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

PAGE TITLE:  Sixteen Years ‘Post-9/11,’ and Nearly Twice That ‘Post-PRWORA’, Yes I’m still asking Ordinary People to Modify Their Own Behavior(!) –> To Accept Individual ‘Response-Ability’ (for a change!) To Look Up, Look at and Compare: IRS Forms 990; Federal Grants; and State-level Corporate filings… To Consider Database Organization (for all of the above)… To Recognize White-collar Crime within the P3* sector, and To Reject, Protest, and Resist Propaganda, including ALL Irrational Excuses for P3*-Engineered Global Paradigm Shifts. (Published at about 5,500 (make that now) 6,600 words Thursday, Sept. 14, 2017, with WordPress-generated, case-sensitive shortlink ending “-7Bv”)

This page is a bit more free-wheeling than usual, but I still make my points…. It comes from the middle of a post “Introducing my new page…” (short-link ending “-7xs” its much longer title, right below, and again at the end of this page) from the section in this same background-color) talking about the writing process for this blog and different “modes” which are sometimes involved affecting the output. That section started:

Many will not like my tone or content, but my main concerns remain:  is it true, is it relevant to others beyond myself and immediate family, and beyond my lifetime; is it clear; where not personal anecdotal in character, is it basically substantiated with credible (or as close to it as a reasonable person without a research budget might get),  free, on-line sources outside this blog?

I wrote an intro here; the part in this lighter-colored background was basically my introduction to posting three images, one of which shows a connection between an early San Francisco psychoanalyst, collector of snakes and breeder or importer (?) of Burmese cats, mentoring the founder of Scientology as a 12-year old boy.

Talking about that profession, I again ended up discussing “AFCC” again (I’ve also been updating some posts with information on the chapters). That section has some images, but was included more of a general reminder of terminologies in use and professions being created by private associations with membership in public offices than as a detailed expository or full proof of what I say there. I also pick on AFCC’s over-use of the word “professionals”  as a generic term which within the organization leadership and targeted professions to become members, refers to just a few out of the many types of “professionals” available in life).

This possibly indicates some have a bit of a chip on the shoulder about the social niche of, say, court administrators of parent educators when compared with other adults they will be ruling or judging on, sometimes with make-or-break-a-life consequences.  By emphasizing the term they aretrying to elevate some of their own (others, such as judges or lawyers, don’t appear to need that hand up socially), and earn more R.E.S.P.E.C.T for the behavioral health, mental health and “evaluate-a-personal-relationship-for-pay” fields. This along with the use “interdisciplinary” (i.e., from one discipline to another) essentially puts some of the lower-rung, and (in my opinion) less academically rigorous to enter OR practice lines of work on a closer, “collegial” relationship with ones that, typically, our culture already respects and has for decades.

By implication (and for the uses intended here), “disciplines” not within the limited range represented by the small (but well-positioned) organization “Association of Family and Conciliation Courts” (“AFCC” for short) with its miscellaneous (not that many, really) also SMALL chapters, are subject to being dominated and lives affected by those in these professions, regardless of which makes (overall) more positive contributions to society and the world….

The emphasis and usage of “professionals” is also a subtle terminology alteration from normal usage, i.e., “quasi-jargon.”  More common usage indicates what type of professional is meant (whether plumber, architect, gymnast, artist or anything else).  It’s something a social-climbing and “re-classifying” move, and for leverage and influence over “families” who may have any or no kind of academic, professional, scientists, doctor, (etc.) as either mother or father, and yet be hauled in front of, or come in front of some of THESE professionals to be judged, evaluated on their parenting, ordered into parenting classes or even “supervised visitation” status (a real cash-drain for most, and if you think about it, outrageous situation turning time with one’s own children into a commodity).  So yes, I’m not going to miss many opportunities to make fun of this situation, although it’s a serious matter for anyone forcibly or personally involved.

Below all that, and in this background-color again is the material (writing and images) moved here, which along the theme in this title, has some discussion of the different qualities of various state-level corporate entity search pages, with some links. Again, these alone in my opinion, signify some things seriously wrong on the accountability level from state to state, while professional societies and organizations (which I also post on -“Do You Know Your NGA, NCSC, NCSL, NASMHPD, NCJFCJ (etc.)” type posts) which are already organized and networked to speak similar languages and build relationships with each other to direct what happens at the state level.

