Identify the Entities, Find the Funding, Talk Sense!
“Justice and Freedom” (they’re partners!) are on really the auction block, and without dedication to doing something about this, one will need more Bread and Circuses (probably) to live at peace with one’s conscience — or to avoid acknowledging this.
Technology & Capital & Control of markets will always trump Law. And in this country law doesn’t exist for what we may like to believe it does.
Time to upgrade one’s financial literacy — as well as understanding welfare reform, as well as “give it up” on thinking that dollars = “money.” Dollars are not the only form of money by a long shot. And it’s unacceptable NOT to deal with some of this material after work, before work, or while unemployed, if one is. If our heads are a century behind the definition of a dollar, our behinds will be for sale even sooner.
MY EXPERIENCE WITH FHA-HUD
BACKGROUND INFORMATION FOR UNDERSTANDING
TAPEWORM ECONOMICS
By Catherine Austin Fitts
June 2003
***My story began intersecting with C.A. Fitts’ description of HUD mortgage defaults and “narco-dollars” repeatedly — particularly as the HHS has clear connections in some of its policies — like marriage/fatherhood policies, and faith-based ones — to money laundering through the grants system. For example, the other day, attempting to explain this to some Lackawannans (i.e., Pennsylvanians — Lackawanna being the county right next to the infamous “kids for cash” scheme in Luzerne) who felt discovering the religion of a hated GAL was some kind of information breakthrough– I looked another grantee with the words “faith-based” in its name, out of Oceanside, California (North San Diego, I gather)
This along with some in Florida, was one of the first (2002) showing as receiving a “compassion capital fund” startup. And yet its umbrella (associated) “interfaith community services” [at the same street address] was recipient of multi-million$$ federal grants, particularly around housing, and had been the subject of studies (it says) from both Texas (as to faith-based) and Columbia Univ. As I looked at “faith-based community development corporation” one short step (link) showed a related credit union. None of it was adding up, particularly as USAspending.gov said the group got $150K (same exact grant), and Taggs said it only got $75K. Both databases allegedly get their sources FROM HHS — and to boot, this FBCDC had an EIN — but no DUNS# (etc.)The umbrella (my term) nonprofit had been around, it said, since 1979 — incorporated since 1982. It didn’t take very long to start unearthing discrepancies (one day or far less). The next day, I studied more on Industrial Areas Foundation (Saul Alinsky) and found out how religious congregations and this type of programming are like male & female chemical receptors — both groups are hungry for power, immoral about how they get it, and have habitual under-reporting of income and failures to stay incorporated and transparent with the public. It was the match made in heaven…***
This blog here basically represents my study notes over a three-year period of WTF happened to “our” justice system — from the front lines of it. Not to mention WTF happened to “our” money (in the 1900s), and behind all this was the natural concern for HTF this happened to my life, as a mother (not just “parent” but a mother, in this century, in this political context, and as a person, as a member of a geographic and various other communities, and so forth.
I really do believe there’s truth in “Three Cities that Rule the World” (London, the Vatican, and Washington, D.C. — representing wealth, religion and the military/politics).
When the Bible said “The love of money is the root of all evil,” boy, did it tell the truth!
Also, the 10th commandment as “thou shalt not covet” (bastardized by one major religion into two separate commandments to cover for the deletion of the 2nd commandment about making and bowing down to graven images) — boy, did it tell the truth!
A lot of the evil in this world emanates from (1) political, (2) corporate, and (3) religious leadership in my own country, the USA, and most of this evil has been sold as “good” (or helping others). This triangle / “Triad” seems almost everywhere, the chief illusion being that they were ever truly separate. It’s a fine but basically meaningless distinction at this point.
The triangle image crops up everywhere, it seems — but even if it didn’t, those three do represent the major (earthly, at least!) power sources. Political (1) regulates the relationships (who hooks up with whom) between 2 & 3 — and really, this equilateral triangle could go almost any direction, with any angle on top — and have the same effect on the customers — financial devastation, homelessness, eventual death from that, starvation, or resulting riots, and definite eventual slavery along the way. EVERYONE accommodates to it — or is involved in fighting it. There are fewer and fewer DMZ’s left.
(these images sprang from my recent look-ups of HHS grantees with the word “faith-based” in their corporate names. I found out where HHS this millennia (and since welfare reform) intersects HUD (community development block grants) and has morphed. I also found out in this that the root of PICO (who trained one of the take the money and run nonprofits, in Oceanside California) is probably in on some real estate deals and has a board member whose nonprofit is based at a (Catholic) church — and which nonprofit was in effect something of a front for PICO Network recruiting. Don’t expect to follow all that unless you actually do the lookups, or at least read through where I did (bottom of this post). . . . .
That triad historically represents the major themes of a hierarchical society based on a caste system. Anyone NOT in the 1,2, or 3 sector is a client of it, and as such a target market (consumer). This includes the privatized prison industry, you name it.
The collective unconscious myths are crumbling, and people are looking for scapegoats.
Most of us have arranged our lives and made (too easy) a peace, I think, with these myths and are not willing (or possibly not able) to take the time to go through and dismantle, discard, re-organize and rebuild a world view with less cognitive dissonance.
And who has the guts and moral fiber to do this rebuilding without the easy way out — just joining another “church” — whether it be a literal religious-exempt 501(c)3 style (with or without a mortgage) — or the “church” of domestic violence rhetoric, family court psychobabble/cult-of-the-experts rhetoric, or fathers’ rights/family/children’s rights rehtoric, or “I’m holding down a job, therefore I gave at the office, whatsamatta with those people?” rhetoric (which is often internalized and not spoken openly)??
Unfortunately, the more I learn about where we are and how we got there, the more frightening and disturbing it becomes, collectively.
I have now fought the same basic fight, with pretty much the same basic tiresome people, for over 20 years; children have aged out, an elderly parent has died — with scarcely a pause in the hostilities. How does one get free of this without homelessness when one’s own governmental institutions are simply filled with fraud, and based on false theories about what causes poverty and violence (or at least on SELLING false theories about what causes poverty and violence to the public) ???
Like many others, members of (my generation of) my “family of origin” has some serious unresolved childhood issues it chose to work out on my hide, and bequeath to my children’s futures, at their, my, and society’s loss. So I have first-hand acquaintance of when & where the concept of “enlightening” sociopaths to the fact that their abuse is harmful to their children (try that when the adults in question HAVE no children….)
Many things are true — many concepts can hold water — but are not the fundamental, underlying truth surrounding an ongoing problem. Failing to account for the discrepancies and needing to move on, people turn to superstition and myths, and more “cognitive dissonance” — almost anything — to face truths that would cause a radical change in lifestyle anymore. Apparently those 1960s were a phase, now back to business — accumulating “money” (which isn’t accumulating wealth, but people still seem to believe this . . . . .). Similarly, feminism was a phase, now back to business: faith, family, fathers-dominant-model, & apple pie. . . . .we know it ain’t real, but who’s kidding whom? — it sells public policy!
This model of the wheel of abuse — it does reflect a reality, and more than “intimate partner violence” — it reflects the current relationship of the USA to most of its residents:
From Univ. Illinois @ Chicago, “Campus Advocacy Network“*
(*this “Power & Control” wheel is the hallmark of Duluth Abuse Intervention Programs, about which I have plenty on this blog… they are not “the good guys” for sure!)
This chart shows you the kinds of behavior abusers use to get and keep control over their partners. Battering is never an accident. It is an intentional act used to gain control over the other person. Physical abuse is only one part of a whole series of behaviors an abuser uses against his/her partner. Violence is never an isolated behavior. There are other forms of abuse, which are shown in the Power and Control Wheel.”
Noticing a dynamic doesn’t change the dynamic. While the wheel dynamic is helpful, that analogy is not thought through and applied well enough.
Those being hurt, railroaded, or simply spun off into a meaningless, powerless existence in such relationships — need the dynamic to be changed — or, alternately, those on it need to tap a highly superior form of energy & power to stop it, or just jump off it, or to cause that wheel to get stuck in its own rut, digging deeper and deeper. Using language to describe the dynamic does help — it distances oneself intellectually and psychologically, by commandeering a different language than (generally speaking) an abuser attempts to indoctrinate the target with.
When caught up in this situation, we need OFF the wheel. USUALLY it takes more than one person to break out when it’s whirling — or greater force than the centrifugal (etc.) forces.
However this doesn’t significantly change the person for who this wheel is a Grrreeeat and comfortable dynamic and worldview.
What happens next is, the energy of being freed from this abuse is a STRONG force in the freed person and, depending on the amount of damages they have to repair, they will often have the competence for independent and functional decision-making, along the lines often of what kept them alive while dealing with hostile environment (unless it was just luck or tenacity…).
But this is what happens when such a person has children — those children become bounty in a larger and different-players “wheel” of control, and often by virtue of needing welfare initially.
This welfare may come directly from the United States Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Title IV-A, and/or Title IV-D (Child support order) initially. Or it may come from someone outside, or both. But of all things such a family needs, immediately after the kickout — it’s generally TIME and SELF-DETERMINATION. . . . . Which are precisely the things they are least likely to get, as the entire country (as we speak) is itself caught up in another similar “wheel of power and control” based on the financial system, selling off debt, bailing out banks, and supporting an expanding administrative bureaucracy in which not just millions — but, literally Billions and Trillions of $$ are missing. GONE — unaccounted for.
As, we are finding — are children, and young adults, in this same system.
My children went missing for a month. But as law enforcement had deliberately enabled it, and there was legal profit to be made from it, eventually resulting in this blog when I found out WHY, I was on my own handling the shock, distress, trauma — and damage control, both with their school and my clients (work life). My work life never recovered — their (public) school never helped. At all — not an iota, including when I asked them for evidence they had. Nor did churches — anywhere. Why? In some religious worlds, a man and children in the congregation is worth something — prestige, finances, and public image. No matter if Mom is nowhere to be found and the Mom imposter isn’t even married to the guy . . . .
And in family law rhetoric, almost anything is worth SOMEthing in the system — a noncustodial father, a child support arrears, another person brought somehow back onto a dependency system who might have (with justice) stayed off it; more cases in the custody courts justifies they are “flooded” and need to initiate emergency triage procedures (and continue getting federal access/visitation grants which are only used to help the abusive parents, and/or fathers, regain access when access is an issue — not Moms. Trust us, that’s the truth!) — and you name it.
~ ~ ~I just wanted to say this today; I am heavy hearted from another round of the “power and control wheel” with someone who has their foot on my jugular IF my future requires finances, and the same person has had their foot on my jugular regarding access to and information about my immediate relatives. Barring outside intervention by the legal system, it’s up to me to make the critical situations in what to bail on and what to fight for. How’d YOU like to do this when it also included housing?
~ ~ ~So, when I talk about “myths” — the primary myth some of us still held (or in desperation, go through a phase of holding until the next rude awakening) is that government exists in this country to protect any form (whatsoever) of civil or legal rights more than it exists to complete draining the citizens of their blood — and assets — through various federal agencies (HHS & HUD, DOJ, DOE, etc.) — and in order to do this, a caste system must be maintained, as well as secrecy about the basic operations. My experience personally with my own (sick, truly!) family line (which maintains civic respectability, as many batterers also do) — has actually prepared me to reject inappropriate answers and continue mining for information that pulls it together in a reasonable fashion — that satisfies MY appetite for truth, and my awareness of many realities.
There are other whistleblowers more highly placed and financially literate than I have ever been (though improvement is always possible) — and they are also taking retaliation for it.
Of these — recently, I have run across the writings of Catherine Austin Fitts, formerly of FHA, and the daughter of a mother who, she writes, was on the Federal Reserve Board in Philadelphia. I first ran across the concept of “$59 billion missing from HUD” in association with approximately $14 million (collected but not distributed) child support being withheld inappropriately by the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, which the attorney Richard Fine (for plaintiff father John Silva) discovered, and filed a case about: “Silva v. Garcetti.”
Fine ended up going to jail for exposing to much and getting disbarred also. He spent 18 months incarcerated. But, Kelly Patricia O’Meara wrote up some of this event — and some of the HUD material, such that when I ran across it again later, I paid closer attention.
There is a place where HUD meets HHS around so-called “low-income people.” (People can have high or low income, but that doesn’t define them as people! However one would never know this from policyspeak).
I have been blogging it over at “Scranton Political Times” for a while (where I also learned a few HTML tricks, as you can see by this post) — and I recommend you read some of those comments. Links at the top of this post. Thanks for reading this far!
“Danielle Ross buh-bye” (Ross being a local GAL). My comments are kind of off-topic; I simply write as I research in response to some of the too-local-focus of the forum. At this point, I don’t think it has high viewership and of the viewership, multiple usernames are probably the same person, i.e. Joe Pilchesky (sign on, and a disclaimer says as much). Joanne Pilchesky is incarcerated, wrongly or rightly, over elder theft somewhere in Pennsylvania and has been for a while; her voice is missed, but at least the forum’s not being used for a personal vendetta by either one, and they’ve tolerated me posting this research.
Comments along this line over there actually represent days of my look-ups and some conclusions. The ‘dunwalke” link is to C.A. Fitts writing. IAF and Saul Alinsky + Church networking + HUD + faith-based funding (HHS grants) = danger!
|
|||||
NOTE — this only happened in 2011. Your town is next.
This has been headline news for how long? It definitely brings up mixed feelings on my part — knowing how many women are receiving far more severe battery, false imprisonment, endangering children and intimidating witnesses throughout the Bay Area, and have been for years — many years. While each time there is some press, someone from one of the organizations gets quoted.
March 31, 2012, last Saturday, Section “C,”* an article laid out at top of the page, full width, and by Columnist C.W. Nevius), reads:
(*Bay Area section of the SF Chronicle)
“Wife’s anger misdirected in Mirkarimi case.”
Eliana Lopez is furious at the way her domestic violence dispute with her husband, suspended Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, has been handled.
Too bad. Because the process worked perfectly.
Was it messy and painful? Absolutely. But it is also important and worthwhile.
This week, Myrna Melgar, a survivor of domestic violence,** wrote a passionate account – with Lopez’s blessing – of her friend’s devastation and anger in how the case was handled. While the opinion piece in the Bay Guardian had some fascinating details, it missed the main point.
Neither Lopez nor Mirkarimi seems able to get beyond the anger toward neighbor Ivory Madison, who called attention to the alleged abuse and then provided the damning video of Lopez crying and pointing to a bruise.
Melgar wrote that the process empowers people “to make decisions on this woman’s behalf, against her consistent and fervently expressed wishes.”
That’s right. It does. And that’s what it should do.
“This is why domestic violence advocates have been seen as evildoers,” said Kathy Black, executive director of La Casa de las Madres. “They say we are breaking up families. The helper becomes the one who is blamed.”
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/30/BANI1NSJ36.DTL#ixzz1quHv5VFi
**not sure this is the same “Myrna Melgar, just included the LinkedIn profile which shows her professional/civic leadership in the area. It probably is)
This is the Bay Guardian article, and it seems well written enough. I’m glad someone filled in a few of these details, including a factor that until 5 Mr. Mirkarimi was raised in a bi-cultural family (Russian Jewish mother/ Iranian Muslim father), and then was separated from his father. There seems to be a sense of father-absence here:
(The bulk of my post is addressing topics raised in this article, particularly a certain reference to a Canadian sociologist for insight into this Californian incident).
03.27.12 – 3:01 pm |(255)By Myrna Melgar
Myrna Melgar is a Latina survivor of childhood domestic violence, a feminist, and the mother of three girls. She is a former legislative aide to Sup. Eric Mar.
Eliana Lopez is my friend. I have asked for her permission to put into words, in English, some observations, thoughts and insights reached during our many conversations these past few weeks about her experience with San Francisco’s response to the allegation of domestic violence by her husband, Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi . . . (Please read the article).
. . .According to Eliana, the context of what happened between them on December 31 actually started much earlier. Ross grew up as the only son of a single teenage mother of Russian Jewish descent and an absent Iranian immigrant father. Pressured by the opposition of her family to her relationship with an Iranian Muslim, Ross’s mother divorced his father by the time he was five. Ross was raised on a small, nearly all-white island in New England, with no connection to his father. When he had the opportunity, Ross traveled to Chicago, where his father had remarried and built a new family with two sons. Ross’s father turned him away. In Eliana’s analysis, Ross’s greatest fear is that his painful story with his father will be replayed again with Theo.
Eliana Lopez came to San Francisco from Venezuela with hope in her head and love in her heart. She decided to leave behind her beautiful city of Caracas, a successful career as an actress, and her family and friends, following the dream of creating a family and a life with a man she had fallen in love with but barely knew, Ross Mirkarimi.
Whirlwind romance, charmer? Another article (reporting on this one) adds:
|
Heather Knight Thursday, March 29, 2012 |
Melgar’s piece describes how Lopez came to San Francisco after she and then-Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi became pregnant on one of his visits to her native Venezuela
(He got his girlfriend knocked up in the course of leisure? or business? Not mentioned — were they married at the time?
(Michael Macor/The Chronicle)
Eliana Lopez, wife of San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, speaks to the news media about the three misdemeanor charges against her husband, on Friday Jan. 13, 2012, in San Francisco, Ca
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/28/BAS31NRKL3.DTL#ixzz1qv1dHpDm
Bay Guardian Op-Ed, cont’d.:
Well-educated, progressive, charismatic, and artistic, she made friends easily. She and Ross seemed like a great match. Both were committed environmentalists, articulate and successful. They had a son, Theo. {{see above…}} As they settled into domestic life, however, problems began to surface. The notoriously workaholic politician did not find his family role an easy fit. A bachelor into his late forties, Ross had trouble with the quiet demands of playing a puzzle on the floor with his toddler or having an agenda-less breakfast with his wife. Ross would not make time for Eliana’s request for marriage counseling, blaming the demands of job and campaign.
How did it come to be that a system that was intended to empower women has evolved into a system that disempowers them so completely?
I don’t know Ms. Melgar’s life story (or whether she’s currently married — sounds like not). However, there are TWO ways the District Attorney’s Office can disempower women — if this is correct, prosecuting against the woman’s wishes when it’s supposedly a “minor” event. Or (and this was my situation and MANY other women’s) NOT prosecuting them despite severe domestic violence, when prosecuting them might save a life, or save ongoing destruction of life. See
And in this politically charged event — MADE TO ORDER for anyone who didn’t want Mirkarimi’s Progressive Politics disrupting the city (notice — nothing to do with domestic violence in that phrase) — because the events had some validity.
INTERJECTION — information from Purpleberets.org — and the topic is well-covered at the Sonoma County (Northern CA, not too far from SF) “Women’s Justice Center.” This is talking about much, MUCH more severe cases where DA refused to prosecute. (And if you know my blog, the case underlying it — and which eventually led to my blogging habit — was when district attorneys in TWO Counties refused to stop a child-stealing in action, or to prosecute it — ever. The general practice over a number of years (by law enforcement, specifically — I’m talking police in a number of cities, county sheriffs in more than one, and the district attorney’s office. As it turns out later, the person in charge of the “Alameda County Family Justice Center” (a hybrid creation by DA’s office and others modeled on San Diego’s one which came out of the City Attorneys’ Office — I’ve blogged this plenty elsewhere), Ms. Nadia Lockyer, then went on to win the position of County Supervisor (with help of a $1 million campaign funding and very, very, very well connected spouse 30 years her senior) — had a substance abuse problem, started an affair with someone (closer to her age) she met in rehab — himself getting off ‘meth’ — and had an incident requiring 911 assistance in a Newark (California) motel early a.m. This is the Bay Area leadership . . . . . it’s typically about politics and careers — and NOT about preventing violence against women and services to them. In the larger scope.
So, re: the immense power of the District Attorney’s Office: Written, I believe, around the year 2000:
California Passes Tough New Domestic Violence Laws — by Maria DeSantis, director Women’s Justice Center
In effect since January 1, 2000, a patchwork of new California domestic violence laws is already providing added help for domestic violence victims. The laws, however, still leave untouched some of the biggest obstacles victims face.
. . . .
District Attorney Power Still Unfettered
A critical area for victims of rape, domestic violence, and child abuse that has been left ignored by legislators this year and in years past is the district attorney’s absolute power to refuse to file charges no matter how solid the evidence. Even if a district attorney refuses to file charges on a whole crime category, there is no legal remedy for victims. This unrestricted prosecutorial discretion is particularly dangerous for women in Sonoma County where D.A. Mike Mullins’ rate of conviction on domestic violence is one of the lowest in the state, and where he systematically under-charges cases of violence against women and children.
For example, at this writing, we at Women’s Justice Center have a case of three days of spousal rape, sodomy and beatings which the district attorney has filed only as misdemeanor domestic violence. The detective in the case states there is ample evidence to file multiple felonies.
In another case of a woman beaten to the point of a fractured skull, the D. A. refused to file at all for five months until one day the perpetrator went out and committed another assault with a deadly weapon on another victim. In yet another case of spousal rape, the district attorney and Cloverdale Police have been fighting for six months over who should pay for translating key evidence. Sadly, those are just a few of many examples.
Not only are all women put in direct and great danger by the absence of any legislative check on the district attorney’s denial of justice to women, but the D.A.’s refusal to file proper charges on these cases also suffocates and discourages police efforts. We need to work with our legislators to give them the fortitude to put restrictions on district attorney discretion now.
(For Spanish translation of this and other violence against women information, see the WJC website:www.justicewomen.com )
Women’s Justice Center
if you include credit and don’t edit.
Back to Myrna Melgar’s article, minimizing the incident:
Unquestionably, there are women in deeply abusive relationships who need assistance getting out, who may not be able to initiate an escape on their own. Eliana’s relationship with Ross did not even come close to that standard.
It seems Myrna is oblivious to the fact that, through the family court, if Eliana did decide (later) to go to Venezuela without her husband’s assent, he could — in a moment, and don’t think such a person is unaware of this — charge her (or find someone to charge her) with parental kidnapping, put an arrest warrant out for her, and in the meantime get practically ANY family law judge in San Francisco — unless they had a personal grudge or other political reason to not do this — to switch sole custody to him, demand some sort or extradition, and/or have her thrown in jail if she came back to work things out. And don’t think that this isn’t a possibility. Maybe they would’ve worked it out — or maybe not. But one thing’s for sure — I read a LOT of material put out by domestic violence groups, and have networked with hundreds, literally, of mothers over the years, and most of them were completely ambushed by the concept that appealing to domestic violence laws to protect themselves and kids, even if they were IN a battered womens’ shelter — was no shield at all for later transfer of their children to their abusers. This is literally a third line of advocacy, now — “protective parents.” So, while it did not NOW rise to that abusive level, it certainly could’ve later.
Yet in the eyes of Ivory Madison, Phil Bronstein, District Attorney George Gascon, and even the Director of La Casa de las Madres, once her husband had grabbed her arm, Eliana was simply no longer competent and her wishes were irrelevant.
In other words, an action done by a man, over which a woman has no control whatsoever, renders the woman incompetent and irrelevant, and empowers a long list of people — most of whom are male — to make decisions on this woman’s behalf, against her consistent and fervently expressed wishes. No one in the entire chain of people who made decisions on Eliana’s behalf offered her any help — besides prosecuting her husband
So here is the challenge to domestic violence advocates and progressive folks who care about women: A more progressive approach to Eliana and Ross’s particular situation, and to domestic violence in general, would be to work on emphasizing early, non-law enforcement intervention and the prevention of violence against women in addition to the necessary work of extricating women from dangerous situations
Professor Laureen Snider at Queens University in Ontario has argued that criminalization is a flawed strategy for dealing with violence against women.
Laureen Snider
Department of Sociology, Queen’s University, Canada
Laureen Snider, a Professor of Sociology at Queen’s University, has published numerous studies on corporate crime, regulation and governance including Bad Business: Corporate Crime in Canada (Nelson: 1993) and Corporate Crime: Contemporary Debates (University of Toronto Press, 1995, co-edited with Dr. Frank Pearce). Her present research centres on the asymmetries of surveillance, comparing the monitoring of employees versus that of employers (“theft of time”); and the surveillance capabilities of traditional police forces against traditional criminality (“crime in the streets”, versus those of regulatory agencies against corporate criminality (“crime in the suites”). Recent publications include: “But They’re Not Real Criminals”: Downsizing Corporate Crime” (in B. Schissel & C. Brooks, eds., Critical Criminology in Canada . Halifax: Fernwood, 2008: 263-86); “Economic Crimes”, (in J. Minkes and L. Minkes, eds.,Corporate and White-Collar Crime. London: Sage, 2008: 39-60), “Safety Through Punishment?”, (in M. Beare, ed., Honouring Social Justice, Honouring Dianne Martin. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008) and “Accommodating Power: The “Common Sense” of Regulators”, Social and Legal Studies 18(2), 2008 (forthcoming).
Faculty website: http://www.queensu.ca/sociology/?q=people/faculty/full-time/sniderl
Professor Nicholas Bala is introduced as the recipient of the Stanley Cohen Distinguished Research Award by Bill Howe, a board member of the Association of Family and Conciliatory Courts, at its 45th Annual Conference in Vancouver on May 29, 2008.
BALA RECOGNIZED FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO FAMILY AND DIVORCE LAW
On May 29, 2008, Bala received the Stanley Cohen Distinguished Research Award from the Association of Family and Conciliatory Courts (AFCC) in recognition of his outstanding work in family and divorce law. “I am deeply honoured by this recognition,” Bala said, “particularly in light of noteworthy contributions from previous winners.”
Bala became the first Canadian to win the award from the AFCC, an international organization of professionals involved in the family court system striving to empower families and promote healthier futures for children. Most of the award’s previous recipients were leading American researchers in the mental health field, including such scholars as Sanford Braver, Joan Kelly and Janet Johnston, whose work focused primarily on the effects of divorce on parents and children. . . .
In contradiction to the concept of “no-fault” divorce law…
As one of Canada’s leading family and children’s law scholars, Bala has a distinguished reputation for his innovative and traditional research methods and his diverse range of publications. Scholars in Canada and abroad frequently cite Bala, and Canadian lawyers and judges frequently quote his research. In its recent decision in R. v. D.B., the Supreme Court of Canada cited Bala’s work for the 25th time.
In addition to Bala’s traditional legal scholarship, much of his research draws from a variety of disciplines: he collaborates with psychologists, criminologists and social workers to address the problems children and families encounter within the justice system.
“I have not only been involved in consuming the research of social scientists about the justice system; I’ve helped to produce it,” Bala says. “My collaboration with mental health professionals and social scientists has allowed me to appreciate both the value—and the limitations—of their work for the justice system.”
