few but for everyone.
. . .
The American Dream is an Holy Experiment, a Republic under law and not an oligarchy of powerful men free to do as they choose and justice be damned.
The American Dream is a Wise People.
- A People who care for those who are unjustly treated.
- A People United.
- A People united by a vision that puts honor first, with love, mercy, kindness, courage, and justice constrained by rules.
- Whatever your faith this Season, whatever your political persuasion, whatever notions you’ve picked up from others about the horrors we are threatened with at the hands of those who hold ideas contrary to our own, remember this:
We are One People United by Our Ideals!
We are one precisely because we share ideals, of which the chiefest is that justice must have rules, and those who judge must obey those rules to-the-letter!
Cling to those ideals as dearly as you embrace your own children, for they preserve your children more than anything that you alone can do, more than any army, more than any doctor, more than anything you can imagine … for those ideals we share as Americans are the very hope of the world!
…
Tell everyone about us, please, and do what you can to help us promote your ideals!
… Dr. Frederick D. Graves, JD
Yeah, it’s an item for sale. But it’s designed for the general public, not the experts, and it teaches principles. I don’t have to share his faith to share the concept that there are rules we ALL should know and hold our appointed officials to by any means possible, and send a strong message that we are NOT their property, they are our paid servants, by law.
to do this, more people need to actually understand the financial systems also..
And a final thought for the evening — suppose Jesus had been born in a manger, and CPS had caught wind of it? Oh my God, Mary would never see him again.
Plus, part of his childhood, it appears he went to sleep in a fatherless home. Well, at least somewhere in there Joseph disappeared.
I think Jesus did all right, don’t you? He had a Father figure, at least….
More irreverence later….
THESE are a START in understanding WHASSUP with “women and Children” — learn the origins of this CFDA, the promoters, what else they promoted, and how they have changed the face of litigation throughout this country. Here’s TAGGS.hhs.gov, ALL I did was sort on “CFDA 93.597.” I learned this at NAFCJ.net, talked to the site author, and fact-checked Wake up!
S
tate = CALIFORNIA
CFDA Number = 93597Recipient: CA ST DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES
Recipient ZIP Code: 95814
FY Award Number Budget Year
of SupportAgency Award Code Action
Issue DateAmount
This Action1998 9701CASAVP 1 ACF 2 05-31-1998 $1,113,750.00 1998 9801CASAVP 1 ACF 1 09-01-1998 $1,113,750.00 1999 9901CASAVP 1 ACF 2 08-16-1999 $987,501.00 2003 9801CASAVP 1 ACF 7 02-24-2003 ($250,805.00) 2003 9901CASAVP 1 ACF 5 02-25-2003 ($139,812.00) 2009 9901CASAVP 1 ACF 8 09-14-2009 ($38,917.00) Award Subtotal: $2,785,467.00 Recipient: CA ST DEPT OF CHILD SUPPORT SERVICES
Recipient ZIP Code: 95741
FY Award Number Budget Year
of SupportAgency Award Code Action
Issue DateAmount
This Action2000 0001CASAVP 1 ACF 3 08-24-2000 $987,501.00 2001 0001CASAVP 1 ACF 4 10-06-2000 ($987,501.00) Award Subtotal: $0.00 Recipient: CA ST JUDICIAL COUNCIL
Recipient ZIP Code: 94107
FY Award Number Budget Year
of SupportAgency Award Code Action
Issue DateAmount
This Action2001 0010CASAVP 1 ACF 5 10-10-2000 $987,501.00 2001 0110CASAVP 1 ACF 1 08-23-2001 $987,501.00 2002 0210CASAVP 1 ACF 2 08-06-2002 $970,431.00 2003 0310CASAVP 1 ACF 1 09-11-2003 $970,431.00 2004 0410CASAVP 1 ACF 1 09-15-2004 $988,710.00 2005 0510CASAVP 1 ACF 1 09-14-2005 $988,710.00 2006 0610CASAVP 1 ACF 1 09-19-2006 $987,973.00 2007 0710CASAVP 1 ACF 1 07-20-2007 $950,190.00 2008 0810CASAVP 1 ACF 1 01-30-2008 $957,600.00 2009 0010CASAVP 1 ACF 8 09-14-2009 ($48,827.00) 2009 0110CASAVP 1 ACF 4 09-14-2009 ($26,938.00) 2009 0210CASAVP 1 ACF 6 09-14-2009 ($46,392.00) 2009 0310CASAVP 1 ACF 2 09-14-2009 ($15,092.00) 2009 0910CASAVP 1 ACF 1 12-23-2008 $942,497.00 2010 1010CASAVP 1 ACF 1 11-25-2009 $946,820.00 2011 1110CASAVP 1 ACF 1 10-08-2010 $928,087.00 Award Subtotal: $11,469,202.00
Total of all awards: $14,254,669.00
Recipient: CA ST JUDICIAL COUNCIL Address: 303 SECOND STREET, SOUTH TOWER
SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107Country Name: United States of America County Name: SAN FRANCISCO DHHS Region: 9 Type: Other Social Services Organization Class: State Government Award Actions
FY Award Number Budget Year
of SupportAward Code Agency Action Issue
DateAmount This
Action2011 1101CASCIP 1 1 ACF 12-10-2010 $ 799,429 2011 1110CASAVP 1 1 ACF 10-08-2010 $ 928,087 Fiscal Year 2011 Total: $ 1,727,516 WONDER WHAT 1101CASCIP (court Improvement Program) is? Well, so do I.
THIS SITE CONTINUES TO EXPAND, AND PEDDLE THE “YOU MUST GET ALONG WITH YOUR PERP” MENTALITY; “HE WAS YOUR PURP, NOT YOUR CHILDREN’S, RIGHT?”
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/programs/cfcc/
HOW COME THE STATUS ON WOMEN DOESN’T REPORT ON THIS?
This is the “official” view:
Click to access Snapshot2008SummaryFindings.pdf
Key Findings
The majority of mediation sessions involve clients who are self-represented. The proportion of cases involving at least one self-represented party has increased steadily over time, from 52 percent of cases in 1991 to 75 percent of cases in 2008.
The population of mediation clients is ethnically diverse, the majority being non-White. The proportion of Hispanic/Latino clients has increased since the 1991 survey.
The mediation population includes many non-English speaking clients who may be in need of special language services. Mediators reported that special language services were used in 10 percent of mediation sessions. Approximately one out of ten clients indicated that they would have benefitted from, but did not receive, this sort of language assistance—including more bilingual staff, and bilingual interpreters or mediators.
Many families have been seen multiple times by family court services and are in mediation to try to reach agreement on more than one type of order and to discuss a wide range of concerns. The most frequent issues cited by mediation clients are problems with visitation arrangements not working, the other parent not following the order, and child emotional adjustment and behavioral concerns.
Not cited– threats to kidnap, actual kidnappings, and child abuse, stalking, or death threats from the other parent, which we are told happen, after a case becomes a “statistic.” This report dates to 2008. In 2008, in Contra Costa County, there was a triple-homicide/femicide, DV-& divorce-related. In 2007 in Oakland, there was a church-parking lot gunning down of a woman who was trying to stay alive, on a mid-week morning with lots of witnesses. In 2006, there was a woman who disappeared (mother of two young kids) on a routine exchange, when her ex was thousands behind on child support (Reiser). In 2005, there was (I believe in SF), a man who’d been stalking just a temporary GIRLFRIEND (not even a parental situation) who was ‘diverted into” domestic violence counseling, like many fathers are. Days after he got an A+ from that sesssion, her body shows up in a trunk. (McAlpin). We have had little girls show up in suitcases in ponds (Sandra Cantu), young women kept captive in back yards, giving birth to and raising children by their captor/rapists (Garrido) and all kinds of horrible events happen. The treatment of women throughout this Bay Area has been horrific. Meanwhile, many of the justice NONprofits (vs. “agencies”) are in it for themselves (see my “Dubious Doings by District Attorneys” post. The CEO is a plum position, and the women needing the protection are at the bottom of the barrel.
These reports here are meaningless to many women in my situation. We personally know mediators that regularly lie, fail to do intake forms, and break rules of court designed to protect children, in particular, when writing orders. This creates chaos in their lives, and chaos in the community, and increases poverty — of the affected parites, and those helping them. It creates “business as usual” for the court. Look here — they say it, right up front:
Family violence is a common issue among mediation clients. More than half of the families reported a history of physical violence between the parents.
THE FAMILY COURT paradigm is “Families” and “between the parents.” When one is assaulting another, the only thing “between them” is not enough airspace, and not enough distance. The blows are typically going ONE way, not both ways. The word “family violence” is to replace the term “domestic violence” which is a misdemeanor, or felony, in this state. It is no accident. MORE THAN HALF the FAMILIES reported — means typically ONE parent reported first, and possibly obtained a civil, or criminal, order — at which time the other would be foolish to fail to acknowledge it. That’s how the term “families …. reported… a history of physical violence.” Moreover, if the children were not interviewed by this mediator, then it’s only adults reporting. This phrase is a coverup of an ugly reality.
Approximately 15 percent of both mothers and fathers indicated that there was a current restraining order in place. Concern for future violence with the other parent was common, as was the concern for possible child abuse by the other parent.