Originating post (prepping for same-day publication, allow some transition time): Full post title, THIS post: Introducing A New Page, How and When Problem-Solving (make that ‘Collaborative Justice’) Courts were Institutionalized and other Consolidate/Coordinate/Standardize/PRIVATIZE Stories at Courts.CA.Gov. AND, some of the Backdrop (My Personal Experience of Turn-of-Century Social Policy towards Women Reporting Abuse and Efforts to Exit It …

P3* means “Public/Private Partnerships” and in the USA (my primary research country, and where I’ve lived, attended college, worked, married and gave birth, raised children under difficult (domestically violent) conditions, while working in different combinations, where I also separated from abuse, basically all my life, having been born here), that’s where the power effectively lies, NOT with “the people.”  “The people” are at whom this power base is directed, and who also support the infrastructure as an infinitely (while still alive) taxable public resource (even long after — see CAFR1.com and consider the CAFR situations — the collectively controlled assets, well-invested could but don’t fund government budgets without legitimate need for further taxation, specifically on income (wages, employment, etc.))  

Along with P3 investments comes Who Pays?, and “Can You Locate the Short-Term and Long-Term Profits?” (Or follow the money trail — revenues+ expenses, assets + liabilities gross and net, anywhere between effectively?  Whose burden is the debt?).

United States has a population which has already proven it can and will believe almost anything, and as a result, can be actively and indirectly manipulated (pressured) into ongoing consent, compliance, or even collaboration almost at will, just like in a bona fide cult, sect; just like in Scientology.**  They can also be incited to fight each other in certain arenas, effectively keeping them out of the other arenas, like figuring out how government operates, is funded, and how the nonprofit sector of BOTH political persuasions, likes to expand infinitely, and organize collectively based on the general theme of scarce resources, budget deficit, and that taxation is what actually supplies the majority of revenues coming to and through government entities, when in fact — it isn’t.  

As I’m writing this, Berkeley, California (as in, U.C. Berkeley) is again bracing itself this weekend against violence with an anticipated conservative speaker.  It’s headline news.  What chance in this climate that the opposing parties, who already have their values and issue-based “specs” on what constitutes a “bad guy,” and who are the “good guys” riding to the rescue, those who show up to rally, or protest a rally, are going to sit down together and compare notes on the fiscal and filing habits of their own (let alone the opposing side’s) key nonprofits?  And admit malfeasance on both sides — not just the one we DON’T want in power?

Part of cultic behavior is defining who is the “other” and making sure that certain things (ESPECIALLY group finances, or oppressive behavior towards their own, or censorship) are NOT to be discussed?

Meanwhile, I’ve been systematically posting on both sides of an issue near to my own experience (domestic violence) both pro and con on the same organizations representing, allegedly, one gender vs. the other, and I’ve been posting financials and tax returns because in general rhetoric goes nowhere.  It just pings back and forth, I suppose keeping on-lookers occupied (and participants) with trading verbal jabs, horror stories, and seeking journalists to cover the same.

(**Quack, quack, what does it look, sound, waddle, talk, and act like — possibly that’s what it is?  That is, what does L. Ron Hubbard have in common with a primary government-endorsed and, long-term supported profession which, combined with one of the most powerful professional (although I call it simply “trade”) associations around (the ABA), helps run the courts?).  

See next three images, posted from a source I’d run across recently.

If you’ve read my blog over time, you’ll realize I read extensively on the history, associations behind, founders, and leaders certain fields (psychology + psychoanalysis especially) because of their involvement in family courts, social science R&D on people by way of federally-funded grants, and are involved in behavioral modification, persuasion, sales, and in essence, indoctrination to alter personal viewpoints or investments of any excess income or time — for example, to marry more, divorce less, co-parent more nicely (even if the reason for separation involved personal physical safety of a spouse or child),  and of course, everyone should stop smoking, too.

It takes very little time to look at the organization AFCC (for see how, see post title!) and realize a primary purpose was to involve more use of mental/ behavioral health professionals in the courts, whether court-appointed and funded, or referral-based (privately paid), and as a membership organization, insure continuing work for each other and moving forward strategic organization goals (Best-practices, Model Standards, Guidelines, etc.) WITHIN public institutions, such as those courts….  Just look at the mix of degrees and job descriptions on the boards of directors over time.  There was already plenty of ABA and APA (and state, and local county, or subject-specific) associations around; AFCC’s themes and selling points were early on “international” and “interdisciplinary.”

