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

Truth Fuels Flight, Lies Ensnare. Don’t Hang With, Serve (or Donate to) Tricksters or Their Targets. It’s a New Year — but there is STILL no excuse for abuse. // [Image captioned Jan. 2018, still true in DECEMBER, 2019!]

“75%” Disclaimer: Calling this “75%” is a rough estimate standing in for the word “most but not all but a smidgeon of the front page”  No word-counts were taken for more scientific measurement of proportionate lengths.  While in edit, only one screenful of text can be viewed at once; not the whole thing.  I work exclusively on-line (not from hard-copy).

This page continues a more complete version of former home page I am in the process of cutting down to about one-quarter of its original size, including all links from that Front-Page to off-ramped pages as of Sept. 2019. This subsidiary page may repeat some of the initial “Front Page” intro, but holds more content, images to go with that more content, and enough repetition to, I believe, give a sense of what I have been doing on this blog over the past decade, and what motivated me to keep the documentation going.

Once the Front Page “haircut” is a close shave, back-references to it might be effectively to here.  This blog has not only external but also plenty of internal links, and many are to the Front Page which as of January 2018 – September 2019 could be characterized as “giant” in size and full of many sections.

I have written this blog over time in such a way that most attentive readers could dig in almost anywhere, read, and get a general idea of the type of details I pursue, and key themes motivating that pursuit.  Most posts have examples; the examples are in effect my ongoing application of basic look-ups I’ve been doing on key organizations** which exposes readers constantly to where I’m looking those things up — in a way that I’ve seen mainstream media from Forbes to NBC, ABC, the New York Times, and publications run from other countries (which follow similar storytelling, anecdotal journalism styles) just do now.  Particularly publications from outside the US and special-interest organizations also reporting on these things from outside the USA may not mentioned how our private organizations connect with our public resources as collected historically (since its creation) by the IRS and reported, theoretically, to the public in certain formats.

A typical post or page will not only have report results, but links to where I ran the report, whether a database of tax returns, state corporate filings, IRS.gov lookups, federal agency grants reports (i.e., for HHS, “TAGGS.HHS.Gov”) and I also often may quote posted audited financials of government entities (or private ones — which happen in different formats). As imperfect and not quite reliable as ALL of these databases are (where they even exist or are accessible) they still represent a major source of fact-checking and where red-flag alerts are appropriate.  That is, where the self-reporting is absent, inconsistent, or simply devious.

(**The word “organizations” connotes PRIVATE interest corporations, often tax-exempt, often operating in a coordinated manner both within and across political jurisdictions) that impact the family courts and the legislation that provides their ongoing revenues for operations, etc.)

My purpose isn’t to answer all questions, but to pose enough of them with content to back it up that others take it upon themselves to start — personally — looking into this by doing their own lookups.  Like watching someone else do basic math, balance a checkbook, or simply notice what’s going on around him or herself, there are few substitutes for, eventually, learning that basic math oneself.  In this context, that basic math means — getting your feet wet, going to specific databases (repeatedly) and searching organization names, finding their financials and reading them.  It’s basic citizenship literacy to understand that there are both private and public sectors in play here, and the best places to understand how they interact is RARELY mainstream media, regardless of which political stripe, or a proudly “bipartisan” label it flies under.

Referring to my having just taken about ¾ of the original page to this one, a gift for the holiday season I’m not celebrating, to readers who use cell-phones.  Abbreviating the front page so much makes the sidebar more visible, which, like most blog sidebars, provides further navigation and labeled doorways to other themes and parts of the website.

See also my recent (13th) Sticky Post which accomplished the same goal in a different way.  I’d been puzzled how to find the blog sidebar from a cellphone, but recently borrowing someone else’s saw that it could be scrolled down to — below that front page.  It seems that a much shorter Front (Home) Page would also help solve the “Where’s your Sidebar?” issue.

Unfortunately, front pages don’t (technically) allow the abbreviate-me instruction (“Read More”) as do posts. So a subsidiary page like this one becomes one workaround.. just another link on the home page to get to it..

BLOG NAVIGATION:

Content not visible on the sidebar is either on a post (most, currently 838 posts!) or a page (fewer, currently 59).  Posts show up automatically a number of places on the blog; pages do not.  The blog treats and displays them differently. To browse current posts*  go to:  For Current Posts, Most Recent on Top,** Click Here (**Displayed Below/After Several “Sticky” Posts: Some are Tables of Contents”). (Page short-link ends “-8v2”)

Navigation is simple, but in case there are questions about the layout, and how the sidebar sections (“widgets” group them into different parts) provide extra doorways into various posts or pages,

[I deleted this Navigation Section from the Front Page 12/27/2019//LGH]

NAVIGATION, to the posts (& pages), again..

Recent snapshot from my WordPress Administrator Dashboard.

Content not visible on the sidebar is either on a post (most) or a page (fewer).  Posts show up automatically a number of places on the blog; pages do not.  The blog treats and displays them differently.

(1) To browse current posts go to:

All posts (only, not pages)  — but without titles and only one month at a time, — can be found eventually under “Archives”(monthly calendar display).  Archives is useful if you know about what date it was published or just want to click and review one by one out of curiosity, entertainment, boredom or for any reason, a selected month’s worth of posts.  The earliest TOC (posts only; one of the top sticky posts leads to this) goes back to only partway through 2012.  To view or visit posts between March 2009 (start) through beginning of the “2012-2016” Table of Contents; use the  Calendar/Archives function, which lets you view only one month at a time (via drop-down menu if not current month).

Warning: I’m a self-taught blogger; earlier post format may be scraggly, but content is still decent.

(2) To get to “Pages,” go through some of those shortcuts, any sidebar references to a specific page, or, individual links to a specific from an existing post. Good places to start on this blog, generally, the top — the Sticky Posts on “Current Posts” page, Sidebar Widgets (near the top) and Tables of Contents accessible from sidebar (or top sticky posts).

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

(3) More ways to access PAGEs: A post which lists the (then-existing) 58 pages (as of 2019) is now the topmost (sticky, #1) post on the blog (full title and link just below).  Any subsequent pages added (and those starting with the year 2018) already are on one of two Tables of Contents Pages (interspersed by date created with the posts).**  You can reach that through this next link, however it’s just as fast to click on “Current Posts” link because (for now) it’s THE top post on that page:

**My tables of contents are manually created; the blog doesn’t generate them. I began including pages only in 2018.  Published March 24, Table of Contents 2019 is good through August (now) October 31, or later as I update it periodically (probably monthly from now on). Links to these two TOCs now exist on right sidebar widget.  Periodically I may include this image and associated links within some other posts, but don’t count on it.

WHY NO DIRECT LINKS TO WIDGETS, WORDPRESS?  Isn’t it odd that while links on widget can take you almost anywhere on the blog, there are no direct links to the widgets; you have to find them visually, then scroll or swipe to get cursor on them and click to open their doors. For some more convenient reference, safekeeping and easier reading (of the text ones at least), I have manually off-ramped many “lists of links” or short text commentary widgets, compiled to just few different posts and left sidebar labels (on another widget!) on how to access them. (<~para. added Oct. 14, 2019.  Widgets are one-way doors.  Once clicked on, you can go through them, but I can’t direct readers to them through some other link other than by saying ” see right sidebar” and showing what they look like, or are called).  

Perhaps between the B.R.A.I.N. initiative and Brain Activity Map as promoted by the Kavli Foundation [2000f in California]** (and 2013, as to the USA, a President Obama initiative), some of our brilliant national talent might figure that out for non-academic-consortium-connected communicators that are already sponsoring their research: Why are “widgets” one-way website navigational doors without an identifiable url we can link to instantly by clicking on it, from elsewhere else?  Does such a solution already exist, but not being a web-developer (or electronics engineer, etc.) I just haven’t found it yet?)

[[End “NAVIGATION” discussion.  And excess interjection within it. … Navigation’s really not that complicated… the interjected material** requires some background awareness, and is..

Why a Flying Blue Jay Gravatar:

(An extended section was removed from the bottom of this Front Page; I left one “footprint” which shows where it went  a few inches below here, and I repeat this link and some blue jay images (with different footprint text)  as ties into the blog theme near the bottom, along with some of my commonly-used (at this point) Twitter hashtags.

“Blue jays will attack humans if they get too close to their nesting area.”