Besides his interdisciplinary work with the Child Witness Project, Bala has been taking a closer look at how domestic violence is handled in the family-law arena. He has been working with three mental-health professionals {{Want to bet $100 they’re all AFCC members? I could use a little extra cash to upgrade some of the blog….!}}} to produce a series of papers on this issue, and the group recently created a model to address the effects of family violence on the determination of child custody and access. **
**Jargon translation: wife-beating is no reason to restrict a child who witnessed this having access to their biological father. Let us do supervised visitation, etc. — hence (in the US) HHS “Access/Visitation” funding, with help from the (also international) Children’s Rights Council, which developed the term “access” to replace the term “visitation.” This model will be ADMINSTRATIVELY or PRACTICALLY begun (or has been already) and then other highly placed individuals (state by state in the US) will suggest — hey, why not make it a law? (Example: PA: Commission on Justice Initiatives: Changing the Culture of Custody).
The team’s article about their family-violence-assessment model, which was published in the most recent issue of the international journal Family Court Review, {{Co-produced with AFCC & Hofstra Univ. School of Law in NY}} is already being cited in a number of countries.
The Stanley Cohen Distinguished Research Award (Stanley Cohen being a principal in the development of AFCC) is Bala’s second major award in three years for his valuable research contributions. He won the Queen’s Prize for Excellence in Research in 2006 during an annual university-wide competition. For more information about this award, see “Nicholas Bala Wins Top University Research Prize” on page 2 of the 2007 issue of Queen’s Law Reports at http://law.queensu.ca/alumni/publications/lawReports2007.pdf
My major research interests lie in the intersection between knowledge, punishment and law. I have applied this in several substantive areas, in studies examining the poisoned water disaster in Walkerton, Ontario, the reception of knowledge claims on corporate crime, and the constitution of the punishable woman.
Experience
- Professor of Sociology, Queen’s University – present
Education
- Toronto University, B.A., M.A., Ph.D
Snider argues that feminists and progressives have misidentified social control with police/governmental control. In other words, we are substituting one oppressor for another — and glossing over the fact that in the judicial system, poor people of color fare worse than white middle-class people. We have punted on (forward) the hard work education, and of shaping and reshaping men’s definitions of masculinity and violence, of the social acceptance of the subjugation of women, of violence against children. We have chosen to define success in the fight against domestic violence by women saved from horrible situations and incarceration rates for their abusers — rather than doing the difficult work of community and individual change necessary to prevent violence from happening in the first place
Ellen Pence
Ellen Pence (1948 – January 6, 2012) was a scholar and a social activist. She co-founded the Duluth Domestic Abuse Intervention Project[1], an inter-agency collaboration model used in all 50 states in the U.S. and over 17 countries.[2] A leader in both the battered women’s movement and the emerging field of institutional ethnography, she was the recipient of numerous awards including the Society for the Study of Social Problems Dorothy E. Smith Scholar Activist Award (2008) for significant contributions in a career of activist research. . .
Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Pence graduated from St. Scholastica in Duluth with a B.A. She was active in institutional change work for battered womensince 1975, and helped found the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project in 1980.
She is credited with creating the Duluth Model of intervention in domestic violence cases, Coordinated Community Response (CCR), which uses an interagency collaborative approach involving police, probation, courts and human services in response to domestic abuse. The primary goal of CCR is to protect victims from ongoing abuse.[citation needed]
She earned her Ph.D in Sociology from the University of Toronto in 1996. She used institutional ethnography as a method of organizing community groups to analyze problems created by institutional intervention in families. She founded Praxis International in 1998 and was the chief author and architect of the Praxis Institutional Audit, a method of identifying, analyzing and correcting institutional failures to protect people drawn into legal and human service systems because of violence and poverty.[citation needed] Ellen pence died [RECENTLY] at the age of 63 , from breast cancer .
PRAXIS means “practices.” Who is practiced upon? (Sorry, this wasn’t brought before our voters — except it went through the US Reps House Appropriations Committee, I guess. . . ..
Not before endorsing and propagating a system of educational institutions — taking public funding — based on social theory, and which have attracted a host of inappropriate misappropriations of public employees times, and which set up a built-in HIERARCHY — the exact OPPOSITE of what women, particularly mothers, leaving abuse need. This hierarchy is a lose/lose situation for any person imagining he/she has enforceable, legal rights in the USA — as an INDIVIDUAL. It sets up the hierarchy of the TEACHERS (for hire // mercenaries) versus the “TAUGHT.”
The social science THEORY that one can educate or train men out of violence is just taht — a theory. It is also contrary to the american (USA) form of government, which is to expect people to keep an identifiable law, and maintain a fair process of assigning punishments for those who choose not to. This means all people can be informed of WHAT their laws are — and leaves no room for speculations on the social impact of father-absence, single-parenthood, or even violence against women — and then millions of $$ which the public (and private interests) fund to tinker with the demonstration projects each time they get it wrong.
Back to the C.W.Nevius article (top of post), which continues:
Witnesses save lives
“Most cases are not this public,” said Beverly Upton, executive director of San Francisco Domestic Violence Consortium. “But if anyone made this more difficult, it was Ross Mirkarimi. There was a lot of activity trying to silence the witness, and that doesn’t usually happen. What we know is that witnesses coming forward saves lives.”
Mirkarimi was initially charged with three misdemeanors related to domestic violence and eventually reached an agreement to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of false imprisonment. Mayor Ed Lee also filed charges to permanently remove him from office.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/30/BANI1NSJ36.DTL#ixzz1quqyOPjT
FYI, I do not live in San Francisco (some may wonder), but have lived in the area for over two decades, and worked frequently in the city and in surrounding counties — both during and after my “domestic violence” marriage. I notice that whenver there’s a high-profile event, here is this SF DVConsortium and Beverly Upton being consulted for help. I never got any help from them, nor did I get ANY help from the Family Violence Prevention Fund, although, they do throw a great conference, and how validating to know that domestic violence is a health risk (like, I didn’t know that?). It did NOTHING to address the ongoing violence enabled by the family law system to any and all mothers who, after doing the right thing, but having for some reasons, very persistent Exes — are thereafter psychologically, economically, legally and in other ways tortured (if not extorted) — in the custody realm.
This group apparently could care less, so long as they get their funds and keep up the reputation for protecting women from violence – without addressing the land mines ahead of them. SEE MY BLOG! no one gave me a federal fund to publicize this, and apparently the more other groups immunize themselves from DV rhetoric, the better it is for BOTH pro and con grantseekers. So, here — for a quick update — this “Consortium” consorts in getting public grants to continue their agenda. I gather this is a progressive agenda because it’s under the umbrella of the (very large) TIDES Foundation, which also sponsored the nonprofit “Stop Family Violence” — which appears (best I can tell) to consist of a website, and one or two professionals who got to fly around to conferences nationwide (Irene Weiser, i forget who the other person was) and now is perhaps inactive, although the website is still up there.
aka SFDVC and/or DVC) founded in 1982, is a network of seventeen domestic violence service agencies that come together with the goal of providing high quality, coordinated and comprehensive services to San Francisco’s victims of domestic abuse. {{ABUSE? or VIOLENCE? Make up your mind!!}}
The services of the individual agencies include emergency shelter, transitional housing, crisis lines, counseling, prevention programs, education and legal assistance. Services are available in the many different languages of San Francisco’s diverse populations. One of the main activities of the SFDVC is networking. SFDVC agencies share information, learn about issues that impact their work and coordinate their services and activities with a particular focus on public funding, specifically coordinating grant proposals and conducting advocacy/lobbying of government departments as to the importance of funding domestic violence services.
The SFDVC is a nonprofit organization and a project of the Tides Center. The SFDVC is led by its co-chairs and committees. The SFDVC recognizes that San Francisco is a diverse city and domestic violence is a problem in all communities regardless of ethnicity, race, class, physical ability, religion, age, immigration and economic status, sexual orientation and gender identity.
Obviously this is important work — HOWEVER — notice the collective grants-obtaining clout they have? That must be HOW there has been such coordinated and collective silence on the fathers’ rights grants and movement I report, and so have other UNsponsored INDIVIDUALS. Do they teach women about to file a kickout order about the upcoming Access/Visitation grants (in place, $10 million a year since 1996), how the Federal Incentives to the Child SUpport Enforcement system include running demonstration grants on how to increase noncustodial (father) time with the children, and how if they go on welfare, they are quite likely to be ex-parte consolidated into a divorce action, and thrown to the family court wolves, whose funding is MUCH larger?
NO — not last I heard.
Do they say anything about the organization AFCC, which practically runs the local Family Courts, let alone the Family Court Facilitators’ offices where people NOT as well-off financially (probably) than Ms. Lopez will end up seeking remedies? AFCC publishes most of the brochures available there — and (I checked in recent years) the coverage of domestic violence issues is highly diminished. So, what does that say about women’s right to know and make an INFormeD decision about whether to confront their batterer (sometimes with a civil protective order — not even mentioned in these dialogues), or call the police and hope a criminal one is instated?
LASTLY (and that’s enough for today!), I wanted to also show the Mayor Ed Lee catering to the FUTURES WITHOUT VIOLENCE organization, which currently owns prime real estate (or owns the organization that owns the real estate) in the SF Praesidio. Futures without Violence, indeed. The antidote to tyranny in our country (whether by domestic individuals within their family walls, or outside them by public officials) is a balance of powers between (1) the government and (2) the people, and fair enforcement of crimes against the state which jeopardize the safety of the public — which domestic violence DOES, and there’s plenty of evidence in the form of innocent bystanders shot, businesses disrupted, as well as responding police officers. We live in one of the more violent countries in the world, in many levels, and despite decades of advocacy by DV groups, their inherent demand for public funds to “coordinate services” and educate — the world, essentially — they are not open to criticism from the street level about this agenda.
TOO BAD – it’s here, it’s coming and I’m not going to stop, if I can help, this outrage. I have one-third of my adult life thrown down this rabbit hole ,and the concept of betrayal is absolutely high. MSM is owned, and is never going to tell the whole story. More bloggers are needed — bloggers that cite their sources where possible, and make sure that this situation is no longer covered up, or specially framed when it comes time to renew the funding for the VAWA act and the counterintuitive simultaneous funding of the next round of fatherhood/marriage etc. grants. No wonder this keeps going on, perhaps — our society is so stressed and compartmentalized, and has been already pre-trained to have their income taxes garnished, so garnishing wages for child support is a short step away. No privacy, no safety, and no justice. Just more debt!
My parting shot, I think: The Mayor that wants Mirkarimi out references Futures without Violence. Label this: “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours!”
Without mentioning Ross Mirkarimi by name, Mayor Ed Lee on Friday delivered an indirect rebuke of the man he suspended from the sheriff’s job after he pleaded guilty to a domestic-violence-related charge of false imprisonment of his wife.
The mayor made his remarks during a brief keynote address at a national conference on domestic violence under way in San Francisco sponsored by the Futures Without Violence organization.
Seizing on sentence
Mirkarimi was elected sheriff in November after serving seven years on the Board of Supervisors. He was sworn in to his new job on Jan. 8 and was arrested less than two weeks later for allegedly bruising his wife’s arm during a New Year’s Eve argument in front of their 2-year-old son. The district attorney charged him with misdemeanor domestic violence battery, dissuading a witness and child endangerment.
The new sheriff pleaded not guilty to those three counts, but on March 12, under a plea-bargain agreement, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor false imprisonment. He was sentenced to three years’ probation, weekly domestic violence intervention classes, and one day in jail with time served for when he showed up at the Hall of Justice for booking; he did not serve time behind bars.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/30/BASJ1NSMGF.DTL#ixzz1qv2FUQhL
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
(STATE CHARITABLE RETURN FOR 2009) FORM RRF-I INFORMATION REGARDING GOVERNMENT FUNDING STATEMENT 14 ART B, LINE 6
Maryland’s Family Court Expansion, AFCC Model, takes Unifying Symbols to a New Level: Paper, Cotton, Leather, Fruit, Wood, Iron…[Publ. Mar. 27, 2012, Reformatted Jan. 19, 2022..] (short-link added 2022, ends “/psBXH-13l”)(<~to differentiate “I, 1, and l” characters, as you can see, last three characters are two numbers (one, three) [as in “1,2,3,4,5..”) and a lower-case “L” as in the word “lower” in this sentence).
This post has some tags which I’ll post up here.
2012 text begins below the next two text boxes (Preface/Previews in this color and this color) (basically two sections for me to explain and complain a bit why it’s still necessary to promote and re-publish this information, i.e., why you should still read this and other very early posts, especially one dated Oct. 1, 2012).
Except for adding some structure (boxes, etc.) to the post, or removing large images with now-broken links (i.e., to condense it), the text is as when I first wrote it, cleaned up somewhat and if any added text, I’ve marked it.
This post’s tags (also visible at the bottom of the post) and I see also “categories”:
Written by Let’s Get Honest, March 27, 2012 at 6:38 pm:
Posted in (blog categories): 1996 TANF PRWORA (cat. added 11/2011), AFCC, Business Enterprise, Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, Child Support, Designer Families, History of Family Court, Lackawanna County PA Corruption Protests, My Takes, and Favorite Takes, OCSE – Child Support, Organizations, Foundations, Associations NGO Hybrids, Parent Education promotion, Parenting Coordination promotion, Psychology & Law = an AFCC tactical lobbying unit
Tagged with AFCC, AFCC’s agenda, Barbara Babb, Biblical Metaphors (Daniel’s Statue), Child Support, Child SUpport Incentive Grants, Dept of Family Admin, domestic violence, Education, Families Matter, family law, Fatherhood in OCSE grant priorities, Gloria Danziger, HHS influence on Judiciary, high-conflict, Jaycee Dugard, Kids’ Turn, Maryanne Godboldo, mediation, Mixed Metaphors, Parenting Coordination, Phil Garrido, social commentary, Supervised Visitation, therapeutic jurisprudence,Trayvon Martin,UBaltimore School of Law CFCC,Unified Family Courts
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
CONTEXT / TIMELINE of THIS REFORMATTING UPDATE, JAN. 2022:
If you detect some sarcasm (and very long sentences), that’s an indicator I’ve been recently exposed to some stunning levels of silence on the infrastructure and key players of the court as well as anything approaching tools to look for the funding, or remember what kind of Constitution we have in the United States of America, and what it’s goals are: NOT centralized control by an elite, self-anointed few who plan all in private and where possible seek to undermine rule of law and separation of powers between federal and state governments, and between the various branches of government. I’m also, upset by my own limitations in getting messages out while managing basic life responsibilities (even without young children still in the home), even after having fled “the scene of the crime” that is, the remains of my connections to my own family — and of course career — in California, after summer 2018…
Someone needs to stand up to the mis-information, not just “stand by” while it slides by and continues gathering momentum. Selling false hope ought to be, but isn’t a crime. It’s just unethical — but I believe that where good ethics fail to show up in the moral category, they’re not particularly likely to be present in legal ones either.
Withholding key information that would shed a different light than the one being sold on a situation, and which might lead to more sensible solutions — or at least refusal to waste time on ones with built-in failures and which refuse to look at the foundations of institutions (such as the family courts as parts of governments) is an indicator that the goal isn’t helping the public, it’s something FAR different, and far less altruistic.
This isn’t the place to identify which nonprofits or social media activity has “gotten to me” the past month or so. I will elsewhere, though..
I recently had cause to quote my October 1, 2012, post called:
Family Courts: Crippled, Incompetent and Corrupt — or just “Broken”? [Published Oct. 1, 2012..] (short-link ends “-1a4”]
Looking on my blog dashboard to locate and label (short-link), reformat it, I mis-remembered the month saw this published (and a few more draft) posts from March, 2012 which might also be worth re-posting. After all, anecodotal information tends to repeat and endure. While survivors come and go, somehow those saying the same types of things about the same systems they survived tend to have a longer “tenure” on publicity — for obvious reasons, i.e., their lives weren’t so disrupted ,devastated, and they didn’t, most of them, abruptly lose work, have to relocate in a hurry, and weren’t stranded a decade or a more in “high-conflict” (sic) divorces in a corrupt (not “broken”) family court system, USA, systems set in place by specific, identified tax-exempt organizations: two more high-profile than the third, but the third had the most vested interest in keeping the corruption in place. (The ABA, NCJFCJ and AFCC, in case you were wondering which ones).
Family Court “Reform” has been on a certain trajectory for two decades now (observed from the USA, but I also see the globe-trotting program reproduction and attempts to get similar legislation (can you spell “Coercive Control”?) legislated throughout the USA now that it’s been sold to the UK (2015ff).
I also think I’m going to re-post the Oct. 1, 2012 essay. It’s been over ten years and it’s time, altnough no lack of new developments to report on…
So, the globe-trotting and conferencing (without actual physical travel still possible) is even more intense recently, especially some of us “formerly-battered mothers/”family court guantlet survivors” haven’t forgotten what it’s like to see an entire sector (the domestic violence sector and self-appointed thought-leaders (as they’ve called themselves, on-line, on website, often for years) year after year spewing a combination of erroneous, undocumented on incomplete information to the unsuspecting, carried under advanced-degree and academic institution association status (i.e., as “experts” and all that goes with the common understanding of that word, in addition to legal definitions of it when testifying in court), and commending and giving air-time and in-hindsight sympathy to any mothers (target niche for carrying pre-fabricated messaging forward) so badly traumatized or devastated in the family courts trying to move on, protect themselves, protect their children, function independently from an impossible dynamic, they’ll go on “auto-pilot” without screening for truth, logic, reliability, and completeness of that which they’ve been fed, or screening what those who’ve been feeding it have been routinely, almost ritually, withholding, because it conflicts with the media messaging and the particular policy goals of such groups.
WHY this Update: To make it more readable while I’m in the vicinity of this post as blog administrator (and only contributor). I now include date and year published, borders, width-limits, and post title with visible short-links (in the opening body of each post). Also a blog format update (to two front pages, allowing one stationary front page and another for “Current Posts”) somehow turned all former posts into a sort of sickly-pale-green background — not pleasant to look at!).
Even though I doubt my older posts are re-read much; they are a record of what I was saying when — and a witness to FOR HOW LONG so much of tis information has been covered-up by people simply with SO much to say, SO many people willing to say it for them, mostly (so it seems) for free, and for a little attention and sense of purpose.
The cover up is just as effective by social “excommunication” from close-knit and in-synched messaging by certain people who’ve been driving the “family court reform” sector as if it were an owned turf — when it’s not. Others live in this country too, and what we have to say matters, whether it’s popular or not. Unfortunately, some us have had to also say — often — that dishonesty and withholding IS the character of cults, abusers, sociopaths, and people with an ulterior motive than truth-telling, or fixing government (for the better, that is). I didn’t ask for that role. Finding enough truth and having a conscience basically has obligated me to speaking it.
Preface to Formatting a VERY OLD (nearly ten years ago) but what I was saying then might as well still be news, given the typical “Family Court Reform” rhetoric, including of known survivor mothers who channel certain nonprofits intent on NOT saying what I’ve been saying — unlike most of these — since the time I first heard of it.
There’s a need to keep at least ONE voice continuing to say this alive. I’m still alive, so I’m intent to keep this voice out there, although it takes longer to put together and document with links (and/or uploaded images) post using reason and proof, than it does to repeat the mantras, incantations, catechisms so people go into trance mode and, like any good cult members, groomed personalities (or, are possibly being paid in more than just moral support and retweets, “honorable mentions” on-line for their collective silence on key elements and more probable causes of the family court custody crises), continue speaking the same ‘details-devoid, proof-absent, omitting the elephant organizations in the room rhetoric.
Meanwhile, periodically and privately, I’ll get messages (either on this blog or Twitter) saying how the information I post (i.e.. here and/or on-Twitter) or shared (privately as I have publically when it came up) has validated what they sensed, and were feeling really isolated about for not going along with the crowds who don’t like to talk specifics or keep “survivors” honest (keeping certain other organizations honest isn’t about to happen, I found out the hard way)…//LGH Jan. 19, 2022.
ORIGINAL (2012) TEXT BEGINS HERE:
This post is PR on something I just discovered recently and, to be honest, am distressed enough about to follow up by phone with the leadership of some of the groups involved, asking they why these things should be happening statewide.
The dialogue illustrates what’s going on, but is a little complex, and unless you have an interest in monitoring the expansion and methods of expansion of the family law bureaucracy WITHIN or as an ADJUNCT to our court system, you may not want to go through it all.
I think there is some legitimacy — however widespread, commonplace, and entrenched this system currently is, and however expensive and status quo it has become — to a theory that the “Family Court Services” if not the “Family Courts” themselves (as it pertains to divorce and custody) — are illegitimate. They are private enterprises posing as public ones, and servicing their funders, who as it happens, tend to occupy high places in (1) the Executive Branch of the United States Government (I’m talking HHS, DOJ in particular) and (2) the corporate /tax-exempt foundation stratosphere — almost none of which is truly accessible to individuals who are coming through these courts, unless they already have prior involvement.
First of all, they are about as unbelievingly condescending and patronizing (‘move over, let us experts handle your family — give us your kid, etc.’) as it is possible for any human relationship to be, apart from some truly unhealthy (i.e., violent/abusive) ones. They deal in force, and subterfuge when it comes to proliferating the program, and like any good, truly “disaster capitalism” enterprise, they deal with distressed populations, exploit them, and call that service. I come from California, and preliminary expose on this was done courtesy one of the oldest and (not exactly being updated) sites around — but it still is up and still serves a purpose — Johnnypumphandle.com. [[FYI, that website is still up I’ve linked to it in the title.//LGH 2022]]
Dedicated to Exposing Illegal and Immoral Practices in The Courts
… Particularly the Family Law System which includes the Courts, Attorneys, Family Services, Psychologists and Therapists,Visitation Monitors, Ad-Litems, Social Workers, Child Protection Agencies and all of the agencies that support these so-called professionals.
Collusion among individuals within the family law system takes place to extract assets from troubled parents. The system is designed to increase the wealth of the family law professionals at the expense and heartbreak of families. Corrupt practices abound. [EndQuote]
For example, why does the “Los Angeles County Superior Court Judges Association” change its name to simply “Los Angeles County Superior Court” in its IRS filings? and what are they actually doing at their special events, including sporting events, and how do they manage to have (year 2010) a net loss of $10,000, being such smart judges (only revenue — membership dues, totaling $50K that year)?
….. (This is a table from the Foundation Center; its format looks different, but I’ve posted tax returns from this source throughout the blog for years. //LGH 2022)…….>> Look under “Candid.org/research-and-verify-nonprofits/990-finder” to re-run this search (use the EIN# below, “95-4663773” NOT entity name!), or go to the IRS (apps.irs.gov/app/eos/ for, these days, probably a more current return. Or check the Secretary of State (businessSearch.sos.ca.gov) if this entity is still registered, which it probably is. The adress in 2019 still read 111 Hill Street (#204)…
ORGANIZATION NAME |
STATE |
YEAR |
TOTAL ASSETS |
FORM |
PAGES |
EIN |
| Los Angeles Superior Court | CA | 2010 | $120,654 | 990EO | 10 | 95-4663773 |
| Los Angeles Superior Court | CA | 2009 | $95,314 | 990EO | 12 | 95-4663773 |
| Los Angeles Superior Court | CA | 2008 | $102,801 | 990EO | 11 | 95-4663773 |
| Los Angeles Superior Court Judges Association | CA | 2007 | $87,134 | 990EO | 9 | 95-4663773 |
| Los Angeles Superior Court Judges Association | CA | 2006 | $90,509 | 990EO | 9 | 95-4663773 |
| Los Angeles Superior Court Judges Association | CA | 2005 | $70,106 | 990EO | 8 | 95-4663773 |
| Los Angeles Superior Court Judges Association | CA | 2004 | $55,818 | 990EO | 5 | 95-4663773 |
per “Johnny” (at ‘JohnnyPumphandle.com’)
The Los Angeles Superior Court Judges Association is a good example of one of the latter Non-Profit organizations whose stated purpose is “promotion of judicial profession pursuant to section 501(c)(6)”. (see form 3500 – Exemption application). The Association boasts a budget of over $100,000 – none of which will be received from members dues {?} – and most of which will be funded by “Professional Education programs for the legal community”. Unlike most professional organizations, this organization was granted(?) the use of County premises, complete with facilities for it’s [sic] office space and management of it’s business within the County Court facilities at 111 North Hill Street.”
They call it collaboration, or cooperation, or “interdisciplinary.” This person calls it, more correctly, “collusion” and states the purpose as accurately as anyone else . .. to extract assets from troubled parents. Like I said, disaster capitalism. Ambulance chasers. Sometimes they (family law professionals) get impatient and take control of the wheel, cause accidents, and then show up to help solve the resulting “Family conflict,” at public and/or parent expense. How philanthropic.
REGARDING THE TITLE OF THIS POST:
I called up Liz Richards of NAFCJ.net (who I think I’ve made it clear, has provided the skeleton which started my years of investigative reporting here on this blog and off it — not the motivation, but enough clues to grab onto, validate, and develop as now my own material).
She declared (I would like to see) that any family law judge in the state of Maryland must be an AFCC member to take office. That’s an INexact quote, but I was very shocked to hear that possibly membership is a pre-requisite to the practice statewide. Whether or not that’s so, it’s absolutely clear that this state is pretty well sewn up by those interests.
I have blogged before (herein) on UBaltimore’s School of Law “CFCC” in context of therapeutic jurisprudence.
This time, let’s talk about whose idea was it to create a system of family courts in the state? Perhaps you should forward questions to this person about what analogies of Paper, Cotton, Leather, FRUIT, etc. say about the Department of Family Administration’s disturbing (in)ability to sort, label, categorize and prioritize information.
Barbara A. Babb
Director and Associate Professor of Law
B.S., Pennsylvania State University (interesting — does she keep up with the Penn State, Luzerne County or Lackawanna County scandals?)
M.S., Cornell University
J.D., Cornell Law SchoolUB faculty member since 1989. Member, New York and Maryland bars. National leader in family justice system reform, focusing on creation of unified family courts. Spearheaded Maryland’s efforts to create a family court in 1998. Advisory Board Member, ABA Standing Committee on Substance Abuse. Member, ABA Unified Family Court Coordinating Council and the AFCC Family Court Review Editorial Board. Past chair, Family/Juvenile Law Section, Association of American Law Schools.
Telephone: 410-837-5661
E-mail Barbara Babb
This professional is clearly AFCC-friendly (so is the ABA, it seems), and heads up this Center at a Law School. Notice the bolded part. This is what AFCC professionals, who can do this — do. They Unify Family Courts (then preside over them, and appoint cronies). I’ve seen it in state after state. The Hon. Chester Harhut did this in Lackawanna County (as I recall) and the parents are already picketing outside the courthouse. Or, were, until some of the protesters got manhandled (so to speak) by a local judge’s sheriff’s, resulting in a federal lawsuit on the civil rights violation, and a second one on the inappropriate pushing of the GAL system on the county without running it by the public!