Let’s see how oblique and indirect a “report” can get. What does the phrase of both mothers and fathers need to come in here for? The very grants system that ensures lots and lots of mediation happens (see this same site, Access/Visitation programs) does NOT say “mother and fathers” much at all — but “parents” or “Noncustodial” etc. Why stick it in here, haphazardly? To show that Dads get restraining orders too now? Well, they do, but why mention it here, and retain the same consistency of saying the word “mother” throughout, then?
The length of the mediation session and time spent preparing for mediation varied. The median face-to-face service time was 90 minutes and the median preparation time was 15 minutes.
The words “physical violence, history of” equates to “domestic violence.” There are lethality risks involved here, and there typically has been some serious physical injury, though not also. MOreover, physical violence indicates other forms of intimidation and coercion, generally speaking. And to resolve this potentially life-threatening (and childhood stultifying lifestyle of WHICH parent, primarily, against the other — or is fighting back to protect oneself also “mutual violence”? — the litigants get a whopping 90 minutes (we didn’t — the one joint sessions, more like half that, and subsequent separate sessions I swear it was a half hour, at most, and a farce at that). There are two ways to do this: Jointly, in which case a woman sits with her batterer or abuser that she just confronted by filing a DV order, in the same room, and attempts to “negotiate” with the mediator, which I did. Never again! NO way can you keep those thoughts on target that early in the game after separation. the other way — (all subsequent mediations), separate. In which case, there is NO real recourse for a party whose mediation report has factual errors, material ones, or was out of compliance. Why? Because if that family court judge bases an order on that mediator’s report (which they will, typically), then the life goes through another immediate upheaval. She (or he) has to deal with that upheaval FIRST, and appeal, if possible — second.
OK, stop, look, and listen. HALF had domestic violence (excuse me, “a history of physical violence” .. “family violence.”) Don’t think it’s an accident that the word “domestic violence” (which might point one to somewhere in the family, or criminal code, with defining terms…) is NOT used here. But MORE than 50% had a history of physical violence, and of those, only 15% had a CURRENT restraining order. So, who didn’t get restraining orders, or who took them off?
Family court judges, after these cases went through mediation, right? . . . . . Get it??…..
Overall, parents reached agreement in slightly less than half of cases. Agreement rates were higher for parties who were working on initial orders than for those who were working on modified orders.
OK — over 50% had a history of physical violence “between” (i.e., two sets of attacks met mid-air, collided, and none hit another body?? That’s “between” — or, blows were equally exchanged, like in the movie Crouching Tiger, til both lay exhausted?? ??? I don’t think so.) And UNDER 50% (“slighty less than half”) “reached agreement.” In any classroom, this would be a definite fail-rate on the part of the mediator. This means that in less than half the situations, one parent took a stand on some issue.
Reading further on this pdf report, it seems that mediators spent more time on the study than they did per client (15 minutes, average).
Clients rated their experiences in mediation very positively. For example, three-quarters or more of the clients provided favorable ratings on items related to procedural fairness.
What about other items? Which 3/4 or more (which — was it? 75% or more than 75%? Is this summary typical of how accurate a mediation report is?)
“
Parent Survey
This survey was completed by parents prior to their mediation session. The Parent Survey covered topics such as the purpose of the mediation session, issues to be discussed during the session, family violence history, legal representation, and parent demographics. Parent Surveys were completed by 3,176 clients representing 1,741 families. One or both parents completed a parent survey for 95 percent of sessions for which a mediator survey was completed.”
One OR Both parents in a litigation proceeding, lumped together, consisted in 95% of the sessions for which a survey was completed, which resulted in 75% satisfaction.
Well, in my case, the father was satisfied (and subsequently tried to derail my fact-finding in the courtroom to “the mediator’s report,” which recommended an overnight custody switch despite recently felony child-stealing, reported, by me, and obvious from the facts). I was dissatisfied, obviously. This is why I think vendor payments are more relevant than any organization receiving millions of $$ to increase noncustodial parenting time THROUGH mediation, in reporting on the results of Mediation. Of course they are going to give a positive report — if not, they’ll have to go find some other nipple to nurse off, than these access/visitation grants program, administered through the OCSE to the State of California Judicial Council, etc.
From this 2008 pdf, still, look at what they are attempting to discuss in the FAMILY law venue:
Table 2: What Issues Are You Here to Discuss?
Parent Issues N %
Visitation arrangements not working3 717 41%
Other parent not following order 615 35%
Other parent should be supervised during visitation 294 17%
Other parent’s alcohol abuse 282 16%
Other parent’s drug abuse 279 16%
One person is moving 216 12%
Child abduction/taking child without permission 197 11%
THE ABOVE ARE “PARENT ISSUES” AND NOT “CHILD ISSUES” — Except the first “visitation arrangements not working” which is too vague to mean much, and “should be supervised” which indicates (a) report of abuse of child during visitation, or threats to abduct OR (as equally possible) (b) Parental Alienation claims to counter (a)…an underlying criminal issues as to the first, and NOT as sto the second) and “is moving” (move-aways, which also will fall neatly under “parental alienation” claims) — ALL of these issues involved contempt of a court order (“not following is the degradation of the word “contempt of”) substance abuse — which is bad parenting — and the last one is either (a) a crime or (b) what sure looks like one, “taking child without permission.”. These are not “parent issues” as so labeled. They are contempt of court order issues.
ADD TO THIS — the court orders typically, when DV has been outed, or Child Abuse, are StiLL written so vaguely as to ensure constant negotiation needed by (when DV has occurred) a custodial parent with her (yeah, her) former abuser, which was my case. I have never seen a more vaguely written court order, I had to go to court years later to even get a location written in. Holiday exchanges had no location AND no time of exchange. Summer Vacations had no stipulation and resulted in our children not being able to attend summer workshops and events which would’ve helped their college vacations, in areas of already identified interests. I was able to do these while the RO was on, and had to stop once it hit family law, thanks to this mediator’s version of reality. Basically, mediation is going to remove a safety boundary for the custodial parent. Add to this, joint legal with sole physical means, there is no end of argument possible. I cannot imagine any business, sports team, investment, or performance oriented group that would be able to operate under such circumstances, with no enforceable rules when a chaotic individual wants to pre-empt the field. Add to this the impact of the child SUPPORT factor — which mediation refuses to address, although it’s a hot topic — and you have utter, complete, disorder — designed to bring business to the courts after one failed mediation session, to another.
Then, on the basis of “overburdened” and “overcrowded” they can ask for more grants.
Child Issues
Child emotional adjustment 513 29% Child behavior problems 355 20% School problems 331 19% Child refuses to visit 233 13% Child medical needs 213 12% Delay in child growth or development 99 6%
Violence/Abuse Issues
Domestic violence 318 18% Child neglect 306 18% My safety with other parent 304 17%
Child physical abuse Child sexual abuse. 159 9% 40 2%
Note: N = 1,741 families. Percentages sum to more than 100 because respondents were able to check more than one item.
I find that every single one of those items relates to children, and many of them are LEGAL issues and CRIMINAL issues. Mediators should not be handling such matters, but they are. These matters also should not be before family court judges, with their HUGE amount of discretion, but they are.
That said, District Attorneys have the discretion to not prosecute. All in all, it’s a joke, basically.
And a “joint legislative audit” isn’t going to fix that.
This is where to look, for starters:
California’s Access to Visitation Grant Program (Fiscal Year 2009–2010)
REPORT TO THE CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE MARCH 2010
Then do the follow-up, whether in your state, or if you are California, here.
[I am in a real rambling, ranting mode today. So be it! 01/2011]
Circular Reasoning – 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover (with your kids)
A Quick Post (not mine, except intro & comments)
summarizing the situation fairly well:
On reading this post, pretty accurate, I thought of “50 ways to leave your lover,” by (if you don’t know this, you probably were born after the VAWA act passed the first time) Simon & Garfunkel.
Which I’d like to rededicate to women attempting to do so, once they realize what “love” is and is not. Switch the gender, the song applies; and act on it sooner, rather than later. I guess — pray, carry Mace, and suggest you also enroll in law school ASAP, you’ll need it…
she said it’s really not my habit to intrude
furtermore i hope my meaning won’t be lost or misconstrued
but i’ll repeat my self, at the risk of being crude
there must be 50 ways to leave your loverchorus:
just slip out the back, Jack
make a new plan, Stan
don’t need to be coy, Roy
just get yourself free
hop on the bus, Gus
don’t need to discuss much
just drop off the key, Lee
and get yourself free.she said it grieves me so to see you in such pain
i wish there was something i could do to make you smile again
i said, i appreciate that,
and would you please explain about the 50 ways.she said, why don’t we both just sleep on it tonight
and i believe that in the morning you’ll begin to see the light
and then she kissed me and i realized she probably was right
there must be 50 ways to leave your lover
50 ways to leave your lover…chorus
If children are involved, realize that Big Brother has a different plan for them, and you, as well. See below:
[[my comments in brackets, otherwise it’s quote. Quote ends at the line of ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]’s..]]
Note: Cross posted from Battered Mothers Rights – A Human Rights Issue.
Randi James is a brilliant writer- her site is replete with information from the top to bottom -thx you Randi James! http://www.randijames.com/
Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The System Sends Mixed Messages to Abuse Victims
Do you stay, or do you leave?
If you haven’t been a victim of abuse, or a victim of the legal system, you may not be able to understand why this is even posed as a question.
Of course you should leave!
I mean, who deserves to get beat up and/or sexually assaulted in their own home…regularly…or even occasionally. Even as careful as you could try to be to make sure everything is perfect, so as not to anger your abuser, SOMETHING always sets him off…sooner or later. He is a time bomb. You are his target.