‘Cyanocitta Cristata’ | Blue Jays and Other Resourceful, Smart, Related Species and Their Habitats: (About my Gravatar Image) (LGH Front Page | ‘exported’ Sept. 4, 2019) (short-link ends “–aXL” and as exported under 2,500 words). This new post has now been published.   A tag “Cyanocitta Cristata” will pull it up quickly (or 2019 Table of Contents through Sept. 30).

Among many other admirable qualities of this blue jay, and related species, such as surviving man’s attempts to wipe out some of their cousins (sic: related species), and being (take note), technically, a “songbird”… perhaps the designation “species” isn’t the best taxonomy, but if you never made it to the bottom of this home page before, visit this post, once I activate it. It relates the ornithological to the personal and concepts of habitat and territory to the family courts.

ABOUT BLOG CONTENT:

The rest of this page is an extended discussion, interrupted by several places showing where (names of newly created posts, or in an earlier version of this page, to a page) I’ve off-ramped sections.  In other words, where not just simply deleted, they were moved to another place on this blog which has a title, accompanied by a link.  

Originally, my concept for this Front Page in 2018 was to provide a sample of drill-down work and make a note of specific, more current situations of concern and interest, as well as (always!) explain why this blog looks, talks, sounds, and is different than most covering similar topics.  Why it’s UNCOMMON and why it actually also is ANALYSIS.  Throughout 2018 and 2019 I’ve posted on this at times too.

Now that the blog is better organized to highlight this information and the blog’s (i.e., my) approach and perspective,** anything below this line, while it is still –and with off-ramps that link to yet more — valuable insight, points of reference, and specific information (names and connections between organizations, laws generating federal income streams to state or county governments and/or to private businesses — such as nonprofits; names of professionals aligned around particular nonprofit AND/or for-profit business associations, or (mostly social science) journals), so are other parts of the blog.  So this page could be read at your leisure and along with tables of contents and more current posts.

**(I.e., two static home pages, shortened sidebar widgets, more complete tables of contents, plus an index of all pages 58 pages published from the beginning of this blog through July, 2019 — i.e.,“58 More Essays (Pages) on Essentials** of the Family Court Arena. **IMHO, as expressed 2009-2019“)

RE: a MASSIVE EDIT/UPDATE EARLY SEPT., 2019: After three (full) days working on this Front Page, it’s shorter, parts have been deleted, and I’ve relaxed some about explaining how to navigate the 2018-restructured blog. So this “massive edit” has gone about as far as I’m willing to take it for a while. There are other posts and current-events and developments in this field in rapid movement just now, that call for my focus and unique voice to be added to the mix of issue-based debates.

Also this past year (summer 2018 through summer 2019), I relocated outside [a.k.a. fled] California and so far maintained a stable lease (=predictable housing expenses), which puts me in an improved (though not yet fully free or safe) situation.  With that “phew, for a bit…” I’ve stayed a bit more active on Twitter and from following some of the leads on there, conscious of some of the parallel law reform and special-interest groups in other countries (Commonwealth ones, especially, that I have most access to information about).

Because of my increased activity on Twitter and outreach to others also concerned about current events, including some leaders of various reform movements or organizations involved in running/advising their (respective country’s) family courts, I no longer feel such a pressing need to constantly explain who I am and what I’m doing, in exhorting and demonstrating:

“DoTheDrilldowns!”   “ReadMyLipsReadTheir990s!”**

(**Although I’ll be keeping those two phrases in circulation! I first started using them, as I recall, in 2012 on a footer in a forum dealing with Lackawanna County (and other nearby Counties and, generally) Pennsylvania networked family and juvenile-justice court-involved nonprofits).

(**<~IRS Forms 990 are USA-specific, but non-USA-residents concerned about their (and our) family court systems can (and I hope do) still learn much about system interconnectivity by reading some.  Pick some of key organizations your country is probably dealing with as we speak.  See below, see this blog (historically), see my Twitter account for some classic examples.)

//LGH Friday, Sept. 6, 2019.

IF you keep reading this front page, expect to see major exposure to the field from an angle most advocates do not and cannot take — because unlike them, or volunteer individuals (on-line, off-line) who primarily associate on-line and ideologically with family court reform organizations or the professionals that run them, instead of operating as a nonprofit, I research the involved, court-connected, advocacy/reform-connected nonprofits and their funds.  This provides access to less anecdotal, narrative/hearsay information and often highlights what is omitted from mainstream media looking for a theme or a story-line to tell, not a structural analysis of such a major, pervasive system within the US and other countries.

THE BLOG MOTTO IS HARD TO READ ON THE TOP: IT’S STILL (with page/post numbers updated in this version)

‘A Different Kind of Attention Develops Sound Judgment‘ | ‘Suppose I’m Right Here?‘ (@ March 23 & 5, 2014). More Than 810 posts & nearly 60 pages of Public-Interest Investigative Blogging On These Matters Since 2009.

Time spent upfront considering (immersion: looking up and looking at) some of these basics pays off efficiently in understanding how the systems actually work, not just understanding the ongoing obvious: what types of results are being spat out.  Understanding at least in part! how systems work and interact with each other (using vocabulary geared to show that) also cuts through much of the “spin” used to justify ongoing reforms based on unproven assumptions which take into account few, if any, of the entities: behind the reforms and conflcits-of-interest-involved among specific people (including judges) administering the courts and little to no awareness of how money flows through the system and is accounted for.

This type of understanding needs to move talk from amorphous, generic references (“budget” “resources” “funding”) to a direct consciousness of types A, B, C (etc.) of involved entities (entities can be government or private, among private, they can be tax-exempt or not, etc.) and using better words to reference them.  Also a department or agency of some level of government is not an “entity.”  Specific definitions (including where websites or reporting  plays “catch/ID me if you can” on the actual entity involved) help get to the financing and the responsibility — that’s WHY it’s so important.

I realized over time that in effect, the federal government (Congress, our Executive Branch leadership and the Judicial Branch) in many ways are using nonprofits as a “front” for the certain agenda, when entire fields (such as the domestic or family violence “prevention” field) is primarily run by government-dependent nonprofits.  How can such lack of independence stick up for the common people without committing fiscal suicide?  Those dominating the field would not continue to exist without government support as legislated by Congress.

This is also true (USA) with the marriage/family/fatherhood values promotion so embedded within the delivery of social services (ANY type), especially welfare, foster care/adoptions and the child support enforcement system. Look under “Title IV” of the Social Security Act.  Fatherhood promotion especially under Title IV-A & IV-D.

A classic example of amorphous, vague or derailing focus upon the financials is talking constantly “budget” and almost never “owned” or “investments in” revenue or income-producing assets.  One quick cure for becoming over-impressed by this is to start reading tax returns — all the way through, lots of them, and (especially after 2008 for basic IRS Forms 990, notice the categories on Page I, Part I, a.k.a. “Summary.” Some of the organizations intent on re-arranging public resources are so “flush” they are showing up utterly careless about their own.  (Some links to databases below under the “APA/ABA” section).

I cannot list here all the many insights which can be gathered by establishing a simple habit of looking for, then looking AT (literally, scrolling or paging through) tax returns and paying attention to their contents.  Not necessarily every single line (many pages will often be blank) but becoming used to the categories and the concept that the supporting detail is supposed to actually support the figures on the front page.  They come in a variety of flavors.  Just check ’em out!  This also will reveal — quickly, I assume — just how many gaps in accountability exist (or, if not exactly HOW many, THAT so many do exist) system-side.

My attempts and exhortations “Change the Conversation” [from cause-based to accounting-based, i.e., to develop an awareness of systems and operational structures) has been a key theme of the blog and practice, on-line. Different vocabulary introduces other concepts (not just re-branding for existing things) and a quick consciousness-raising about what is NOT being mentioned in the usual circles  — the circles of reporting and advocacy and even legislators expressing outrage at poor performance (or lack of resources/oversight etc. for better performances) of the family court systems, overall.

In general, we are dealing with what might be called an “interlocking directorate” of existing financial and legal power bases, not above demanding that governments conform to their demand; nor are government entities, it develops, pushing back hard against private (basically, corporate) wealth — whether philanthropic or just “consultancy” based — demands it conform to protect private interests. It’s fine to talk about what is being circulated, but I find it helpful to talk about the networks through and by which it is circulated.  Especially that we are now solidly in the internet age (and beyond), understanding terms like “content creation” and who owns which media (and when was the last time any major brands were re-sold, recombined, sold off, or purchased, etc.).  Nonprofits organizations also run media campaigns around causes, ALL of which takes finances.