I’m only including the next individual to show that she hails from London! (see “three cities that rule the world”) in a country from which, allegedly, the United States fought a war of independence, in part to establish a DIFFERENT form of government …
Gloria Danziger
Senior Fellow
B.A., London University
M.Phil., Oxford University
J.D., Georgetown University Law CenterFormer staff director, ABA Standing Committee on Substance Abuse, focusing on how substance abuse/truancy are addressed in the justice system. Former director, Communities, Families and the Justice System, an ABA unified family court initiative. Former public policy consultant, reporter and editor.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
The Families Matter Symposium: Working Toward a More Therapeutic Family Justice System
The invitation-only “Families Matter” Symposium was held last Thursday and Friday, June 24 and 25, at the University of Baltimore. Co-sponsored by CFCC** and the American Bar Association Section of Family Law, the symposium promises to be a powerful catalyst for change. It was exhiliarating to participate in the exchange of groundbreaking ideas that emerge when you put together some of the leading professionals from a range disciplines to discuss how to improve the experience of children and families in the family justice system. More exciting, however, is the fact that this group of high-powered experts is committed to move from theory to action by implementing many of their recommendations for changing the family law system.
[[IN HINDSIGHT: Jan. 19, 2022, update: re-formatting and re-reading this post nine-plus years later,]] I notice that “CFCC” is not an entity and so cannot co-sponsor anything. This is part of a sales pitch (I’m currently struggling to get out — again — several posts detailing and showing how awareness of exact ENTITY names involved is key to following any funding. When it comes to the “CFCC” at the University of Baltimore School of Law, know that this School of Law along with the University of Baltimore is part of the Maryland University system — it’s a PUBLIC UNIVERSITY. Hence this symposing was in effect a public/private “invitation-only” symposium held at public expense. Also (I’m blogging this as I speak), the ABA Section of Family Law isn’t a separate entity. So the real sponsors here (at least as labeled) were too huge established institutions pursuing what seems like a private agenda for “Families.” How does that fit with the established ways to represent the will of the people and get laws passed? This group of “HIGH-POWERED EXPERTS” intended to CHANGE THE FAMILY LAW SYSTEM.
The irony of it, the ABA and AFCC (obvious primary connection Babb, and likely also Danziger at the CFCC) were, along with (per a 1997 Ohio Supreme Court document which I blogged, probably under the post titled “Blueprints” or a nearby one) the NCJFCJ, the ones who spearheaded establishments of family courts around the country — and by the turn of this century, hadn’t even got them in all fifty states. So, apparently if you established a thing, you’re also in charge of reforming the thing. No matter what the public does or doesn’t know about its origins, its financing and the private cult-like behaviors and allegiances of those administering it — and no matter that the public pays for it collectively AND, as parents going through it, individually. //LGH 2022.
A Dec. follow-up specifically acknowledges AFCC leadership in this, and gives a detailed plan, which I gather has been followed, and we might as well read about for a retrospective!
Thursday, December 2, 2010 Families Matter: Reforming the Family Law Process
It is hard to believe it already has been almost six months since CFCC and the ABA Section of Family Law co-sponsored the Families Matter Symposium. We at CFCC are excited about the work that has been done since the symposium to expand the Families Matter initiative. Because of the partnerships that this initiative created – among CFCC, the ABA, the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC), and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ), to name a few – we are able to tackle the issue of family law reform from every angle, something that has been a struggle in the past.In the coming months and years, we will work together with our partners to ensure that therapeutic reform touches legal and court structures, relevant service providers from across disciplines, and the lawyers and other legal actors who work so closely with families.
“and other legal actors”???
These people — and they still exist, generation after generation — should expect something a little better than to have the same groups simply sell out the mothers for profit, for professional respectability, for the ability to publish, for public platforms in setting agenda, and for nice websites.
To better understand this, also see the site “MDJustice.com” (I have a draft post explaining the presence of Parenting Coordination right next to Domestic Violence in a Family Law Task Force. This is relevant because the training and resources are intended for PRO BONO service providers. However, it would make this post too long….
I was very upset (and tweeted this) to discover HOW inbred the Women’s Law Center, and a spiffy website resource (MDJustice.com) focusing on pro bono legal services — not only are they sharing language of “parenting coordination” right next to “domestic violence” talks in the family law task force, (a clear indication of AFCC’s fathers’ rights agenda. You can talk about domestic violence, or even child abuse, so long as you don’t seriously believe this should affect how much contact the offender has with the victim, and act on that belief to protect the child or (often as not) his/her mother.
Newsletter of the Department of Family Administration
Maryland Administrative Office of the Courts (“AOC”)
Vol. 8, No. 1 summer 2008
What’s going on when a system of progressive reform and expansion of the family law system (with a token nod towards protecting people) chooses to name each year of reform after a COMMODITY? Subliminal message, much?
(See newsletter). These are collective labels to conveniently (and privately to those who get the newsletter) describe an 8-year agenda for family court reform. The use of these unifying symbols is specific to this court (from what I can tell) and is just — to tell the truth — weird. I am remembering about this time how Hitler was adept at using symbols, flags, mottos, gestures, and of course music & staged events to get his point across. So are the Boy Scouts. So were are certain religious cults. Is this what we’re heading for, again?
What do these commodities (which they are) have to do with the situations they are hooked to, except to, in the minds of the readers, signify some collective progress achieved in a collective goal?
Even little kids are often taught as youngsters, sorting shapes, and being tested on their ability to categorize various common objects. But look at this order — is it by durability? Is it by function? Is it by value? No – it’s a hodgepodge:
The book of Daniel (Daniel 2), (Old Testament) Nebuchadnezzar’s dream , at least stuck to one material, and stuck them in some sort of order, from precious, to common, showing the ability to (1) sort and (2) prioritize.
1And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams, wherewith his spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him. 2Then the king commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to shew the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king. 3And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream.
In some ways, reminds me of our current Republican (?) system, complete with task forces, commissions, institutes, and initiatives.
4Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriack, O king, live for ever: tell thy servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation.
5The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The thing is gone from me: if ye will not make known unto me the dream, with the interpretation thereof, ye shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill.6But if ye shew the dream, and the interpretation thereof, ye shall receive of me gifts and rewards and great honour: therefore shew me the dream, and the interpretation thereof.
31Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible.
32This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, 33His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.
Perhaps our current leaders should take a lesson from history — and learn to sort and select: The statue was described in general — and then in particular, from the HEAD to the FEET. Each part, in order, was described as to what it was made of. Then, stage set, the action was described:
34Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.35Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.
36This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king
To begin with, the four empires with their metals and beasts [different part of “Daniel”] fall into a simple pattern: they are listed in order of decreasing splendor and increasing strength and cruelty to symbolize their moral degeneration from one to the next (cf. Daniel 2:39).
In the vision of the statue in Daniel 2, the four empires are symbolized by four metals: viz., the golden head of Babylonia, the silver chest of Media, the bronze loins of Persia, the iron legs of Greece, and the iron-and-clay feet of the successor states of Greece. The metals decrease in monetary value yet increase in strength from the top to the bottom of the statue.
Our author probably got the idea of the four ages from Hesiod, an eighth-century BC Greek poet. Hesiod taught that the world has gone through four ages, each one morally inferior to its predecessor: viz., the ages of gold, silver, bronze, and iron (Works and Days 106-201).[8] Our author need not have read Hesiod; he and his fellow Jews probably picked up the idea from Greeks living in that part of the world.
PAPER COTTON LEATHER FRUIT WOOD IRON WOOL BRONZE
Here’s the cute description provided in newsletter, after which on to more serious matters, for example, what is the DFA doing, anyhow? Why are there DFAs? WHY are courts adding divisions to their regular courts, and doing so in particular “flavor”??
PAPER – Year 1 — “we have produced a lot of paper in ten years!” ~ COTTON – Year 2 — “Courts have found creative and powerful ways to make connections with their communities. In 2006, Carroll County Circuit Court participated with a network of community providers to create a guide that provides survivors of violence with a roadmap to recovery.” (Cotton refers to a “Clothesline Project” The word “Cotton” is as arbitrary as Paper in usage). LEATHER – Year 3 — “Over the past decade, the public “purse” that supports the family justice system has been strength-ened thanks to the advocacy of Chief Judge Robert M. Bell and State Court Administrator Frank Broccolina and the support of the Maryland General Assembly. Family divisions and family services programs are supported by jurisdictional grants given annually to each Circuit Court. In Fiscal Year 2008, courts received $11.2 million to support case management innovations and services to families involved indomestic and juvenile case types.” (LEATHER — the Purse Strings. The State Legislature, obviously, opens and closes that purse, and for its own reasons, opened it towards the establishment of more programs and services). FRUIT – YEAR 4 — “We profoundly hope that the efforts of the last ten years have borne “fruit” in the experiences of Maryland families and children. {{for that level of grants, it had better be more than just “hope”}} One measure maybe the level of involvement parents have in their children’s lives post-litigation. {{translation: access/visitation grant systems, plus some.}} WOOD – Year 5 — “The Maryland “bench” has been innovative in the last ten years,{{and produced a lot of paperwork}} and courts have shown a willingness to try new approaches. Administrative judges have adopted case management strategies to ensure family and juvenile cases are handled effectively”
(Currently in Pennsylvania, those administrative orders, for example, to hire a certain guardian ad litem, are coming under FBI fire (Lackawanna County, Stefanov case, Pilchesky case, see my other blog http://lackawannafamilycourtfederal.blogspot.com and recent local news coverage)
WOOD is for “The Bench.” Cute. etc. For example, WOOL – Year 7 — “Families entering the justice system are wrapped in the “mantle” of services that enable courts to make more effective decisions and that aid and guide families in transition. All Maryland courts offer co-parenting education, Family Law Self-Help Centers, child access mediation, and custody evaluations. Some courts offer psychoeducational programs for children and specialized parenting courses; others are experimenting with parenting coordination, employment programs for child support payors, and special dispute resolution services for high-conflict families.”*(*IN OTHER WORDS, BUSINESS AS AFCC/CRC/WELFARE REFORM USUAL). BRONZE – YEAR 8 — “The Judiciary’s family court reform efforts have brought attention to bear on the special needs of victims of domestic violence.” (It seems very appropriate that the concern for domestic violence should be limited to their “special needs” not their protection — and come last.)
The Administrative Offices of the Courts (nationwide) are enough of an issue themselves (and the various “CFCC’s underneath some of them, like in California). Yet under this Maryland one is a Department of Family Administration. I guess we all one big happy family, then? Or if not — and there are some unhappy upstarts, this can be administered? (reminds me of the Texas Office of Attorney General’s “Office of Family Initiatives” associated with, at least recently, Michael Hayes).
NOTICE THE DETAILS:
Notice of Funding for Family Division/Family Services Grants: Grant Documents
http://mdcourts.gov/family/grantadmin.html
Yes, please do click on the “notice of Funding” link above. You’ll see about 9 different categories of funding. I looked at “Child Support Incentives.” These are programs that bring money to the courts, if these services are utilized (the $2/1 ratio, I believe) and while it’s labeled sometimes Welfare, there is a way to get non-welfare cases involved as well. For example (and this is a CURRENT, 2013, OPEN (well, just closed 2/2012) grant solicitation):
“NOTICE OF FUNDING AVAILABILITY — CHILD SUPPORT INCENTIVE FUNDS GRANTS — ISSUED 1/3/2012, APPLICATIONS DUE 2/15/2012″
(Hover cursor over link or click on it to read description of the grant’s purpose — this is important, because it shows the HHS/Maryland Judiciary financial connection, in a Cooperative Reimbursement Agreement (CRA) according to performance incentives — i.e., how many child support orders did you establish, etc.
(update note: The link is broken, but the text showing if you “hover over link” is housed on this blog and can still be read (a magnifying glass might help.. or “zoom” function).
Given that, Funding Priorities, Category “A” actually seem to relate to — child support enforcement. Such as: “Privatizing and outsourcing of child support enforcement services; Improving automation capabilities; Creating public awareness projects; Developing programs and special projects;
But Category “B” may sound familiar to some parents with the toughest custody cases around, that are behaving very oddly, given the circumstances of the case: And this includes (notice order of Priorities here).
Other categories of programs that are considered “non-Title IV-D” that may still be eligible for funding upon the receipt of a written exception by the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement are set forth in OCSE-AT-01-04** and include, but are not limited to:
Fatherhood programs; Education and job programs for non-custodial parents; Programs targeting incarcerated or putative fathers; Teen pregnancy programs; Parenting programs; (in CALIF, this would be a “KIDS TURN” or KY or PA, a “KIDS FIRST” get it?) Mediation or couples counseling (including as provided by faith-based grantees, no doubt), and Visitation issue resolution when linked to non-payment of support.**
**WTH does that mean? When a noncustodial parent actually says, “I’d be more willing to pay my child support ORDER if I were given more ACCESS to my KID(s)??” In practice, this may possibly include supervised visitation, it may also include abatement of child support arrears in exchange for more time with the other parent.
These programs must also demonstrate a clear connection and collaboration with the Maryland Child Support Enforcement program.
**”OCSE-AT-01-04” refers to an “Action Transmittal.” Overall, this shows us that (no matter what a parent may have been told while filing for custody, or its modification up front) the judiciary is deeply hooked into the HHS financing and its incentives to do this, or that, regarding something as essential to life (in many cases) as child support. . . . . . And I believe this particular grant notice demonstrates that the OCSE/Child support Incentives ARE indeed in good deal about fatherhood programs” and parenting education (etc.).
Supporting Children Through the Judiciary Conference
(Broken link/Image removed/ description read simply “Photo of children and families.” The url reads: http://mdcourts.gov/family/conferences.html)
The Department of Family Administration is responsible for assisting Maryland’s courts in developing a comprehensive family law system. Family Administration has overseen the creation of family divisions in Anne Arundel County, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Montgomery County and Prince George’s County, and family services programs in the remaining 19 counties. We work with judges, masters, court administrators and family support services coordinators to develop family law policy and to identify and promote best practices in the handling of domestic and juvenile cases.(1*)
“The mission of family divisions is to provide a fair and efficient forum to resolve family legal matters in a problem-solving manner, with the goal of improving the lives of families and children who appear before the court. To that end, the court shall make appropriate services available for families who need them. The court also shall provide an environment that supports judges, court staff and attorneys so that they can respond effectively to the many legal and nonlegal issues of families in the justice system.”
Connie Kratovil-Lavelle, Esq.
(*1) The sentence “we work with judges, (etc.) . . . to develop family law policy to . .. identify and promote best practices…..” indicates a different identity, a distinction between (1) “WE” (meaning the Dept. of Family Administration/”DFA”) and (2) said judges, masters, etc. . . . . . .
As I can see below, the Executive Director of this DFA is promoting AFCC policy, hook, line and “sink-it.”
(An AFCC created profession, hostile to mothers in practice, which does an end run around legal protections and due process (as it was intended to) and to date already has brought up serious objections from parents and issues of billing, in PA at least (I blogged this over at http://thefamilycourtmoneymachine.blogspot.com, including the underlying case Yates v. Yates, where a father protested the parenting coordinator, and the family law div. of PA Bar Case Notes (newsletter 2009), exulting in how they shot down all his arguments. Some of the casework I read showed a custody evaluator appointed in 2002 or 2003, who I looked up. It turns out that in 2004-2005 (per 2006 Winter Psychology Board newsletter), this same man was cited for discipline and subjected to supervision of his practice!
Statewide Civil Domestic Violence Database to be Launched this Summer
By Clifton Files, Esq., Domestic Violence Specialist, Administrative Office of the Courts, Department of Family Administration
The Maryland Judiciary will be one of the first states with a comprehensive database of civil orders of protection when it launches the Domestic Violence Central Repository this summer. In September 2006, the Department of Family Administration was awarded a grant by the Office of Violence Against Women from the Grants To Encourage Arrest Policies Program (GTEAP). The focus of the grant was to develop a Statewide Civil Domestic Violence Database. The Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) and the Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence (MNADV) coordinated with an advisory committee and held six regional focus groups to discuss and consider recommendations on policies, procedures, and uses for the database.
The end result of these efforts is a central database for District and Circuit Court judges and staff that will store all domestic violence orders, produce statistics, and enhance enforcement (cont’d on page 23….)
Refining Emerging Practices Proposed Parenting Coordination Rule Completed
By Pamela Cardullo Ortiz, Esq., Executive Director, Department of Family Administration
Innovation always happens on the ground.*** In their efforts to better serve families, courts have experimented with emerging practice models, especially those with promise for assisting high conflict families who often require a great deal of court intervention. Over the last several years, a number of Maryland Circuit Courts have begun to refer high conflict families with child access issues to “parent coordinators.”
As practiced in other states, and defined by the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC): Parenting coordination is a child-focused alternative dispute resolution process in which a mental health or legal. . .(Cont’d on page 24)
..professional with mediation training and experience assists high conflict parents to implement their parenting plan by facilitating the resolution of their disputes in a timely manner, educating parents about children’s needs, and with prior approval of the parties and/or the court, making decisions within the scope of the court order or appointment contract. (Guidelines for Parenting Coordination, Association of Family and Conciliation Courts.)
A Maryland Version of Parenting Coordination
To ensure that Maryland courts have the requisite authority to order parties to work with a parenting coordinator, and to guide courts and define the practice in light of Maryland law, the Custody Subcommittee of the Judicial Conference Committee on Family Law has developed a proposed parenting coordination rule. The subcommittee, chaired by Judge Deborah S. Eyler of the Court of Special Appeals, worked for two years with judges, court professionals, parenting coordinators, attorneys, and others to devise a draft rule and proposed application for parenting coordinators. Those documents were reviewed and approved by the Committee on Family Law at their meeting this April. The proposed documents have been approved by the Conference of Circuit Judges and will be forwarded to the Rules Committee for consideration.
The proposed rule defines the practice for Maryland courts and addresses issues relating to the appointment of a parenting coordinator, qualifica- tions, selection, term of service, removal and withdrawal of a parenting coordinator, fees, and the powers and scope of appointment.
Innovation always happens on the ground.*** In their efforts to better serve families, courts have experimented with emerging practice models, especially those with promise for assisting high conflict families who often require a great deal of court intervention. Over the last several years, a number of Maryland Circuit Courts have begun to refer high conflict families with child access issues to “parent coordinators.”
by Diane Bukowski (photo from http://justice4maryanne.com/) August 12, 2011
DETROIT – Despite testimony that Mia Wenk, a “social services specialist” with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, authorized the psychiatric hospitalization of Ariana Godboldo-Hakim, 13, and the administration of four dangerous psychotropic drugs, without reviewing the child’s medical records, a jury found Aug. 9 that it was Ariana’s mother Maryanne Godboldo who had neglected her.
Godboldo, who obtained alternative holistic treatment for her daughter from a medical doctor, testified earlier that she was suffering from a reaction to immunizations administered in Sept. 2009. She said Ariana had been diagnosed with encephalitis, not a psychiatric disorder. Neither she nor Ariana’s father Mubarak Hakim authorized their daughter’s treatment at Hawthorn Children’s Psychiatric facility after an army of police seized her from her home on Blaine near Linwood in Detroit March 24, 2011.
Sometime the silence is religious, but not always.
So, when these mothers then figure out there are more activist, feminist women’s groups who really do say NO! !!! to sexual assault (including in relationships) and violence — and seek some help or leadership in navigating their legal and civil rights in the matter, and/or the police force, reporting, district attorney’s office, or as it may be, nonprofit domestic violence support groups which might help them file a pleading to protect their lives (and/or their kids), when they couldn’t safely flee or separate on their own — we should expect to be treated as equals and intelligent adults in knowing who has a seat at the roundtable deciding our future, and the future of others in our shoes.
In Maryland, it’s crystal clear — the women’s law groups and pro bono service providers — do not see fit to check back with these mothers after years after in the court, and to perhaps courageously revamp whether the Parenting Coordination Pushers deserve a seat at the round table.
FIRST, mothers, being women, tend to look for women’s groups for leadership when it comes to defense against severe violence in the home, or in attempting to terminate a relationship. I know that’s all who helped me out — no patriarchal institution around did squat to stop, report, intervene with, or refer me to anyone who could intervene with, my ex’s nasty habit of assault & battery when offended, or when simply ornery, plus all the other things that I later learned compromised domestic violence (but knew at the time were simply terrorism).
Such mothers in these situations KNOW we could be killed, and after separation, are sometimes being stalked, threatened, have suffered serious injuries, major setbacks to maintaining stable employment and social involvements outside the home — or only such social involvements as will NOT intervene with the family situation and tell the batterer to stop!!! or suffer at least social consequences.
We also know (by now) that while the domestic violence groups have developed a language to describe and “unify” such situations, the domestic violence groups have lumped women WITHOUT children together with women WITH children (i.e., mothers), and focused their efforts on tactics and issues that assist the former — while failing to report in a timely and transparent manner about their dealings with the “fatherhood” (men’s supremacy) groups. They do not even report that these groups exist, what their names are, and how their influence affects custody hearings.
They do not even name the groups, do not name the primary groups running the family law system; they do not warn mothers about what lies ahead in enough time to protect themselves, or to build some sort of “ark” to keep from being financially and psychologically drowned in the legal system after the DV group got its warm body, a protective order, a ## to put on a report, and enough to justify next year’s funding.
In short, they do not report what they know because it’s simply not a transparent situation.
Mothers are not told that they are fighting a contest which is funded on the opposing side by the welfare institution that perhaps may be providing them with housing, food initially. That this institution literally has been diverting millions of dollars to assist “noncustodial fathers” in regaining contact with their kids, based on the theory that these same mothers are the serious risk to their own kids’ futures by the fact of not having a man in the home who is that kids’ Dad even when that kids’ Dad was assaulting her and/or them (or molesting them) is as such not a fit parent.
This post to be read alongside a page added to the other blog, which explains the “Strong Field Project” reference.
“Strengthening leaders, organizations, and networks to build a stronger domestic violence field“*
*What does doing THAT have to do with ending domestic violence, pray tell?
“Three Cities that Rule the World,” Including the Ever-expanding but Centralized DV Field“
(How interesting that a visitor today from “City of London” showed on Feedjit….)
That article was posted at http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=106799.0 by user May 21, 2009.
|
We think in terms of within our state (or perhaps as far as the federal level) when seeking justice from the bottom up. However, the top down doesn’t think that way at all — and from what I can see these days, it doesn’t think in terms of the US Constitution either. Consider nonprofit associations that help run our justice system, including particularly the one I blog on….
this nonprofit (founded 1979) is also listed on the New York State
International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution
Founded in 1979, the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution—an alliance of global corporations, law firms, legal academics and selected public institutions—serves as a multinational resource for avoidance, management and resolution of business-related and other disputes. Its site offers, among other things, project descriptions, publications, videotapes and training materials, and also discusses alternative dispute resolution in a variety of industry and practice areas.
The “Strong Field Project” is just another sapling off the DV as industry Tree, and not the main point here (see first link, above). My point is, were it not for centralized wealth — and alongside that wealth, centralized decision-making (taxation without representation) these things would not exist. And so long as our medium of exchange is “fiat money” owned by private bankers, who lend to the U.S. Treasury at interest dumped upon the entire US Population, while talks about “stimulating the economy” “balancing the budget” etc. continue to roil the electorate — they rule that world, and it’s true — they do.
Maybe Jesus was right, in the wilderness -it takes one to know one and maybe whoever wrote the gospels of Matthew and Luke, describing his temptation, were absolutely correct (Mark, probably earlier than either, skims over the time in the wilderness). As it goes in Matthew 4 (KJV), three temptations, which I’ll summarize as: Do Magic Tricks (Stones into bread) to satisfy his empty stomach; Suicide (jump off the temple to test God’s safety net), and finally, Sellout (bow down, and be receive the kingdoms (plural) of the world, with their glory).
1Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. 2And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. 3And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. 4But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.5Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
6And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
7Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
8Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; 9And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. 10Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. 11Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
Luke 4 has it in a different order (suicide last, after getting Jesus’ worship fails), and adds detail on how the devil got the power over the entire world:
5And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. 7If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine. 8And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
“Power and Glory are mine,” boasts the devil. “I have the kingdoms of this world.” Well, were kingdoms around when this was written? “And I say who gets them, and who does not get them; I am the boss.”
It seems to hold true today, doesn’t it? Only different terminology is used. For example, the word “GRANT.” A grant is a gift, but with the gift goes a little piece of the recipient’s independence in the form of strings attached — does it serve a particular agenda set by the grantOR? Absolutely! This is basically the buying and selling of kingdoms, power, and etc. Whatever happens within them, that’s the umbrella over them.
Characterizing this as coming from “the devil” (invisible spiritual influence), i.e. bad — well, is this type of influence bad, and is it often exercised in hidden (invisible) ways? I’d say, yes…..
Looking at these “kingdoms of the world” (as opposed to looking at, for example, “Nature” and things that grow, against the zoology, biology, anatomy, astromony,etc. that show more and more amazing details) I have to agree, that the greater the power, the greater the damage. And that the lifeblood/energy is being sucked out of the some sectors of the world, along with money, and being centralized into who says who lives and dies; and who says who gets to keep their earnings and who doesn’t, however paltry they may be – and for what social good? For doing good?
No, not really — only good within limits of “I get to control what’s done with the world,” the song of the tax-exempt foundation run (or funded) by some great philanthropists, whose names are usally put on it too (good for PR), and in accompaniment with the corporations (businesses) that helped make that wealth. The tax-exempt foundation, by being tax-exempt, serves as a drainage ditch to reduce the taxes that would otherwise be paid on the FOR-profit.
Why else do we think so many of them are running around all over (look at the civic works, PBS shows, “Models for Change” programs calculating how to mobilize swift transformation of chosen areas of reform, such as “Juvenile Justice” or other areas. Go review MDRC again (I’ve blogged it) for an example of how inbred US Gov’t and Corporate wealth/tax-exempt foundations really are. Even AFCC is getting some help these days.
RATHER THAN WORK TO ELIMINATE THE VERY TAXATION SYSTEM WHICH PRODUCE THIS LEVEL OF WEALTH TO START WITH (ALONG WITH THE WISDOM TO KNOW HOW TO UTILIZE THAT LEVERAGE), INSTEAD, THE OWNERS OF THIS WEALTH FLY AROUND AND COLLABORATE ON A BETTER JUSTICE SYSTEM THAN THEIR LOWER COUNTERPARTS – WHO HAPPEN TO BE IN POSITIONS LIKE GOVERNORS, OF STATES, JUDGESHIPS, ATTORNEY GENERALS, ETC. — THE TRULY ALTRUISTIC BENEFICIAL COLLABORATION WOULD BE TO UNDO THIS INCOME TAX, SWITCH OFF THE “FIAT CURRENCY” AND DEFANG THE FEDERAL RESERVE. BUT HOW LIKELY IS THAT TO HAPPEN?