What does it mean to be a target?
When you are a target, all of your abuser’s anger is directed toward you, specifically. Typically, he doesn’t pull the same shit towards those who he considers his equals, or more powerful than he. This is about power. He needs you like capitalism needs slaves. He uses you so that he can feel better about his shortcomings. He doesn’t know how to feel good without you.
But he is a good father. He doesn’t beat the kids.
You’re right. Good fathers don’t beat their kids…But nor do they beat up on women to whom they are temporarily, or permanently committed. Getting beat in front of your children doesn’t exactly send the kids a good message. In fact, they are put in limbo because your kids will either
A) Side with your abuser because he is more powerful and gets what he wants, or
B) Side with you in attempt to protect you…But let me break that down a little more
1) In protecting you, your children become targets, and the moment will come when they take blows for you
2) In choosing to side with you or not, your children will mimic the behaviors they have seen and normalize them.
Is this what you want?
I hope not because if some outsider reports what is going on in your household, CPS will come knocking and your kids may be gone before you ever get a chance to ask questions. You will be charged with neglect, endangering your children, or failure to protect.
Why?
Because everyone on the outside thinks you should have just left. You are themother. If you didn’t leave, you must be an accessory to the abuse.
What mother allows her children to get abused?
And what mother lets her children watch as she gets abused?
You must be a bad mother. You don’t deserve to have children. If you’re lucky, maybe your relatives will do you a favor and step in and raise your children for you. If not, foster care will do a great job…because it is indeed a job when they are getting paid.
Maybe you have a chance though, if you would just leave.
That seems like the best idea. Leave.
Wait!
Are you going to tell your abuser in advance, or are you going to sneak out in the middle of the night?
Remember, he needs you…is he going to agree to all of this?
Who the fuck do you think you are leaving him, and taking his children?
He owns you. He’s paying the bills. He’s the reason you can stay home and take care of his children.
[[Comment: Not all the time. Wasn’t true in my case… Many times they are financially dependent on you as well…]]
If you go, you have reason to be fearful. Get a lawyer and a restraining order. But, back up a little. The lawyer says, if you take out a restraining order, in the near future, the judge in family court could use it against you. He (the judge and your abuser) may say this was part of your vindictive scheme to get the kids and the money and the house and the car. Restraining orders don’t prevent you from being harmed though anyway, because you still have to rely on law enforcement to act.
Get the restraining order anyway.
You’ll have record of what you tried to do, in case the news opts to report it upon your “tragic” death. But you can’t put the kids on the restraining order…Silly woman! You know fathers have rights!
In fact they have so many rights that if your abuser happens to get locked up, Responsible Fatherhood money will ensure that he has the means to transition back into his caretaking, father-role (don’t roll your eyes, we know you were doing the caretaking, but you’re not important and this is politics).
Go ahead and report the entire history of abuse.
You do have pictures, right? You mean to tell me in all these years that you have been getting assaulted, you weren’t taking pictures of your injuries and saving them in a secret location?
Did you at least tell the doctor? Is there anything in your medical record?
Where are your vaginal tears, bruises, scars?
In talking to police without evidence (or with it), your case will seem suspicious. It will be your word, against your abuser’s. Your local DA will be hesitant to take the case…well, hesitant is an overstatement because he may not even acknowledge you. DA’s only take cases they can win. DA’s aren’t interested in intrafamilial abuse reports in the midst of divorce…
[[No matter what the local DA’s office website declares, it’s often true.]]
You have bad timing. You should have reported this before you were trying to separate. Oh, whoops, I forgot, they would have charged you, too!
Maybe you can work things out peacefully without involving the court.
[[Yeah, that’s the general philosophy behind sending such cases, involving kids, to mediation… Just “work it out.”]]
When was the last time you worked things out “peacefully” with an abuser?
In good conscience, you allow your abuser to continue to have a relationship with the children he didn’t abuse, well, directly abuse (or at least you think so). I don’t know if you are really doing him a favor, or rather doing as the court would order you to do so, because you do know that the court will order you to do it, right (askMs. Leichtenberg and also ask the Paul family…family, because Monica Paul happens to be deceased)? Father’s rights.
I know, I know. Yes, you have been abused, but now, yes, yes, you will be court ordered to continue to have a relationship with your abuser because kids deserve both parents. If you try to resist, they will call in the child custody evaluators and Guardians ad Litem and they will say things you would never imagine…because you ARE crazy, aren’t you?
What mother would keep a father away from his children?
[[I didn’t, because doing so would’ve been to violate a standing custody order, ordering visitation. Consequence? I lost contact with my kids. To this date! He continued to violate without impunity thereafter.]]
You know your abuser best.
[[Yeah, right. Everyone knows that only the ‘experts’ know what they’re talking about when it comes to abuse. ‘Experts” prefer to talk with each other in their language, out of the earshot of the traumatized folk. It’s cleaner and less personally disturbing/challenging. People suffering PTSD often skip around in chronology, speak or write associatively, and can ge derailed on particularly frightening topics. It takes a lot to overcome that. . . . . . . So, in one sense, this is understandable, because after long enough living with “lethality assessments” and threats, after actual physical assualts and the very high stakes of child custody, plus retaliation for reporting, some women can sound more garbled than they really are. In reality to even stay alive, or emotionally somewhat intact, through significant abuse, esp. years of it, takes keeping track of more things that the average middle manager can, I’d be, in a rapidly changing economy. We have literal lives at stake, let alone livelihoods. Let alone the normal multi-tasking that often goes with being a mother, let alone a working mother with small kids who are growing up watching your abuse. We also are highly motivated to stay alive, knowing that if we don’t who is likely to get custody of our offspring — either the abuser, or someone who enabled it, such as a close, nonreporting, non-intervening relative. Or CPS, for which money changes hands…]]
You know that when he makes threats, he can carry them through. You know if you don’t meet his demands, you and your children will suffer. But if you try to protect yourself and the children, you risk losing custody to your abuser. And why would you want to put your kids in that situation? They don’t want to live with him and if they do live with him, you already know how their lives will turn out. They will be like lost souls.
Sacrifice yourself…like Jesus Christ. Maybe you were put on earth to suffer for the sins of others.
You were supposed to be omniscient–to know that this man you chose would end up being an abuser.
You were supposed to be omnipresent–to know that this man would abuse your children while you were away at work, or school, or while he was away with the kids.
You were supposed to be omnipotent–to protect yourself and your children and to be able to hide and simultaneously remain visible, and to be able to leave your abuser, but let him remain in your life.
How do you want to die?
[[Seems to me I blogged on this long ago — title about unacceptable choices for women.]]
What do you want the news to say about you when you are murdered?
That you were nice? No, they won’t say that! The neighbors and other members of the community will say how nice your abuser was. He was a family man. He played with the kids in the yard.
Everyone will be so shocked and sad that this happened. No one knew that you and your children were getting your asses kicked on a regular.
Your family may’ve thought you were crazy, or a bad mom, so they may’ve distanced themselves from you a long time ago. In fact, they may have ADORED your abuser.
Your children’s friends will not come forward. They are children–either they won’t tell anyway, or their parents won’t let them.
You know who else might know? The teachers. But teachers are so busy disciplining and teaching to the test…and besides, it’s too late for them to come forward now.
You see what you get for pretending and ignoring and trying to keep the family together? No credit.
Maybe the media will pull your court record and note that you tried to get a restraining order, but you didn’t show up. More than likely, they will relay gossip about how you were having an affair and how you were always provoking your abuser. Because violence is mutual. Girls hit, too.
Didn’t you know in advance that he was easily provoked? You should have checked his criminal record, or asked his ex.
Maybe your children will die, too. But everyone will talk about how tragic it was andhow innocent they are. They, not you, because you had to have done something to make a nice guy want to kill you.
Or maybe you wanted to be killed, because who stays with an abuser anyway?
See Also: Carl Brizzi: Prosecuting Battered Women
Minnesota Supreme Court Allows Judge Timothy Blakely to Profit from His Fraudulent Earnings
In Texas and Florida–Court Ordered Exortion
Pennsylvania, Corruption, and Children, Just Like Florida
How Judges Set Up A System to Rig Cases for Fathers
Technorati Tags: Rock,Hard,Place,System,Messages,Abuse,Victims,Randi,James,haven,victim,abuser,equals,needs,capitalism,father,kids,children,message,fact,limbo,Side,moment,outsider,reports,failure,accessory,Maybe,Leave,Wait,Remember,lawyer,money,orders,news,death,woman,rights,Responsible,transition,role,politics,history,pictures,location,doctor,Where,tears,word,overstatement,cases,midst,conscience,relationship,Leichtenberg,Paul,Monica,custody,Litem,threats,demands,situation,Sacrifice,Jesus,Christ,earth,life,yard,friends,affair,violence,Girls,Didn,Also,Carl,Brizzi,Women,Indiana,Bench,Paradox,Recusal,Minnesota,Supreme,Court,Judge,Timothy,Profit,Fraudulent,Earnings,Texas,Florida,Exortion,Pennsylvania,Corruption,Just,Judges,fathers,injuries,Guardians,souls,members,teachers,doesn,aren,parents
Note: Cross posted from Battered Mothers Rights – A Human Rights Issue.
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http://www.nbc-2.com/Global/story.asp?S=10697462
Joseph and Melissa Shook had been separated and a final mediation hearing for their divorce was scheduled for the 26th – two days after her disappearance.