AFCC is the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts – the premier interdisciplinary and international association of professionals dedicated to the resolution of family conflict.  AFCC members are the leading practitioners, researchers, educators and policymakers in the family court arena.  © 2017 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts.

click to enlarge: yellow rectangle at bottom recites the organization’s self-description, beyond its motto at the top..

Motto shown underneath the organization name: Improving the lives of “children and their families” … (Some might debate this…)

And of course featuring and reminding us constantly “professionals.”  Typically the word “professional” is an adjective followed by a noun, or a noun preceded by an adjective saying “IN WHAT..”   For example: professional football, football player, football team — or artist:

(name of a magazine)

Not that according to this generic membership description, there aren’t many other professions besides psychologists, lawyers and judges around, but somehow on a case-by-case and demographic basis, these ones should be the experts ruling over families whose professional or trade, work (etc.) background ranges from broke to wealthy, and from business owners to employees, blue collar and white-collar both.  In other words, do scientists, engineers, neurosurgeons, entrepreneurs, brokers, day-traders, mathematicians, physicists, astronomers, geologists, and others, need to continually remind the public that they are “professionals”..  While most people accept, I believe, that lawyers are in this category and doctors, it appears that the psychologists (and psychoanalysts, mental health specialists, mediators, custody evaluators and child psychologists felt a deep need, through Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, to reinforce in the public eye that they are professionals too..a social niche near the top of the middle class, not to be confused with the ordinary divorced or separated parents who can’t see clearly about almost anything important without their (professional) help..

I looked for “professional architect” and found description and entrance requirements for first-year Professionals in Architecture.  Pratt Institute (around since 1877) has campuses in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Utica, NY.  Even to get into “Architecture First-Professional (M.Arch) graduate training, they need not just a basic degree (and to take the GREs) but also a portfolio in the chosen emphasis:

AFCC board members, by contrast, come from a limited few professions (J.D., Ph.D./Psy.D. and “Hon.” i.e., judges, and occasionally an Ed.D.) and the entity focuses on controlling not the profession of law or judging (again, there are already associations for the same) but working on collection of specialty fields they also helped to create, then inspire/encourage/practice and eventually if possible, get legislated into existence, other professions which can, with their allied organizations (NCJFCJ, NACC, etc.) they might also control.

They also help control the journal for the field (“Family Court Review.”) with a private university in New York.  Soliciting articles for it at the AFCC website, it’s not immediately apparent, although some sub-menus eventually disclose that this is actually AFCC’s publication, not the Family Courts’ (per se’s) publication.  It’s a private nonprofit association’s journal.  The membership just happens to be frequently employed in the public sector…

Invitation to Authors (from: http://www.afccnet.org/Publications/Family-Court-Review/Submit-an-article)

Family Court Review (FCR) invites articles concerned with all aspects of family law, family courts, and the resolution of family disputes. Articles are welcomed on topics such as divorce and separation; child custody; child abuse and neglect; domestic violence; adoption; termination of parental rights; juvenile delinquency; status offenses; unified family courts; problem-solving family courts; any other aspect of family court organization; professional ethics and standards of practice of lawyers, judges, mental health professionals, lawyers for parents and children, and mediators involved in family dispute resolution; therapeutic justice; domestic violence among family members**; gender issues in family law; court-affiliated family education programs; conciliation; mediation; alternative dispute resolution; expert evaluation; arbitration; juvenile dependency; guardianship; probate conservator-ships; elder abuse; and collaborative law, as are articles about strengthening and preservation of family life. International perspectives on these topics are strongly encouraged.*

(*That should help dilute any domestic progress made in protecting women and children within the USA, i.e., “feminism”)

FCR is an interdisciplinary journal and invites contributions from the fields of law, court administration, mental health, medicine, the behavioral and social sciences, dispute resolution, education, public policy, and other disciplines concerned with the welfare of children and families.