We’ve been hooked on it for 100 years next year (1913 – 2013) think about it. What an addiction.
The greatest goods would be protecting unalienable rights is LIFE, and LIBERTY and PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, and having enough self-respect and self-restraint to allow others to do the same — how many golden yachts does one really need? You can’t take it with you, even if you have a golden voice (like Whitney Houston, recently: global success, gone age 48, leaving one motherless child. Well, young adult. A wealthy one for sure, but one absent her mother).
So, here’s the Biblical worldview, at least in the book of Revelation. Followers are encouraged to keep it in mind that this kingdom is temporal and is going to be judged (by fire) — so choose your allegiances well. Without my interpreting whether that’s smart or not to endorse, here’s the description of that buying and selling of kingdoms, Revelations 18. As before, spiritual agents (angels, this time) are involved and judgment is swift, expressing indignation and vindication:
The kingdom that rules the world is characterized as “Babylon,” which was a kingdom, earlier. And, naturally, as a woman:
REVELATION 18:
9And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning, 10Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
11And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more: 12The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, 13And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.
That is indeed what the traffic is in. It pretty much describes most areas of commerce, including transport of goods:
(Addressed to the CITY): 14And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all.15 The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, 16And saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls! 17For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off, 18And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city! 19And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate. 20Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her.
So many enterprises were hooked into the sales that took place in “the city;” but (she) was hell on the apostles and prophets, who were typically exiled, or killed in various gruesome ways, etc. ….there message wasn’t good for business. (Quite a contrast from some of today’s “apostles and prophets” –see recent post on the bankruptcy of the Crystal Cathedral (Garden Grove, CA) and its founding family’s squabbles with the board, i.e., Robert Schuller et al. I blogged it over at thefamilycourtmoneymachine.blogspot.com
. . .
for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived. 24And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.
It takes a caste of slaves to produce certain levels of wealth, and even the best of major constructions (The Hoover Dam, the Brooklyn Bridge, Grand Central Station in NY) have been associated with human deaths of workers. What about the pyramids? What about the former practice of burying concubines and wives with the death of a ruler?
The lines have to be drawn and crowds have to be kept within their kind, and within their places. “The great men of the earth” are actually merchants, and there’s no question — is there? — that with slavery and slavehood comes untimely death, too often. So, look around — where are the deaths happening, where is the blood flowing, and then track the trail of money. Religion WILL be associated, and it’s not too hard to locate –except perhaps at the very top levels.
Whoever gave what to whom, and how (Adam, Eve, Israel in the Promised Land, whoever ….) there is no question that there is desire still circulating to rule the world, and that there are layers of collaborators — and the closer to the grants, and wealth (to fly, conference, buy and sell real estate under nonprofit umbrella, even “front groups” to launder the money at times) — the closer to the power, and the deafer the ears become to the cries of those they took the power to (allegedly) help, save, or whatever.
Anyone who’s lived with a certain level of abuse (and knew, by contrast, freedom) knows about this. Many times, supposedly there is some purpose to all the tyranny — but there never is. It’s just enforced because they can get away with doing this, and get off on it. Anything else is pretty much a lie.
WELL, let’s get down to the main show here:
I have been talking, briefly, about the analogy of “The Matrix’ (picked up from someone else who wrote about this) as an artificially created reality which, once you become aware of it, you have to either deal with (mentally, emotionally, psychologically) and determine where to stand regarding it — or take another sedative and go back to sleep.
The Internet is a great, addicting perhaps, but effective way to spread that net; it fishes and sets out bait both. But, it’s here, and must be dealt with, as a whole lotta money is traveling along that net (being tracked as it goes), and this technology, this tool — like many technological advances — is often used for warfare, to kill. The question is just, who.
To be read alongside a page added to the other blog:
“Three Cities that Rule the World,” Including the Ever-expanding but Centralized DV Field“
I’m usually up for concise summaries that make some sense with the reality I’ve been observing.Regular visitors (there are a few here) know how I feel about the profit/nonprofit caste system — which is a statement on, The Income Tax.My feelings came in part from watching the nonprofits HHS is funding, from having actually sought help from some of the local ones, and then (later) seen their multi-million funding (their doctrines were a spit in the wind when applied to a single family law judge. If true, they held no sway in that forum, which is where all souls go (for the most part) who have had both DV AND sons or daughters with the same person.
<< James 5 >>
King James Version
1Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. 2Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. 3Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. 4Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. 5Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. 6Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.7Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. 8Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. 9Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door. 10Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. 11Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
More references for the curious, here (I haven’t reviewed, just put up one or two):http://www.bible.ca/b-canon-disputed-books.htm and (better narration here) http://freethought.mbdojo.com/canon.html
At the close of the second century ((ca. 300 A.D. in other words)) the Christian world was divided into a hundred different sects. Irenaeus and others conceived the plan of uniting these sects, or the more orthodox of them, into one great Catholic church, with Rome at the head; for Rome was at this time the largest and most intluential of all the Christian churches. “It is a matter of necessity,” says Irenaeus, “that every church should agree with this church on account of its preeminent authority.” (Heresies, Book 3).
Martin Luther
The greatest name in the records of the Protestant church is Martin Luther. He is generally recognized as its founder; he is considered one of the highest authorities on the Bible; he devoted a large portion of his life to its study; he made a translation of it for his people, a work which is accepted as one of the classics of German literature. With Luther the Bible superseded the church as a divine authority.And yet this greatest of Protestants rejected no less than six of the sixty-six books composing the Protestant Bible. Luther rejected the book of Esther. He says: “I am such an enemy to the book of Esther that I wish it did not exist.” In his “Bondage of the Will,” he severely criticises the book.He rejected the book of Jonah. He says: “The history of Jonah is so monstrous as to be absolutely incredible.” (Colloquia, Chap. LX., Sec. 10).He rejected Hebrews: “The Epistle to the Hebrews is not by St. Paul; nor, indeed, by any apostle.” (Standing Preface to Luther’s New Testament).He rejected the Epistle of James: “St. James’ Epistle is truly an epistle of straw.” (Preface to Edition of 1524). He rejected Jude. “The Epistle of Jude,” he says, “allegeth stories and sayings which have no place in Scripture.” (Standing Preface). He rejected Revelation. He says: “I can discover no trace that it is established by the Holy Spirit.” (Preface to Edition of 1622).
We’d like to hear directly from God about which books constitute his message. As Paul wrote, “Let God be true, but every man a liar.” (Rom. 3:4) But God has not spoken in this way. Instead, is there some special list, authorized by Jesus, or the original apostles, of books that are specially approved? “God says that these books are the Bible,” we’d like to hear. There is no such list.[4] Who, then, decided what books would be in our Bible?
Back in the fourth century, some bishops took a vote on it. Rather, several church councils voted for conflicting lists, the contradictions of which took centuries more to resolve. These votes came after a long period of sorting and choosing by the churches at large, so that the choice was not haphazard; it was, however, arbitrary in many respects. Because of differences over the Apocrypha, there remains no agreement about which books are in the Christian Old Testament.
Another thing these three city-states have in common are their own obelisks. Obelisks are tall, four-sided shafts of stone which taper at the top in a pyramidal fashion. The obelisk is phallic in its appearance and represents the male penis. It is symbolic of the Egyptian sun god, Ra, and is an ancient symbol of male energy and generation (G) in Freemasonry.
Vatican obelisk: Located in St. Peter’s Square, the Vatican obelisk was moved from Egypt to its current location in 1586. The circle at the base on the obelisk represents the female vagina and thus male/female duality. Also notice the lines extending from the circle, forming a Union Jack as seen on the British flag.
London obelisk (aka Cleopatra’s Needle): Located on the banks of the River Thames, this obelisk was transported to London and erected in 1878 under the reign of Queen Victoria. The obelisk originally stood in the Egyptian city of On, or Heliopolis (the City of the Sun). The Knights Templars’ land extended to this area of the Thames, where the Templars had their own docks. Either side of the obelisk is surrounded by a sphinx, also symbolism dating back to the ancient world.
Washington Obelisk (aka Washington Monument): Standing at 555 feet, the Washington Monument is the tallest obelisk in the world and also the tallest standing structure in Washington DC. The monument’s cornerstone, a 12-ton slab of marble, was donated by the Grand Lodge of Freemasons. Like the Vatican obelisk, the Washington monument too is surrounded by a circle denoting the female. The reflecting pool in front of the monument signifies the ancient Masonic/Kabbalistic dictum, as above/so below.
for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived. 24And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.
The New Freedom Commission was established by executive order on April 29, 2002. At a speech in New Mexico that day, Bush said mental health centers and hospitals, homeless shelters, the justice and school systems have contact with individuals suffering from mental disorders but that too many Americans fall through the cracks of the current system and so he created the Commission to ensure “that the cracks are closed.”
On July 22, 2003 the NFC recommended redesigning the mental health system in all fifty states and said in a press release, “Achieving this goal will require … a greater focus on mental health care in institutions such as schools, child welfare programs, and the criminal and juvenile justice systems. The goal is integrated care that can screen, identify, and respond to problems early.”
Despite a nearly 500% increase in mental health drugs being prescribed to children in the previous six years, the NFC recommended a plan of mandatory mental health screening for all public school students and follow-up treatment with drugs when needed.
Wolverine/Michigan-ian:
Those who fight back — confronting illegal home invasions fraudulently ordered (NOT even legitimately court-ordered) for purposes of kidnapping, for purpose of institutionalizing, for the purpose of then administering dangerous drugs to minor children — can, and will, be treated as felons and stripped of their kids, and months/years of their lives in the fight. That’s the Michigan reference, above. Testimony (at the rally) of those on Risperdal:
Posted on 04/08/2011 by Diane Bukowski
Godboldo faces eight felony charges for standing off police armored vehicles, helicopters, and SWAT team members brandishing assault weapons on March 24. She and her supporters say she was only trying to keep Child Protective Services from forcing a dangerous drug, Risperdal, on her child.
Charges have been dropped, she has her daughter back, but they are considering re-instating. This story deserves follow-up: Voice of Detroit did good investigative reporting. The same CPS worker that did this in 2011 was, in 2010, facing a civil lawsuit for pulling a similar stunt to a related (married) couple, only five (5) children were nabbed and put into three different foster homes for 4o months; the amount of deceit involved is simply stunning. (Brent family, look it up at “justice4maryanne” site).
>“I want my daughter back TODAY,” Godboldo said from the church’s pulpit. “I’m terrified; I don’t know what is happening to her. If we don’t stand up for our children, we have no future. I am so filled with joy and thankful for your support, Detroit. The only reason I came out of my home was not all those guns out there, not the threats they brought against me, but because of YOU!”
Godboldo’s daughter is currently incarcerated at the Hawthorn Family Center at Northville, despite efforts by other family members to have her released to their custody. Attorneys Allison Folmar and Wanda Evans earlier obtained a temporary restraining order preventing doctors there from putting Arianna back on Risperdal.
Despite a large turn-out of supporters at a Wayne County Juvenile Court custody hearing April 6, and evidence that Arianna may have contracted a sexually-transmitted disease while at Hawthorn, Referee Leslie Graves ruled that the child would remain in state custody
The community rallied, and it seems the family was targeted from a number of angles: single mother, intelligent and insisting on choice (not “the program”), she homeschooled, she was also African-American and in (I remember seeing, can’t find link) the community was poor. How dare this community not fork over their kids to the Title IV-driven systems for Rx profits?
One woman [that this mother met in jail for defending her kid] told me what Risperdal did to her. She was kidnapped at 17 and forced into prostitution in Chicago. When she got free and came back home, they put her on that drug. She said she felt dizzy, was hallucinating, and couldn’t function on a day-to-day basis.”
Barbara Ann Polizzi, a critical care nurse from New York, drove 13 hours to the rally with her 17-year-old son Michael to tell a story almost identical to that of Arianna’s. Michael too was forced to take Risperdal. …
“I felt scared and fearful,” he said. “The medicine gave me shortness of breath and made my heart race. I had to get an inhaler and started on heart medication on top of it. I was not Michael anymore.”
He said he was she never never gave up on me.” (It took 6.5 years, she said):
Godboldo’s niece Ambyr Brooks said that the family has been contacted by people from Australia to Canada, many of whom have been similarly subjected to state abductions of their children and forced medications.
Mother (left), Father (middle), Michael and mother (far right)
Jaycee Dugard is suing the federal government because it twice rejected her requests for private mediation over its alleged failure to properly monitor Phillip Garrido, the man who kidnapped her and held her captive for 18 years.
. . .In an exclusive interview with ABC News’ Diane Sawyerearlier this year, Dugard recounted how she overcame the horror of her kidnapping in 1991, her nearly two decade imprisonment in which she gave birth to two children fathered by Garrido, and her healing process since being rescued in 2009.
“There’s a switch that I had to shut off,”
Garrido was already a convicted kidnapper when he and his wife, Nancy, abducted 11-year-old Dugard as she walked to school from her family’s Tahoe, Calif., home. He had been sentenced to 50 years in federal prison for kidnapping a woman in 1977. He was released in 1988 and placed on federal parole. In 1999, eight years into his kidnapping and torture of Dugard, he was released from federal parole and thanked by an agent for his “cooperation.”
From 1999 to 2009, the state of California was charged with supervising him. At least 60 times, officials from the California Department of Corrections visited the Garrido home and never noticed anything amiss. On at least one visit, an official actually talked to Dugard.
Dugard and her children have already received a settlement from the state of California. Dugard’s attorneys attempted to reach a settlement with the U.S. government through private mediation twice but were denied.
Of telling her story, Dugard told Sawyer, “Why not look at it? You know, stare it down until it can’t scare you anymore…I didn’t want there to be any more secrets?I hadn’t done anything wrong. It wasn’t something I did that caused this to happen. And I feel that by putting it all out there, it’s very freeing.”
(I’m sorry to see that this foundation has taken up with a PAS specialist, in “Transitioning Families”
Transitioning families encompasses the family and individual counseling practice of Rebecca Bailey, Ph.D. as well as her reunification programs, parenting classes and supervised visitation services. Dr. Bailey incorporated her clinical experience with her long-standing interest in animal therapy and the equine-assisted growth and learning programs
Dr. Bailey received her doctoral degree from The Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. Since 1995 she has focused on high conflict familial situations and parent coordination from a developmental perspective. She is former director of the Sonoma Police Departments Youth and family services program and was a therapist educator for programs such as Marin County’s DUI Program. She continues to work with a variety of state and national organizations such as The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
She has served as a Special master and expert witness in cases were parental alienation or estrangement is an issue.
“USEFUL LINKS” (useful for WHAT?)
- AFCC AFCC is the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts – an interdisciplinary and international association of professionals dedicated to the resolution of family conflict.
- Dave Ziegler, Ph.D.Beyond Healing, The path to personal contentment after trauma
- Dr. Richard A. WarshakDr. Warshak is a psychologist and author of Divorce Poison: How To Protect Your Family From Bad-mouthing and Brainwashing, now in its 24th printing, and co-author of the critically acclaimed DVD for children and parents…
- Parental Alienation Awareness OrganizationBecause most people do not know about PA & HAP until they experience it, the idea of Parental Alienation Awareness Organization was put forth to help raise awareness and provide education about this growing problem of mental and emotional child abuse.
|
This is not “archaic” information and irrelevant — it’s VERY current. I am still digesting — but it makes sense. Here’s a Brit (I gather) relating the Monarchy’s relationship to the Corporation of London (which holds the crown — the one you’ve seen on TV perhaps, loaned out for state occasions) and correlating to a May, 2011 meeting with the British Prime Minister Cameron with Eurozone personnel, re: ESM (Hey, it’s new term to me….). I just saw Cameron sitting next to President Obama watching a basketball game, on TV….
I know that many of you who visit this site have looked deeply into our constitution, and are already aware that our State, the Crown, is not the Monarchy, but the Corporation of London.
The ‘Crown’ is in trust to the Corporation of London, it owns it and has done since Cromwell hocked it in return for unrepayable loans from Dutch Bankers, loans that are still being repaid today, to finance a bankrupt England after the Civil War.
In order that the Crown never left these shores and the transaction remained unknown to a largely starving and extremely volatile population it was to be held in trust in perpetuity by a new body, which eventually became The Corporation of London .It is this Crown that all State employees swear allegiance to, with the exception of the Royal Navy who give their allegiance to the Queen directly. It is why the Crown is housed in the Tower of London, within the bounds of the City, and only loaned to the Monarch for State occasions.
What these charlies across the Channel are trying to do is the same thing, and largely for the same reasons. The new revised ESM that was suggested on Friday would become thenew State of Europa.
In the same way that the State sits above the British Government, this planned ESM Treaty would be a level of State above the EU and its institutions.
Where I got the habit of educating myself goes far back — but in these matters, it came from having relied on others’ information, which — though true enough — was (1) not the overview– critical elements were missing, and (2) given what was missing, almost irrelevant. Instead they (includes Lundy Bancroft, and classic DV rhetoric) talked psychology and group dynamics and some law — something anyone living through what I did has already figured out (though how nice to have the correct terminology).
But they should’ve talked finances — and corporate influence, federal incentives, and private nonprofit associations running demonstration social science projects on as many POOR people (or other distressed populations) as possible, allegedly for the public’s benefit, and definitely at the public’s expense. In fact, public and private are so blurred at this point, it might be best to ignore what the law says about domestic violence and criminal behavior, and rebuttable presumptions against custody going to the batterer (after all — plenty of judges, family law attorneys, custody evaluators, guardians ad litem and child support professionals most certainly do. And we have to deal with them anyhow, so why not figure out what’s going on!
ROUGHLY in TWO PARTS: I. “EDUCATE YOURSELF” — and several examples. And then II. (as to the Roots of Welfare) — some links to do so. (under 7,000 words this time). That’s if you care to. I’m not your babysitter, I do this for conscience, possibly for therapy, and for a track record. But they are — as this shows — hauling off (kidnapping) children systematically from good parents, to get drugged under foster care. They are, when there are two parents fighting for custody, able to prolong and make horrible the fight for years — and so “justify” major grants continuations (under TANF, which makes this possible) to promote marriage and fatherhood, and other very chauvinistic (antifeminist) ideas. At the heart of this is the concept that it’s OK to force indoctrination (“education”) on poor people to address why they are poor, that the elite are appropriate in “molding” the poor — through force — to understand their function and place in society. Religion is a good aid to this policy.
Too much of this policy comes from places like the British monarchy, or the Nazi apparatus, or prior to that, Prussian educational ideas. Too much of it depends on free time to philosophize on the backs of workers that barely make ends meet and have far less freedom or mobility simply because they have no family wealth (assets), whether earned, or inherited. Add to this things like eminent domain (government condemning, then seizing, then selling to cronies, private property) and we’re headed back towards the concentrations camps. Depending on when “Judgment Day” comes — or does not. Whatever the status of “judgment day” — there is nothing “just” or equitable about Welfare Reform, which enables flexible grants to the states, and gives bribes to states for going along with federal policy. Federal policy rubberstamped by Congress — but managed by the Executive Branch (White House and friends) through a grants system. The grants system itself is based on the TAX system — and there you go.
This is commonly called fascism ,centralization and we know already where that heads off to.
I know what dictatorship is at the family level, the personal level — and am pretty hot and bothered to see how far down the line it is at the national level as well. When one’s life’s work is repeatedly interrupted, and finally stopped — talking about the essential things one has done in life — one has to rethink the “hold a job til retirement model,” particularly being a female of a certain age in the USA, Post-Bush1 & Bush 2.
(Read PART I, those comments will make more sense).
Educate Yo’self was actually the domain name of a link someone else passed along. What a source!
The Declaration of Independence – 1776
The Articles of Confederation – 1777
The Constitution for the United States – 1787
Its Sources and Its ApplicationCommitment One: To Freedom
The commitment of greatest importance is a DEDICATION To FREEDOM at all levels of society, and in all dimensions of our existence.
A commitment to freedom, at all levels, is automatically a commitment to Rigorous Honesty, the Truth of Reality. After all, once freedom is insured, why would one need to lie?
Any “security” that is gained through loss of freedom is a Commitment to Fear. Any nation that puts “national security” above personal freedom has lost its power base
And, tidbits such as (from 2008 — an election year. Worth a review this year?):
545 People Responsible for America’s Woes
by Charley ReeseHave you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don’t write the tax code. Congress does. You and I don’t set fiscal policy. Congress does. You and I don’t control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices – 545 human beings out of the 300 million – are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered but private central bank.
. . . .Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. . . .
REPLACE THE SCOUNDRELS . . .
It was passed in 1996, a Bill Clinton year. See “From the Transvaal to TANF” talking about “triangulation” and how Clinton promoted this version of the “contract with America” as inbetween and somehow “above” party politics. The fact is, the Republicans had succeeded in shutting down government over this, his ass was in trouble with Monica Lewinsky, and there was the Hillary problem; in fact there were plenty of problems.
The “Transvaal’ refers to Cecil Rhodes. Bill Clinton, among others, was a Rhodes Scholar. The purpose of the Rhodes Scholarship, and the beyond-my-liftime-goal of Mr. Rhodes, was to regain the British control of the world, particularly the return of “the US colonies” to their master. Some people were born to lead, others were born to serve, obviously. Now, fast-forward to TANF reform and look at who it’s targeting for program indoctrination on how to stay married, and quit propagating outside of marriage, etc.
The fact is, were it not for the artificial income tax / fiat currency situation (our $$ is off the gold standard), were it not the need for extremely wealthy corporations to maintain their wealth by a constant flow of competition for jobs in their industries (i.e., keep wages down, profits up) and to through a HUGE variety of means — including trying to designate everyone, almost, a behavioral health case, and where possible, proscribe some nice medication for them (i.e., control by medication, even sterilization) — it would be a piece of cake for an intelligent, motivated and in control of her own infrastructure single mother (or single father) to handle their own affairs.
One of the affairs the largest mistakes made by OUR forebears (generally speaking of USA citizens), over a century ago, was to hand over the raising of our kids to the government in the form of compulsory public education — which is compulsory time-wasting and dumbing down, and has been for decades. It’s an ABSOLUTE disgrace and has become simply a values battleground anyhow. And as to equalization — go check your senators — and all the representatives in the state — how many of them are sending their kids to public schools, and were themselves the product of public schools. How many of them came from honest working backgrounds and were not raised with a silver spoon, or a political spoon?
Some of the greatest minds and leaders had the least traditional schooling — for themselves. Horace Mann fits that example, and it appears 1837 was the first year there was a “Secretary of Education” at least in massachusetts. Now we have a Secretary of Health and Human Services (more control over this country than you realize, and the current one is from Kansas), plus the “Czars” — interesting term, huh? Look at him:
HORACE MANN‘s SCHOOLING
” The Father of American Education”,” Horace Mann, was born in Franklin, Massachusetts, in 1796. Mann’s schooling consisted only of brief and erratic periods of eight to ten weeks a year. Mann educated himself by reading ponderous volumes from the Franklin Town Library. This self education, combined with the fruits of a brief period of study with an intinerant school master, was sufficient to gain him admission to the sophomore class of Brown University in 1816” (4, Cremin). He went on to study law at Litchfield Law School and finally received admission to the bar in 1823 (15, Filler). In the year 1827 Mann won a seat in the state legislature and in 1833 ran for State Senate and won.” Throughout these years Horace Mann maintained a thriving law practice, first in Dedham and later in Boston” (5, Cremin).
” Of the many causes dear to Mann’s heart, non was closer than the education of the people. He held a keen interest in school policy. April 20, 1837, Mann left his law practice and accepted the post of the newly founded Secretary of Education” (6, Cremin). During his years as Secretary of Education Mann published twelve annual reports on aspects of his work and programs, and the integral relationship between education, freedom, and Republican government. He wanted a school that would be available and equal for all, part of the birth-right of every American child, to be for rich and poor alike. Mann had found “social harmony” to be his primary goal of the school. (8, Cremin).
Horace Mann felt that a common school would be the “great equalizer.” Poverty would most assuredly disappear as a broadened popular intelligence tapped new treasures of natural and material wealth. He felt that through education crime would decline sharply as would a host of moral vices like violence and fraud. In sum, there was no end to the social good which might be derived from a common school (8, Cremin).
Reformers, some influenced by the Prussian education reforms of the early 1800s, emerged at an incredible rate hoping to change the general form and ideals of American education to keep up with the evolving country. No longer would small rural schoolhouses, untrained teachers, or limitations in education opportunities suffice. A more defined system, which, as Mann and others had hoped, would also be free and universal, slowly garnered both grassroots and governmental support. The goal was to mold individuals from all socio-economic backgrounds into good people and good citizens through education. It was believed that in doing so everyone would be able to achieve to their fullest potential.
Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston on January 17, 1706. He was the tenth son of soap maker, Josiah Franklin. Benjamin’s mother was Abiah Folger, the second wife of Josiah. In all, Josiah would father 17 children.
Josiah intended for Benjamin to enter into the clergy. However, Josiah could only afford to send his son to school for one year and clergymen needed years of schooling. But, as young Benjamin loved to read he had him apprenticed to his brother James, who was a printer. After helping James compose pamphlets and set type which was grueling work, 12-year-old Benjamin would sell their products in the streets.
Albert Einstein was born on 14th March, 1879 at Ulm, Germany. He spent his early life in Munich, where his family owned a small manufacturing business. He studied Judaism at home, where he also was taught to play the violin. He showed a great interest in Mathematics and taught himself Euclidian geometry at the age of 12.
What sort of education did Albert receive?
Albert Einstein began school in Munich, but does not seem to have been particularly interested in what was offered there. . .
He was already a self-motivated learner, with experience in (I presume) language, music, and geometry. Are schools BORING the gifted? along with how many others?
Einstein hoped to become an electrical engineer and, at the second attempt, enrolled at the Swiss National Polytechnic in Zurich in 1896.
It seems that he continued to show little respect for his teachers, as he was not a regular attender at lectures. He spent considerable time studying physics on his own. Despite the lack of time in lecture halls, he graduated as a teacher of physics and mathematics in 1900, but was unable to obtain a post in the university. It has been suggested that he had not impressed his professors enough, which is perhaps not surprising, given his attitude, and so did not receive their all-important backing for an academic career.
Perhaps this lack of respect comes from someone who found something better to do with his time, working on self-assigned projects of interest.
What did he do next?
Albert Einstein became a temporary teacher of mathematics, first at the Technical High School in Winterthur, and secondly at a private school at Schaffhausen.