Meanwhile, her van was located at the Alva residence, allegedly abandoned with the keys in the ashtray.
The case was then turned over to detectives with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Unit.
Air, K-9 and ground searches were coordinated with family and friends in attempts to locate Melissa over the following . . .[fill in the details… they tend to blur, one family after another…]
On July 29, Shook’s body was found in a shallow grave, just four blocks from the Fitch Avenue residence.
Her hands were tied behind her back with approximately 10 feet of rope and her mouth was covered in duct tape.
AND, obviously:
Wednesday, a local hardware store employee was contacted and verified the sale of a red handled shovel and approximately ten feet of rope.
Thursday, an employee positively identified Joseph Shook as the person who purchased the items.
Around 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, 32-year-old Joseph Shook was located at local restaurant and taken into custody.
He has been charged with second degree murder.
Thursday evening Amy Davies, spokeswoman for Melissa Shook’s family said, “The family is relieved an arrest has been made, that justice has been served, and the family now has some closure.”
Davies said now the family’s main concentration is providing care for Shook’s three children.
Her parents knew something was funky about those text messages declaring she was going to break up with a boyfriend. Her coworker heard her ask who wanted some lunch brought back, after dropping off child(ren) to the father….
On Wednesday, Melissa Shook’s mother took the stand to talk about texts message she received, supposedly from her daughter, the day she disappeared.
One said she and her boyfriend, Justin Castagner, were through.
Smith thought that was odd since she’d spoken to Melissa just a few hours earlier and there was no mention of any problems.
Castagner testified Tuesday that the couple had made plans for that night and she left him a note in his lunchbox that said, “I love you.”
Melissa’s father, Gary Esckilsen, also testified Melissa was happy with Castagner.
Melissa’s parents said she had a strong relationship with Castagner and texts saying she was going somewhere to get herself help didn’t make sense. They knew something was wrong.
A co-worker of Melissa Shook testified as well, saying he got a call from her when she was on her way to drop the baby off at Joe Shook’s home.
He said she asked if anyone in the office wanted her to bring back lunch – and never heard from her again.
Just to reiterate my point: Mediation, frequent exchanges ordered. Was there prior domestic violence? WHY did she leave? Was the risk known? Should ALL women separating — not just ones experiencing abuse as the reason for separation — be afraid?
Or, should they learn to be cautious, period, and should the family law venue stop advising them to “just get along” for the sake of the kids, without regard to this possibility…
Was money a factor? Who knows…:
……..
Police say emotional distress led man to kill estranged wife
Mother’s death, impending divorce, lack of medication are factors in Lakemore killing
By Phil Trexler
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Saturday, Jan 10, 2009
LAKEMORE: His mother had died unexpectedly, he avoided the pills that helped combat his depression, and just this week, his wife left him.
Daniel Tice’s emotions boiled over Thursday afternoon when his wife, Brandi, came to pick up their three children, a day after announcing her intention to divorce.
Brandi Tice, 28, would never leave the Lakemore house. She died of a single gunshot wound to the head — a rifle shot that police say was fired by her estranged husband.
About seven hours later, after keeping SWAT officers at bay with his 4-year-old son by his side, Daniel Tice was shot by police, struck by a 9 mm bullet that miraculously bounced off his forehead, sparing his life.
Tice, 32, was to undergo surgery Friday for a fractured skull. He is expected to recover and be charged with murder.
Daniel Tice admitted in conversations to family, friends and police that he killed his wife of eight years, shooting her once in the head with a .22-caliber rifle, police said.
He blamed infidelity and divorce.
”[Brandi Tice] told me before she
was wanting to leave him and I said be careful because of his mom dying, [Daniel] was bomb,” family friend Janice Wood told police in a taped call. ”I was afraid something would happen.’
Wood, a close friend of Tice’s late mother Diana, told police that Daniel Tice called her after the shooting. Around the same time, police were surrounding his home.
”He said he killed his wife,” Wood said. ”He thought everybody was against him or hated him . . . he said, ‘I’m not coming out [of the house]. They’re going to have to kill me.’ ”
Daniel Tice made a series of phone calls that afternoon, including one to a sister who came to the Tices’ ranch-style home on Martha Avenue shortly after 3 p.m., saw Brandi Tice’s body on the living room floor and fled outside.
Tice’s brother-in-law struggled for the rifle outside the home, but the towering Daniel Tice won out, and retreated back inside.
At one point, Tice stood guard by a window with his rifle in one hand and his son, Noah, in the other, police said.
Shortly afterward, Tice’s daughters, Faith, 8, and Grace, 7, exited their school bus and were met by police, who rushed the girls away before they could go inside their home.
Stressful standoff
For the next seven-plus hours, police took over Martha Avenue, trying to coax Tice into surrendering and hoping to avoid more bloodshed. Lakemore Mayor Michael Kolomichuk gave the order to use deadly force on Daniel Tice, if necessary.
A small army of SWAT officers, talking by phone to Tice, crept closer over several hours — from the street, to the front door, to the living room and eventually to the basement stairs, where Tice paced below with his son.
The silence was sometimes unnerving to police, who feared little Noah was dead. As the night dragged, they hadn’t heard from the child and Tice was talking to police in past tense about how much he loved his son.
”We were worried that he had done something to Noah because he wouldn’t let us talk to the child,” Police Chief Kenneth Ray said.
Police eventually disconnected a land line into the Tice home and with the help of prosecutors, they cut off Tice’s cell phone. Negotiators then moved inside the house to bring Tice a cell phone.
By then, Tice had moved to the cover of the basement, at times hiding under the staircase. Metro SWAT members tossed a miniature camera to the basement, which gave them insights into Tice’s location.
Around 10:40 p.m., SWAT snipers from the top of the steps could see Tice and his rifle leaning against a wall out of reach. They fired two nonlethal bean bags, hoping to knock him to the floor. The bean bags didn’t faze Tice, who then made a move for his rifle, police said.
A sniper tried to fire his AR-15 assault rifle, but the trigger jammed. A second SWAT sniper twice fired his MP5 assault rifle. One shot missed; another struck Tice’s forehead, penetrating to the bone and bouncing off.
Suspect interviewed
Police interviewed Daniel Tice at Akron City Hospital shortly after he was shot.
”He confessed, that’s all he did,” Chief Ray said. ”He didn’t give a reason. He just said he did it.”
Noah was reunited with his sisters. The children are staying with Brandi Tice’s mother, Sandra Fox, 53, in Green.
”She was a good mother, she loved her kids so much,” said Brandi Tice’s uncle, Randy Renard.
The Tices spent Christmas with Renard and other family members at Sandra Fox’s home. The get-together came four days after Daniel Tice’s mother died.
Daniel Tice, who family said suffers from bipolar disorder, said little on Christmas Day. Family and police said Tice stopped taking his medication, which contributed to his erratic behavior.
”They brought the kids over for Christmas and I already heard what he was going through with his mother,” Renard said. ”He come over and he didn’t talk for four hours. He just sat in the chair with a stare.”
On Wednesday, Brandi Tice told her husband she wanted a divorce and was taking the children, Renard said. Police said the couple had a history of domestic squabbles, some of which ended with Daniel Tice’s arrest.
Daniel Tice also told friends that his wife was carrying on an affair with one of his relatives. The couple married in 2000.
On Thursday afternoon, Brandi Tice arrived at the Martha Avenue home, planning to take her daughters with her as they exited their school bus.
Brandi Tice worked the past four years with Community Caregivers, a Hartville home health care provider. She visited three or four patients every day, helping them with health needs.
Terry Smith, the company’s director, said Brandi Tice grew close with her patients, whom she would visit for more than two hours a day, passing the time sharing stories and proudly showing pictures of her children.
She hoped one day to be a nurse to better provide for her family, he said. The company has set up a fund at all Huntington bank branches to help the Tice children.
”Brandi was somebody who had been through some bumps in the road, some hard knocks,” Smith said. ”Yet she was someone who gave so much even though she had so little herself.”
Phil Trexler can be reached at 330-996-3717 or ptrexler@thebeaconjournal.com.
LAKEMORE: His mother had died unexpectedly, he avoided the pills that helped combat his depression, and just this week, his wife left him.
Daniel Tice’s emotions boiled over Thursday afternoon when his wife, Brandi, came to pick up their three children, a day after announcing her intention to divorce.
Brandi Tice, 28, would never leave the Lakemore house. She died of a single gunshot wound to the head ? a rifle shot that police say was fired by her estranged husband.
About seven (Akron Beacon Journal (OH), 1079 words.)
June 2009 — Autenreith – Pennsylvania:
Police rescued a 9-year-old boy who had been kidnapped by his father as a fatal gun battle broke out between the man and state troopers.
After arguing with his estranged wife during a custody exchange, Daniel Autenrieth kidnapped his son at gunpoint, then led police on a 40-mile high-speed chase that ended with a crash and an exchange of gunfire, state police commissioner Col. Frank Pawlowski said. Autenrieth and a state trooper were killed.
“I can’t begin to describe the hurt and sorrow being experienced by the Pennsylvania state police,” Pawlowski told a somber news conference at the Swiftwater barracks, the trooper’s home base. “What happened yesterday is nothing short of an American tragedy.”
September, 2009 (Labor Day) Minnesota:
Minn. officer reportedly killed with own gun (see video)
Holidays — family times for some — can be trouble hotspots for others.