**Interesting how ‘domestic violence” which typically involves either a married couple or otherwise “intimate partner violence” and can be either a felony or a misdemeanor, is conditioned as “among family members.”  Does that mean, ain’t interested when there are no children around?   How much “domestic violence” occurs NOT involving family members as opposed to involving them? (i.e.,reframing the word “domestic” with a “family” extension label). From the same webpage, different sub-link (“Types of Articles”) two types indicate practices they are interested in, notice particularly Domestic Violence, Family Treatment Courts:

4. Empirical Research: This category of articles includes original empirical research or reviews of empirical research that furthers public policy and interdisciplinary dialogue in FCR ʼs areas of interest. Examples of articles in this category include reviews of research on domestic violence, child abuse, supervised visitation, mediation, and empirically focused pieces on the impact of divorce on children. These articles are written mainly by researchers in social science, psychology, alternative dispute resolution, and other relevant fields.** Articles in this category should describe the public policy implications of the research that is being discussed and should generally contain a review of relevant literature. This category of article is primarily reviewed by social science experts with assistance from lawyers to assess practical and policy implications of the research and the validity of any legal discussion.

**How many times will using the word “empirical” or “empirically focused” lend credibility to the framing of child abuse and domestic violence (criminal acts, felony or misdemeanor, including potential injury, death, murder, homicide, femicide, suicide, familicide) as “Social science studies…”?  Discussion of those realities and the destruction of those criminal behaviors on family members is not even mentioned in the list, although the subject matter includes these very real events — and such things as kidnapping, stalking, terroristic threats, property destruction, abandonment (of minor children once stolen from one parent) and other acts for which a person MIGHT be jailed, however “the impact of divorce on children” (well-known AFCC “original” or close to it, Judith Wallerstein did a famous study on this — and she was married to psychoanalyst Robert S. Wallerstein….) and supervised visitation (which is among those created professions, and with associated societies (SVN) to promote the field nationwide and cross-borders) — these articles are welcome… Among the forms of child abuse unfortunately, that sometimes occurs, is incest — sexual molestation.  Somehow, that’s a “taboo topic” (which hardly helps the victims; it DOES help the perps to cloud the issue in NOT talking about it), which when it does occur, drastically affects the non-abusing parent on many levels.

However when it comes to “false accusations” of any of the above, AFCC is well-prepared to counter or derail the conversation through substitute-and-replace tactics, such as the created crime of “parental alienation” for which — in this venue — all kinds of punishments (including curtailment of contact with offspring, and/or jail time and fine) can occur and has occurred.  I wonder how seriously “false accusations of parental alienation” would be taken in the same circles, as it appears to be a legal tactic to counter reporting and seeking intervention around the other, more injurious and potentially lethal situations I described above…)

5. Practice Innovations: This category of articles includes discussion of clinical and court-based programs that represent important innovations in family law or dispute resolution practice but do not necessarily have evaluation data to confirm their effectiveness. The practice innovation described in the article should have important innovative features that other practitioners, family courts, and communities could replicate. Articles on Integrated Domestic Violence Courts, Family Treatment Courts, programs for self-represented litigants, and other innovations in court services would fit into this category. These articles should provide good descriptive information about program design and operation as well as available data on program evaluation. Articles should include a disclaimer describing any limitations of validating research, as well as plans for future research. Lawyers, court administrators, social science experts, or a combination of these experts review this category depending on the subject matter of the proposed innovation.

This is one way the professions are set up, advertised, and promoted of course…Then other membership can talk about them from their own platforms and spread the good news….

Are the FCR article reviewers organization (AFCC) members only, or do non-members in those fields get input?  I should write a letter of inquiry..

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Anyhow, hopefully this indicates how they’ve helped encourage and “spearhead” professions such as mediation (and getting it made mandatory for some jurisdictions), parent education, parent coordinator, etc., for a created set of courts, with the same professional organization having been set up by presiding judges or directors of the original conciliation (counseling-referrals) courts attached to the courts handling divorce.  Which courts and courthouses and, as much exists, staff (including professional court-appointed mediators, etc.) the public must then financially support, whether or not even made aware of the AFCC, a PRIVATE nonprofit with fairly small membership nationwide (excuse me, internationally) not even a chapter in every state, and some involved as associate law professors (or probably full ones also), even exists, and a real “attitude” towards domestic violence that dislikes categorizing it as the crime it is, to be countered by a new set of “thought” or “relationship” crimes, i.e., parental alienation….

The basic two disciplines are psychologist and lawyers or a variety there of, with most judges having been lawyers also.  Members of the boards of directors have become “ensconced” at various law schools, and some at schools of professional psychology.  Dispute resolution, conciliation, etc. centers then get set up at the same places to “prime the pump” for new generations of lawyers and psychologists to adopt the same value systems.  (Coaching, mentoring, “experiential education” as facilitated by those already involved and having bought onto the collective (association) mindset, and practices…)

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So above, when I made that verbal “crack” about Scientology and the same practices, I thought of this interesting “factoid” on early influences by psychoanalyst on the founder of a well-known cult, or religion, depending on one’s point of view…It also talks about the tension between restricting the practices of psychoganalysis to medical professionals, vs. “lay,” which term alone ought to also clue us in that this is closer to religion than science, although I dare you to say that to the face of a practitioner!