In 1902 he began work at the Swiss patent office in Bern as a technical expert third class. He remained there until 1909, having been promoted, in 1906, to technical expert second class! He married Mileva Maric, by whom he had two sons, in 1903. They later divorced.
During his time there, Albert Einstein devoted a great deal of his spare time to the study of theoretical physics, and in 1905, received his doctorate for a thesis entitled On a new determination of molecular dimensions. He also published three important papers on theoretical physics
In 1952, he declined the offer of the presidency of Israel and continued his work towards the world renouncing nuclear weapons.
Albert Einstein died on 18th April, 1955 at Princeton and was cremated that day at Trenton, New Jersey. He is, perhaps, the best known scientist of the 20th century
Cranbrook Schools is a private, PK–12 school located on a 319-acre (1.29 km2) campus in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The schools comprise a co-educational elementary school, a middle school with separate schools for boys and girls, and a co-educational high school with boarding facilities …Romney went to public elementary schools[17] and then from seventh grade on, attended Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, a private boys preparatory school of the classic mold where he was the lone Mormon and where many students came from even more privileged backgrounds.[18][23][24][25] He was not particularly athletic and at first did not excel at academics.[18] While a sophomore, he participated in the campaign in which his father was elected Governor of Michigan.[nb 2]Cranbrook Schools is a private, PK–12 school located on a 319-acre (1.29 km2) campus in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The schools comprise a co-educational elementary school, a middle school with separate schools for boys and girls, and a co-educational high school with boarding facilities. Cranbrook Schools is part of the Cranbrook Educational Community (CEC), which includes the Cranbrook Institute of Science, the Cranbrook Academy of Art, and Cranbrook House and Gardens. (Nearby Christ Church Cranbrook remains outside this formal structure.) The Cranbrook community was established by publishing mogul George Booth,Cranbrook was designated a National Historic Landmark on June 29, 1989 for its significant architecture and design. It attracts tourists from around the world. Approximately 40 acres (160,000 m2) of Cranbrook Schools’ campus are gardens. As of 2006, Cranbrook Schools had an endowment of $191 million, among the 15 largest held by America’s boarding schools.[1] In addition, the Cranbrook Educational Community, of which the Schools is a member, has an endowment in excess of $300 million.[2]
Ann Lois Romney (née Davies) (born April 16, 1949) is the wife of American businessman and Republican Party politician Mitt Romney. From 2003 to 2007 she was First Lady of Massachusetts.
She was raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and attended the private Kingswood School there, where she dated Mitt Romney. Influenced by their relationship, she converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1966. She attended Brigham Young University and married Mitt Romney in 1969. She completed her undergraduate education through the Extension School at Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in 1975.
As First Lady of Massachusetts, she served as the governor’s liaison for federal faith-based initiatives.
Now THAT is disturbing . . . .
Her background — daughter of the mayor of Bloomfield Hills, who was anti-organized religion. So, she converts to LDS (like Mitt) and her college is put on hold while he completes his. Their marriage, being Mormon:
Ann Davies and Mitt Romney were married by a church elder in a civil ceremony on March 21, 1969, at her Bloomfield Hills home, with a reception afterward at a local country club.[4][12] The following day the couple flew to Utah for a wedding ceremony inside the Salt Lake Temple; her family could not attend since they were non-Mormons, but were present at a subsequent wedding breakfast held for them across the street.[4][14]
When she fell ill, she had access to mainstream and alternative treatments for MS (a very serious disease) — such as equestrianism. Suppose this had been one of her children — they’d have had that access also.
Ann was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998 and has credited a mixture of mainstream and alternative treatments with giving her a lifestyle mostly without limitations. In one of those activities, equestrianism, she has consequently received recognition in dressage as an adult amateur at the national level and competing professionally in Grand Prix as well
“No Mandatory Mental Health Screening For Children!” by Ron Paul
Wednesday, December 14th, 2011 Op-Ed by Congressman Ron Paul
Maryanne Godboldo, a mother in Michigan, noticed that pills prescribed by her daughter’s doctor were making her condition worse, not better. So Mrs. Godboldo stopped giving them to her. That’s when the trouble began. When Child Protective Services (CPS) bureaucrats became aware that the girl was not receiving her prescribed medication, they decided the child should be taken away from her mother’s custody on grounds of medical neglect. When Ms. Godboldo refused to surrender her daughter to the state, CPS enlisted the help of a police SWAT team! On March 24 of this year a 12 hour standoff ensued and young Ariana was taken into custody. The drug involved was Risperdal, a neuroleptic antipsychotic medication with numerous known side effects. Ms. Godboldo had decided on a more holistic approach for her daughter. She is still engaged in a costly legal battle with the state over Ariana’s treatment and custody.
This is one example of how government’s increasing proclivity to medicate children with questionable psychiatric drugs violates the rights of parents. Just recently, the Government Accountability Office released a report on the astonishingly high rate of prescriptions for psychotropic drugs for children in the foster care system. It is absolutely astounding that nearly 40% of kids in foster care are on psychotropic drugs, some of them taking up to 5 different pills at a time. Some of these children are under one year of age – too young to safely take over the counter cold medication!
Ethan A. Huff,
Natural News
December 15, 2011The horrific saga of Maryanne Godboldo’s battle with domestic terrorists in the government of her home state of Michigan appear to finally be coming to an end. TheDetroit Free Pressreports that two higher courts have confirmed the ruling of a lower court several months ago that Godboldo’s refusal to administer the dangerous Risperdal drug to her daughter was fully legal, and that all charges and actions taken against her by the state were unwarranted.
In case you missed the story, Child Protective Services (CPS) in Michigan sent a SWAT team and tank to Godboldo’s Detroit home back in April after the mother refused to keep giving her 13-year-old daughter Risperdal (risperidone), a dangerous schizophrenia drug that had been causing her daughter to experience severe adverse reactions. Godboldo’s doctor had recommended that she discontinue use of the drug, but CPS felt otherwise, and decided to launch a full-scale terrorist raid on the woman’s home, where they proceeded to illegally kidnap her daughter (http://www.naturalnews.com/032090_M…).
Godboldos focus on daughter’s release: April 17, 2011, The Michigan Citizen, Eric T. Campbell“This case is very simple,” Defense Attorney Allison Fomar told the Michigan Citizen. “The child was taken out of the home without any legitimate, lawful authority. They took her in the most drastic way they could think of, which was to involve Detroit police.. . .Ariana has been in state custody since March 25 without medication.
“If the issue was medication, where is the justice?” Penny said. “Why isn’t she home with her father right now? He has complete authority after Maryanne. To me, they sent her into harms way.”
Penny {{the mother’s sister and a dance teacher at Margrove College}} says her niece was active and normal growing up in a home-schooled environment. She was active in church and received lessons in piano and horseback riding. “There were absolutely no mental issues with her until she had the immunizations and even more with the Risperdal,” Penny said. “It’s been a hell ever since.”
Ron Scott of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality . . .“The child has a father and an aunt and that’s where the mother thought the child was going when she released her,” Scott said. “Judge Pierce says she’s an advocate for families, so we’ll see what happens.”
According to Scott, CPS knew the daughter was doing fine without Risperdal and she was not considered an imminent danger to herself or anyone else.
JURY RULES AGAINST MARYANNE GODBOLDO IN CUSTODY TRIAL
Posted on 08/16/2011 by Diane BukowskiDETROIT – Despite testimony that Mia Wenk, a “social services specialist” with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, authorized the psychiatric hospitalization of Ariana Godboldo-Hakim, 13, and the administration of four dangerous psychotropic drugs, without reviewing the child’s medical records, a jury found Aug. 9 that it was Ariana’s mother Maryanne Godboldo who had neglected her.
Godboldo, who obtained alternative holistic treatment for her daughter from a medical doctor, testified earlier that she was suffering from a reaction to immunizations administered in Sept. 2009. She said Ariana had been diagnosed with encephalitis, not a psychiatric disorder. Neither she nor Ariana’s father Mubarak Hakim authorized their daughter’s treatment at Hawthorn Children’s Psychiatric facility after an army of police seized her from her home on Blaine near Linwood in Detroit March 24, 2011.
Wenk said that as she watched the stand-off with police that resulted at Ariana’s home, her only concern was, “I didn’t want her to end up shooting her daughter.”** Wenk is currently facing a federal lawsuit filed by Nathaniel Brent (see next story) for taking his five children, who are of Native American heritage.
Captions: Maryanne Godboldo speaks at rally July 17, 2011 . . . Children’s Center recruits foster parents in billboard off John C. Lodge Fwy.; they are paid $34 per day per head by DHS for each child they take
(**Wenk provoked the crisis to start with, which seems to be pretty standard protocol, where possible to get away with. It also signifies a serious attitude problem, job description or no job description. In this situation, they simply didn’t reckon with an armed mother, and a supportive community expressing its outrage AND investigative reporting on it! The problem is the presence of a system which enables this. That the SWAT team would come in this situation shows that Wenk and friends hold far too much sway. Meanwhile, over in Connecticut, a little boy (and across the country this is happening) is being tortured with symptoms BOTH medical and behavioral, as attested to by doctors — and the GAL in the case still has custody with the father who is doing this! WHy not remove THAT child?) (Answer: money in the family hasn’t been sucked out yet. See CT page on my other blog).
I keep finding more — and very disturbing — information on this case. First of all — we note that this is a mature mother, not a teen mother (see photo, and article below says she’s in her 50s). She is dedicated to taking care of her daughter who is an amputee, and was doing a good job of it; the troubles began with a school-required vaccination, and reactions to it. And although parents are separated, this was not a case which could be played Mom VERSUS Dad.
Health Impact News Editor
According to the Detroit News, a 56-year-old woman faces multiple felony charges and is being held on $500,000 bond after a 10-hour standoff with police, claiming she was protecting her 13-year-old daughter from unnecessary medication. The story which led to this incident, as reported in the Detroit News and The Voice of Detroit, is quite disturbing.
Maryanne Godboldo’s daughter was born with a defective foot that required amputation of her leg below the knee, which led to Maryanne becoming a stay-at-home mother after her birth. Maryanne and her sister Penny now run a dance school in Detroit. Penny Godboldo reported in the Detroit News her niece’s confidence grew, and despite her handicap, she swam, sang, danced and played the piano. However, as she approached middle school age, she apparently wanted to start attending school, and therefore had to “catch up” on required immunizations.
As the Detroit News reports:
“We believe she had an adverse reaction to her immunizations,” Penny Godboldo said.
“She began acting out of character, being irritated, having facial grimaces that have been associated with immunizations.”
Evans said Maryanne Godboldo sought help for her daughter from The Children’s Center, an organization that helps families with at-risk children, where a medical and mental health treatment plan was developed. Godboldo told relatives the medications ordered by the doctor worsened symptoms, including behavioral problems.
“It is an undiagnosed condition, but the doctor had given her psychotropic drugs that caused a bad reaction, made things worse,” said the girl’s father, Mubuarak Hakim. “Maryanne’s decision to wean her from that was making a difference, making her better, helping her to be a happy kid again.”
Maryanne Godboldo apparently has a good reputation in her community, and during the 10 hour standoff many people from the community offered to help with the negotiations, including ministers and community activists, according to reports in the Detroit News. Ironically, it was Wayne Circuit Judge Deborah Thomas, a former polio sufferer and advocate for the disabled, who finally convinced Maryanne to surrender
Embarrassed — or exposed? — although the mother had her criminal charges dropped, and her child back (late December) the Wayne County District attorney, per spokesman, is thinking of re-instating them. They are crazy — but smart enough to know that this case is probably a good chink in the wall.
http://www.miweekly.com/news/85-detroit/5705-mom-in-police-standoff-awaits-decision-on-charges
Last Updated: December 10. 2011 1:00AM
Doug Guthrie/ The Detroit News
Detroit— A judge is expected to announce his decision Monday whether to reinstate criminal charges against a mother who resisted police who forced their way into her home to take her teenage daughter during a dispute over medications. . . .
Acting on a call from a Wayne County Child Protective Services (=CPS) worker, who told police she had obtained an order to remove the child on a claim of medical neglect, the officers responding to Godboldo’s home accused her of firing a handgun at them through a plaster wall after she refused to let them in. Godboldo was talked out of the house. She was jailed for several days until her release on bond, and her daughter was held in a state psychiatric facility for almost two months.
Godboldo was charged with resisting and assaulting police, as well as use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Giles tossed out the charges in August because he said the order used by police as authority to enter the house was invalid. It was never authorized by a judge, but had a rubber stamp signature. Police also testified they don’t normally enforce civil court orders, but had been told by the protective services worker it was a criminal warrant.
And the police didn’t LOOK at the warrant? Do criminal and civil warrants look different from each other?
Some excellent reporting.
Talk about the disparity of viewpoints: Family, Community — versus the System who wants the child to be medicated.
My reading has led me to the conclusion — this is a class war, and at the bottom of the barrel (as to scapegoating) are women who look and act like this one. Like Albert Einstein, Horace Mann, and other leaders, her daughter’s education was not traditional — and part of schooling these days is getting the vaccinations (I even found a reference to James Franklin — Ben’s older brother — protesting vaccinations in his time!). Drugging people is a form of medical control — not just profits — get it? If certain classes of people are being used as test cases for the effects of dangerous drugs, then this comprises a class war against them. Why should this mother AND her community have to wage a legal battle to “buy” back a daughter which had been kidnapped improperly? Why should anyone have to?
At some level, we have got to start acknowledging that mature, independent mothers are a threat to the status quo. For the rest of us, the family law system with its fatherhood funding gets the job done without SWAT teams. But both methods are extortionist.
(Peter Drucker, Harvard Business Review, 1999) It’s password protected from copying a single sentence, but (bottom of page 5 or so) talking about what a knowledge ecomony we have, and how one must manage oneself, including knowing one’s learning style. Are you a writer or a reader? For those who learn by writing, he says, school is pure torture– writers learn by writing — not by listening and reading (guess I’m one of those!). Because schools don’t let them learn that way, they get poor grades (speculation, I suppose, as to cause)….
Schools do not accommodate the different learning styles, forcing everyone to learn “the way the school teaches” is “sheer hell for students who learn differently.”
Easy to say, but that Michigan Mom seems to be someone who knows herself, her strengths (and her daughters) and certainly her values — so why should she catch this kind of hell, and have her daughter in a psychiatric institution for two months or more, where there is some question whether or not she was also sexually assaulted (some news accounts bring this up) — in the land of the free and the home of the brave?
In case you can’t guess why this case has so grabbed my attention, even though I don’t have a disabled child, while my children were not (to my knowledge) forcibly medicated, the “kidnapping” was enabled around accusations of educational neglect (among others, none of which were proved, as is common) which was in fact educational choice, and an informed one. When we’ve come to kidnapping and tanks/helicopters to prop up a bad decision by a CPS worker, and (see Voice of Detroit reporting, plus I recognized some of the companies investigated, and the system) everyone has to go into behavioral health testing grounds EXCEPT those who are rich enough and independent enough to escape the target range of these programs – then I have to ask – what are we putting our lives and taxes toward to start with? Is THIS something you want to really endorse?
It took me a while to come to the conclusions I have, and I don’t expect others to agree immediately — or ncessarily ever. But I do stand my ground — pay less attention to the talking heads, the mainstream media, and a lot more to your legislators and do NOT underestimate the influence of the family court system. After all, a lot of money is going missing in the process — so what’s that money going INto? Drugs? Legal or illegal, or is there a difference?
It takes a good deal of context to separate Info from DISinfo. And it’s work, too. With time, it gets a lot easier, though.
Where I got the habit of educating myself goes far back — but in these matters, it came from having relied on others’ information, which — though true enough — was (1) not the overview– critical elements were missing, and (2) given what was missing, almost irrelevant. Instead they (includes Lundy Bancroft, and classic DV rhetoric) talked psychology and group dynamics and some law — something anyone living through what I did has already figured out (though how nice to have the correct terminology).
But they should’ve talked finances — and corporate influence, federal incentives, and private nonprofit associations running demonstration social science projects on as many POOR people (or other distressed populations) as possible, allegedly for the public’s benefit, and definitely at the public’s expense. In fact, public and private are so blurred at this point, it might be best to ignore what the law says about domestic violence and criminal behavior, and rebuttable presumptions against custody going to the batterer (after all — plenty of judges, family law attorneys, custody evaluators, guardians ad litem and child support professionals most certainly do. And we have to deal with them anyhow, so why not figure out what’s going on!
ROUGHLY in TWO PARTS: I. “EDUCATE YOURSELF” — and several examples. And then II. (as to the Roots of Welfare) — some links to do so. (under 7,000 words this time). That’s if you care to. I’m not your babysitter, I do this for conscience, possibly for therapy, and for a track record. But they are — as this shows — hauling off (kidnapping) children systematically from good parents, to get drugged under foster care. They are, when there are two parents fighting for custody, able to prolong and make horrible the fight for years — and so “justify” major grants continuations (under TANF, which makes this possible) to promote marriage and fatherhood, and other very chauvinistic (antifeminist) ideas. At the heart of this is the concept that it’s OK to force indoctrination (“education”) on poor people to address why they are poor, that the elite are appropriate in “molding” the poor — through force — to understand their function and place in society. Religion is a good aid to this policy.
Too much of this policy comes from places like the British monarchy, or the Nazi apparatus, or prior to that, Prussian educational ideas. Too much of it depends on free time to philosophize on the backs of workers that barely make ends meet and have far less freedom or mobility simply because they have no family wealth (assets), whether earned, or inherited. Add to this things like eminent domain (government condemning, then seizing, then selling to cronies, private property) and we’re headed back towards the concentrations camps. Depending on when “Judgment Day” comes — or does not. Whatever the status of “judgment day” — there is nothing “just” or equitable about Welfare Reform, which enables flexible grants to the states, and gives bribes to states for going along with federal policy. Federal policy rubberstamped by Congress — but managed by the Executive Branch (White House and friends) through a grants system. The grants system itself is based on the TAX system — and there you go.
This is commonly called fascism ,centralization and we know already where that heads off to.
I know what dictatorship is at the family level, the personal level — and am pretty hot and bothered to see how far down the line it is at the national level as well. When one’s life’s work is repeatedly interrupted, and finally stopped — talking about the essential things one has done in life — one has to rethink the “hold a job til retirement model,” particularly being a female of a certain age in the USA, Post-Bush1 & Bush 2.
(Read PART I, those comments will make more sense).
Educate Yo’self was actually the domain name of a link someone else passed along. What a source!
The Declaration of Independence – 1776
The Articles of Confederation – 1777
The Constitution for the United States – 1787
Its Sources and Its ApplicationCommitment One: To Freedom
The commitment of greatest importance is a DEDICATION To FREEDOM at all levels of society, and in all dimensions of our existence.
A commitment to freedom, at all levels, is automatically a commitment to Rigorous Honesty, the Truth of Reality. After all, once freedom is insured, why would one need to lie?
Any “security” that is gained through loss of freedom is a Commitment to Fear. Any nation that puts “national security” above personal freedom has lost its power base
And, tidbits such as (from 2008 — an election year. Worth a review this year?):
545 People Responsible for America’s Woes
by Charley ReeseHave you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don’t write the tax code. Congress does. You and I don’t set fiscal policy. Congress does. You and I don’t control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices – 545 human beings out of the 300 million – are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered but private central bank.
. . . .Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. . . .
REPLACE THE SCOUNDRELS . . .
It was passed in 1996, a Bill Clinton year. See “From the Transvaal to TANF” talking about “triangulation” and how Clinton promoted this version of the “contract with America” as inbetween and somehow “above” party politics. The fact is, the Republicans had succeeded in shutting down government over this, his ass was in trouble with Monica Lewinsky, and there was the Hillary problem; in fact there were plenty of problems.
The “Transvaal’ refers to Cecil Rhodes. Bill Clinton, among others, was a Rhodes Scholar. The purpose of the Rhodes Scholarship, and the beyond-my-liftime-goal of Mr. Rhodes, was to regain the British control of the world, particularly the return of “the US colonies” to their master. Some people were born to lead, others were born to serve, obviously. Now, fast-forward to TANF reform and look at who it’s targeting for program indoctrination on how to stay married, and quit propagating outside of marriage, etc.
The fact is, were it not for the artificial income tax / fiat currency situation (our $$ is off the gold standard), were it not the need for extremely wealthy corporations to maintain their wealth by a constant flow of competition for jobs in their industries (i.e., keep wages down, profits up) and to through a HUGE variety of means — including trying to designate everyone, almost, a behavioral health case, and where possible, proscribe some nice medication for them (i.e., control by medication, even sterilization) — it would be a piece of cake for an intelligent, motivated and in control of her own infrastructure single mother (or single father) to handle their own affairs.
One of the affairs the largest mistakes made by OUR forebears (generally speaking of USA citizens), over a century ago, was to hand over the raising of our kids to the government in the form of compulsory public education — which is compulsory time-wasting and dumbing down, and has been for decades. It’s an ABSOLUTE disgrace and has become simply a values battleground anyhow. And as to equalization — go check your senators — and all the representatives in the state — how many of them are sending their kids to public schools, and were themselves the product of public schools. How many of them came from honest working backgrounds and were not raised with a silver spoon, or a political spoon?
Some of the greatest minds and leaders had the least traditional schooling — for themselves. Horace Mann fits that example, and it appears 1837 was the first year there was a “Secretary of Education” at least in massachusetts. Now we have a Secretary of Health and Human Services (more control over this country than you realize, and the current one is from Kansas), plus the “Czars” — interesting term, huh? Look at him:
HORACE MANN‘s SCHOOLING
” The Father of American Education”,” Horace Mann, was born in Franklin, Massachusetts, in 1796. Mann’s schooling consisted only of brief and erratic periods of eight to ten weeks a year. Mann educated himself by reading ponderous volumes from the Franklin Town Library. This self education, combined with the fruits of a brief period of study with an intinerant school master, was sufficient to gain him admission to the sophomore class of Brown University in 1816” (4, Cremin). He went on to study law at Litchfield Law School and finally received admission to the bar in 1823 (15, Filler). In the year 1827 Mann won a seat in the state legislature and in 1833 ran for State Senate and won.” Throughout these years Horace Mann maintained a thriving law practice, first in Dedham and later in Boston” (5, Cremin).
” Of the many causes dear to Mann’s heart, non was closer than the education of the people. He held a keen interest in school policy. April 20, 1837, Mann left his law practice and accepted the post of the newly founded Secretary of Education” (6, Cremin). During his years as Secretary of Education Mann published twelve annual reports on aspects of his work and programs, and the integral relationship between education, freedom, and Republican government. He wanted a school that would be available and equal for all, part of the birth-right of every American child, to be for rich and poor alike. Mann had found “social harmony” to be his primary goal of the school. (8, Cremin).
Horace Mann felt that a common school would be the “great equalizer.” Poverty would most assuredly disappear as a broadened popular intelligence tapped new treasures of natural and material wealth. He felt that through education crime would decline sharply as would a host of moral vices like violence and fraud. In sum, there was no end to the social good which might be derived from a common school (8, Cremin).
Reformers, some influenced by the Prussian education reforms of the early 1800s, emerged at an incredible rate hoping to change the general form and ideals of American education to keep up with the evolving country. No longer would small rural schoolhouses, untrained teachers, or limitations in education opportunities suffice. A more defined system, which, as Mann and others had hoped, would also be free and universal, slowly garnered both grassroots and governmental support. The goal was to mold individuals from all socio-economic backgrounds into good people and good citizens through education. It was believed that in doing so everyone would be able to achieve to their fullest potential.
Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston on January 17, 1706. He was the tenth son of soap maker, Josiah Franklin. Benjamin’s mother was Abiah Folger, the second wife of Josiah. In all, Josiah would father 17 children.
Josiah intended for Benjamin to enter into the clergy. However, Josiah could only afford to send his son to school for one year and clergymen needed years of schooling. But, as young Benjamin loved to read he had him apprenticed to his brother James, who was a printer. After helping James compose pamphlets and set type which was grueling work, 12-year-old Benjamin would sell their products in the streets.
Albert Einstein was born on 14th March, 1879 at Ulm, Germany. He spent his early life in Munich, where his family owned a small manufacturing business. He studied Judaism at home, where he also was taught to play the violin. He showed a great interest in Mathematics and taught himself Euclidian geometry at the age of 12.
What sort of education did Albert receive?
Albert Einstein began school in Munich, but does not seem to have been particularly interested in what was offered there. . .
He was already a self-motivated learner, with experience in (I presume) language, music, and geometry. Are schools BORING the gifted? along with how many others?
Einstein hoped to become an electrical engineer and, at the second attempt, enrolled at the Swiss National Polytechnic in Zurich in 1896.
It seems that he continued to show little respect for his teachers, as he was not a regular attender at lectures. He spent considerable time studying physics on his own. Despite the lack of time in lecture halls, he graduated as a teacher of physics and mathematics in 1900, but was unable to obtain a post in the university. It has been suggested that he had not impressed his professors enough, which is perhaps not surprising, given his attitude, and so did not receive their all-important backing for an academic career.
Perhaps this lack of respect comes from someone who found something better to do with his time, working on self-assigned projects of interest.
What did he do next?
Albert Einstein became a temporary teacher of mathematics, first at the Technical High School in Winterthur, and secondly at a private school at Schaffhausen.
In 1902 he began work at the Swiss patent office in Bern as a technical expert third class. He remained there until 1909, having been promoted, in 1906, to technical expert second class! He married Mileva Maric, by whom he had two sons, in 1903. They later divorced.
During his time there, Albert Einstein devoted a great deal of his spare time to the study of theoretical physics, and in 1905, received his doctorate for a thesis entitled On a new determination of molecular dimensions. He also published three important papers on theoretical physics
In 1952, he declined the offer of the presidency of Israel and continued his work towards the world renouncing nuclear weapons.
Albert Einstein died on 18th April, 1955 at Princeton and was cremated that day at Trenton, New Jersey. He is, perhaps, the best known scientist of the 20th century
Cranbrook Schools is a private, PK–12 school located on a 319-acre (1.29 km2) campus in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The schools comprise a co-educational elementary school, a middle school with separate schools for boys and girls, and a co-educational high school with boarding facilities …Romney went to public elementary schools[17] and then from seventh grade on, attended Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, a private boys preparatory school of the classic mold where he was the lone Mormon and where many students came from even more privileged backgrounds.[18][23][24][25] He was not particularly athletic and at first did not excel at academics.[18] While a sophomore, he participated in the campaign in which his father was elected Governor of Michigan.[nb 2]Cranbrook Schools is a private, PK–12 school located on a 319-acre (1.29 km2) campus in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The schools comprise a co-educational elementary school, a middle school with separate schools for boys and girls, and a co-educational high school with boarding facilities. Cranbrook Schools is part of the Cranbrook Educational Community (CEC), which includes the Cranbrook Institute of Science, the Cranbrook Academy of Art, and Cranbrook House and Gardens. (Nearby Christ Church Cranbrook remains outside this formal structure.) The Cranbrook community was established by publishing mogul George Booth,Cranbrook was designated a National Historic Landmark on June 29, 1989 for its significant architecture and design. It attracts tourists from around the world. Approximately 40 acres (160,000 m2) of Cranbrook Schools’ campus are gardens. As of 2006, Cranbrook Schools had an endowment of $191 million, among the 15 largest held by America’s boarding schools.[1] In addition, the Cranbrook Educational Community, of which the Schools is a member, has an endowment in excess of $300 million.[2]
Ann Lois Romney (née Davies) (born April 16, 1949) is the wife of American businessman and Republican Party politician Mitt Romney. From 2003 to 2007 she was First Lady of Massachusetts.