Veteran North St. Paul police officer Richard Crittenden apparently was shot dead with his own gun during a violent struggle with a man who lunged at his estranged wife and the slain officer with a burning towel or rag.
“He died saving someone else,” said a law enforcement source of Crittenden. The source, familiar with the ongoing investigation, offered the first detailed description of Monday morning’s chaotic scene.
Crittenden reportedly pushed the woman out of harm’s way but in the process left himself vulnerable for the man to ambush him, grab his handgun and shoot him, the source said.
A Maplewood police officer was slightly wounded but shot the suspect dead during an exchange of gunfire moments later inside the North St. Paul apartment in the 2200 block of Skillman Avenue.
The scenario, based on preliminary witness accounts from the injured female officer and the estranged wife, remains to be confirmed and is the subject of an investigation by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
But the setting pieced together so far by investigative sources shed light on the likely circumstances that led to the first shooting death of a police officer in the line of duty in North St. Paul’s 122-year history.
Investigators on Tuesday released little official information about the details surrounding the Labor Day shootings — including the names of the injured officer and slain suspect, who was identified by his estranged wife as Devon Dockery.
But reams of court papers released Tuesday on Dockery’s numerous run-ins with the law show a violent and troubled man.
“Devon is a ticking time bomb ready to explode,” his estranged wife, Stacey Terry, wrote in filing for one of four orders of protection against him.
What would she know? Is she an “expert”?? However, she got those protection orders. . . . . .
October 23, 2009 Atlanta, Georgia, Strube-Allen:
(Isn’t this DV awareness month?)
Child of woman killed at Target in custody battle
Mother-in Law charged!
In April, a toddler sat in the backseat as someone shot and killed his mother, Heather Allen Strube. She had just gotten him from her estranged husband, his father, and hadn’t buckled her child into his car seat yet.
Moments after Steven Strube left the Target parking lot on Scene Highway, his estranged wife was approached by a person wearing a black wig that looked like a mop. As Heather tried to get into her SUV, the disguised person shot her. Investigators found Carson holding his mother’s cellphone. His mom turned 25 years old just six days before her death on April 26.
Carson, who turned 2-years-old last month, has been in the care of Heather’s parents — Buddy and Mary Allen.

Little Carson Luke Strube is now thriving in the care of his maternal grandparents. But his other grandmother, Joanna Renea Hayes, was charged this week with killing his mother, her daughter-in-law.
Hayes in jail facing charges of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Carson’s father, Steven Strube, is also in jail, following a probation violation from a 2008 conviction (for what??)
Hayes is now behind bars following her murder indictment on Wednesday. Police believe she is the one who donned a disguise and killed her daughter-in-law.
Sometimes it turns into a virtual tribal warfare, with in-laws and relatives involved….
November 30, 2009 (this one, barely cold…), New Jersey:
Police Search For Motive In Fatal N.J. Shooting
Paterson Father Allegedly Shot Estranged Wife, 2 Children
PATERSON, N.J. (CBS) ―Police are still trying to figure out what triggered Edelmiro Gonzalez to go on a shooting spree, killing his seven-year-old son, and injuring his wife and other son. They are recovering at St. Joseph’s hospital.
- Related Stories
- 2 Dead, 2 Wounded When NJ Dad Shoots His Family
(11/29/2009)Police were looking for a motive Sunday in a triple shooting that left one boy dead, and his mother and brother fighting for their lives.
Detectives in Paterson said Edelmiro Gonzalez opened fire Saturday morning on his estranged wife and two young children.
“I don’t know how anybody could do something like that,” said resident Angie Rolon.Investigators said 31-year old Johanna Gonzalez, who had been separated from her husband since September and had a restraining order against him, was in the process of dropping off their two sons at her mother’s apartment on Broadway. That’s when the 54-year-old father allegedly walked up to their vehicle, armed with two handguns.
“Her estranged husband came up to the vehicle, shot several times into the vehicle, at which time her two sons, Adrian and Eldryn exited the vehicle,” said Det Lt. Ray Humphrey.
Police said
Gonzalez actually then chased down his 7-year old son and shot him in the neck near the rear of the apartment building.The boy was pronounced dead at the scene.However, the ordeal didn’t end there. Police said Gonzalez went back to the street and chased down his estranged wife. That’s when off-duty Paterson Detective Lt. Washington Griffen, a 19-year veteran who was at a nearby McDonald’s drive-through with his son saw what was happening and intervened.“He hollered out to the suspect, advised him he was a police officer, and to drop the weapon. There was an exchange of gunfire, and the suspect was shot twice,” Humphrey said.
Edelmiro Gonzalez died later at an area hospital. His elder son Edryn and the child’s mother Johanna remained in critical condition.
Gunman kills estranged wife at Tualatin lab, injures two, kills self
By Bill Oram, The Oregonian
November 10, 2009, 8:49PM
TUALATIN — By late afternoon Tuesday, a lone state trooper guarded the front of a drug-testing clinic where a man with a rifle opened fire, killing his estranged wife and injuring two of her co-workers.
The gunman fired multiple shots inside Legacy MetroLab-Tualatin shortly before noon, said Tualatin Police Chief Kent Barker.The shooter was found dead at the scene, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Barker said.
The dead woman was identified as Teresa Beiser, 36, of Gladstone.
A week ago, she filed for divorce from her husband of 15 years, Robert Beiser, 39, who worked as a car appraiser for Property Damage Appraisers in Lake Oswego and as an independent contractor for The Oregonian.
They had two children, a 14-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old son.
Hans Reiser Admits to Murdering Nina Reiser, Pleads to Reduced Murder Sentence
Full story: Associated Content
Hans Reiser was sentenced to 15-years-to-life Friday in an Oakland, California, courtroom for the murder of Nina Reiser. Many believe that the sentence was too lenient, that prosecutors should have given Reiser more time on his sentence. Besides, Hans Reiser was convicted in April — andconvicted without the body of Nine Reiser. But Hans Reiser, a brilliant Linux guru, had held onto one piece of information about Nine Reiser throughout his trial, a trial throughout which he maintained his innocence. Hans Reiser knew where Nina Reiser was buried.According to Wired, Hans Reiser led authorities to Nine Reiser’s body Monday in exchange for his prison sentence being reduced from a 25-years-to-life charge to 15-years-to-life charge. Prosecutors offered him the deal with the added stipulation that he waived his right to appeal the conviction. He had buried his wife just a short way from the house where he lived with his mother.
According to his confession, which was part of the plea deal, Hans Reiser killed his wife, Nina, on the afternoon of September 3, 2006. She had dropped off the couple’s two children for the Labor Day weekend. The two were going through a bitter divorce.
FYI: All I googled was “estranged wife exchange of children”
]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
Did you enable any of these events? I bet you’d say, Heck NO!
But, wait again (US residents) — do you pay taxes? Well then, perhaps you did….
The Trap Door They Don’t Tell Divorcing Mothers, or separating-from-abuse partners about — almost ANYwhere…
Forcing the Connection through “Access Visitation Funding” and social policy closing the exit door.
Taxpayer funds enabling these events, sometimes, through federal grants to encourage contact with noncustodial “parents” (Dads).
Meanwhile, nationwide HHS-funded “Access/Visitation” funding encourages more, and more frequent, contact between children and noncustodial parent (if male), and advertises this through child support services (“OCSE”):
GEORGIA:
These services are offered at no cost to OCSS clients and include the following:
- Coordination of visitations or parenting time
- Mediation between the parents (non-legal, non-binding)
- Written parenting plans
- Group parenting education
- Counseling on access issues
Funding for all of these projects comes from grants from the Administration for Children and Families
What is access and visitation?Mississippi’s Access and Visitation Program (MAV-P) is designed for noncustodial parents to have access to visit their children as specified in a court order or divorce decree.
[[HUH? The court order or decree ALREADY specifies this, so why do we need this program?]]
Assistance with voluntary agreements for visitation schedules is provided to parents who do not have a court order.
NOTE: Participation without a court order is strictly voluntary. Both parents must agree to be involved.
What are the goals for MAV-P?The ultimate goal is to afford services that improve the quality of life for separated families by providing noncustodial parents opportunities to participate in their children’s growth and development.
[[If it didn’t have a noble-sounding goal like this, it might not have passed Congress or anywhere else. Who wants to vote for, after-all, exchange-related gunshots, stabbings, and officers/bystanders-down headlines? But if you read details of many of these articles above, it’s in there.
“Improve the quality of life.” How does this resemble “Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness” eh? Come here. We have federal grants to improve the quality of your life. TRUST US…]]
Other goals include:
- Encouraging family agreements through mediation;
- Providing parent education plans to enhance parenting skills;
- Furnishing a safe, neutral facility for visitation, as needed; i.e., [pushing Supervised Visitation]
- Promoting compliance to the noncustodial parent’s court ordered support obligations; [[Translation: reducing support obligations in hope to bribe the other parent to better comply. This is called “helping.” ]]
- Aiding custodial parents in honoring court ordered visitations; and
Women are regularly jailed when they fail to comply with court ORDERS. Recently, a 14 yr old young man in Michigan was jailed himself, briefly, for refusing to comply. So what is this a sort of persuasive pleading session, or brainwashing? The legal process provides for a contempt process. When custodial parents are women, this is often enforced, regardless of consequences. When they are men, a different standard seems to apply.
- Working with fatherhood mentors and coaches through a Fragile Families Initiative Program.
Now WHY doesn’t that surprise me?