Click image to enlarge. Three Images, I’m including it for Image #2 of 3 referencing mentoring influences (common background with?) on the founder of Scientology and a profession deeply entrenched within the makeup of the nation’s family court system, not to mention the self-declared premier organization (essentially, running, leading, and steering) it, AFCC (for more on that, see my Sticky Posts and/or the TOC.) Found at: http://internationalpsychoanalysis.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/ BenvenisteEarlyPain.pdf

Image #2 of 3, Daniel Benviste

Image #3 of 3, Daniel Benviste

Along with P3 comes Who Pays, and “Can You Locate the Profits?”

Sooner or later, we have to learn to talk accounting, numbers, labels, and functional categories.  Math is not the enemy — math is a wonderful language, it’s got a logic to it.  It’s your friend. Accounting is putting math into categories representing things in the real world, and it could be real or fake, inconsistent or internally consistent, and along with that, credible, or “not-so” credible.

It could also be “Missing In Action” for specific groups and the people running them, who want to increase the numbers under control of their kind, and persuade you it’s in your best interest to continue decreasing yours, for post-poned (future) benefit; after all, aren’t we “all on the same page”??  

That’s where learning some of the accounting labels and basic math, as well as some of the basics of P3 paper as reflected on the places I mentioned in that title, can also be your friend, as “character-references.”

Below this line is where I moved some writing to its new home, here from where it was cluttering up my post, HERE.  At the end of the day (or reading this page) I hope you click the link and return to its “parent post.”

Yes, I am asking ordinary people for a major change: accept individual response-ability to start reading 990s, federal grants and corporate filings… to recognize the symptoms of white-collar crime within public/private partnerships.

Regarding those changes:  yes, on this blog and by way of continuing to post on it, I am asking for large-scale change.  I am asking ordinary people I may not even know or ever converse with to recognize that and comprehend why they individually have both the ability AND the “respons-ability,” the duty, to exert themselves to start examining financial reports (990s) of the nonprofit sector and (at a minimum) federal grants and corporate filings (which are at the state, typically “secretary of state” level) databases in the public sector,** and to along the way, develop, if it’s not already there, awareness of where databases reporting on the same are even reliable, let alone functional.  I am asking people to develop and act on (support, don’t support, blog, or don’t re-blog without disclaimer, or exposure!) situations where major discrepancies show up, and from there, even if they do not take direct action to correct, to remember this when further propaganda comes their way.  
**The filings for private companies to be legal within the United States (with certain exceptions, apparently, on unincorporated associations — not my area of expertise) must happen with public government entities — one or more of the United States of America or its territories, in order to be legal, unless it files within description of legal exceptions to that rule.  This puts the PUBLIC over the PRIVATE for permission.  Therefore when the two are too closely aligned (‘in bed with each other) or one is too financially dependent on the other (example:  government entities that don’t take responsibility for databases they’ve outsourced to report on the corporations they control; on the other side, private entities which are so entrenched in government, that the public can be said to be forcibly, but without our awareness, sponsoring them.  ICF, International is in this category; I talk about it below).

Within the states, each has its own requirements for filing, including what and how often, and each has its own way (whether in-house or out-sourced) of presenting that information on-line.  Some states’ databases and access to them is more secretive and opaque (for example, Delaware, D.C., Minnesota, Texas or Pennsylvania (which doesn’t even require annual filings AND charges $3.00 a search + extra, by page-count, requiring registration of a credit or debit card to even look beyond the basic, basic surface info on any organization) than others (for example, Florida, Massachusetts, or to a degree, Maryland) than others.  Some give a great appearance of openness and transparency (at the federal level, make that “TAGGS.HHS.gov” or California’s “BusinessSearch.sos.ca.gov” which is the newer version of the older “kepler.sos.ca.gov“) but only on closer examination end up being “full of it” (or, as to some aspects, add two consonants to the last two-letter pronoun!) and some barely try to pretend (for example, the Department of Justice, or any agencies underneath it).  Of the two options, the “seems transparent, but isn’t really” is a worse situation.  In the latter, at least you know what you do NOT have — IF you even know to look for it.