So . . . follow the financing!  Sooner or later, it’ll come round back to the basic taxpayer or consumer and the issue of government accountability for those tax receipts.

[The next two, non-consecutive paragraphs  in fine print, light-blue background may speak to some readers, but if the points of reference are so unclear/unfamiliar they do not, continue reading between and below them; the topics will come up again later. I realize how unfamiliar my approachs is and emphasized and repeat key points (basic principles of commonly censored information in the field) throughout the blog.]

My research includes closer looks at (I call them “drill-downs” of) :

• Nonprofits claiming advocacy/reform status of the family courts;
• Nonprofits (some, trade or professional associations) helping RUN them; nonprofits taking mandated-consumption (i.e., court-ordered) business referrals from (friends and colleagues in power) those courts — i.e., spinoff nonprofits.
• Other nonprofits which specialize in taking major federal grants year after year that many still seem unaware are indeed affecting family court outcomes in them (as intended to).
• For each cause, there can be an “umbrella” nonprofit and dozens (or, at times just a few) of similarly-named and themed nonprofits named after state or more local jurisdictions, and/or the subject matter.

Keeping in mind that the word “nonprofit” doesn’t mean “not profiting” — the term is somewhat of a dilemma, or contradiction in meaning.  Basically, it means not taxed on its tax-exempt purpose profits. The term is really mis-leading unless understood (again, exposure to those tax returns and audited financial statements should help) in the context of what is and is not taxed, and how much.

Many nonprofits take federal (and/or other government) grants. I started researching the federal grantees (often but not always nonprofits) (as I recall) most extensively by following through with US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS or “DHHS”) grants TO the nonprofits, specific funding streams.  Keeping in mind that the same grants stream could be going to both a private or a public (i.e., government entity — just a different one) at any time.  Some are designated “federal grants TO STATES” but others are not.

Over time this expanded to looking at and evolving an informal vocabulary to categorize some of the private tax-exempt foundations partnering (often) with the federal, or state, governments to effect policy change intended to impact the family courts, custody out come, and domestic violence / child abuse and (not to forget:) child support issues and programs.

For example:

THE GIANT “APA” and “ABA” TYPIFY THE PROBLEM WITH ACCOUNTABILITY

The Problem Distinguishing PUBLIC from PRIVATE GOVERNMENT (Activism to Direct Policy)

so as to hold Government Itself Accountable to the People.***

**I’ve had this section on the front page for months.  I added the title because it’s come up repeatedly (connection of the APA and the ABA both with private organizations steering family court policies, which I often blog:  i.e., AFCC, NCJFCJ, and others). However as I review (some quick edits only) this Front Page in Dec., 2019, the nation is watching Impeachement Proceedings against the current President of the United States Donald S. Trump, with focus on the partisan nature, and another election looming in (Fall) 2020.  People seem cognizant there is a challenge to the literal integrity of the United States itself and its Constitution, including the degree of interference in elections by foreign governments (invited or uninvited).

Yet this has been going on in a more subterranean matter for DECADES in system after system NOT under direct jurisdiction of the U.S. Federal Governments, and through the family courts and associated supportive/administrative networks.  Privatization is already WELL in place for almost every function of government and most levels of civil servants, it seems, which might have authority to direct — or re-direct — available funds.  (This two-para. & headings update, Dec. 7, 2019//LGH)

Government (tax-supported) entities have a duty of accountability to the public.  By and large, except indirectly or unless regulated by government at some level, private businesses do not.  When the operations and policymaking are so well blended it’s impossible to follow the money, the entire SYSTEM is un-accountable.

The APA and the ABA (two different models) of umbrella association nonprofits exercising massive heirarchy control of their respective fields, fields which require licenses (which can be revoked) to practice:

Specific looks at the history and primary tax returns (how organized and categorized; how run) Forms 990 for each. I’ve probably posted on this also.

If you think about it, “large umbrella nonprofit and dozens (or more) state and local-jurisdiction related (but fiscally independent) members” is a good description of two big ones:  speaking of USA, The American Bar Association (“ABA”) and The American Psychological Association (“APA”).

For that concept, just look at them!  (Name search “bar Association” or “Psychological Association” and nothing else at FoundationCenter.org** or apps.IRS.gov/app/eos** or your local/ state business entity search — often at Secretary of State website, or Corporations Division —  or state*** charitable registration database (here’s California’s Business Entity Search (use to look, also to obtain an Entity#, where applicable, which can be used at California’s (Charitable) Registry Verification Search to get a federal EIN# (and if uploaded there, view tax returns over time) here’s New York’s Charity Search website; Florida’s Business Entity search (“Sunbiz.org” — easy to remember!).

**For the IRS website, use quotes for “bar association” and set results to 250 a page and start scrolling.  I found 1,086 today [<~either Jan. 2018 or Dec. 2018], some were “foundation of ” or Project of” but scroll and browse to see some of the scope and naming categories  *** States vary in requiring charitable registration; not all states do.  

However, the same organizational concept (with or without the state-level bar or board licensure as a pre-requisite) is replicated within almost any social cause nationwide; popularizing phrases and names, but preventing full accountability, really, for who’s spreading them.  Popular causes are picked up and dropped and local jurisdiction entities promoting them come and go, or are shut down for failures to file.  But when they start, often a curriculum or procedure gains favor, is branded, funded, facilitators trained or certified, and disseminated. I’ve featured several in this blog over the years.

The overall result? So much of what we may think to be local, isn’t.  Check this out:

How Local (Truly Representative) is ANY Government Entity with All These Kinds of Nonprofits? (THE Power & Class Divide: Taxed vs. Living off/Managing The Taxed).(…).  (Under 2000 words; case-sensitive shortlink for this Page ends “-9l0”). My impromptu expression based on years of acquaintance/observation.

Next image is from the end of that short page (my writing):

(closing excerpt from LGH subsidiary page to Home Page; commentary..Click to enlarge or click HERE to read that short page).

Most advocacy groups have groomed and conditioned people to argue rhetoric and cause,** seek publicity and mainstream media coverage of the problems surrounding “family courts” rather than, as I do, following the money behind the rhetoric, and identifying ways it moves from federal to state, from public to private, from private to public (courts) and back into private hands again through “court-connected corporations,” how these self-organize to self-perpetuate.

(**“arguing rhetoric and cause,” includes domestic violence, child abuse, “fatherlessness,” “parental alienation,” violations of due process, stripping of family wealth where there was any to start with;, runaway children, impoverishment, continued life disruptions and too often, still sometimes injury and death.)

Arguing and focusing on rhetoric and cause is ALWAYS a losing cause!  Similar structures and operations to argue pro/con on almost any individual cause.  Over time, it becomes clear that methods for a continually “evolving” system — and establishing who gets to control and drive it — is the main cause.  In other words, indications are, the design purpose was around altered structure as much as altered outcomes used to sell, rationalize, eventually legislate, then administrate the altered structure — literally, changes of the legal process.  [[Sept. 4, 2019 comment:  When I’m done revising this home page, one of the first posts upcoming documents the organizations who set about (in various states) to uniformly promote family court divisions to start with.  Look for a post with the word “Blueprints” in its title..Recent finds added to existing awareness I’ve already posted herein..]]

The family court system evolved (sic) after other “problem-solving courts.” The number and types of problems to be solved in such courts seems to be increasing.  Family courts as self-described are allegedly seeking healthier circumstances for children and families {{not necessarily individuals IN those families}} nationwide (main focus this blog USA, but as the systems collaborate internationally, it cannot be the only focus}} and alleviating public debt burden (i.e., welfare).

I know from years of networking and interacting with people on-line social media, off-line by phone, and in person, it takes more than absorbing a few facts or exposures to only a few professional organization names — to see the major components and drivers of the system. Common mis-leading buzz-words and sound-bytes are also circulated constantly, which discredit both those originating them (as to the ethics of doing so in the first place) and diminish the respect for (among those who know better, myself included but I’m more particularly concerned about, among professionals who should know better) people repeating them without first proving them.  This sends a signal as to who is just how gullible.  These phrases detract from organizing around more legitimate principles based on something more legitimate than such unproven assumptions.