What are the benefits of the program? The program benefits include:
- BOTH parents being involved in the development stages of the child’s life.
- BOTH parents providing emotional, medical, psychological and financial support.
- BOTH parents sharing in the child’s character and core values development.
- BOTH parents agreeing on scheduling and time-sharing.
Potential side-effects, where an overentitled abuser, a man off (or on) medication for depression, or someone not in control of his emotions is involved — death. That’s a potential “benefit” in certain contexts. But let’s not talk about that in THIS setting, OK?
Who is eligible to participate in MAV-P?Individuals interested in participating in MAV-P are not required to have a child support case or affiliation with the Mississippi Department of Human Services. Paternity must be established for all cases. Participants seeking assistance with supervised visitation must have a verified court order or divorce decree. Finally, the custodial and noncustodial parents must agree on scheduled mediation, parent education, unsupervised or supervised visitations, as needed.
(EVER tried to “agree” with an overentitled abuser? See Randi’s article, above….)
What services are provided in MAV-P?
- MEDIATION includes MAV-P staff working with both parents to develop a peaceful resolution to visitation disputes. This process is a face-to-face interview and/or telephone sessions.
- SUPERVISED VISITATION is scheduled for parents with legally established visitation directed by a court order or divorce decree.
- EDUCATION is offered through parenting classes which address the basic needs of the child, money and stress management, child abuse, co-parenting and the concerns of the parents for their child(ren)’s well-being.
Take time for THIS link: a “wiki-leak” an “mit” site. I’m OUT of time for today….
fathers who do not pay their child support are more likely to have frequent contact with
their children (many on a daily basis) than fathers who pay their child support.
fathers’ rights groups would argue that spending time with one’s children (especially on
a daily basis) should be counted in terms of reducing that father’s financial obligation.
More generally, advocates of increasing parental responsibility would argue that it
is now time for the federal government to focus more attention on the “non-financial”
benefits associated with preserving the connection between noncustodial parents and their
children. Many policymakers and analysts maintain that a distinction must be made
between men who are “dead broke” and those who are “deadbeats.” They argue that the
federal government should help dead broke noncustodial fathers meet both their financial and emotional obligations to their children and vigorously enforce CSE laws against deadbeat parents.
+/- $1/million/state/year for Access/Visitation grants (ongoing) can’t be all wrong, despite headlines, and despite reality of the consequences of frequent exchanges, more time, with resistant disgruntled fathers..
I may take up that document in a later post; it illustrates the system involved in these issues.
Randi, good writing, thank you –I find it pretty darn close to the reality.
Oconomowoc, not Oconto, Wisconsin. Quiz for my readers…
OK, skim through the articles below — I did. And here are a few questions.
(1) Was this a “family” matter? If so, how many states (and countries) are involved, to date?
(2) The little boy involved was 4 years old (and now his Mom is dead and father in jail, on $2 million bail). He was in a fatherless home. To correct this situation, his father (allegedly) hired someone ELSE to kill her so he could get custody (since the courts weren’t about to fork over the kid), solving the “noncustodial parent” issue, and so forth.
My question is, whose mug shot isn’t up here?
Three arrested in Smith murder
Posted: Nov. 19, 2009
(1)
3 arrested in Oconomowoc slaying; plot to gain child’s custody alleged By Mike Johnson of the Journal Sentinel Updated: Nov. 19, 2009 1:31 p.m.
Waukesha — Kimberly Smith was murdered in her Oconomowoc home Oct. 1 as part of a plot for her ex-boyfriend to get custody of their 4-year-old son, authorities said Thursday in announcing the arrests of the ex-boyfriend and two other men on homicide charges. Darren Wold, 41, the ex-boyfriend, is accused of conspiring with a longtime friend, Jack E. Johnson, 65, formerly of Waukesha, to kill Smith, and Justin Patrick Welch, 26, of French Camp, Calif., is accused of traveling to Wisconsin and stabbing her to death, Chief David Beguhn said during a news conference at the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department. Authorities on Oct. 27 had identified Welch as a suspect in the homicide after his DNA was found on a knife and latex/vinyl-type gloves recovered in a sewer drain near Smith’s home in the 300 block of S. Maple St., according to court records. An arrest warrant was issued for Welch that charged him with first-degree intentional homicide. At the time, police said Welch might be driving a Jeep Patriot that was reported stolen in California. Investigators launched a nationwide manhunt for Welch, and through their investigation, connected him to Johnson, of Obrero Rosarito, Mexico, Beguhn said. Authorities placed an alert with U.S. Customs and Border Protection asking that they be notified if Johnson attempted to cross the border. Johnson was taken into custody about 1:10 p.m. Wednesday as he attempted to enter the United States. About 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, Welch was arrested by Mexican authorities after a brief vehicle pursuit near Rosarito, Mexico. Police were attempting to stop the Patriot because it was stolen, Beguhn said. Welch was turned over to U.S. authorities. Both Welch and Johnson are being held in the San Diego (Calif.) County Jail. Johnson is charged with party to first-degree intentional homicide. Wold was arrested Wednesday night at his Lubbock, Texas, home. He is being held in jail there on a charge of party to first-degree intentional homicide. All three men are being held on $2 million bail. Smith, 39, was found dead about 9:30 a.m. Oct. 1 in her home in the 300 block of S. Maple St. Her hands were bound and she had been stabbed a number of times, court records state. Her 4-year-old son, Jackson, was home at the time of the slaying but did not witness the killing. Smith’s current boyfriend, who lived with her and Jackson, found Smith’s body in the living room and called 911. The boyfriend said he had left for work about 6 a.m. and returned after learning that Smith didn’t show up at her job, according to Beguhn. Welch’s ties to Wisconsin are not known, and investigators do not know if Smith knew him. Smith’s relatives told investigators that they do not know Welch.
(2)
Oconomowoc investigators get break in murder of Kimberly Smith
Bob Moore FOX 6 Reporter
October 27, 2009
WITI-TV, MILWAUKEE – Oconomowoc investigators get their first and only break in in the murder of Kimberly Smith. Smith was found dead on October 1st. Tuesday morning, a Waukesha County judge issued an arrest warrant for a California man, Justin Welch.
Police collected evidence from an Oconomowoc home on the morning of October 1st. Last Friday, a DNA analysis of several items matched the DNA of 26-year-old Justin Welch.
Welch is now the focus of a nationwide manhunt. The Waukesha County arrest warrant is for first degree intentional homicide. He’s suspected of killing Kim Smith. Welch is wanted in California on a felony, no-bail warrant for a parole violation.
Police are now trying to determine the connection between Welch and Wisconsin. They suspect Welch and Smith may have connected on the internet.
If you have any information about where authorities might fight Welch, you’re urged to call the Oconomowoc Police at 262-567-4401 or the Waukesha Co. Sheriff’s Dept. at 262-446-5070.
(3)
Kim Smith remembered for big smile, thoughtfulness
Oconomowoc murder victim identified
By Katherine Michalets and Jeff Rumage Freeman Staff
Oct 3, 2009
. . .
According to a news release, Smith was found dead in the living room of her residence at 334 S. Maple St. The police department was notified by dispatch at 9:32 a.m., and officers and rescue personnel arrived on the scene within two minutes.
Oconomowoc Police Chief David Beguhn said the boyfriend that she lived with left for work at 6 a.m. When he called her at the Waukesha County Department of Health and Human Services where she works, he was told she had not come in, so he returned home to find her dead body, Beguhn said.
Police believe the murder took place sometime between 6:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m.
Smith was also living with her son, who was unharmed by the event. After the murder, the young boy underwent a forensic interview at a specialty care center in Waukesha. Based on those interviews, it did not appear the young boy witnessed the event, Beguhn said. The boy is staying with his grandmother, he said.
Online court records show Smith was involved in a yearlong custody battle with the father of the boy. Beguhn said police contacted the man Thursday, and he was in Texas, where he lives.
Police File Four Sealed Search Warrants In Oconomowoc Homicide Case
No Arrests Have Been Made
POSTED: 6:50 pm CDT October 6, 2009
UPDATED: 10:47 am CDT October 7, 2009
etc.
QUIZ:
- These are the ages involved:
26, 4, 65, 41, 39
- These are the geographies (state/country):
Wisconsin, California, Texas, Mexico
- These are the last names, not including the boy: Welch, Wold, Johnson, Smith, Beguhn
Question1: Who’s who?
Match age to state to last name — quick now… can you keep them straight?
Question 2: How many generations, so far, has this one event affected?
(answer — apparently, four. youngster, 20 yr old, 40yr olds, 65 yr old.)
Question 3:
- Did anyone (article) mention domestic violence yet? Want to place a bet whether there was or was not such a criminal record? (I’m thinking, probably not). Would a restraining order have helped her somehow? Was she aware of her danger (lethality assessments)? (Note: 3rd party involved, bound hand and feet, she maybe didn’t have her first cup of coffee or get out the door to work yet). Was she in an unsafe place? YES: Her home, after a custody battle.
Question(s) 4:
- What was Dad doing in Texas? Did having Dad in Texas make anyone safer?
Question(s) 5ff:
- Did fast response by police, or a live-in boyfriend make her any safer? No, she’s dead. But his fast response helped probably catch the killer.
- Did her expertise in Health &Human Services make her any more alert to the danger? (Apparently not).
Finally:
Do I have time to analyze this one?
Answer: no.
Instinctive response (no wrong answer):
What word comes to your mind in regards this case? Summarize/label it…. Answer must be in 3 words or less.