She was raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and attended the private Kingswood School there, where she dated Mitt Romney. Influenced by their relationship, she converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1966. She attended Brigham Young University and married Mitt Romney in 1969. She completed her undergraduate education through the Extension School at Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in 1975.
As First Lady of Massachusetts, she served as the governor’s liaison for federal faith-based initiatives.
Now THAT is disturbing . . . .
Her background — daughter of the mayor of Bloomfield Hills, who was anti-organized religion. So, she converts to LDS (like Mitt) and her college is put on hold while he completes his. Their marriage, being Mormon:
Ann Davies and Mitt Romney were married by a church elder in a civil ceremony on March 21, 1969, at her Bloomfield Hills home, with a reception afterward at a local country club.[4][12] The following day the couple flew to Utah for a wedding ceremony inside the Salt Lake Temple; her family could not attend since they were non-Mormons, but were present at a subsequent wedding breakfast held for them across the street.[4][14]
When she fell ill, she had access to mainstream and alternative treatments for MS (a very serious disease) — such as equestrianism. Suppose this had been one of her children — they’d have had that access also.
Ann was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998 and has credited a mixture of mainstream and alternative treatments with giving her a lifestyle mostly without limitations. In one of those activities, equestrianism, she has consequently received recognition in dressage as an adult amateur at the national level and competing professionally in Grand Prix as well
“No Mandatory Mental Health Screening For Children!” by Ron Paul
Wednesday, December 14th, 2011 Op-Ed by Congressman Ron Paul
Maryanne Godboldo, a mother in Michigan, noticed that pills prescribed by her daughter’s doctor were making her condition worse, not better. So Mrs. Godboldo stopped giving them to her. That’s when the trouble began. When Child Protective Services (CPS) bureaucrats became aware that the girl was not receiving her prescribed medication, they decided the child should be taken away from her mother’s custody on grounds of medical neglect. When Ms. Godboldo refused to surrender her daughter to the state, CPS enlisted the help of a police SWAT team! On March 24 of this year a 12 hour standoff ensued and young Ariana was taken into custody. The drug involved was Risperdal, a neuroleptic antipsychotic medication with numerous known side effects. Ms. Godboldo had decided on a more holistic approach for her daughter. She is still engaged in a costly legal battle with the state over Ariana’s treatment and custody.
This is one example of how government’s increasing proclivity to medicate children with questionable psychiatric drugs violates the rights of parents. Just recently, the Government Accountability Office released a report on the astonishingly high rate of prescriptions for psychotropic drugs for children in the foster care system. It is absolutely astounding that nearly 40% of kids in foster care are on psychotropic drugs, some of them taking up to 5 different pills at a time. Some of these children are under one year of age – too young to safely take over the counter cold medication!
Ethan A. Huff,
Natural News
December 15, 2011The horrific saga of Maryanne Godboldo’s battle with domestic terrorists in the government of her home state of Michigan appear to finally be coming to an end. TheDetroit Free Pressreports that two higher courts have confirmed the ruling of a lower court several months ago that Godboldo’s refusal to administer the dangerous Risperdal drug to her daughter was fully legal, and that all charges and actions taken against her by the state were unwarranted.
In case you missed the story, Child Protective Services (CPS) in Michigan sent a SWAT team and tank to Godboldo’s Detroit home back in April after the mother refused to keep giving her 13-year-old daughter Risperdal (risperidone), a dangerous schizophrenia drug that had been causing her daughter to experience severe adverse reactions. Godboldo’s doctor had recommended that she discontinue use of the drug, but CPS felt otherwise, and decided to launch a full-scale terrorist raid on the woman’s home, where they proceeded to illegally kidnap her daughter (http://www.naturalnews.com/032090_M…).
Godboldos focus on daughter’s release: April 17, 2011, The Michigan Citizen, Eric T. Campbell“This case is very simple,” Defense Attorney Allison Fomar told the Michigan Citizen. “The child was taken out of the home without any legitimate, lawful authority. They took her in the most drastic way they could think of, which was to involve Detroit police.. . .Ariana has been in state custody since March 25 without medication.
“If the issue was medication, where is the justice?” Penny said. “Why isn’t she home with her father right now? He has complete authority after Maryanne. To me, they sent her into harms way.”
Penny {{the mother’s sister and a dance teacher at Margrove College}} says her niece was active and normal growing up in a home-schooled environment. She was active in church and received lessons in piano and horseback riding. “There were absolutely no mental issues with her until she had the immunizations and even more with the Risperdal,” Penny said. “It’s been a hell ever since.”
Ron Scott of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality . . .“The child has a father and an aunt and that’s where the mother thought the child was going when she released her,” Scott said. “Judge Pierce says she’s an advocate for families, so we’ll see what happens.”
According to Scott, CPS knew the daughter was doing fine without Risperdal and she was not considered an imminent danger to herself or anyone else.
JURY RULES AGAINST MARYANNE GODBOLDO IN CUSTODY TRIAL
Posted on 08/16/2011 by Diane BukowskiDETROIT – Despite testimony that Mia Wenk, a “social services specialist” with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, authorized the psychiatric hospitalization of Ariana Godboldo-Hakim, 13, and the administration of four dangerous psychotropic drugs, without reviewing the child’s medical records, a jury found Aug. 9 that it was Ariana’s mother Maryanne Godboldo who had neglected her.
Godboldo, who obtained alternative holistic treatment for her daughter from a medical doctor, testified earlier that she was suffering from a reaction to immunizations administered in Sept. 2009. She said Ariana had been diagnosed with encephalitis, not a psychiatric disorder. Neither she nor Ariana’s father Mubarak Hakim authorized their daughter’s treatment at Hawthorn Children’s Psychiatric facility after an army of police seized her from her home on Blaine near Linwood in Detroit March 24, 2011.
Wenk said that as she watched the stand-off with police that resulted at Ariana’s home, her only concern was, “I didn’t want her to end up shooting her daughter.”** Wenk is currently facing a federal lawsuit filed by Nathaniel Brent (see next story) for taking his five children, who are of Native American heritage.
Captions: Maryanne Godboldo speaks at rally July 17, 2011 . . . Children’s Center recruits foster parents in billboard off John C. Lodge Fwy.; they are paid $34 per day per head by DHS for each child they take
(**Wenk provoked the crisis to start with, which seems to be pretty standard protocol, where possible to get away with. It also signifies a serious attitude problem, job description or no job description. In this situation, they simply didn’t reckon with an armed mother, and a supportive community expressing its outrage AND investigative reporting on it! The problem is the presence of a system which enables this. That the SWAT team would come in this situation shows that Wenk and friends hold far too much sway. Meanwhile, over in Connecticut, a little boy (and across the country this is happening) is being tortured with symptoms BOTH medical and behavioral, as attested to by doctors — and the GAL in the case still has custody with the father who is doing this! WHy not remove THAT child?) (Answer: money in the family hasn’t been sucked out yet. See CT page on my other blog).
I keep finding more — and very disturbing — information on this case. First of all — we note that this is a mature mother, not a teen mother (see photo, and article below says she’s in her 50s). She is dedicated to taking care of her daughter who is an amputee, and was doing a good job of it; the troubles began with a school-required vaccination, and reactions to it. And although parents are separated, this was not a case which could be played Mom VERSUS Dad.
Health Impact News Editor
According to the Detroit News, a 56-year-old woman faces multiple felony charges and is being held on $500,000 bond after a 10-hour standoff with police, claiming she was protecting her 13-year-old daughter from unnecessary medication. The story which led to this incident, as reported in the Detroit News and The Voice of Detroit, is quite disturbing.
Maryanne Godboldo’s daughter was born with a defective foot that required amputation of her leg below the knee, which led to Maryanne becoming a stay-at-home mother after her birth. Maryanne and her sister Penny now run a dance school in Detroit. Penny Godboldo reported in the Detroit News her niece’s confidence grew, and despite her handicap, she swam, sang, danced and played the piano. However, as she approached middle school age, she apparently wanted to start attending school, and therefore had to “catch up” on required immunizations.
As the Detroit News reports:
“We believe she had an adverse reaction to her immunizations,” Penny Godboldo said.
“She began acting out of character, being irritated, having facial grimaces that have been associated with immunizations.”
Evans said Maryanne Godboldo sought help for her daughter from The Children’s Center, an organization that helps families with at-risk children, where a medical and mental health treatment plan was developed. Godboldo told relatives the medications ordered by the doctor worsened symptoms, including behavioral problems.
“It is an undiagnosed condition, but the doctor had given her psychotropic drugs that caused a bad reaction, made things worse,” said the girl’s father, Mubuarak Hakim. “Maryanne’s decision to wean her from that was making a difference, making her better, helping her to be a happy kid again.”
Maryanne Godboldo apparently has a good reputation in her community, and during the 10 hour standoff many people from the community offered to help with the negotiations, including ministers and community activists, according to reports in the Detroit News. Ironically, it was Wayne Circuit Judge Deborah Thomas, a former polio sufferer and advocate for the disabled, who finally convinced Maryanne to surrender
Embarrassed — or exposed? — although the mother had her criminal charges dropped, and her child back (late December) the Wayne County District attorney, per spokesman, is thinking of re-instating them. They are crazy — but smart enough to know that this case is probably a good chink in the wall.
http://www.miweekly.com/news/85-detroit/5705-mom-in-police-standoff-awaits-decision-on-charges
Last Updated: December 10. 2011 1:00AM
Doug Guthrie/ The Detroit News
Detroit— A judge is expected to announce his decision Monday whether to reinstate criminal charges against a mother who resisted police who forced their way into her home to take her teenage daughter during a dispute over medications. . . .
Acting on a call from a Wayne County Child Protective Services (=CPS) worker, who told police she had obtained an order to remove the child on a claim of medical neglect, the officers responding to Godboldo’s home accused her of firing a handgun at them through a plaster wall after she refused to let them in. Godboldo was talked out of the house. She was jailed for several days until her release on bond, and her daughter was held in a state psychiatric facility for almost two months.
Godboldo was charged with resisting and assaulting police, as well as use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Giles tossed out the charges in August because he said the order used by police as authority to enter the house was invalid. It was never authorized by a judge, but had a rubber stamp signature. Police also testified they don’t normally enforce civil court orders, but had been told by the protective services worker it was a criminal warrant.
And the police didn’t LOOK at the warrant? Do criminal and civil warrants look different from each other?
Some excellent reporting.
Talk about the disparity of viewpoints: Family, Community — versus the System who wants the child to be medicated.
My reading has led me to the conclusion — this is a class war, and at the bottom of the barrel (as to scapegoating) are women who look and act like this one. Like Albert Einstein, Horace Mann, and other leaders, her daughter’s education was not traditional — and part of schooling these days is getting the vaccinations (I even found a reference to James Franklin — Ben’s older brother — protesting vaccinations in his time!). Drugging people is a form of medical control — not just profits — get it? If certain classes of people are being used as test cases for the effects of dangerous drugs, then this comprises a class war against them. Why should this mother AND her community have to wage a legal battle to “buy” back a daughter which had been kidnapped improperly? Why should anyone have to?
At some level, we have got to start acknowledging that mature, independent mothers are a threat to the status quo. For the rest of us, the family law system with its fatherhood funding gets the job done without SWAT teams. But both methods are extortionist.
First set of links are ### some stats (food for thought in a land flush with marriage/fatherhood theory — and grants).
Second set of links are $$$ — including some searchable databases to know about.
The three links beginning with “—” I just felt were important summaries. Right about now, J.A.I.L.4Judges is making a whole lotta sense (see site). I also put my “What Rhetoric Are You” up there just to remind us — be aware whose rhetoric you are hearing. It’s in the tone, language, and framing. The third “—” link is an unbelievable account (except it’s happening nationwide; the rarety here is what a mother did to stand up, and that her case was eventually turned around) that we should read, it’s symptomatic. (Maryanne Godboldo case).
After that, I go into some chrono links — at least a few references by year.
After that, it’s alphabetical by some of the organizations.
There’s a reason librarians are paid — and I’m not one. But I felt that if I continue writing posts, and writing posts — no one will get through this information. The best learning — anyhow– is situation relevant, and from people who are highly motivated to acquire the understanding or skill RIGHT NOW to address a problem facing them. In other words, the best learning is self-taught, and from someone or some source you’ve checked out as reasonable, which knows more than you do. Period.
Failure can be a far better teacher than success. Perhaps that’s why I can’t look to those still holding on to their middle-class or lower-middle class jobs to figure this out. People who’ve been treated like tetherballs IN the public institutions tend to be better reporters; they’ve had to work harder to regain their center of balance. I am one of many such people around; look for loners, not followers! And always check out FIRST (as to organization) are they honest in (1) corporation status (2) filing tax returns with the IRS and (frequently missing) (3) filing with their local state as required by corporation and by charitable trust, if required.
Another common lie I find is date of the beginning of some organization. When the corporation “begins” it has a record with a year attached. Unless mythology is OK, check talk to incorporation. You’d be amazed what’s out there.
Also, after several months on a forum in Scranton, the forum message board is posting a photo of a targeted public person (I gather) in his briefs. JUST FOR THE RECORD — in the past week or so of 2012, the leading photos have featured a hooker leaning over onto a police car, a crude graphic of a man trying to plug a damn with water spouting out through his ear (i.e., flowing through his body) and then this. Either Mr. Pilchesky is back on board, or something happened — but FYI, I wouldn’t have put out all that research onto the site with this level of visuals, and (though it’s been deleted since) inf act spoke up about some of this in 2011.
First set of links are ### some stats (food for thought in a land flush with marriage/fatherhood theory — and grants).
Second set of links are $$$ — including some searchable databases to know about.
The three links beginning with “—” I just felt were important summaries. Right about now, J.A.I.L.4Judges is making a whole lotta sense (see site). I also put my “What Rhetoric Are You” up there just to remind us — be aware whose rhetoric you are hearing. It’s in the tone, language, and framing. The third “—” link is an unbelievable account (except it’s happening nationwide; the rarety here is what a mother did to stand up, and that her case was eventually turned around) that we should read, it’s symptomatic. (Maryanne Godboldo case).
After that, I go into some chrono links — at least a few references by year.
After that, it’s alphabetical by some of the organizations.
There’s a reason librarians are paid — and I’m not one. But I felt that if I continue writing posts, and writing posts — no one will get through this information. The best learning — anyhow– is situation relevant, and from people who are highly motivated to acquire the understanding or skill RIGHT NOW to address a problem facing them. In other words, the best learning is self-taught, and from someone or some source you’ve checked out as reasonable, which knows more than you do. Period.
Failure can be a far better teacher than success. Perhaps that’s why I can’t look to those still holding on to their middle-class or lower-middle class jobs to figure this out. People who’ve been treated like tetherballs IN the public institutions tend to be better reporters; they’ve had to work harder to regain their center of balance. I am one of many such people around; look for loners, not followers! And always check out FIRST (as to organization) are they honest in (1) corporation status (2) filing tax returns with the IRS and (frequently missing) (3) filing with their local state as required by corporation and by charitable trust, if required.
Another common lie I find is date of the beginning of some organization. When the corporation “begins” it has a record with a year attached. Unless mythology is OK, check talk to incorporation. You’d be amazed what’s out there.
Also, after several months on a forum in Scranton, the forum message board is posting a photo of a targeted public person (I gather) in his briefs. JUST FOR THE RECORD — in the past week or so of 2012, the leading photos have featured a hooker leaning over onto a police car, a crude graphic of a man trying to plug a damn with water spouting out through his ear (i.e., flowing through his body) and then this. Either Mr. Pilchesky is back on board, or something happened — but FYI, I wouldn’t have put out all that research onto the site with this level of visuals, and (though it’s been deleted since) inf act spoke up about some of this in 2011.
(**in 2012 I didn’t put dates on post titles, add short-links, or include post full titles (with dates published and shortlinks) within the body of the text, generally, use specified width (my default is “700px” FYI), or add borders to my posts. I was self-taught at all points, still “going through it” in many ways, didn’t always have proper internet access, etc. When I in later years run across some really early posts I feel summarize something well enough to re-post (or link to), I’ll go back and add this type of formatting.
This post, (reformatted March 16, 2022, briefly only) I’m re-posting because it references ALEC (I saw featured on an upcoming film in 10 Episodes based on New Hampshire corruption, specifically. If people can comprehend what ALEC does, they should be also able to comprehend what many more nonprofits also do, by subject matter categories, to smooth out differences by states (USA) in standards, and — in the process — continue to nationalize things under state control — like these family courts.. I’d forgotten this post (I don’t often browse “2012” posts!) but it’s short enough I’m going to Tweet it. ALEC is not the only one around — if what it’s doing is “bad,” by definition, others doing the same thing are also “Bad” — but certainly self-characterized as “good.” Good or bad, they tend to operate tax-exempt (or below the radar), something we’d better start understanding.
This post (unlike most) actually has a comment (One person at the bottom, I replied, but please see as it deals with Jerry Sandusky (remember Pennsylvania Abuse scandal, the one involving him –not the Luzerne County “Kids For Cash” RICO ?) charity). //LGH March 16, 2022.
One good summary of how ALEC operates came from another nonprofit** dealing with juvenile justice disparities; I researched this nonprofit and its background and got a good lesson in how & why the very real racism inherent in America’s Incarceration practices tends to lead to a conflicts between diversionary justice programs for youth, commissions and focus on “The African American Male” (etc.) – — and the fact that the fatherhood program as practiced in the custody system prejudices women of all color by definition, thereby breaking down whatever neutrality may have (potentially) existed in those courts.
It’s a highly appropriate topic for January 16, 2012, Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. However, this post was too complex to post, really. Even I hesitated to hit “Publish.” It needed an introduction.
Today’s post may be a little different, and requests visitors to dedicate a little time to reading about ALEC. It’s such a hard sell to get even parents with severe family court issues to consider even AFCC and CRC (for the most part) and how it ties into public welfare law (1996 and following revisions). . . ..
This would be far more important. ALEC makes AFCC look like amateurs when it comes to pretenses, purposes, and intent to dominate the landscape for personal corporate profits.
At the bottom of the post, I’ll link to perhaps four links to “ALEC,” and save the narrative (plus more explanation) for tomorrow.
ReFLeCTiONs from Years of Tracking This Trail:
I usually am blogging about subterranean behaviors by nationwide nonprofits affecting, mostly, the family court system. This is fairly specific and under-reported, but it turns out to be woven into the very fabric of of our country from top to bottom.
I simply looked and kept following the trail, which often led upwards to HHS and from there to “Institutes” “Task Forces” and “Think Tanks” — and naturally, it got round to the corporations funding the various studies. I came to the conclusion that the entire “nonprofit” system was set up not to help the poor (which is probably what it was sold as) and for public purposes, but more likely to benefit the already wealthy, for tax write-offs, helping hide income, and influencing government favorably to accumulate more wealth and make sure that competition for jobs remains keen enough to keep wages down and profits high.
I think that at some level, this country (USA) has to be collectively held responsible for just “going with the flow” in this field, including tolerating Presidents that rule by Executive Order, giving tax perks (tax-exempt status) to religious institutions which historically (along with plenty of others) abuse boys and girls — with impunity for too long — and continue to fund departments such as the Health and Human Services, which — while it dispenses valuable medical research, Medicaid, etc. — is entirely out of control.
Feedback from the post recommended the bottom section be moved to the top. This 12/8/2011 revision does so. Often the idea that inspires a post gets gradually removed to the bottom, as the front matter (including further explorations of the matter) grows, pushing the punch line further and further down the page.
Let’s look at a Massachusetts report detailing “The Money Behind the Madness” which is not so emotionally disturbing one misses it’s common sense, and that is where I’d like to end this post on a fine December day.
Thanks (anonymously) the friend who forwarded this. I’m marking this section RED, which in the context of Traffic Lights (cf. “trafficking”) stands for, STOP!
See, there are the conservatives (Eagle Forum), and family preservationists — and they report on CPS stripping married couples of their kids, but are hard of hearing when it comes to an individual mother needing to flee an abusive husband or father — because they are father-oriented by virtue of religious inclinations. (Not to mention the existence of plentiful fatherhood incentives as well).
Then there are people like me, who thought they were normal citizens with some sort of rights, only found differently when their case went from protection against abuse to fight for custody. Into the family law system. In this phase of life, being a “conservative” will not help one much — because conservatives aren’t much into, say, divorce. You’re on your own there, baby…
After this article (including my comments during it) material below checks out some of the groups and funding. Please note that funding continues even if audits show noncompliance; and who knows, really, where the difference between a monthly simple support of a family, to the (more than double the size) payments to the foster care contractor to find foster care parents to house the same kids.
Moreover, we KNOW — it’s not speculation, it’s pretty obvious by now — that SOME (and what %, only good accountability — which we don’t have — would tell) — that there is massive trafficking of children in compromised situations (foster care, or institutions like Boys’ Town, Nebraska) into sex slavery, to high-ranking officials, who can then be blackmailed with the photographs. This also relates naturally to money, drugs, murder, banking (The Franklin Credit Union in this case) and politics. Documentation by a U.S. Senator (John DeCamp) and subsequent court transcripts (cited) and a million-dollar award to one of the victims of trafficking from age 3 through 17 (Paul Bonacci) show that this extended to the White House parties after parties. Other testimony of a young woman who reported, mentions George H.W. Bush.
This is not “sex, drugs and rock and roll” — it’s access to vulnerable kids, incentives to get them away from their parents, sex– with minors, including torture of some of them, drugs, money, blackmail – – – and politics. Who can handle even thinking about this, or emotionally deal with the logical conclusion — that when these hearings came up, the Congress decided NOT to clean its own house; the legislators involved were not removed from office or named, and no attempt was sought by the judge involved to name them either?
Because knowing, from ethical persons, will result in seeking activism — or guilt, or numbing of the conscience to continue life AS IF it were normal, and business if all is well. In an attempt to restructure one’s life somehow to make more time for civic activism.
So, that’s apparently legislative, and judicial leadership in this country. Merry Christmas. That, plus the other financial corruptions in the family court (systemic).
**Not to be confused with alternate bonuses for attempting to reconcile families which either did not exist, or have already voluntarily broken up, sometimes around abuse or desertion issues. THOSE profits are for the family law practitioners and the various corporations involved, and also have separate federal financing streams. Let me repeat: If you are married but on the radar somehow as abusive, or if you are in particularly a single black woman raising children — it’s fair game. Someone may find an excuse to call CPS and violate all due process rights. After this article, I posted (again) on the black couple with children from Pennsylvania who ran afoul of a new “Child Safety Team” with an agenda to promote awareness of Shaken Baby Syndrome. I found the grants on TAGGS as well. A father was incarcerated wrongfully for a year (shortly after the program was up and running), they medical authorities apparently didn’t know about Rickets among African-Americans, and positive (defense) testimony by a doctor on the same team was suppressed; “experts” used this case to BECOME experts, and when the Dad went in jail — the other children were grabbed by foster care.
SOMEHOW, they managed to sue back, and get some help in doing so. But those stories are further down in the post. I also identified how HHS is helping some coordinated (multistate) adoption centers AND a resource center to create awareness of what a great field this is, to be in.
If growing children cannot bond with their own parents, they WILL find someone else to bond with, another peer group, or another powerful individual — if they are not literally kidnapped by powerful individuals and use in unspeakable ways. Those peer groups are not likely to respect the biological bond between parent and child, and its defensive nurturing qualities. This population is likely to be raised by a government willing to warehouse and label them, drug them (and some recent evidence, testing drugs on foster care kids), and other behavioral science “demonstration” projects funded by the public, and force them to become an ever-consuming (of services, trainings, products, etc.) population.
And for what purpose, what REAL purpose ? to satisfy the IMF somehow? or global billionaires with time on their hands and worlds to revise?The more authoritarian and repressive a society becomes, the more it is simply asking for anarchy — and it will get this. It is about greed, and sale of human beings for greed’s and merchandising’s sake.
In the Bible, “Babylon” is railed and prophesied against in Jeremiah (Ch. 51) Isaiah (21) and Revelations (14, 18). Babylon being the nation that carried Israel away captive and the prophets declared that it had deceived the world (made it drunk, made the nations mad) and vengeance will come:
Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul: be not cut off in her iniquity; for this is the time of the LORD’S vengeance; he will render unto her a recompence.
7Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD’S hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.
Rev. 18 in particular details the greed, merchandising, profits from transporting goods, and in vivid terms pictures their responses when they realize from afar that Babylon is burning. Then it squarely lames the blood of “all that were slain” upon this.
Apart from characterizing the city as a woman (very thinly disguised cultural hatred of women and their sexuality), it seems to me the analogy of drunkenness applies. One of the quotes on this post literally says, “has the nation gone mad?” Long ago, pre-internet, pre-all this — the same sentiment comes out. Notice the contrast between the Merchants — but habitation of “foul spirits” (birds also signifies spirits). I cannot think of anything much more foul than and industry which sells children, with funds collected from the community at large, while promising to help them. And which, when these children then report how they were handled, jails them (happened in the Franklin Coverup), or when it’s well-known that children are both disappearing and/or dying in foster care, the system simply seeks for more clients. The system also currently (custody matters) jails mothers for protesting abuse, or for intervening by fleeing — rather than by the officially sanctioned method, which is having someone ordered into a program, like batterers intervention, treatment for sexual addictions, or other reportedly effective programs which get state adn federal funding.
(*I found another one yesterday, a continuation of one already found allegedly cheating, demanding payments in cash, in 1999, their charitable report is of doing over $6 million of business in Sacramento — California’s capital; the CEO earns $172,000 to oversee this, and psychiatric services of over $200K to one of the Board Directors. It is the largest single contractor for these things. I will report on it, too.).
MERCHANDISING, described . .. .
<< Revelation 18 >>
King James Version
1And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. 2And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. 3For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
The merchants are waxed rich. . . .. not all the inhabitants. I’m posting a chunk of this (short chapter) for effect — and notice, it’s those that have investments, that own ships, that tule nations, that have goods to sell — that are benefitting; not those who made the ships, or the goods This is the Corporate & Government sectors. The final verse notes that in her (sic) are all the slain of the earth.