I have no interest in continuing to “re-invent the wheel” and repeat things already written down and annotated in detail.  Nor can I continue doing this for past information while following more recent and talking about the directions they are going (expansion of services on the same themes, re-branded periodically to seem new and improved without ever switching the train tracks).  So my Front Page is** a witness or testimony on key players (both people and organizations).  It tracks some of the organizations back to their beginnings, and shows the globe-trotting factor.**

** As being revised Sept. 2019 ,I should say “links to” witnesses and testimonies on key players…. I’ll leave indicators naming names, but am off-ramping detailed discussions to new posts, which may take some time to be re-published (also likely updated, if it applies)….

This section contains some more recent references and images to things I’m concerned about, long-term, and and watching on-line as they’ve developed and moved as standard “models” from the US (West Coast, East Coast, MidWest) to the United Kingdom and Australia (for starters), spearheaded by men (with women in the now established domestic violence profession) appropriating the “prevent domestic violence movement” with batterers intervention, involvement, and outreach as central to it.

Core to this model is NOT talking about what I wrote this blog for — to talk about.  Who’s funding what, and why is the US funding both sides, it would seem, of a gender war played out especially in the family courts (but not only), and forcing the public (we are still a large country…) to FUND both sides of the ongoing conflict of interests….  I also talk extensively about what the “protective mothers” movement which I put in quotes because the term has become common place (it’s been so promoted) and I believe that real protective mothers would acknowledge what’s been going on for a few decades and talk with each other about it.  However, talking about this doesn’t seem to match the chosen agenda of federalizing/standardizing and privatizing “best practices” in family courts which haven’t even been in existence that long, in the US.

DEC. 25, 2019, LIVE EDIT of HOME (WordPress calls it my “Front”) PAGE will be Deleting Most content preserved here below this point.  This page’s “parent” is Front Page

Thinking about retaining just the Off-Ramped (Sept. 2019 and earlier) titles and labeled “subsections” but not the footprints in between them.

That leaves some other narrative text portions inbetween…

It’s a work-in-progress:  “This page Under Construction” will apply until that notice is taken down (and what you’re reading here is actually published).  11am PST (Los Angeles, California) time, Dec. 25, 2019.

Again, this page represents the more complete version of former home AND the links to off-ramped pages as of Sept. 2019.

SUBSECTION #1 (Chrono, not “on this page”):  SEVERAL PARAGRAPHS & IMAGES MOVED 9/2/2019 TO:

• ‘From The Beginning, March 2009, FCM Has Been More About This Organization Than Me: (FrontPage Sept. 2019 Subsection #1) Word-press generated, case-sensitive short-link ends “-aUu”, Active and accurate only once published; about 1,500 words only.  Previously published, this material dates to probably Dec. 2018.

The section begins… (I left one image in place here out of several, with related links and explanation, off-ramped)..

From the start (blog started March, 2009) I talked openly on-line and on this blog about the next organization and its membership (see next several images chosen, somewhat at random, from existing “Media library” on this blog, that is, ones I’ve already posted) because it, and how others relate to and talk (or don’t talk) about it is key** to understanding the whole.

It is “key” (adjective) not the only key (noun), but I believe understanding how this organization itself, and this organization as a type, as well as how this organization acts in association (conferencing, networking, incorporating (or not) with others of similar interests, most of them publishing individually and with members prone to publishing a LOT)  is key, and opens a wide door to further doors of understanding.  But who walks through them?

The above off-ramped “subsection #1” also deals with, including some of the safety factors personally involved:

Who am I and Why Does This Blog Look and Talk So Different Than Others on “Family Court” matters? and why I considered putting here an “About Me” “Who Am I” and “Why the heck this blog?” section but still don’t feel comfortable with it.  I am not functioning as, nor is this blog tied to, any nonprofit enterprise nor soliciting any tax-deductible contributions.  So far (and that’s a long time!) nor have I been through this blog or separately selling downloadable or print/electronic media product, coaching services, or (like many) certification on some franchise involving managing family court cases.

So, I am blogging, period.  If what I’m saying is worth consideration, then consider it, maybe even talk it up (if you quote it definitely provide links to THE page or post quoted, and cite both blog name and page or post full title (and date)– thanks!)   If not, then keep moving and find something more entertaining to do with YOUR free time.  I know what I’ve done with mine, most of it…

In 2018 [and 2019!] I am still fighting for the right and means to plan a future which involves anything more than two or three months in advance and does not depend on the mood, or professional ethics, of other human beings with no legal right to enforce their world views (and what place I should hold in them) upon me.

So I feel that overall,  Evan Stark of Rutgers “The State University of New Jersey” and related, proprietary “Coercive Control” conferences in the UK have nothing on many of us who’ve been dealing with “coercive control” violent and nonviolent from many different sources  — not just an abusive spouse or ex-partner or even immediate family members — and for many years.

Which leads to:

SUBSECTION #2 (Chrono, not “on this page) SEVERAL PARAGRAPHS & IMAGES MOVED 9/3/2019 TO:

• Coercive Control and Co-Opted Conversations in Connecticut (Rutgers Professor Evan Stark, his wife Yale MD,Ann Flitcraft, Serial Global BIP Entrepreneur(?), Safe&Together’s David Mandel)-FrontPage Sept. 2019 Subsection #2  (short-link ends “-aUL,” active and accurate only once published;under 2000 words (including my preliminary comments added for the move.).   (That title obviously needs some work….)

Lead-in/closing paragraph/s and an image or so left here as a footprint, starting with two (one from the UK named after the book, the other (Michigan-based since the mid-1990s) featuring the created profession of batterers’ intervention, and professional conference (long-standing, in association with DV organizations nationwide) involving it. For now, this “footprint” is a little longer than the one above; and has some material new, at least to me….

The “Coercive Control” topic is now global; the UK has passed a law criminalizing Coercive Control; there’s a definite movement…  And there are some definite issues I have with this movement, from the US perspective..and as what a “formerly-battered wife” (mother, woman — all apply…) and “family court gauntlet veteran” (we all somehow survived alive until children turned adults).

Professor Evan Stark’s [image at Rutgers, “The State University of NJ” (viewed recently, 12/10/2018), “School of Public Affairs and Administration”

Regarding Professor Stark and co-author (and spouse) Anne Flitcraft, M.D.

…Evan Stark is a leading authority on woman battering and child abuse and has won numerous awards for directing The Yale Trauma Studies in the 1980s with Anne Flitcraft, M.D.

His new book, Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life won the excellence award from the American Publishers Association; it was named the 2007 best book in sociology/social work.

Dr. Anne Flitcraft is a 1977 graduate of Yale. Interesting “NLM.NIH.Gov interview with Dr. Flitcraft

1996 “The Costs of Domestic Violence” ℅ Victim Services of NYC, Institute for Women’s Policy Research,[**] & Domestic Violence Training Project (New Haven, CT), Sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation (just found this [2018]), lists Stark on the front cover, and Flitcraft (also on the Roundtable) in fine print at the very bottom among many other names. (The names at the back are alpha by last name).

My revisit of the nonprofit “Emerge, Inc.” (shows up on the off-ramped post, above, just published Sept. 7) came out of an awareness of a recent (July 21, 2019) Canadian website posting of “Collective Memo of Concern to WHO.” (recent posts in late August mention).  Because “CaringDads” was part of this, as well as the connection originally with Professor Stark and David Adams of Massachusetts’ “Emerge, Inc.,” I looked at it again and included it here.  When I do this there is also often other material I’ve visited but not posted yet; including this here reminds me to “stay on it” for later follow-up.

IWPR’s Wiki is flagged for “Reads like an advertisement — info too close to source..” etc.  The wiki on its founder is informative.

My closing commentary, a few paragraphs of it (on the now off-ramped section above):

QUICK COMMENTARY: I see from more recent testimony in Connecticut and (retrospective, Washington State, WSCADV.org) that Professor Stark is with (aligned in interests) with David Mandel in favor of “Safe & Together” and seems to set a bottom line that there MUST be Batterers’ Intervention; cutting funds for it somehow endangers women.  That bottom line goes back to at least the 1980s (if not earlier) and dissent with that position, that bottom line seems to be heresy.  A recent conference list at “BISC-MI” (most recently, involved in out-reach to the faith community and changing the corporate name from “BatterERS” to “BatterING” because the “-ERS” characterized the person, jeopardizing the concept of behavioral modification  (excuse me), “change.”

I say, why MUST we support all these professions which then have networked nonprofits, publications, policies and of course RoundTables with people basically in agreement with SOME of the basics — like the health paradigm, coordinated community response, and in general sticking the public with if not the costs of domestic violence, the costs of treating and “preventing” it…?  And why must “father-engagement” be central to all forms of abuse prevention, whether in child welfare services, or in the family courts, in child support agencies, in prison/re-entry situations — at all points?