You know what word comes to mine? In light of the: Wisconsin/California/Texas/Mexico connection, plus a 4 year old boy and willingness to KILL to get custody…. what a dedicated father. . . .
Child-trafficking. But maybe that’s just me.
Sure, it’d have been better if they’d had a better marriage, or married, or stayed married. But suppose there had been a mismatch, and there had been violence — should she have kept herself and her son around for more?
What about that shared parenting theme? Wasn’t Dad interested, or wasn’t he allowed? It’s dangerous pissing off a Dad these days, apparently…. Maybe that’s part of the formula with this fatherlessness thing. It’s countercultural, it’s not accepted culturally, and that can get REAL sticky with cultures (or religions) that place themselves above the law. Or individuals.
Here’s another excerpt from (I think) first article link, above. Catch the drift?
Long-running dispute
Smith was entangled in a custody dispute with Wold, and the proceedings were favoring her.
Question: Which one of my posts handles the hazards of actually winning in court?
Court records show that Smith and Wold, who previously lived together in Germantown and in Pennsylvania, have been fighting for more than two years in Washington County Circuit Court over custody of the boy.
As these things can go, that ain’t ‘squat.’ Look at the Oconto County, WI case. There are ways to keep it going, and going, and going. . . .
In July, Wold was ordered to spend 60 days in jail after being held in contempt of court, but the jail time was to be imposed only if he failed to follow certain conditions for a year, records show.
He had lied about where he was living and failed to make court-ordered payments.
LYING, in court especially, about where one is living is a character indicator. Courts ought to wake up. Guess this was a family court…
QUICK now, before you’ve thought about this, one there are others. I can’t keep up, myself…
My gut reaction to more news of a fathering court.
It takes but a few moments of passion — and a woman — for a man to start a child.
Between funding of abstinence education, healthy marriage initiatives, fatherhood initiatives, a “fantastic” public school system (USA), trailing the industrialized world in several core topics, like reading and math, and rampant crime inside and outside the schools; between initiatives preventing parents from knowing whether or not a teen daughter has gone to have an abortion on school time (Google “Pacific Justice Institute”), and so forth — PERHAPS with all these, plus federal funding womb to tomb, more studies and evaluations of those studies, and of course the “help” of the child support system in setting reasonable and consistent standards in assigning — and collecting the child support to relieve the welfare load (supposedly) — and of course with more, and more prominent active fathering courts replacing the rule of law and common sense —
we might find a few good men with moral integrity and empathy for the welfare of their offspring.
Actually, from what I can see, the idea is with ENOUGH props, such men can be made — or bribed — to shape up, and care about their offspring.
This is among the many causes our debt-ridden country has decided to espouse.
As a mother, I didn’t feel it necessary to bribe and/or threaten my children to excel at their studies (which they did), and I am puzzled why this approach is thought to be so important to make sense as applied to grown young (or older) men in order to step up to the fatherhood plate.
So . . . re :
Jackson County Pioneers Missouri Move to Fathering Courts
(below)
I add my sarcastic italicized comments so the text doesn’t blithely slip down reader’s gullets and a warm fuzzy feeling about the nobility of this enterprise get assimilated into the thinking system. This is a first-response post.
Then again, what you assimilate is your choice. When you read, remember that every Court Comissioner, Defense prosecutor, and public prosecutor mentioned is, I would think, on public dole also. Welcome to the OK Corrale.. Everyone feels better after a few sessions in there.
This post is based on an emotional gut reaction to the concept. Perhaps my “reasoning” as such is fuzzy, but I don’t see how it could be much fuzzier and emotionally based than what I’m commenting on. Judge for yourself. Please! – – -these are government-supported policies (and therefore $$), so keep it real!
http://www.fox4kc.com/news/wdaf-story-daddy-do-over-110609,0,5997057.story
Jackson County Pioneers Missouri Move to Fathering Courts
John Holt, edited by Jason Vaughn
November 6, 2009
KANSAS CITY, MO – Kevin Gainey was on top of the world. A good job as a bail bondsman, a lake home, and custody of his young son following his divorce.
{{FUNNY, I thought there was gender bias against men in family courts. That’d be an interesting case to look up. . . . Maybe Mom must have abused substances, abandoned children, been a slut and was off witha nother man, or simply a stay at home Mom who was financially outclassed somehow. Maybe she was a working Mom and he was a stayathome father? Or, maybe she just gave them to him, not being financially independent and called that a good deal. Or perhaps she was not emotionally connected to her son. There are a thousand reasons this father, not mother, may have gotten custody of his son after a divorce, all of which might be relevant to the story, and shed a different light on the situations, and the wisdom — or lack of it — of whichever judge decided to allocate custody of his son to a Dad. Boys should be with fathers {{no matter the character…}} was maybe the thinking, I guess. H OW OLD was the son? Who had been previous caretaker? Was his former Mom a stay at home Mom? Was the divorce contested or amicable? What was that background story???}}
But bad habits caught up with him, his son moved back with his mom, and Gainey lost his job.
{{“bad habits caught up with him.” Yeah, let’s gloss over that aspect.
Poor fellow, couldn’t run fast enough. Was it meth, crack, heroin, alcohol, pornography, — WHAT bad habits. No matter, poor dear, he couldn’t outrun himself..
Also, I note, “moved BACK with his Mom,” meaning, she had custody, then lost it. Maybe not. But if so, Gee, sound familiar, folks? — except the actually getting to move back with Mom part…}}
“Wasn’t always accountable for my actions,” Gainey now says. “A lot of it had to do with my substance abuse problem.”
{{So what did the rest of it have to do with??}}
{{Externalizes the problem — I am so familiar with this language pattern! Not his fault, still..}}
{{Notice he didn’t say: I wasn’t always accountable, I abused substances (and which one[s])..and “I hurt my son” }}with what ramifications…was it endangering his son most likely? What was he doing to support his “bad habits” and “substance abuse” problem that caused a radical custody switch?)
With no money, doing odd jobs, and a sobriety issue {{SO it was alcohol…}}, Gainey fell behind in his child support, and wound up facing criminal charges.
{{Again poor dear, he was drinking, making holding a job difficult– apparently AFTER he lost custody of his son, as child support was involved. I say apparently, because I don’t know for sure, but it seems likely…}}
Despite that, prosecutors deemed him a good candidate for a diversion program that could give Gainey a fresh start and keep him out of prison: fathering court.
{{FORMULA: State & Court order child support. Child support not paid. This is contempt of a law, and a quasi-criminal situation that can land a parent in jail, the purpose of which is to communicate that child support is a serious issue and to be paid. However, there’s a way to dilute that message that child support IS for children, IS important, and that neglecting it IS negligence, when the potential to pay exists (i.e., stop drinking, and instead work, or at least seek work…. get help yourself…)
Enter — voila! —
{{FATHERING COURT, LAUNCHED 1998}}
((Somehow, I sense as systemic setup — do you?)) ((My blog talks about the Father’s Resolutions passed in 1998 & 1999 in US Congress, and posts some links and excerpts of the horror that XX% of African American children are sleeping in homes wi thout their fathers in them nationwide, and how Congress can stop th is travesty….
Note: The 15 yr old girl gangraped, with passers by, in Richmond, CA recently had a father in the home. He just wasn’t at the door leaving the dance to get her. The victim, and it’s STILL no excuse, but she was 15 and inhaled a good deal of alcohol first. She had a father. Must have been a statistical anomaly. Meanwhile, in another state here, to protect young sons (like the one exposed to substance abuse, above) and the young daughters (like the one whose currently devastated Dad, I’m sure, did NOT show up needy and underemployed in a fathering court, apparently) we need MORE, not LESS< “therapeutic jurisprudence.”
In fact, let’s actually just SKIP the jurisprudence part (except for the labels on the door) and go straight to therapy, just CALLING it “court.”
Gag me with a spoon.. . .Or show me the up and coming “mothering” courts. No one gives us that rope, that I’ve seen!
It will not change the wheels of the institutions — we still need more fathering intervention nationwide, and grants to fund them, and to alter the philosophical basis of law to accommodate a “required outcome” of more father-contact, and to bribe, cajole, coach, and help men to understand they must actually help FEED those they BREED.
Launched in 1998, Jackson County’s fathering court is modeled after its drug court: parents, most often dads {{Well, THAT”s a shocker….}}, get help meeting the challenges that may be holding them back through an initial screening. Regular follow-up court appearances are designed to keep them on track.
“I think that’s the role of fathering court. To identify the barriers that are preventing payment of support, and then to direct them to the services that resolve those issues,” says Family Court Commissioner Patrick Campbell, himself a father of two.
Commissioner Campbell presides over the court which meets weekly in Division 43.
{{Let me get this straight: He presides over this court, presumably making decisions and signing court orders affecting men, women, and their mutual children, and THINKS he understands its purpose? Does this Commissioner have a law degree in any state?}}
{{Are there any actual rules of court which apply in this situation? By the way, people have a right to be heard by a judge, not a commissioner, if they choose, or so I heard. I suppose that’s not highly publicized over there…}}
On a recent morning it was a crowded docket, as Commissioner Campbell greeted men who must demonstrate that they are making progress, make some kind of regular payment toward child support, and attend a 12 week parenting class.
{{Yes, there’s no problem on earth that a good parenting class can’t solve. }}
“Congratulations”, Campbell tells one dad. “I told you when you graduated and got a job I was going to raise you up a little bit. So I’m going to raise each of them to 150 a month.”