There’s a truth to this — for what other reasons to nations go to war, or do people kill each other, besides individually, men may kill for jealousy or feeling betrayed. But usually, it’s for greed. The language is yes, pre-occupied with “fornication” and rejoicing in the destruction of a city (built by men, not women) characterized as female.
And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning, 10Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.
11And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more: 12The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, 13And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.
14And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all. 15The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing,
16And saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls! 17For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off, 18And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city! 19And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate. 20Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her.
21And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all. 22And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee;
{Industries, including the entertainment industry, that supported the merchants and kings…}}
23And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived. 24And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.
There’s some truth to this. In 2011, we are watching a globally-designed (by the great men of the earth) monetary system based on strong-arm collection from wage-earners (income tax, child support enforcement also) and with jails and police force to back up the intimidation, shuddering and crumbling — it has expanded beyond the weight it can bear, and never was to hot on accountability either — which helped increase the wealth of some of the “great men of the earth.”
And yes, this is getting people of all ages killed, including people that spoke out against the injustice and what would happen if it didnt’ stop (cf. prophets) and those who simply lived ethcial lives within their means, without devising ways to get rich illegally (tax evasion) or massively rich (multiple income streams), believing in stead in the merits and honesty of working — a job, or a profession — to produce a product or honest service. And they are losing their houses, and sometimes, offspring, while helping bail out banks. The people who helped create the larger and larger income gap do not LIVE in the neighborhoods they helped design, with each other, for others. In far off places (institutions, Institutes, at conferences, in on-line webinars, and on Congressional and other committees) — they design and plan yet more ways to control the population, either social science, behavioral change programs, or basically the threat of prison for noncompliance, and (let me just say it, OK?), abstinence programs – and no indication the leaders of our country pushing this are even faithful to their own wives ,whichever wife it may be at the time. Marriage promotion programs, fatherhood promotion, and one-stop-justice centers — all a public expense with corporate injections.
And I have seen so many out of compliance corporations in the past year, I cannot count. California Healthy Marriage Coalition, I admit, really got under my skin when I saw the two or three corporate suspensions, a Unification church staff member, that Bill Coffin & Dennis Stoica (and others) worked together to get more grants after what proof of any benefit from the first rounds?
So yes, at a certain level, I can see the truth in the angry prophecies of a future day of accountability from The Lord. Some of this is simply about ethics.
I mean no offence to the many good foster care families that I’ll assume (?) are out there, and not making news headlines. Still, the system you are part of, and taking payment from, has its priorities backwards. It’s simply true of institutions — unlike families, which seem to have a certain natural limit (barring polygamy) — they seek to perpetuate and expand, infinitely, and when the society allows this, they do.
From “Massachusetts New” Political — May 5, 2000 (per url)
Adoption Bonuses: The Money Behind the Madness
DSS and affiliates rewarded for breaking up families
By Nev Moore
Massachusetts NewsChild “protection” is one of the biggest businesses in the country. We spend $12 billion a year on it.
The money goes to tens of thousands of a) state employees, b) collateral professionals, such as lawyers, court personnel, court investigators, evaluators and guardians, judges, and c) DSS contracted vendors such as counselors, therapists, more “evaluators”, junk psychologists, residential facilities, foster parents, adoptive parents, MSPCC, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, YMCA, etc. This newspaper is not big enough to list all of the people in this state who have a job, draw a paycheck, or make their profits off the kids in DSS custody.
In this article I explain the financial infrastructure that provides the motivation for DSS to take people’s children – and not give them back.
In 1974 Walter Mondale promoted the Child Abuse and Prevention Act which began feeding massive amounts of federal funding to states to set up programs to combat child abuse and neglect. From that came Child “Protective” Services, as we know it today. After the bill passed, Mondale himself expressed concerns that it could be misused. He worried that it could lead states to create a “business” in dealing with children.
Then in 1997 President Clinton passed the “Adoption and Safe Families Act.” The public relations campaign promoted it as a way to help abused and neglected children who languished in foster care for years, often being shuffled among dozens of foster homes, never having a real home and family. In a press release from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services dated November 24, 1999, it refers to “President Clinton’s initiative to double by 2002 the number of children in foster care who are adopted or otherwise permanently placed.”
Fiscal Appropriations for “Promoting Safe and Stable Families” for FY2011 was $565,000,000, Appropriations, $468,000,000.
It all sounded so heartwarming. We, the American public, are so easily led. We love to buy stereotypes; we just eat them up, no questions asked. But, my mother, bless her heart, taught me from the time I was young to “consider the source.” In the stereotype that we’ve been sold about kids in foster care, we picture a forlorn, hollow-eyed child, thin and pale, looking up at us beseechingly through a dirt streaked face. Unconsciously, we pull up old pictures from Life magazine of children in Appalachia in the 1930s. We think of orphans and children abandoned by parents who look like Manson family members. We play a nostalgic movie in our heads of the little fellow shyly walking across an emerald green, manicured lawn to meet Ward and June Cleaver, his new adoptive parents, who lead him into their lovely suburban home. We imagine the little tyke’s eyes growing as big as saucers as the Cleavers show him his very own room, full of toys and sports gear. And we just feel so gosh darn good about ourselves.
In other words, what sells it to the public is a good, warm, fuzzy feeling about helping strangers. Open the pocketbooks…..
Now it’s time to wake up to the reality of the adoption business.
Very few children who are being used to supply the adoption market are hollow-eyed tykes from Appalachia. Very few are crack babies from the projects. [Oh… you thought those were the children they were saving? Think again]. When you are marketing a product you have to provide a desirable product that sells. In the adoption business that would be nice kids with reasonably good genetics who clean up good.
. . . .
With the implementation of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, President Clinton tried to make himself look like a humanitarian who is responsible for saving the abused and neglected children. The drive of this initiative is to offer cash “bonuses” to states for every child they have adopted out of foster care, with the goal of doubling their adoptions by 2002, and sustaining that for each subsequent year. They actually call them “adoption incentive bonuses,” to promote the adoption of children.
Where to Find the Children
A whole new industry was put into motion. A sweet marketing scheme that even Bill Gates could envy. Now, if you have a basket of apples, and people start giving you $100 per apple, what are you going to do? Make sure that you have an unlimited supply of apples, right?
The United States Department of Health & Human Services administers Child Protective Services. To accompany the ASF Act, the President requested, by executive memorandum, an initiative entitled Adoption 2002, to be implemented and managed by Health & Human Services. The initiative not only gives the cash adoption bonuses to the states, it also provides cash adoption subsidies to adoptive parents until the children turn eighteen.
If Clinton had run this through the normal legislative processes, and gotten a public vote — would it have passed? I bet lots of parents who lost children properly to the system ALREADY — would’ve voted NO!
Everybody makes money. If anyone really believes that these people are doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, then I’ve got some bad news for you. The fact that this program is run by HHS, ordered from the very top, explains why the citizens who are victims of DSS get no response from their legislators. It explains why no one in the Administration cares about the abuse and fatalities of children in the “care” of DSS, and no one wants to hear about the broken arms, verbal abuse, or rapes. They are just business casualties. It explains why the legislators I’ve talked to for the past three years look at me with pity. Because I’m preaching to the already damned.
The legislators have forgotten who funds their paychecks and who they need to account to, as has the Governor. Because it isn’t the President. It’s us.
What an interesting government policy when compared to the welfare program that the same child’s mother may have been on before losing her children, and in which she may not own anything, must prove that she has no money in the bank; no boats, real estate, stocks or bonds; and cannot even own a car that is safe to drive worth over $1000. This is all so she can collect $539 per month for herself and two children. The foster parent who gets her children gets $820 plus. We spit on the mother on welfare as a parasite who is bleeding the taxpayers, yet we hold the foster and adoptive parents [who are bleeding ten times as much from the taxpayers] up as saints. The adoptive and foster parents aren’t subjected to psychological evaluations, ink blot tests, MMPI’s, drug & alcohol evaluations, or urine screens as the parents are.
Adoption subsidies may be negotiated on a case by case basis. [Anyone ever tried to “negotiate” with the Welfare Department?] There are many e-mail lists and books published to teach adoptive parents how to negotiate to maximize their subsidies. As one pro writes on an e-mail list: “We receive a subsidy for our kids of $1,900 per month plus another $500 from the State of Florida. We are trying to adopt three more teens and we will get subsidies for them, too. It sure helps out with the bills.”
I can’t help but wonder why we don’t give this same level of support to the children’s parents in the first place?
The writer points out, correctly:
So, if the natural parents were given the incredible incentives and services listed above that are provided to the adoptive parents, wouldn’t it stand to reason that the causes for removing children in the first place would be eliminated? How many less children would enter foster care in the first place? The child protective budget would be reduced from $12 billion to around $4 billion. Granted, tens of thousands of social workers, administrators, lawyers, juvenile court personnel, therapists, and foster parents would be out of business, but we would have safe, healthy, intact families, which are the foundation of any society.
Thank God for writers like this, who in the article recommends boycotting a US stamp which sports a National Adoption Month, and concludes:
“Remember that children in foster care serve many public purposes — not good ones — but they do. They are being USED, and it’s hardly surprising. Children are big bucks — they can be trafficked to serve legislator’s (and others’) perverse passions, and in the process enabling very profitable blackmail of the same. They can be apparently disposed of easier after use than children with involved biological parents and relatives. They can be used to bill the public for unnecessary pharmaceuticals more easily than kids in the home can be, although from what I read, there’s too much of that going on. How many unknown deaths or adverse reactions result from over-dosing kids in foster care? When inappropriately photographed as minors (sometimes without their knowledge), this pornography has a market, too.
Are there good foster, and really bad parents? Obviously. But just as obviously, the system is ripe for abuse. And it’s SYSTEMS we have to watch out for as citizens — or lose it all. Is this country about material prosperity — absent due process? — or about liberty, which will allow individuals to band together freely and seek their mutual prosperity and safety?
When daily survival keeps the average and poor too busy to monitor those with multiple streams of income and time to lobby and devise favorable legislation for favorite projects (or simply by pass the legal process, as too many Presidents have done) — then we are going to compartmentalize the best of humanity away. I see this as an institutional matter — and as such, more people need to stop letting others direct the institutions that direct their lives, and manipulate different segments of society to fight each other.
Justice doesn’t happen without some accountability, whether one believes in a just highest power (God) — or justice underlying the principles by which the universe operates — it seems to me that mass abuse of the young (and using adults as breeding stock) would be its own prophecy of a system and society that cannot survive, that is going to implode, explode, be taken over — or all three.
This article is 11 years old, and I don’t think I could’ve said it much better.
The only database available to the public (for free) to really track its grants system — is obviously inaccurate, hard to manipulate even by people familiar with database use (let alone others).
HHS/ACF recently (Oct 2011) announced over $119 million of grant awards — without providing the grant# in the announcement, and (when this was later looked up, by me) it turns out the last names of all principal investigators of said grants — were omitted from the database, having been replaced by first names only! I.e., a grant overseen by a John Smith would read in the printout “John John,” as I showed earlier.
Moreover, TAGGS.HHS.GOV allows search by grantee identifiers such as EIN# and DUNS# — but many grants lack DUNS. The most obvious searchable numeric identifier of any grantee — is not available to search on in the Taggs database under “Advanced Search.”
The website drop-down-type menu showing which of the multitude of program identifiers (CFDA#s) available to track — for those curious about what’s being done within a state, or inter-state — is narrow, long, one can key in a CFDA#, but not search by CFDA title. For example — in this post, I’m talking about Adoption and Foster Care.
To look up which grant programs (CFDA#s) are involved I would have to either already know them, or scroll down the entire list looking for clues.
The list has two columns — it could have been made searchable by either column, or key-sensitive by either column (i.e., if I typed in “healthy marriage” or “Adoption” — the cursor forwards to the first occurrence of it).
The “Award Search Menu” has a list of all these, and one can select them all — but not copy them all, which seems offensive to common sense! Try it yourself (see link). They are not all visible at once, even. The menu which allows one to search by CFDA numbers (select by year and state) requires one to somehow know which numbers first — and no visual reference for them on the page. Why not?
Here’s a recent grant announcment from “Grants.gov”:
| 04/27/2011 | Infant Adoption Awareness Training Grants | Administration for Children and Families |
If I go about 4 different places, the CFDA# it falls under will show up:
Funding Opportunity Title: Infant Adoption Awareness Training Grants Funding Opportunity Number (FON): HHS-2011-ACF-ACYF-CG-0170 Program Office: Administration on Children, Youth and Families Funding Type: Discretionary Funding Category: Cooperative Agreement Announcement Type: Modification CFDA#: 93.254 Post Date: 06/02/2011 Application Due Date: 06/27/2011
Then, I could search CFDA 93254 by state, region, or locality — but would not get a numeric identifier of the grantee in the results!
In searching AWARD/CFDA# (and not selecting state or year), I come up with a chart showing this total:
| Page Award Actions Count: 50 | Award Actions Amount for this Page: | $ 62,965,046 | |||||
| Total of 95 Award Actions for 28 Awards | Total Amount for all Award Actions: | $ 140,269,924 | |||||
The results are displayed by individual award#s and zip codes — but not States! — are shown. So, if one has a photographic awareness of all 50 states by zip code, one might recognize where the awards went. Awards to a few key groups show up in different zip codes; here are some of them:
| Recipient: | ADOPTION EXCHANGE ASSOCIATION |
| Address: | 8015 CORPORATE DRIVE SUITE C BALTIMORE, MD 21236-5917 |
| Country Name: | United States of America |
| County Name: | BALTIMORE |
| HHS Region: | 3 |
| Type: | Other Social Services Organization |
| Class: | Non-Profit Private Non-Government Organizations |
| Total of all award actions: | $ 39,674,027 |
Includes programtitles such as:
| 2005 | 90XW0010 | HURRICANE KATRINA RELIEF | 1 | 0 | ACF | 09-29-2005 | DUNS# 140230892 | $ 600,000 |
| 2002 | 90CQ0001 | THE COLLABORATION TO ADOPTUSKIDS | 1 | 0 | ACF | 09-04-2002 | 140230892 | $ 4,438,959 |
| FY | Award Number | Award Title | Budget Year of Support | Award Code | Agency | Action Issue Date | DUNS Number | Amount This Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 90CQ0002 | ADOPTUSKIDS | 2 | 0 | ACF | 09-16-2008 | 140230892 | $ 3,669,500 |
(From the TN Corporations Search Site):
|
|||||||||||||||
Website claims they were founded in 1996
Founded in 1996, Harmony Adoptions is a licensed, non-profit adoption agency offering programs nationally recognized for their clinical design, implementation and exceptional outcomes. We are highly trained and passionate about our work and we make a difference in the lives of children and families. Our greatest joy is when a child comes home to their forever family. Our work continues as we support them all along the journey.
The Healthy Marriage, Healthy Family (HMHF) program is a federally-funded program through the Children’s Bureau and was launched in 2006. HMHF was developed in hopes that, by stabilizing the relationship between caregivers, the entire household will stabilize which would result in fewer disrupted placements. By utilizing the existing statewide ASAP (Adoption Support and Preservation) program, HMHF is able to reach, train, and support resource (foster) families and adoptive families across the entire state of Tennessee.
In the TAGG grant (incidentally) the title of this program is mis-spelled for this grantee
NCCSdataweb shows they do have an EIN# Purpose indicates a focus on orphans:
“TO ARRANGE FOR THE PLACEMENT OF ORPHAN CHILDREN LIVING IN THE US AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES WITH ADOPTIVE PARENTS AND TO PROVIDE COUNSELING AND SUPPORT” but the Infant Adoption Awareness Training is focused on pregnant women — not orphans.
| 621772291 | Harmony Adoptions of Tennessee Inc | 5,546,738 | 700,199 | 2010 |
| Recipient: | Harmony Adoptions of Tennessee, Inc. |
| Address: | 131 Cherokee Heights Drive MARYVILLE, TN 37801-5413 |
| Country Name: | United States of America |
| County Name: | BLOUNT |
| HHS Region: | 4 |
| Type: | Other Social Services Organization |
| Class: | Non-Profit Public Non-Government Organizations |
| FY | Award Number | Award Title | Budget Year of Support | Award Code | Agency | Action Issue Date | DUNS Number | Amount This Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | 90CG2659 | INFANT ADOPTION AWARES TRAINING PROGRAM | 2 | 0 | ACF | 07-27-2007 | 104115238 | $ 1,013,434 |
| 2007 | 90CO1032 | THE HEATLHY MARRAIGE, HEALTHY FAMILY PROJECT | 2 | 0 | ACF | 06-18-2007 | 104115238 | $ 247,451 |
The words “Awareness (one series), “Healthy” and “Marriage” were misspelled. I wonder if there were similar errors or switching of #s in the amount$ columns…. The misspelling was not corrected for years of grants recordings….four years, to be exact…..
The Exec Director of “Harmony” (earns about $88K) also shows up (former?)University of Tennessee Legal Clinic Director:
Pamela L. Wolf – LCSW, MSW Founder and Executive Director of Harmony
Pam’s focus is the provision of quality services to children and families. As an instructor at the University of Tennessee Legal Clinic, Pam worked to identify comprehensive solutions for homeless families. Pam developed ‘The Parent Refuge’, a program designed to support single mothers. Following the adoption of her daughter, Pam founded Harmony Adoptions. Harmony provides comprehensive adoption services to adoptive families, birth families, adoptees and the community at large. Pam provides leadership for the Infant Adoption. Training Initiative (IATI) and is active with Harmony’s Adoption Support and Preservation (ASAP) program. Both programs tap into Pam’s passion for promoting comprehensive adoption services with her enthusiasm for education
Another director of Harmony in TN notes her background:
Pam Frye – Adoption Services Director for Harmony
She Received her MS in Educational Psychology, Community Counseling from the University of Tennessee. Pam comes to Harmony from the Helen Ross McNabb Center, where she spent 15 years counseling children and their families. Pam has a special interest in the needs of both rural and urban children. She and husband Kevin adopted their daughter from China. Pam’s work at Harmony combines her passions – meeting the needs of children, counseling, and parental education.
Among other things, the Helen Ross McNabb Center partners with TN Dept. of DCFS to help place children in Foster Care…
Helen Ross McNabb Center Foster Care and Adoption Program is a therapeutic foster care program operated in conjunction with the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services.
These children have been removed from their homes (and if they do not have appropriate relatives in their own family) are placed in protective custody of the state due to abuse, neglect, unruliness or delinquency. The program recruits and trains caring, structured foster homes to help these children who enter custody with a multitude of problems and needs. . . .A Helen Ross McNabb foster care specialist is a trained case manager with a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in the children and families field. The specialist will help the foster family with behavioral interventions if the children exhibit any behavioral issues
The site — which is named Infant Adoption Training Initiative (pretty clearly after the grant series) features three of the recipients from TAGGS, and is copyrighted by them:
Copyright © 2005-2007 Spaulding for Children, Harmony & Arizona’s Children Association.
All rights reserved. Privacy & Terms of Use / ADA Statement
In fact, the initiative is pretty well described as simply a grant program from HHS, and 5 recipients are listed:
What is the Infant Adoption Awareness Training Program?
The Infant Adoption Training Initiative is funded by a grant from the US Department of Health and Human Services. Our Understanding Infant Adoption training program is designed to help health care professionals serving pregnant women and teens discuss adoption as an option with patients and clients who are not sure that they want to parent the child.
| Recipient: | LATINO FAMILY INSTITUTE |
| Address: | 1501 W. CAMERON AVENUE STE 240 WEST COVINA, CA 91790-2724 |
| Country Name: | United States of America |
| County Name: | LOS ANGELES |
| HHS Region: | 9 |
| Type: | Other Social Services Organization |
| Class: | Non-Profit Private Non-Government Organization |
The first two awards show recruitment:
| FY | Award Number | Award Title | Budget Year of Support | Award Code | Agency | Action Issue Date | DUNS Number | Amount This Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 90CO0905 | LATINO RECRUITMENT AND ADOPTION INNOVATIONS | 1 | 0 | ACF | 09-14-2000 | 042325063 | $ 250,000 |
| Fiscal Year 2000 Total: | $ 250,000 | |||||||
| Total of all award actions: | $ 9,997,145 |
They incorporated in California 1996 (same year as welfare reform, before Harmony — above):
| Entity Number | Date Filed | Status | Entity Name | Agent for Service of Process |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C1967025 | 04/18/1996 | ACTIVE | LATINO FAMILY INSTITUTE, INC. | MARIA L. QUINTANILLA |
Their charitable status is also current, although there are no returns (state or federal) showing past the year 2007 in California for this amount: EIN#
|
|||||||||||||||||
| 954587747 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Their programs include Adoption, Foster Care, Kinship Care, Infant Adoption Awareness Training (above), Abandoned Infants Assistance, etc.:
Latino Family Institute is an Adoption, Foster Care, and Family Support agency dedicated to improving social welfare conditions leading to increased family functioning. We enrich society’s foundation by advocating for and implementing culturally effective interventions that elevate the collective well-being of our families.
Vision Statement:
The Latino Family Institute seeks to advance social welfare conditions facing Spanish dominant families. Our vision for every child to have love and permanency in their family of origin. We aspire to preserve the integrity of Latin American cultures among adoptive families and to promote kinship adoptions as a preferred alternative to family integration. We envision a social environment that is sensitive to the complex needs of children in Foster Care and one that is active in reducing the vulnerabilities of such delicate families.
Innovative Recruitment Strategies: The Latino Family Institute
A number of programs have received Adoption Opportunities grants from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Children’s Bureau to carry out demonstration projects designed to improve outcomes for children adopted from foster care. One highly successful program highlighted here illustrates how these grants can be used to find permanent families for specific groups of children, in this case—Latino children in Los Angeles.
In 2000, the Latino Family Institute (LFI) received a 3-year grant from the Children’s Bureau to place 40 Latino children with families. By the end of the project period, the results spoke for themselves: 69 Latino children had been placed in adoptive homes, and 198 prospective Latino families had been recruited. In addition, the awareness of the need for adoptive homes had been heightened in the Latino community, and more than 200 child welfare professionals had received training on using culturally responsive approaches to recruitment and placement.
…
Since the end of funding, LFI has continued to provide adoption services and was able to expand programs after receiving additional Federal grants. In 2005, LFI opened a new office following the award of the Abandoned Infants Assistance grant targeting families impacted by substance abuse and HIV/AIDS. In 2007, LFI finalized 76 adoptions. Currently, LFI conducts the Infant Adoption Awareness Training Program {{also an HHS-supported project}} in California and Puerto Rico.
(the group is new to me, but it appears to draw on a number of existing grant programs already):NLFFI LOCALLY
At the community level, the Institute provides culturally competent curriculum, social and educational services with programs designed to:
- Influence men to become strong Fathers and responsible men
- Assist men is healing and preventing the issue of Domestic Violence
- Strengthen and preserve families
- Address the Issue of Community and Gang Violence
- Promote Rites of passage and Youth Mentoring
- Address the issue of Teen Pregnancy prevention
- Provide culturally competent health and mental health services
About President Obama’s Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative
The White House Initiative on Fatherhood & Mentoring Initiative recognizes that engaged and involved fathers have an incredibly positive effect on the lives of their children. The Initiative is a national call to action to address fatherlessness in America and includes the following steps:
• The White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships and the Office of Public Engagement will host community forums on fatherhood and personal responsibility around the country, in concert with local groups.
• Organizations and Individuals who sign up for the Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative will receive e-newsletters featuring articles, tips and resources from prominent leaders in the fatherhood and family fields and information about model programs.
• Organizations supporting the Initiative will work to have an impact on responsible fatherhood, from local forums with the National Parent Teachers Association to community trainings by the National Fatherhood Leaders Group (NFLG). Partners from the National PTA to the head of the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities have signed up to advance the President’s Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative in communities around the country.
In addition there is another nonprofit in Maryland serving the region to coordinate information and efforts to adopt:
http://www.adoptionsupport.org/about/index.php
(In MD a page full of corporations (incl. Forfeited, Suspended & Dissolved names) shows how popular the “Adoptions” field indeed is ….) (EIN# 52-2100734, it does exist; year 2009 reporting $766K contributions & grants plus $716K program services — not bad (the previous year, the program services far exceeded the grants). This, too, is incorporated as of 1998:
| (Dept. ID) | Entity Name | Entity Detail | Status | ||
| (D04974622) | CENTER FOR ADOPTION SUPPORT AND EDUCATION, INC. | General Info. | Amendments | Personal Property | INCORPORATED |
This too (per my EIN TAGGS search) got HHS support, starting in the year 2000. As of 2001, faith-based groups (see my last post!) could apply, too, in fact no doubt encouraged to….
| Recipient: | THE CENTER FOR ADOPTION SUPPORT & EDUCATION, INC. |
| Address: | 11120 NEW HAMPSHIRE AVE-STE205 SILVER SPRING, MD 20904 (very busy address appears to be right opposite huge hospital? and many other businesses at same street address) |
| Country Name: | United States of America |
| County Name: | MONTGOMERY |
| HHS Region: | 3 |
| Type: | Other Social Services Organization |
| Class: | Non-Profit Private Non-Government Organizations |
| Recipient Name | City | State | ZIP Code | County | DUNS Number | Sum of Awards |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| THE CENTER FOR ADOPTION SUPPORT & EDUCATION, INC. | SILVER SPRING | MD | 20904 | MONTGOMERY | $ 900,000 |
WHAT A SHAME THERE ARE NOT MORE HHS GRANTS OR PRO BONO GROUPS TO SUPPORT PROTECTION OF SINGLE MOTHERS FROM INAPPROPRIATELY LOSING THEIR CHILDREN TO ABUSIVE PARTNERS, OR TO THE FOSTER CARE SYSTEM. THE CHILD SUPPORT SYSTEM HAS VIRTUALLY FUNDED AN ATTACK ON THE STATUS OF SINGLE MOTHERS LEAVING ABUSE, AND IT IS MANAGED BY THE SAME ENTITY, HHS.. . ..
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
GRANTS INCENTIVIZE — SO THEY AND THE NONPROFITS GETTING THEM SHOULD BE MONITORED BY THE PUBLIC — BECAUSE THERE IS A PERVERSE INCENTIVE NOT TO MONITOR TOO OFTEN.