That link a search results for the phrase I used above; I cannot speak for anything on it, and am posting for a point of reference only.  Here’s another one, related though not identical topic, from Bay Area Council Economic Institute, with its writer a Senior Fellow at the National University of Singapore  “5 Maps that Show Why Cities Rule the World” and after the maps, concludes recommending:

America should wake up to a world of hyper-competitive and connected cities. Indeed, the US should think seriously about how to transform itself into a “United City-States of America.”

I disagree, particularly as we are registered at the state level (as are all the corporations required to register), where we have to resort when seeking protection from fellow-human beings (related or not) in courts which are legally under and regulated by individual state governments. It’s obvious there is a move to undermine states and replace them with internationally connected cities, placing the ruling powers even further from reach of the average human being.  Author:  Parag Khanna is a CNN Global Contributor and Senior Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. This article is adapted from his forthcoming book “Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization,” to be released on April 19 from Penguin Random House.

One of the maps shows China organized around mega-cities; others talk about SEZs (Special Economic Zones) including two in the USA (which states just got hit by natural(?) disasters, i.e., hurricanes). Image print quality is poor, sorry (not that I’m responsible for that):

Article here seems to date to 2010. Previous map references Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and says: “America too has its own SEZs: The Port of Corpus Christi, Texas, and Tampa, Florida, have been licensed as Foreign Trade Zone (FTZs) since the 1980s, using their tax-free logistics facilities to attract businesses focused on commodities and manufacturing exports through the expanding Panama Canal.”

Global Hubs become Demographic Melting Pots” map, lead-in text (not pictured here) reads: This map identifies the cities participating in just a small number of the more than 200 inter-city learning networks that are actively sharing best practices in every arena, from climate and safety to education and social inclusion. This is about the same number as inter-govern-mental organizations. Soon enough, “diplomacity”— diplomacy among cities— will supersede traditional diplomacy among states in importance.

New York (home to NYC, along with London, the financial capital, or with the Vatican City + D.C. one of “Three Cities that Rule the World still? No, but still powerful in its own place) I like and often use New York’s Corporate search database (in part because face it, how many big influential organizations are registered there?!!) but there’s plenty it just doesn’t record, for which readers are welcome to try any of the 58 counties, one by one (unless other clues to which one are known):

(Self-explanatory; there’s more info on the same page, as well as the search fields (a Captcha response is required to prove you’re not an automated process).  Click to enlarge, notice last sentence**

**”All other entities such as general partnerships, sole proprietorships and limited liability partner-ships file an assumed name certificate directly with the county clerk in each county in which the entity conducts or transacts business.”

I also use and like CharitiesNYS.com (under the NY Office of Attorney General you’ll see) because of its many search field options and, where available, uploaded images of registration filings (it is a resource which can be researched). Remember, as it says, after first reminding readers that religious and some other organizations may not have to register.  (Scroll down a bit after clicking on that link to see the search fields).

Posting here does not mean the organization is an approved tax-exempt organization under the internal revenue code. For information about the deductibility of contributions to organizations with tax-exempt status or pending status with the IRS, visit www.IRS.Gov.

For inquiries regarding the registration status of a charitable organization, please call the Charities Bureau at 212-416-8401 or Charities.Bureau@ag.ny.gov.

For inquiries concerning the registration status of professional fundraisers and other fundraising professionals, please call the Charities Bureau at 518-776-2160 or send an email to Charities.Fundraising@ag.ny.gov.   {{SOME WILL HAVE DUAL REGISTRATIONS}}

The state databases recording corporations also vary in what types of records they show, whether images are viewable, and so forth.  Some records only go back so far (for example, California’s Registry of Charitable Trusts typically doesn’t go back before the year 1999, while some of the most influential charitable trusts around, or the parts of them which survived mergers, pre-date this century, meaning, we have not readily accessible public record of the most important information on them, from government-sponsored websites.

Through this blog I’m also asking people to recognize and sensitize personal awareness of common tactics for obtaining inappropriate consent or continued justification of public funds; to accept that when a website representing an organization (or several of them) with or without obvious government entity involvement is devious and deceptive enough, seeking to bypass normal, bona fide self-identification and certain financials common to ALL registered entities, it doesn’t matter how noble the cause may be; that organization, and depending how the networking is done, possibly even that “noble cause” should not be supported.  Know at least a few symptoms of probable presence of white-collar crime.  