…Many of us who’ve lived with in-home violence (rarely restricted to the home environment only) could “write the book,” on coercive control, probably without that label.   Some have written their own personal accounts, but the moment this goes into “the conference circuit” that’s not really in good company — and without the travel budget (etc.) impossible to keep up with AND manage one’s own life AND continuing research.

Think about it: why would chameleon corporations, state-jumping corporations, “ghost” corporations (existed once then dissolved and went underground or ‘MIA”) or even habitually (a) late-filing and (b) incomplete filing) be necessary in the ethical conduct of an honest business enterprise?  I see it continually (often!).  

WHICH BRINGS ME TO:….

I just want to keep this “FJC” terminology in view.  I’ve done extensive research on this; some is on this blog, some on another one (but more personal– I’ve had some run-ins) and yet more hasn’t been published yet.  The originals were in San Diego, California and Indianapolis, Indiana as I recall.  Hardly progressive outposts of the country…  but they took root in Northern California (and overseas) too.  The model is appropriately convoluted as to where public ends and private starts.  I see them as “fees for friends” centers of those already in power.  You should see them on the conference circuit (one place:  look up:  BISC-MI conferences, held at least yearly since about 1994:  Battterers (or “Battering”) Intervention Services.  The San Diego (chameleon corp) enterprise has been a longstanding participant and still is.  Someone always needs to be trained… (for example:  “My what pretty colors and graphics“) but “the devil is in the details” (of the entity filings).  That last comment intentional, as one of the originators (Casey Gwinn) and the original model’s “Camp Hope” has an  explicitly and symbolically religious (protestant evangelical) mindset and background.  Contact me through comments for more info if curious.

FAMILY JUSTICE CENTERS and Other Chameleon Corporations:

Typically, but not exclusively, tax-exempt/”nonprofit” chameleon corporations.

As to the FJC’s (Family Justice Centers) I believe that’s the real “model” involved, not the policies referenced. I’ve looked at several different instances of the model in US cities, not just the one in San Diego and posted on the problems with this model, “herein.” (earlier on this blog). I’ve gone down that rabbit hole (drilled it down, looked it up) and also walked in the door asking for help, was told to “write it up” and (no response thereafter).

The year the one in our area was breaking ground (2006) and publicizing its great self was the same year (in fact month), local law enforcement enabled a child-stealing event in our family’s life, and re-cycled us all back into family court, ℅ mandatory mediation (of course) again, which essentially ignored the felonious components of the current situation...  Later, that “Family Justice Center’s” first Executive Director (married to a famous, and I have to say, respected, career politician) ended up less than competent to keep herself (1) off drugs; (2) out of an abusive relationship herself and (3) faithful to that husband, (4) fully functional as her next major life responsibility, County Supervisor.  She was the 3rd husband of a man 30 years her senior and had a child with him; overall showing remarkable lack of judgment, common sense and leadership.  Yet the opening salary, we later heard, was $90K — while women I know in Family Court were not seeing their own children, some had become homeless (California and elsewhere) and supervised visitation was being turned against them instead of on the abusive partners.

Again — news of local failures and fiascoes is a little easier to cover up if you can run to another state and report only the good stuff, peddle some more “Hope,” like “Hope (for) Justice…”  There needs to be a database on ALL the Family Justice Centers created since San Diego and Indianapolis (I believe among the first).  Note it started in some very conservative cities…

Latest reported example of some of this CHAMELEON CORPORATION (etc.) behavior on this post, see my December 2018 post on Center for Divorce Education +  Family Works, Inc.  (Donald A. Gordon & Jack Arbuthnot).  While posting on one, another one (“Solutions for Families” co-parenting, taking court referrals in Southern California) run by an involved volunteer director) showed up and had already received an award (in 2011) although it’d self-dissolved back in 1999 two years after registering!

It takes my personal time (and if you do it, your time = our time) to find and even more time (time=life, wasting it sucks up life energy) to post on these corporate mazes and timelines.  NOT doing it then codependently enables the ongoing (essentially, fraud — deceit of taxpayers). … What I also found odd regarding so many welfare-reform enabled marriage/fatherhood grantees– the US DHHS seems to prefer if not even favor, such corporations.  What does that say about the largest grant-making agency charged with HEALTH and HUMAN SERVICES and under it  (1991ff) its ADMINISTRATION (for or of) CHILDREN & FAMILIES (“ACF”)?  //LGH.

In the arena and through the “tool” of family courts, any one can be destroyed — if not killed when without the courts, the individual family members might NOT have been killed. I call it “roadkill.”  The media tend to pair it with words like “estranged” and “disputes” or exceptional, out-of-character behavior by the person (alive or dead also) accused of committing the murder.  Attempting to maintain work, household/home, and parenting while dealing with such possibilities year after year, is an insane and ridiculous state of affairs.  Ask me how I know that…  Or ask someone locally; these are widespread and known conditions.  Agencies and policies are built around handling it exist in many countries.  WHY is it now so normal?

SUBSECTION #4 (Chrono, not “on this page) SEVERAL PARAGRAPHS “Why So Long?” MOVED 9/5/2019 TO:

The “Why So Long” (Why are my posts so long) paragraphs removed didn’t need to be a separate post and so were added,  along with others carrying more detail (links and images) to:

SUBSECTION #6 (Chrono, not “on this page”) SEVERAL PARAGRAPHS (transferred to 3 pdfs).

The section begins:

• In looking at family court and court-connected corporations, and how they operate, in protection of public interest, a basic sense of numbers here  is NOT optional.  

Remember the concepts of income/out go, and assets/liabilities in individual entities (private or government) matters AND, with this, an understanding that someone’s revenue is someone else’s expense (and vice versa).  One organization’s “assets” are someone else’s liabilities.  Functional adults understand this personally or go hungry or homeless, or dependent on others, which also means, controlled by them.  Sooner or later they have to pay bills.

(from Dictionary.com)

Why, then go “brain-dead” or “I’m too busy to consider it” or any other number of excuses, when the income/revenue, assets/liabilities are just recorded differently, are much larger (collectively) and involve actually identifying the To/From in the public/private partnerships about which we are constantly told and “sold” as essential — or told should be cut due to BUDGET deficits — when it comes to public (government) entities dealing with private ones, and with private (so-called) individual citizens?

and continues (with minor overlap) on the next three (just a few paragraphs each) pdfs:

~>LGH|FCM Front Page, MINI-Section ‘Basic sense of numbers not optional here |Lingo’ (Image #1 of 3 )~~SShot 2019Sept05 PST Thu @1.58.26 PM ~>LGH|FCM Front Page, MINI-Section ‘Basic sense of numbers not optional here |Lingo’ (Image #2 of 3 )~~SShot 2019Sept05 PST Thu @1.59.35 PM ~>LGH|FCM Front Page, MINI-Section ‘Basic sense of numbers not optional here |Lingo’ (Image #3 of 3 )~~SShot 2019Sept05 PST Thu @2.01.43 PM

RE: THE VISUAL APPEARANCE OF POSTS (and PAGES):  EXAMPLE:  “Safe & Sound | Kid’s Turn”  DRILL-DOWNS REQUIRE ANNOTATIONS ON SCREENPRINTS, WHICH WHILE NECESSARY, GETS MESSY!

This section has been on the home page long enough.  I’m taking it to a separate post, with a remaining footprint as seen in the images below.  Another section of text from here was also off-ramped to the same post (now in draft, temporarily):

• ‘We Must Have a Stomach for the Details and Willingness to Look at the Numbers…’ (From LGH Front Page, Sept. 5, 2019) (shortlink ending “-aYW”) PUBLISHED Sept. 30, 2019, contains several (about a half-dozen) links to earlier posts on related topics, especially Parent Education/Kids’ Turn originators, promoters, sponsors.//LGH 2019Oct1

FOOTPRINT for this off-ramped section:

Here’s an extreme (heavily annotated AND has a superimposed image) example referring to one organization merged into another, which then changed its name and has continued running expensive court-connected parent education programs under the new name. The heavily annotated image is of a search results page from the US Patent and Trademark Office.

The name which formerly identified said network (shown as second owner in the trademark image, apparently as of about 2006) as part of a nationally known and well-organized (with “parent” corporation) network of interconnected nonprofits, on which I have both recent posts and a new page, was changed as recently as September 2017 (I write late January 2018), with a new name that conceals that connection.