To another dad, the commissioner urges contact with his kids: **”These three kids have one dad and you’re it,” he tells the man, who admits he hasn’t seen his children much.
**I am a mother. I am having to fight pretty damn hard for contact with my kids, and there’s not one court commissioner, court-appointed attorney, mediator, judge or any one else assisting me. But because I wasn’t abusing substances and in trouble with the law, there were no “services” offered to help. In fact, when I went seeking them — after child-stealing on an overnight– they weren’t found. Period. If anything, these courts were resisting. I didn’t understand this fully til, again, I looked up the “Access Visitation” grants system and “REQUIRED OUTCOME” for grant recipients. You can research this, too — my blog, others, or the internet. THAT’s what this is about. NOT the kids…
To other men he’s a cheerleader, a task master, a coach, urging some to get something as simple as an email address so they can receive job listings sent to them by the program.
“You try to make a quick decision as to whether this is a time to encourage them or is this a time to push ’em where they’re not comfortable,” Campbell says later.
{{I am so sorry to find that the public servants in this country feel the need to parent parents, and have forgotten their assigned duties and oaths of office (for th ose who are also attorneys). The President of the USA had to swear an oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution. This includes due process, and laws. What’s up with this crowd? ???}}
A prosecutor and defense attorney stand at the bench with each of the dads, but unlike other settings, they appear more like a team, working with, rather than against each other in a court where there is no court reporter, and nothing is on the record.
{{WOW. That’s wonderfully reassuring that all decisions will be ethical, fair, not subject to any forms of bribery or kickback, and protect the interests of the children involved, and the rest of the society not to have to pick up the tab….}}
“They see that we’re all trying to help them get to where they need to be,” says prosecutor Rebecca Leavett, who calls fathering court her favorite docket. “And I think they get more relaxed and trust us, they open up to us more about the issues that are actually going on in their lives.”
{{Translation: some of them can be disarmingly open — when there’s money at stake. I am so glad that the prosecutor and the defense attorneys — in an adversarial system designed for the truth to come out, through due process, and fair judgments be made — are in truth not even PRETENDING to do “bad cop, good cop,” but admitting that it’s all a show. . . . . . . }}
{{I”m so glad that these hardened attorneys get to have some moments of warm fuzzy feelings of do-goodism. Perhaps the single mothers (if applicable) and fatherless children can take that warm fuzzy feeling and serve it up hot for dinner, or hug it as a pillow on a cold night. Perhaps th ose attorneys might want to empathize with those not actually present in court, in their warm fuzziness on the law…and accountability…. AA for effort, eh?? }}
Her counterpart agrees.
“This isn’t a time for secrets, this isn’t a time for somebody to come up and say ‘whoa that’s attorney-client privilege, I want to keep this between me and my attorney,” says Gaurika Anand, a public defender who works with most of the dads.
Along with court transcripts, adversarial process designed to elicit truth, we now also want to do away with attorney-client privilege. Gee, I wonder what ELSE is on the docket here??
Are the sons and daughters of these child-support-deprived kids going to grow up realizing, as their Dads now have, that it’s not actual performance, but just a public effort, that actually counts in life? We can’t expect real standards based on real needs, after all….
I say this as a teacher, most of my adult professional life. I know that failing to make standards clear, and then get a consensus to excell at reaching them — accomplishment and stretching those standards upwards by effort (not bribery…) produces the warm fuzzy feelings. Not cheating them by constantly reducing the bottom line…}}
This year, Missouri lawmakers saw the eleven year old Jackson County court as a good model, and approved the concept statewide. So far several circuit courts have expressed interest, but there’s little money for launching new fathering courts. A state court spokesman says it’s expected the concept will eventually spread when the state’s economy improves.
Gainey is just happy he had the concept to benefit from in Jackson County. Initially reluctant to attend the parenting classes, he eventually did, and is grateful for the opportunity. He’s slowly whittling down his $17,000 back child support bill, has attended rehab, and says he’s now sober and working toward a better life.
When Gainey and other dads graduate, the criminal non-support charges are gone, so long as they continue to work to pay down their child support debt.
“There’s no way I could disrespect the opportunity family court’s given me,” he says. “This is gonna’ happen.”
That’s what Commissioner Campbell wants to hear from more of his participating dads.
“In this court you actually see people make changes.” he says. “I would never tell you it would be all of those making changes, but you see a lot of people make primary fundamental changes in their life. And that’s a very encouraging thing to see.”
__._,_.___
When you mix this scenario in with domestic violence, just know that economic abuse is a common factor. While I’m VERY jaundiced, there’s a reason — my personal experience, which is not unique, as a mother, watching the impact of sporadic child support payments, the NONresponse of the system to do anything about it when I worked and invested diligent time to get them to (and involved others). When the children lived with me, it stalled, delayed, obstructed, and gave me double-talk answers to direct questions. This affected my children, and my relationship with them.
The second the custody switch happened, this same system that would NOT move for a single mother, went aggressively to bat for a father who’d just responded to my attempts to collect by snatching the kids!
This will all come out in the wash eventually. Warm fuzzies (I don’t share them, in this matter) in one place don’t compensate for hungry children elsewhere.
For those new to these posts — the OCSE (That’s federal Office of Child Support Enforcement) are administering the grants to the states for increasing noncustodial parent (translation: FATHERS) involvement with their kids through mandated mediation, parenting plans, and other issues designed to — I hate to keep repeating this truth, but it’s the truth– diverting the evidence and fact-finding process from OUTSIDE The courtroom (and off the record — see this above case!) — to court paraprofessionals whose BUSINESS is apparently custody-switching, titles to the contrary….
How far away is the Gulag Archipelago from this Designer Family Concept?
Not too far, from what I can see.
Gag me with a spoon…..
For further reference on this topic.
For more on Kansas, Google (or search my post also) Claudine Dombrowski, Oletha Faust-Goudeau (and etc.). Kansas thought ANOTHER fatherhood initiative was needed recently. Guess they forgot about all the other programs racing through the courts, governments, county jails, chidl support agencies, faith-based nonprofit organizations, and university advanced social sciences programs, and — did I miss a venue? No matter, fatherhood initiatives wi’ll turn up there sooner or later. Just you wait…
LOOK: If it’s a court, let it be a court. If it’s therapy, let it be therapy. Tell the truth on the label outside the door. Also tell all the mothers involved what’s being done, out of their vision, hearing, and awareness, with the Dads of their children. So they can, like me, put their two bits in.
Failure to call things what they are in my book is simply called lying. No wonder confusion is rampant and mental health professionals are swamped, and stressed out with clients.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste. In order to put SOME kind of order to thoughts, it’s necessary to have a somewhat standard point of reference for the words used to describe them.
What I read about here — that’s not court, that’s a farce of a court process. Everyone might as well go laughing to their various banks, those that have them, while the single mothers, scourge of our nation, go find a 3rd job, and then get criticized openly in family court for their “relationship” with the latchkey kids.
Some of these Dads had legitimate problems. How many of them were screened for prior domestic violence and use of the child support system to apply pressure on the mothers of their kids? If so, why do they get the kid glove, and the families the backside of the hand?
I advise people to totally avoid the child support system, if at all possible. I do not think it’s redeemable at this piont. Too large, too much power, and too many people are dying when people get pissed off at its proclamations. the office shooting in Orlando, FL had a child support debt element, for those who noticed. The shooting (one died) took place in an office, but it was a Dad, with history of controlling and abuse, and a child support debt of over $11,000.
Was it a fair ruling? Quite possibly that system is adding to the stress factors.
I was within range of not needing child support, but I couldn’t get the protection to my own work life and relationships to make it all the way home. Somehow, that doesn’t seem (in retrospect), “accidental” at all. Strong, independent, law-abiding single mothers upset the machinery here, and it seems courts like these, and other programs, are intent on doing away with us, and our connection with our kids. We may maintain it, but it will cost us — whether through supervised visitation, or thousands in lawyers in the family law system; once entered — exit is difficult.
If these comments are helpful (or your gut reaction to them is like mine to the article), please feel free to comment on-line.
Have a nice day.
Who’s Your Daddy? Er, your Mommy? er. . . . Let the Courts Order…
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This NYT article from Dec. 13th is overdue for posting. A story of how important motherhood really IS and what lengths a mother (whether financial, or surrogate — neither with any biological relationship) will go to protect their own.
Sounds like, here, both the people who PAID for the babies (they were twins) and the surrogate mother (no biological relationship) were happily married. And it would seem in both cases, employed…Surrogacy is a job…
Anyway, I presented some “teaser” information. Check out the article (multiple links and graphics), and just ask yourself, what are the responsible fatherhood folk going to do with THIS one?
Building a Baby, With Few Ground Rules
Uncertain Laws on Surrogacy Can Leave Custody at Issue.
[[So far, so good . . . . Everything is worked out. Looks like the courts, the police, and the parental education folk will have to go look somewhere else, as well as supervised visitation supervisors….]]
Well, that’s not my main post this afternoon…. Interesting reading, though. I poke fun at Designer Families from the Top-Down perspective. But you ain’t seen nothin’ yet . . . .
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Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up
January 28, 2010 at 7:03 pm
Posted in Context of Custody Switch, Designer Families, Split Personality Court Orders, Vocabulary Lessons, Where's Mom?
Tagged with Designer Families, fatherhood, Motherhood, social commentary, Surrogacy, U.S. Govt $$ hard @ work..