And I’m asking us to admit that we already have major systems of such types of organizations seeking to run public institutions: courts, prisons, jails, schools, and social services.  This doesn’t mean all employees are crooked, but it likely DOES mean that the employees are taking pay from crooked organizations and systems.  Therefore, it’s not “someone else’s” problem.

You don’t have to be a math whiz or genius for basic understanding of numbers enough to distinguish large from small according to how many digits they have (which is larger?  $200 or $2,000,000?   Which is larger:    $234,000 or $543,000?).

You need to know numbers from 1-9, and “place” as well as the difference between adding and subtracting.  A sense of proportion if it’s not there to start with, should come with practice. Memory  helps (what you read on Page 1 summary, compare to what’s on the supporting documentation) and some basic labels/vocabulary — which is also the ability to learn IF the terms are new, words for processes we all deal with in life anyhow:  buying and selling, paying bills and keeping track of what’s available to do that with, now, and later.  The concept of ownership, and where on a tax return to identify the current “owners” and the concept of relationship, and where on a tax return this is either acknowledged, or where it ought to be, but other places show it simply isn’t.

I assure you that these skills and habits are worthwhile and transferable into MANY other areas of life because over time (with application) they help develop better judgment, and the ability to focus on something other than what, in our information- sound- and image-drenched media world, in general, we are encouraged to look at, and encouraged to do so with the long-term goal of sales (whether sales of trademarked G&S (Goods & Services, a US Patent and Trademark Office term) or of social policies to justify raising taxes, or even continuing some of the ones in place, or reducing services — or centralizing what otherwise would be separation of powers for purposes of balance within government, or blurring the lines between public and private.

By contrast, looking at the presently available political parties or parties in America and picking one that better matches from the menu of issues both present to support or oppose, develops loyalty, and probably (depending on how far it’s taken) organizing or promoting (speechmaking) abilities.  But it doesn’t necessarily develop the kind of judgment we all need to balance the immense power of public/private partnerships, where both the public (gov’t) AND the private sector leadership fully understand the power of tax-exemption and how to move and hide assets, the art of camouflage when it comes to tax-exempt entities and their backers, and how to work the nonprofit system for the long-term goal of profit and, literally, buying allegiances (for example of subcontractors).  Or playing both sides of the fence, together,while telling the public, overall, that the private nonprofit sector is both correcting-course AND serving the public sector.

[next paragraph summarizes the dialogue started on originating post, talking about keeping the pilot light on during the writing process, and continuing to research and write on these topics..]

I have found most of my primary passion on these issues came first as a mother, however, with long-term exposure to the degrees of injustice, fraud, lying, cheating, bullying and irrational “reasoning” seen at the CENTER of the movements I’ve been studying (as it says, large-scale movements), not to mention in our local metro area (where law enforcement are frequently getting into trouble with the law themselves…) another passion I’ve had for a very long time is the just desire to deal with the truth — not pervasive documentable, and ever-increasing lies — on governmental operations we are (most people, obviously not all) expected to sustain financially generation after generation.  

How different my life would’ve been had I known the arena I was dealing with in the early 2000s forward had just been “tweaked” by PRWORA policies from outside that arena and outside my state, based on the nationally-proclaimed ideal family setup NOT being a single mother with children, no matter who, and no matter why… and lumping in those who were dealing with assault and battery in the home with those who were not, under (in California) a whole different section of code than the one even referencing domestic violence as a rebuttable presumption against custody (as Cindy Ross of Northern California and at the time, California Director of “NCJFCJ” described many years ago; I’ve posted on it before and it’s included in one of the several posts I hope to get out within the next day or so).

Return to originating post, published Sept. 14, 2017…This is the originating posts’ long-form title:
Full post title, THIS post: Introducing A New Page, How and When Problem-Solving (make that ‘Collaborative Justice’) Courts were Institutionalized and other Consolidate/Coordinate/Standardize/PRIVATIZE Stories at Courts.CA.Gov. AND, some of the Backdrop (My Personal Experience of Turn-of-Century Social Policy towards Women Reporting Abuse and Efforts to Exit It …

Most people probably won’t land here until it’s published with a link here, but in case you somehow do the above link doesn’t yet direct you there, check back in an hour; I published this one first, and have to paste links back and forth, run the final “preview,” etc. Thanks//LGH (Let’s Get Honest).