Meanwhile, it is running classes targeted (see trademarks “Goods & Services”) to (a) children of separating or divorcing parents, and (b) to such parents.  Next to that I’ll show images of the new curriculum as claimed by the newly-renamed organization’s with logo (1st clean image), and then a listing of recent classes (2nd clean image) — although this hasn’t even shown up yet in the state Business or Charitable Registry pages (!!) and (3) the sliding scales shown costs for such (based on parent household incomes!) ranging from $102 to $1.2K (that’s over $1,000!!), and among other places, are run out of San Francisco State University.  Note: It looks like the USPTO trademark hasn’t caught up with the namechange yet, either… (Safe & Sound Organization website reflecting these classes).

USPTO.gov search for Kid’s Turn trademark, heavily annotated and with superimposed image of the curriculum as currently run by Safe and Sound (formerly SF Child Abuse Prevention Center). 

(Next is a three-image gallery.  Swipe (on tablets or cellphones) or click on image and use any navigation keys that show up.  The images are kept together as a single unit on this post).  On some mobile devices it may not be immediately obvious that three images are involved, which is why I’m saying this here…)

I tend to go “above and beyond” in those categories of explanation, and do so knowing that I cannot expect a “just take it on faith” as so many subject matter experts with degrees, and a trail of publications in the field, may expect. I do this realizing I’m not on a national (or international) conference circuit, publishing and distributing books on my “to the contrary” analysis. Basically, it’s this blog, and interactions with people over the years on-line or in person, discussing the material on it.

How much of the fees for parenting classes supplementing civil servant salaries goes into supporting such international flights by judges, custody evaluators, family law professionals, court-appointed mediators, directors of administrative sectors of the courts, and people who run centers, for example, at law schools as professors or associate professors? Even if the answer is “none” (which I doubt), what chance do people HERE (and I’m West Coast USA) have of informing the various international organizations — sufficiently — that, FYI, reports on the success and benefits of certain programs from the USA have been highly exaggerated, and are less than half the real story?  The situation is ridiculous!

So, I found writing this page (like most pages) more fascinating than exasperating because of the time it took to write (and will take to read, too).  I hope/believe that readers with the attention span and who are motivated will also find it so, and that those whose personal situations haven’t yet provided that motivation may start to wake up as well.

Indications are that many of the groups I’m reporting on (or at least government entities from which some of them are operating, as well as major universities, counties, cities, and international visitors) are also visiting this blog.

So even if no one really “gets” this, a major part of my blog purpose in addition to PUBLIC interest is that leadership of these PRIVATE entities doing ever-expanding business with the public institutions (such as the courts, associated family court services, child support systems, social services, etc.) “get” that: as some of us have been left nowhere to hide from former abusers, or from being exploited through this court system for a decade or more while our children grow up, eventually they may have no place to hide for documentation that the profits from that, in my opinion, exploitation, have been made untrace-able.

…That the basic classification and categories of participants and their overall (and individual) financial inter-relationships has routinely been submerged, “obfuscated” or separated from the public relations parts, and in favor of consistent attempts to distract the public from following the money — in very real terms OUR money where public institutions are involved or where we are forced to consume services from them without corresponding genuine need, or real benefits from the consumption.

… That playing both sides of a Good Cop, Bad Cop routine, will eventually be seen for what it is, as well as will the obvious ongoing intents to undermine country jurisdictions and dilute what civil/legal protections might be left in the United States with policies from other (particularly but not only) Commonwealth nations, some of which still have national religions, and many of which have far different structures.

… And that telling the truth in functional language and vocabulary — as opposed to dysfunctional, misleading and appropriated/proprietarily owned language — is the START of public benefit.

Even if the blog strategy here of getting most people (including those who still don’t see where they are stakeholders even if they are not personally involved in the courts) doesn’t succeed in my lifetime, my posting is at least an ongoing witness. Sure, it’s personal, but over time I continue to write and documented in such a way it can’t be brushed off as just a private opinion, or a “disgruntled” parent or litigant. You may disagree with my interpretation of the evidence, or its relevance, but you can’t explain it away into complete non-existence.  My evidence comes from on-line sources available for free to anyone with on-line connections and the basic skills and mentality (persistence being the main one!) to find them.

In general, regarding the family courts, and part of the claimed subject matter, reduction or prevention (or even “treatments”) of domestic violence and child abuse,  in addressing those matters, basic and important principles have been violated from the start (DECADES ago) — not a good foundation for anything labeled “for the kids,” which it has been — and then these basic principle violations are “baked into the system” — with further modifications never addressing the originally broken principles, but providing an appearance of responsiveness to new developments, or, naturally, more applications by demography (culturally) or geography (rural/urban).

~ ~ ~NOW (MORE) ABOUT THIS PAGE ~ ~ ~

(IN JANUARY 2018), Creating this new page has taken over two weeks, [[far too long!!]] and unearthed more background information on an organization I historically paid attention to and have been recently blogging. Some of this recently unearthed background puts one individual designer (now deceased, and not much information on-line about her) of a basic and mandated parenting education class associated with divorce actions as also having worked for a Northern California nonprofit “the Center for the Family in Transition” (in the 1980s!) and as quoted in Parental Kidnapping: A Form of Child Abuse.

I discovered this individual’s name in a book about the organization founded in the mid-1980s to push parenting education (psycho-educational curriculum and classes, both parents pay the fees) designed to reduce parental alienation. Excerpts from that (published 2002 and revised in 2009) book are shown below on this page (off-ramped to a new post, now in draft) featuring all three of those curriculum designers, AND I have an (extended) section on each of three designers.

Again, this came up reviewing one well-known (in the field) sponsor of a conference.  One reason I chose this sponsor this time was the connection to that parenting education nonprofit; another was the individual family lawyer’s simultaneous involvement in an overseas membership organization ALSO listed as a sponsor of the conference.  

The constant push to internationalize United States law, practices, and in effect, government (my concern — I live here!) should not be underestimated just because it’s happening incrementally, piecemeal, and over time.

It’s also happening, when it comes to the matter of children and families and who controls their futures, in a well-coordinated, organized, networked, and with long-term goals becoming progressively clearer over time fashion. “Yesterday” would have been a great time to address this, but we are at “Now,” so I say 2018 is the time to take the blinders off, deal with the glare, and stop exploitation of the public interest for private purposes, and profits.  For many, this supplements for YEARS afterwards, existing public pensions at the expense of the low-income families the same are continually saying they’re intending to and are helping.

So, this particular drill-down, below, further reveals organization of the family courts, and professionals’ habit of constantly quoting their colleagues without fully revealing the private connections, when proving a point, typically the point that yet more interventions are needed, especially services of more psychologists and psychiatrists in helping make custody determinations, and other points, such as that the courts are so overwhelmed that services should be consolidated and combined, or further outsourced.

SUBSECTION #3 (Chrono in timeline of “massive edit,” not “on this page”) 

A LONGER “DRILL-DOWN” SECTION (SEVERAL PARAGRAPHS & IMAGES) WAS PUBLISHED Sept. 19, 2019, at:

• Families In Transition due to Parental Kidnapping |An archaeological dig on who quotes whom (Canadian CRC, Nancy Faulkner, Dorothy Huntington, ‘Parental Alienation’): [LGH Frontpage Subsection #3 Sept. 4, 2019, Published Sept. 19]. (short-link ends “-aWh,” as off-ramped, under 4,000 words written, probably between January and December 2018; with lead-in, about twice that). 

I found an earlier, more detailed version of this same topic (with a lot of further information on things British and Family Law-related) as a pending page.  That page is now published, and I’m going to also turn it (or a link to it) into a post, to be published Sept. 20, i.e., within 24 hours.  Please see meanwhile:

• Title: If Parental Kidnapping (Domestic or International) is ALWAYS Child Abuse, Where do the UN CRC and the Hague Convention fit in? (D. Huntington then ℅ AFCC-related* The (Judith Wallerstein) Center for the Family In Transition, M.W. Agopian, N. Faulkner (1999), Merle H. Weiner (2000, Fordham) (moved here Jan. 18, 2018, from my then-new home page…, published as a page Sept. 19, 2019, and a new post, Sept. 20) PAGE short-link (now published) ends “–8q5”)

Because the off-ramped section (from the post I just published, “Subsection #3” in its title) contained an existing subsidiary page, I’ll identify that here (as also left intact there):

Additionally, I’ve already moved most of my other discussion on Parental Abducting and the Hague / UN (international) conventions context to a subsidiary page** (making this (FRONT PAGE) a “parent page,” the second one from this post so far), but I’ve summarized it here with an image and some points of reference under a “Personal Relevance” section because  parental child-stealing event, after separation from abuse through legal intervention and in the context of a family law case, has had so much to do with why I eventually felt it necessary to produce this blog, and to continue year after year posting information that lawyers, experts, advocates, and others, for the most part, simply refuse to, although it’s obvious they reasonably know.

Although one can see in hindsight, most were aware of it, something I’ve seen in feminist legal circles, not just in the family court reform coalitions which formed up later.  ** That subsidiary page is:

Consolidated Control of DV Advocacy by Feminist Leadership# Refusing to Identify, by Name and Financing, Their Supposed Opposition Entities. Subtitle: Personal Relevance to a Post-DV Intervention, Unprosecuted, Child-Stealing Event by Ex-Batterer [family law] case in the SF Bay Area: (@1/22/2018) (Link active when page is published.  Title may change before then, but the link will survive title changes). (short-link ends “/PsBXH-8rg”)

#These people, organizations and the organization’s websites historically and now, simply chose not to broadcast or publicize the information as in any way relevant to ongoing problems within the family law system, which they sought to adjust, reform, and improve through publications, trainings, training up new generations of lawyers in how to think about the problem and what would best help solve it (i.e. DIScouraging critical thinking) while collectively controlling as much of that field as possible.

This page was important enough I also included it on a sidebar widget near the top right of the blog, along with the Tables of Contents, Current Posts page, and a few others. (See bottom of the nearby (to the right) rectangular image from blog sidebar.  It’s the bottom link / title shown…

Several more paragraphs removed to:

• ‘We Must Have a Stomach for the Details and Willingness to Look at the Numbers…’ (From LGH Front Page, Sept. 5, 2019) (shortlink ending “-aYW”)

(However this next refers to an earlier off-ramp:  see date):

• MAJOR MATERIAL, ABOUT 14,000 words with images & drill-downs] BEING (RE)MOVED TODAY**– LINK TO ITS RELOCATION (<~post short-link ending “-9ld” where middle character is a lower-case “L”) PUBLISHED..//**LGH DEC. 11, 2018}}

Thanks in advance for your patience (meanwhile, read the latest post, which links to the new page (published 1/2/2018) also!

The latest [Jan. 2018?’ see a few paragraphs below, I dated the comments] post’s title doesn’t reflect this, but it has a major section and certain proofs re: Reunification Camps and commonalities between those who run them, as well as a footnoted, major section on “Dr. Richard Warshak’s” (he has the Ph.D., but like many PhD’s NOT MD’s, enjoys using that form of address) formative influences and mentors (two of them) which should speak loudly to anyone expecting gender neutrality as a component of justice and understood citizen’s rights, in the treatment-obsessed family courts. )

Link: Family Bridges. See also “About the Author” page for his political involvement on family law reform, custody, and involving the White House

Many of these professionals are, essentially, “inbred.” No wonder stopping domestic violence, child abuse (including incest) is not a long suit.  And, as so few of other professionals, their colleagues (by areas of practice and degrees) involved in the same courts, or in the domestic violence prevention & advocacy fields, seem to be calling them out on the in-breeding (and on the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts connections so symptomatic of the practices, such as forcing — court-ordering — children into “reunification camps” therapy founded and run as LLCs (compliant or noncompliant) or 501©3s by other AFCC members, and where possible, both parents too in my opinion, properly drawing such negative press), I’d have to say the silence on this obvious in-breeding indicates co-dependence and acquiescence.  Calling it out will have to come from some other quarter…

When people cannot speak things THIS obvious, they are avoiding it, or have been brainwashed/conditioned, or possibly threatened into complicit endorsement. In such situations, wiating on psychologists, or lawyers, or the best-known advocacy groups, to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing BUT the truth, defies logic and, in my opinion, common sense.
Some still have too much position, or possibly revenues, to lose. They have mortgages or landlords, and clients with hope of future clients.  Perhaps — just perhaps — it’s up to those of us who have already lost our own revenues, social position or niche (and although we too have mortgages and/or landlords and must live SOMEwhere, year after year) — to fill in the gap of information.
//LGH Jan. 9, 2018.

(Also posted nearer the top of this page, with the link and image,..)

SUBSECTION #5 (Chrono, not “on this page”):  SEVERAL PARAGRAPHS & IMAGES MOVED 9/4/2019 TO:

“Blue jays will attack humans if they get too close to their nesting area.”

‘Cyanocitta Cristata’ | Blue Jays and Other Resourceful, Smart, Related Species and Their Habitats: (About my Gravatar Image) (LGH Front Page | ‘exported’ Sept. 4, 2019) (short-link ends “–aXL” and as exported under 2,500 words). This link active and accurate only when the new post on which this writing has come to roost, is published.

About the Gravatar Image of a Flying Blue Jay.  

Its basic image to me is “flight” but I also consider the blue jay, crow and raven (below) for some other admirable qualities which I feel people, especially women and mothers, dealing with the many systems intended to continue ensnaring us in forms of abusive control AFTER we declared “No Excuse!” by filing for protection, and temporarily obtaining SOME….

Nothing too deep — it just helps me to consider the survival qualities of species common to North America.  For example, attempts to wipe out crows were made (and attempts to wipe out independent-minded mothers raising children without a resident controlling man — or “the state” instead of him — calling the shots, making major decisions, and substituting for our own good judgment and common sense, the “state” official policy towards our kind.  Meaning, mothers who don’t get or stay married to the fathers of their children and aren’t apologetic about it, either.  Moms who still believe they have a right to fight for what’s best for themselves and their children — and no innate duty to submit to further degradation, abuse, or domination by people who  don’t see what we see, haven’t experienced what we have, and may not comprehend when “NO!” means “NO!”

The professions, as an “economic habitat” attract certain fauna and flora.  The problem isn’t just the critters, it’s also the habitat.  And as to these, where the public contributes is through public institutions.  WE FUND THOSE.

IN GENERAL, THIS GETS DOWN TO…

HOW WELL DO YOU UNDERSTAND AT LEAST STATE (but ALSO COUNTY and ALSO FEDERAL) GOVERNMENT ENTITY FINANCING AND ORGANIZATION?

HOW WELL DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW TO GAIN AN UNDERSTANDING APART FROM THE PROPAGANDA MACHINES, OR THE EXCLUSIVE PORTRAYAL FOCUSED ON POLITICAL PARTIES?

Those are aspects I had to address in my own life, and make up for the information gap.  While learning myself, I also posted.

IF I HAD KNOWN about the federal incentives, dating back a few decades, to set up and follow through with the “family court fiasco” post-domestic violence, and the aggressive, consistent attempts to saturate professional journals with minimization of it (when not running media campaigns ABOUT it omitting the same government agencies funding fathers’ rights movements specifically mandated — it’s in their original documents — to counter a perceived “maternal” bias in social services and in the family courts — I would have made even fewer compromises.  NOT KNOWING THIS prevents women from bonding around it.

That is also why I felt it necessary to post on the “Broken Courts, Flawed Practices” nonprofits, some from Northern California, (since 1999, 2006, respectively) on the “Battered Mothers’ Custody Conference” (since 2003) (and its adherents and regular presenters) and in the methods used to continually find new “poster child” cases to “throw under the bus” for more publicity to further the “technical consulting and training” conferences, webinars, and speaker resumes of the field.

This is, again, theater — it’s there for a reason, and that reason is NOT the ones stated on the front pages.  It is there to derail viewers from the bedrock realities of the system, lest they mutually organize to do something effective about it.  It is there to perpetuate the abuse systems, while “tweaking” and adjusting them slightly back towards “fair” — for which of course, SOMEONE has to train and sell publications.

IN CASE readers are wondering why I am adamant about certain things, and ready not to just “survive through compromise” but dismantling  any system which tolerates ram-rodding decent parents into as deep a hole as possible, and which doesn’t abide by its own definitions of the legal process, or justice, or anything approaching — to put it crudely and personified, “tear ’em a new one…”

I know experientially that compromise on the basic principles of life and relationships does NOT have a good ending.  The result is further compromise, followed by yet more, and yet more, and degradation of the neighborhood, while clearing the overall habit for increasing levels of built-in criminality. This doesn’t mean all are criminal, but those who are find great places to roost, and those who aren’t, don’t have, apparently, the integrity or ability to flush them out — which would also destroy their own habitats and incomes. I am talking about the penchant to refer-out to “community services” things that deserve a track record, and protection of due process.  In order to get rid of that, a whole different set of “courts” were created.

This appears to be a major thrust of the family court system itself an the enmeshment of behavioral/mental health “standards” as if they were solid, and science (rather than a combination of population control, individual coercion with a mix of religious beliefs and cults among the practitioners… This type of systemic change, I’ve found (through writing this blogs, and in dealing/networking with others about their experiences, but only as add-ons or emphases to what the research already proves) goes ALL THE WAY  to the top of government and relates to privatization, taxation and tax-exempt status.

Focusing on the family — and conciliation — courts as venues driven largely by a few private societies brought the situation into better focus.  I still feel that dealing with them as venues NOT subject to reform, or principles of honesty, integrity, and clean financials — EVER — would be one efficient way of “cleaning house” and reminding us that in this country, the “top dog” should still be law — not the “mental/behavioral health Archipelago.”  Have we learned NOTHING from history yet???  

EXPLAINING MY GRAVATAR, with some overlap the paragraphs just above here, can be found at:

Truth Fuels Flight, Lies Ensnare. Don’t Hang With, Serve (or Donate to) Tricksters or Their Targets. It’s a New Year — but there is STILL no valid excuse for abuse.

“Blue jays will attack humans if they get too close to their nesting area.”

‘Cyanocitta Cristata’ | Blue Jays and Other Resourceful, Smart, Related Species and Their Habitats: (About my Gravatar Image) (LGH Front Page | ‘exported’ Sept. 4, 2019) (short-link ends “–aXL” and as exported under 2,500 words). This link active and accurate only when the new post on which this writing has come to roost, is published.

The image of a bird taking flight was metaphorically where I wished to be, vis-a-vis certain controlling personalities and tactics applied, and economic vehicles through which they were applied.  It’s tougher now than it was two decades ago, in many ways, for women and mothers to fully and safely exit battering relationships involving the father of their children — because official federal, state, and often passed down to local (I mean, for the United States geopolitical system, essentially county, or where it applies, regional metropolitan areas organized as such) social policy has continued to emphasize, families and children as father’s property, and those who take exception to this for violent behavior by the fathers as needing their heads examined, and their attitudes “adjusted.”

Where this isn’t the “in your face” practice, there’s still the constant pressure to compromise with rights of competent, law-abiding adults to function as independent human beings once they have given birth or sired children, so to speak.  And that’s outrageous!  Let alone archaic.

The only “respectable” way to institute such outrageous standards and enforce them is to continue to appeal to social science, and the behavioral health, mental health fields as THE standard — even though there’s plenty of sects within them, some are more overtly religious (again, new age or “fundy” would be to labels discernible among the fields), and among common practices is to pick a common theme, TWEAK it, TRADEMARK it, and of course MARKET it.  The movement to again subjugate half the human race (the female half) to male domination as “the norm” and female-headed households or families as “abnormal” is incrementally, and from positions which would seem to be, pardon the term, “impregnable” through academia, and through major control of publishing platforms specialized in the social sciences, and rapid sharing of these among those who “qualify” or can afford the subscriptions.

Another way of funding much of this is to have the public chip in through major support from the largest grant-making agency, at least in the federal government, which I understand is still the Department of Health and Human Services.  But when it comes to projects, the trends consolidating branches of government, place-based social services, and use of regionally based intermediary PRIVATE sector organizations to pump up the credibility.

So, in 2018, now 2019 or in ANY year, there is still no VALID excuse for abuse— that includes economic coercion too — although we all continue to see and hear the usual ones for it, including from some circles which have branded themselves as preventing it.  

By “abuse,” I’m also referring to abuse of power by those claiming to protect women, children and men, and exercising this power through concealment of their own resources and networks which serve to entrap ALL into financing, somehow, systems which can sustain the climate of “MIA” financial reports, dissociative thinking about how government enties interact with the private sector, dissociative thinking about actual resources available based on ACCOUNTING practices.

Likewise, in 2018 (and 2019, or in ANY year) as in prior decades, an organization’s — or the US Federal government’s — budget is still NOT a comprehensive AUDITED** financial statement.  Whether it’s a nonprofit, a government entity, or the collective nonprofit wealth and/or collective government wealth (such as contained in institutional funds, pooled investment funds, and so forth). More people need to grasp this and demonstrate an insatiable curiosity to read these, using functional vocabulary, not that which has been spoon-fed, shrink-wrapped and censored and oversimplified (with distraction from how stated “truths” are only true in certain contexts, and as such, extremely limited when the larger context is even brought into the picture…).  (** BY IMPLICATION, independently audited.)

So, I’ve continued working hard on posts and getting them and the occasional new page out there. Unlike many of the nonprofits I’ve studied, I do not change my username, this blog domain name, service provider (it’s still WordPress) or basic appearance regularly.  And I’ve only changed the “Gravatar” (image associated with myself as a user) once over nine years.  The former one was a bumper sticker, cellphone snapshot of an unknown person’s car (vehicle license # not shown as I recall) which read:

“There’s No Excuse for Abuse!”

a statement I still believe.  Over time, I’ve just gotten wiser on how it (abuse) is: implemented, structured, enacted, and rationalized nationally, and with that understanding, I still believe, a more effective way (other than just reporting) to discourage “business as usual” in the public/private partnerships, maintaining class systems, and attempts to put (most, not all) women back into the “dark ages” based on their reproductive biology and invented practices and world views masquerading as “science” to give the impression we are somehow progressing, and turning the United States into a paternalistic, patriarchal theocracy while in the name of “public welfare.”

To go back to the top, simply type in “FamilyCourtMatters.org” <~~or click on this link to that exact address.  

This is a WordPress blog, and the word “WordPress” only doesn’t appear in it because I paid a fee for an upgrade and redirect to the “*.org” domain name.  By definition, blogs are different than some sponsored, more structured websites run by corporations and major nonprofit organizations; they encourage posting; while the structure can get complex, making it more complex, I’ve found to be itself pretty complex…. (self-taught at least).

GENERALLY:

I sense that the amount of content this blog can contain, having now just past its tenth “anniversary” (perhaps in light of the content, “birthday” is a better word!) is reaching its limits, but for now, it is the main “carrier” I have as a private, non-sponsored person without funds for webmasters, developers, etc., and in no position to do a conference circuit (privacy issues  as safety issues still involved, still).

My main effort will continue to be in research in reporting, with hopes to keep it well organized enough such that administrative upkeep doesn’t take over the schedule.

COMMENTS ACTIVITY ON THIS PAGE:

The home page has many comments on it (some of them, me answering comments submitted as I recall).  Be aware that people may be responding to material now off-ramped.  More typically, they are general comments, or simply contacting me about geographically or case- or cause-specific situations, as I recall.  (The comments field on this blog is less active than it would be, for example, on a forum where soliciting comments and group activity was the main focus.  My purpose here is to lay out certain types of information and encourage people to check it out, rule it out, and deal with existence when (or best, before) joining what may very well be a front group or quasi-cult situation where their horror stories may be exploited for other than genuine or honest purposes.

Policy:  If you want to contact me but do NOT want the comment published, say so up front.  I will respect this; I do not respect, however personal attacks on others (or myself) and encourage comments to be directed towards the general good, to include specific geographic (to the county level if USA) or organization (full legal name; links appreciated) if possible when complaining or communicating about any program, positively or negatively.  I realize there may be safety issues on revealing even exact location (I am in this situation presently, too:  “no longer in California” is the best you’re going to get), but realize, I’m an investigative blogger, not a case adviser, lawyer, licensed psychologists or social worker, and seek to put out information which might be useful, once the principles were understood, in individual situations, and especially for proposed reform movements to take into account.

(See you also on Twitter, where I am @LetUsGetHonest (look for the flying blue jay Gravatar)

“There’s No Excuse for Abuse!”

‘A Different Kind of Attention Develops Sound Judgment‘ | ‘Suppose I’m Right Here?‘

TO GO BACK TO THE TOP OF THIS (SUBSIDIARY TO FRONT PAGE) PAGE, click its shortlink here: https://wp.me/PsBXH-bXr