This 8,400 word grant began with the following section. What’s above here is (per my style) lengthy intro, combining my lookups with a statement of position. What’s BELOW is what inspired the post.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Grants and Programs Incentivize Action & Attract Traffic. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Their original purposes can be great — but once set up, the infrastructure is going to want customers. Consider the father that apparenty spent a year in jail apart from his family, innocently, and the WHY wouldn’t have been unearthed unless they’d filed a lawsuit — as I blogged last October, in Courthouse Forum News: Franklin County (PA) OCYF gets sued in Federal Court by Pennsylvania Couple.
By ERIN MCAULEYHARRISBURG, Pa. (CN) – Parents say they lost custody of their children, were identified as child abusers and the father was jailed for more than a year because doctors and state officials falsely attributed their 4-month-old daughter’s childhood stroke and congenital rickets to child abuse.
Jamel Billups and Jacqueline Rosario, who are black, sued the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Franklin County and its Office of Children, Youth and Families and a long list of individuals, in Federal Court.
The parents say that when their daughter, L.B., suffered a stroke and showed signs of rickets on Oct. 19, 2009, the Child Safety team at Penn State Hershey Medical Centerfalsely blamed her condition on child abuse, and the state then seized her and her 2-year-old brother, T.R., and sent them to foster homes.
About the context:
The parents say the Franklin County Office of Children, Youth and Families “has a policy of relying upon doctors affiliated with the American Academy Pediatrics, whose opinions are tainted by a burden shifting medical presumption that the cause of any intracranial injury in a child under the age of one year is caused by abuse unless the parents provide an accidental explanation, to perform the medical investigation into whether injuries suspected to have been caused by child abuse were, in fact, caused by child abuse.”
They claim that agents of the Office of Children, Youth and Families, defendants Tammie Lay and Dawn M. Watson, “failed to conduct their own independent non-presumption tainted investigation” and “relied exclusively upon the conclusion of defendant Penn State’s Child Safety Team and defendants [Drs. Mark S.] Dias, [Kathryn R.] Crowell and [Arabinda K.] Choudhary that L.B.’s intracranial hemorrhages were caused by abuse on the afternoon of October 19, 2009 and rib fractures were caused by abuse 4 to 8 weeks prior to her hospitalization without conducting any independent medical review or confirmation of their own.”
It is horrible that this child suffered injuries. However, there’s another kind of parent education program which might have been appropriate also:
They say that despite medical knowledge that Vitamin D deficiency can lead to rickets and weak bones in African Americans, Penn State’s Child Safety Team failed to require that L.B.’s blood be tested for abnormal clotting factors or that the child’s or mother’s blood be tested for vitamin D deficiency.
Another Doctor, Charles Pragnell — from outside the US — writes consistently on the problem with medical malpractice in presuming abuse, when it may or may not have been:
How children are suffering harm by those with a duty to protect them.
By Charles Pragnell
The abuse of children is a horrendous and unacceptable crime in any society and it is correct that when such acts occur, immediate protection is available for the children and appropriate action is taken in regard to the offenders.
However, what is also unacceptable is the high level of false accusation of child abuse which also has abusive effects on children and the families who are falsely accused.
According to statistical evidence in 1992 and 1997, over two-thirds of reports of child abuse in the U.K. have NO substantive basis i.e. False and wrongful accusations. [Dept of Health Statistics]. Similar proportions of false accusations were evident during the same time period in the United States of America and in Australia. There is evidence that false accusations of child abuse are occurring for mistaken, mischievous, and malicious reasons.
The current unproven medical theory which is resulting in many hundreds of families being wrongly accused of child abuse is Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy [MSBP], which is causing immense disruption, distress, and harm to children throughout the U.K. In these cases, physicians and social workers allege that parents (usually mothers) have fabricated or induced an illness in their child, yet on examination of such cases it can be found that the children have and are suffering serious illnesses. Groups which seem to have been particularly targeted for such accusations are families with children with Autism, Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder [ADHD] or Cystic Fibrosis. In other cases children have suffered adverse reactions to vaccines, or from medically prescribed drugs which have not been clinically tested on children by manufacturers prior to widespread distribution, or from birth injuries.
[[In other words, parents — esp. mothers — properly seeking medical care for their children, sometimes single, sometimes married — are told “it’s all in your head — you are the sick party, you have “Munchhausen’s by proxy” (search my blog)]].
Pragnell’s article seems to cover some factors relevant in the Franklin County Case…
Prosser’s research indicated that the major faults in child protection investigations are :-
- The social workers perceived that abuse had occurred and the accused as guilty from the beginning of the investigation;
- Thereafter the investigators only sought confirmatory evidence of their assumptions and disregarded evidence which would have cast doubt on the allegations;
- Poor recording of evidence;
- Inappropriate interpretations by investigators of statements or actions;
- Idiosyncratic behaviour and interpretation of policies by investigators;
- Investigators focusing on a single piece of evidence and ignoring contrasting sets of evidence;
- Confusion over what constitutes a medical indicator of abuse and a “natural” condition [apparent in MSBP cases];
- High status doctors (consultant) having substantial influence over other investigators. [apparent in MSBP cases];
- Experts deviating from their areas of expertise [apparent in MSBP cases
Prosser identified three major areas of significant concern –
- “The imbalance of power within the investigating agencies;
- The abandonment of professional codes of conduct and practice by some investigators; and
- The failure of the system to adequately acknowledge or compensate the wrongly accused family for the trauma and losses suffered. This latter point is reflected in the statements of some child protection professionals who openly proclaim, “Who cares if nine innocents suffer, as long as we get the guilty one!”.
Finally, Prosser declares, “It is clear that the problem of false accusations remains endemic in both countries”. (U.K. and the U.S.A.).
When it comes to the case in Pennsylvania — I’ll bet the authorities had not expected to be questioned or challenged by a lawsuit! But we can see the suit mentions the over-reliance on the “American Academy of Pediatrics” (AAP). Well – the AAP just happened to be part of the cooperative agreement with Mark S. Dias’ (P.I.) project here! (See below): This is a financial and professional relationship.
(These quotes are from the Courthouse News Article, cont’d)
. . . About the Child Safety Team member’s expert testimony:
The parents add that Dr. Crowell, a member of the Penn State Child Safety Team, “qualified as an expert in child abuse for the first time in her life at the dependency hearing for L.B. and T.R on December 18, 2009. Defendant Crowell was qualified as an expert in child abuse for the second time in her life at Jamel’s preliminary criminal hearing on December 28, 2009. Dr. Crowell acknowledged under oath at Jamel’s criminal trial that she misrepresented medical evidence critical to L.B.’s case when she testified at Jamel’s preliminary hearing.”
She was a doctor, obviously — but was she an expert in identifying child abuse?
Thirty paragraphs later, the parents say that Dr. Crowell “testified falsely that L.B. had ‘an extensive screening’ for ‘coagulation problems’ and ‘an extensive screening for bleeding disorders’ that were ‘normal’ and that L.B.’s ‘metabolic workup was normal.’”
(LGH) Reminder: The Child Safety Team had only been started a few months earlier. Within one month of them being assembled, they had a black father in jail and two kids in foster care, erroneously. The bail was set too high for this man to get out of jail. How many times do we hear of people being quickly sprung from jail after domestic violence? (or sent to diversionary programs instead of jail). See my Toms River article for an example of this, when the woman victim was an employee of the DYFS herself…. But in this case, they kept the father.
This next part, if true, is disgraceful. A medical doctor testifying FOR the family suffered restrictions that ones from the prosecution did not. First, they point out that some doctors (for the prosecution) had liability insurance; while one wishing to testify FOR the family, did not:
The parents say that Crowell was also “paid by, and enjoyed the liability insurance, of Penn State” and was never their daughter’s treating physician.
(I looked up the HHS award for this, principal investigator Mark S. Dias. This nonprofit hospital is a major grants recipient; most of the awards seem for technical clinical research…)
Showing: 1 – 9 of 9 Award Actions
Recipient: MILTON S HERSHEY MEDICAL CENTER
Recipient ZIP Code: 17033-2360
| FY | Award Number | Award Title | Budget Year of Support | CFDA Number | Agency | Action Issue Date | Amount This Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | U49CE001274 | PENNSYLVANIA ABUSIVE HEAD TRAUMA PREVENTION PROGRAM | 5 | 93.136 | CDC | 07-20-2011 | $ 492,537 |
| 2010 | U49CE001274 | PENNSYLVANIA ABUSIVE HEAD TRAUMA PREVENTION PROGRAM | 3 | 93.136 | CDC | 01-26-2010 | $ 0 |
| 2010 | U49CE001274 | PENNSYLVANIA ABUSIVE HEAD TRAUMA PREVENTION PROGRAM | 4 | 93.136 | CDC | 07-14-2010 | $ 608,903 |
| 2010 | U49CE001274 | PENNSYLVANIA ABUSIVE HEAD TRAUMA PREVENTION PROGRAM | 4 | 93.136 | CDC | 07-19-2010 | $ 0 |
| 2009 | U49CE001274 | PENNSYLVANIA ABUSIVE HEAD TRAUMA PREVENTION PROGRAM | 2 | 93.136 | CDC | 10-08-2008 | $ 0 |
| 2009 | U49CE001274 | PENNSYLVANIA ABUSIVE HEAD TRAUMA PREVENTION PROGRAM | 2 | 93.136 | CDC | 05-04-2009 | $ 0 |
| 2009 | U49CE001274 | PENNSYLVANIA ABUSIVE HEAD TRAUMA PREVENTION PROGRAM | 3 | 93.136 | CDC | 08-03-2009 | $ 554,142 |
| 2008 | U49CE001274 | PENNSYLVANIA ABUSIVE HEAD TRAUMA PREVENTION PROGRAM | 2 | 93.136 | CDC | 09-09-2008 | $ 554,920 |
| 2007 | U49CE001274 | PENNSYLVANIA ABUSIVE HEAD TRAUMA PREVENTION PROGRAM | 1 | 93.136 | CDC | 09-10-2007 | $ 561,414 |
| Award Actions Count: 9 | Award Actions Subtotal: | $ 2,771,91 | |||||
The anticipated program enrollment was 300,000; it is an intervention program and as described, participants were voluntary:
This study is enrolling participants by invitation only.First Received on July 30, 2008. Last Updated on July 31, 2008 History of Changes
Sponsor: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Collaborators: Pennsylvania Department of Health
American Academy of PediatricsInformation provided by: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00727116 Purpose
This project is designed to evaluate a statewide, hospital-based parent education program to prevent abusive head trauma (AHT) in Pennsylvania, and investigate the additional effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of “booster” sessions of parent education delivered to parents at primary care provider offices in central Pennsylvania.
Specific Aims:
| Condition | Intervention |
|---|---|
| Injury Traumatic Brain Injury Child Abuse |
Behavioral: PA Abusive Head Trauma Prevention Program: State-wide Behavioral: PA Abusive Head Trauma Prevention Program Booster: Central PA |
| Study Type: | Interventional |
| Study Design: | Allocation: Non-Randomized Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment Masking: Open Label Primary Purpose: Prevention |
| Official Title: | Pennsylvania Abusive Head Trauma Prevention Program |
| Estimated Enrollment: | 300000 |
| Study Start Date: | January 2008 |
This sounds like an excellent program, and obviously knowledge about the danger of shaking babies in anger is vital. But in application — something happened, which resulted in an innocently jailed father, and children wrongfully in foster care, for a year!
Detailed Description:
Upon the birth of the child, all parents (mothers, and whenever possible, fathers or father figures) will be asked to read written materials and view an 8-minute video on the dangers of violent infant shaking. Parents will be asked to voluntarily sign a commitment statement affirming their receipt and understanding of the materials; these commitment statements will be sent to the Principal Investigator. A random subset of parent participants will be asked to voluntarily answer a short questionnaire about their impressions of the materials. In addition, 31 counties in central Pennsylvania will be randomly divided into two groups. In 15 counties, the hospital-based intervention will remain as described above. In the other 16 counties, all primary care providers having offices in those counties will be asked to provide all parents of newborns at the 2-, 4-, and 6-month immunization visits.
Investigators
Principal Investigator: Mark Dias, MD, FAAP Penn State University Hershey Medical Center
Did the additional state incentives for foster care parents play a role above as well? Jail Dad, Mother separated from children, kids in foster care.
I focus more on the family court system (which is abusive to families, and the public through violations of due process, and more), moreso than “child abuse,” foster care, or adoption per se. However, this system sometimes ends up with kids in foster care because one parent kills the other (one in jail, the other deceased) for a variety of reasons. Then headlines also show cases of children escaping from brutalization in foster care, or dying in there. Both happen.
And there seems there is no longer any question that children have been trafficked for sex abuse and used as entertainment by high-profile politicians, in numbers unknown — as the Franklin Coverup (Nebraska, Larry King, John DeCamp reporting, victim Paul Bonacci testifying, an investigator’s plane shot down in mid air (killing him and his son) as he returned with photos from an interview, involvement of Nebraska Boys’ Town, etc.). No one normal can continue life “as normal” and retain an awareness of these activities, in our country; for sheer emotional survival, we back-burner it, and then believe that somehow CPS and other agencies will take care of the dirty business. Yet in the subsequent investigation, the now grown Paul Bonacci was awarded $1 million for damages, yet not asked to identify the Congressional leaders involved!
This article is too disturbing, and not “casual conversation.” As the point of THIS post is to expose the incentives for putting children needlessly into foster care and up for adoption — and to show an article neatly summarizing it from the year 2000 — let me just post the opening paragraph of the 2005 Article, detailing what is a curious lack of investigation by the highest investigatory powers in the US, or among them (not including Homeland Security, post 2001). This is the summary of the matter — and please keep it in mind when one becomes aware of the immense foster care industry: As this is talking about destinations of vulnerable kids and how they really cannot get out on their own, safely, once in this ring. As posted on TomFlocco.com (this was shared with me, I didn’t look it up):
The Justice Department, acting through the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Omaha, emerges from the record of the Franklin investigations not so much as a party to the cover-up, but as its coordinator. Rigging grand juries, harassment of witnesses, incitement to perjury and tampering with evidence -federal personnel were seen to apply all of those techniques in the Franklin case. (John W. DeCamp, Esq., The Franklin Cover-up, Second Edition, January 2005)
Bless the Beasts and the Children
Photographer for White House child sex ring arrested after Thompson suicide
by Tom Flocco
WASHINGTON—March 13, 2005—TomFlocco.com—Photographer Russell E. “Rusty” Nelson was recently arrested two days after journalist Hunter Thompson reportedly committed suicide four weeks ago on February 10, according to two phone interviews with attorney John DeCamp last week.Nelson was allegedly employed by a former Republican Party activist to take pictures of current or retired U.S. House-Senate members and other prominent government officials engaging in sexual criminality by receiving or committing sodomy and other sex acts on children during the Reagan-Bush 41 administrations.
In other words, most likely for blackmail purposes…. Now this photographer was arrested after the journalist committed suicide:
Hunter Thompson’s death and the news blackout of Rusty Nelson’s simultaneous arrest raise questions that someone may be attempting to limit Nelson’s freedom or threaten him, since according to testimony, both men had allegedly witnessed homosexual prostitution and pedophile criminal acts in a suppressed but far-reaching child sex-ring probe closely linked to Senate and House members–but also former President George H. W. Bush. [In U.S. District Court testimony, Rusty Nelson told Judge Warren Urbom he took 20,000 to 30,000 pictures, 2-5-1999, p.52]
Pedophile victim Paul Bonacci–kidnapped and forced into sex slavery between the ages of 6 and 17–told U.S. District Court Judge Warren Urbom in sworn testimony [pp.105, 124-126] on February 5, 1999: “Where were the parties?…down in Washington, DC…and that was for sex…There was sex between adult men and other adult men but most of it had to do with young boys and young girls with the older folks…specifically for sex with minors…Also in Washington, DC, there were parties after a party…there were a lot of parties where there would be senators and congressmen who had nothing to do with the sexual stuff. But there were some senators and congressmen who stayed for the [pedophile sex] parties afterwards…on a lot of the trips he took us on he had us, I mean, I met some people that I don’t feel comfortable telling their name because I don’t want to — …Q: Are you scared?…Yes…”
DeCamp, a former Nebraska state senator and decorated Vietnam War vet, told TomFlocco.com “there are tons of pictures still left; law enforcement is currently looking for them,” adding, “you can also assume there are senators and congressmen implicated; otherwise this would not be such a big issue.” But no federal official has stepped forward to protect Rusty Nelson’s life, as Congress would be reluctant to hold hearings or force a federal prosecutor to probe its own members for sex acts with children–still punishable by law.
I’m saying this because society keeps thinking someone else is going to protect both children and adults (women specifically) from abuse. While my case has no foster care, adoption efforts, or child abuse allegations in it — the principles remain. How many times do people have to reach out for help, only to find out most entities (including individual families & relatives!) — have their own priorities, and when one gets down to it, will sacrifice up to a point, but are not willing to literally sacrifice their comfort, and — most important — their myth that this country, where they live (sometimes quite nicely) is fundamentally just and good. And that their TAXES are paid in order to delegate life’s tough problems to others, who are handling it pretty well.
Nope.
This is why I came to the conclusion (after years of this) that the best defence is a good offence; that although independence, self-sufficiency, and the ability to physically defend onesself are resented by systems that profit and exist on constant streams of the needy, SEEKING THIS STATE is always better – for all! — than seeking protection.
The Tom Flocco article (2005) states clearly testimony from the abused children, trafficked in one case through foster parents in Nebraska, connections to George Bush Senior and intentional use of these photos to get favorable legislation passed in Congress. If there was opposition, Larry King could blackmail the opposing side. The situation is entirely sick:
..If they wanted to get something passed through the legislature, he would put some people that were against it in a compromising position. By using us boys and girls…Judge Urbom: Was this by your being the sexual partner of that person?…Yes…Judge Urbom: …Any estimates of how often you participated as the sexual partner of one of these persons that he wanted to get some kind of control over?…There were times when it would be four or five in a night…on probably a couple thousand times…sometimes dozens of times with the same person…” [U.S. District Court testimony, 2-5-1999, pp. 146-151]
Curiously, Paul Bonacci told investigators that the sex ring was based out of Offutt U.S. Air Force Base near Omaha, having been taken there to be abused since he was three years old in 1970. At Offutt, Paul said he was “trained” by tortures, heavy drugging and sexual degradation. [Offutt AFB played a major role immediately following the 9/11 attacks as George W. Bush made the base his post-attack headquarters for a short period.]
(There is testimony from young women also on the article).
Perhaps keep this in mind when you are writing a Congressperson asking for help regarding child abuse. WHY such a huge industry? When a child wefare worker “Walters” reported, credibly — the report was ignored, as below:
Presidential indiscretions–or criminal acts?
According to a Nebraska state police report, Nebraska Foster Care Review Board letter to the Attorney General, Nebraska Senate’s Franklin committee investigative report, and a 50-page report by Omaha’s Boys Town welfare case officer Mrs. Julie Walters,
by my count, that’s 4 sources!
pedophile victims Nelly and Kimberly Webb detailed a massive child sex, homosexual and pornography operation run out of Nebraska by Larry King–but with close ties directly to the Congress and the White House. . . .
(paragraphs later, not easy reading):
In spite of four polygraph tests administered by a Nebraska state trooper who said he was convinced Nelly was telling the truth, in December, 1990, a Washington country, Nebraska judge [David Quist, I believe] ignored Julie Walter’s 50-page report, numerous debriefings of the girls by foster care officials and youth workers stating the sisters told the truth–specifically about George Bush Sr., and dismissed all charges against their foster parents Jarrett and Barbara Webb, who Nelly and Kimberly said had allowed them to be abused.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Did you ever wonder where all these abusive parents came from? Who raised them? Since Child Abuse is obviously a heinous crime, why are there so many participants? What is it about human nature that we collectively don’t understand about ourselves, such that there’s still a booming industry in Child Protection?
Why would a state Senator and her husband have to die while exposing this industry in Georgia? This is the conclusion several people have come to who were close to the Schaefers, although the Georgia Bureau of Investigation quickly labeled it a murder/suicide. (see HERE, among other places).
I am simply coloring this section GREEN, regarding the Schaefer’s CPS expository work (with its links underlined) in green, to distinguish from what follows, after which we can end this difficult post – for a holiday season. Perhaps state by state individuals can do their own work — but it must be shared, as obviously children are being flown OUT of state for trafficking purposes too. In the long run, this also becomes a FINANCIAL issue, as also the Franklin Coverup was — as in Franklin Credit Union. Larry King did time for embezzlement, not child abuse. It seems the two go together, and if major child traffickers are caught for money crimes, not child trafficking crimes — but it stops them — perhaps that’s a message on which direction to investigate. Quite honestly, I don’t think most of us can handle the vicarious trauma even of consciousness of how far down is the ugliness (within America, ruling circles). But, what is the cost of living unconscious lives? Or our delayed bill when what we can’t face now, comes back stronger, later, and right next door?
PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED
Garland Favorito
404 664-4044REFERENCES
Regardless of how the couple may have died, former Senator Nancy Schaefer lived the last couple of years of her life dedicated to helping children and families who were victimized by the very government agencies that were supposed to be helping them.
Mrs. Schaefer had found during the last few years that:
– Georgia housed children in a foster home with a known pedophile who molested the children.
– Habersham County failed to remove six children from a home where they were being abused and tortured.
– Georgia turned two girls over to a California father who had a pornographic video business.
A report that she produced on these remarkable cases can be found at the fight CPS web site:
http://fightcps.com/pdf/TheCorruptBusinessOfChildProtectiveServices.pdf
Nancy Schaefer was interviewed extensively by talk show host Alex Jones about corruption in Child Protection Services nationally. A multi-part series of her interview and an Eagle Forum presentation can be found on You Tube here:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nancy+schaefer&search_type=&aq=f
More details on the video she was working on can be found on the Alex Jones Channel of You Tube at:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=WILLIAM+FAIN&aq=f
In addition, former Senator Schaefer led opposition to HB582 and SB304. These two bills, introduced by her fellow Republicans, would have likely increased child sex trafficking if passed during the 2009 or 2010 sessions. These bills would have made it legal for teenagers to participate in certain illicit acts. The bills would have effectively removed the legal authority that police have to pick up teenagers and get them into protective custody so that they can no longer be pimped for those acts.
PV Pop-Quiz: Who were the idiotic State Reps sponsoring HB 582 (analysis of HB 582 here by Sue Ella Deadwyler) in the 2009-2010 Legislative Session, and who were the idiotic State Senators sponsoring SB 304 (op-ed here on SB 304)? Inquiring minds should find out for themselves
The age of consent in Georgia is 16.
This information is on a public forum, so I took the liberty of copying it here — from a thread from “Scranton Political Times” “Doherty Deceit Forum”
It’s a quick post, but covers topics I’ve been blogging for a long time:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
PRESS RELEASE SENT OUT AT NOON TODAY
Second Lackawanna County Family Court Kids 4Kash Protest Set For December 2, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Scranton, Pa
The second in a series of demonstrations in what The Protesters have labeled The Lackawanna County KIDS 4 KASH Corruption Scheme will begin at 9am this Friday in front of the Family Court Building at 200 Adams Avenue. The protesters, many of whom are family court litigants, are in disbelief and outraged that President Judge Thomas Munley has not taken any action against the Court Appointed Guardian ad Litem, Attorney Danielle Ross. Unbelievably, Ross who is currently under investigation by the FBI and the Administrative Office of the Pennsylvania Court (AOPC) is still being assigned new cases every week.
{{WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF PARENTS SIMPLY REFUSED TO PARTICIPATE? REFUSED TO PAY? AND THE JUDGE THEN TRIED TO INCARCERATE? }}
Their investigation of Ms. Ross was set in motion when a parent named Bruce Levine contacted Detective Michelle Mancuso from the Lackawanna County District Attorneys Office about discrepancies he found on Ross invoices for the services she claimed she provided as Guardian. As fate would have it, right about the same time, a thread directed against Ross called Kids 4 Kash was started by political activist Joseph Pilchesky on his contentious website, http://www.dohertydeceit.com. Fundamental to Pilchesky’s website is The First Amendment Right to Freedom of Speech.
The site encourages antagonistic dialogue about current local and global issues that is often times abrasive. Users that post comments on topics typically remain anonymous; therefore, it provides a safe venue for other parents and litigants to share their family court horror stories and eventually their identities with one another. Several of those parents that connected with each other on the website began to turn over Ross’ invoices to the authorities, which eventually lead to the involvement of the United States Attorney General’s Office.
The FBI began their investigation with a subpoena requesting all documents involving each and every case to which Attorney Ross was appointed and a Grand Jury was convened. In days to follow, many additional subpoenas were served upon court employees including the Lackawanna Count Court Administrator, Ron MacKay. When federal agents showed up at MacKay’s office located inside the county’s main Courthouse, he was sequestered and forced to remain in the hallway while agents searched his office. After about an hour, the agents left the Court Administrator’s Office with several boxes of documents.
It is unknown at this time what the FBI confiscated from MacKay’s office. As to why they raided his office, those close to the case strongly believe that the scope of the federal investigation has broadened well beyond the alleged fraudulent billing practices of Attorney Ross. Rumors of case steering and monetary kickbacks are out there.
The status of the AOPC investigation into the Guardian ad Litem Program, as well as Home Evaluation and supervised visitation payments, is unclear at this time despite the fact that on November 2, 2011, AOPC Attorney, Michael Daley, stated in open court that it would be available two weeks ago. To date, a RTK letter that was sent to the Court requesting the report has gone unanswered. Reliable sources within Family Court speculate that there are at least two plausible reasons for the delay. On one hand, there are many who are convinced that the AOPC investigation amounts to little more than a smoke screen used to give the Court a few months to cover its tracks and get its act together. While others believe that public pressure has forced AOPC investigator, Joseph Mittleman, to hold off on finalizing the report. He states that the AOPC is obligated to look into alleged acts of attorney misconduct as well as to conducting interviews with alleged victims of Family Court corruption.
Protests will be held every Friday starting at 9am in front of Family Court. The goal is to bring forth public awareness and gain support in the effort to expose what appears to be a moneymaking racket devised by the members of the Judiciary and several Child Custody/Divorce Professionals who do business with Family Court. The individuals with whom the Court most frequently Orders Family Court litigants to consult are Guardians Danielle Ross and Brenda Kobal, Lackawanna County’s sole co-parenting coordinator, Anne Marie Termini, Kids First presenter, Chet Muklewicz, Court mediator, AnthonyLibassi, Psychologists Drs. Ronald Refice and Arnold Shivenhold, and various child visitation supervisors affiliated with the Scranton Counseling Center.
The Parties who have been forced by Order of the Court to see these providers, attend numerous appointments, whether they need to or not, and pay enormous fees (if they are not declared indigent) have a lot of unanswered questions. Until those questions are answered, the only logical conclusion is that the Court and these providers are unjustly enriching themselves not only with the millions of Federal and State Grant dollars allocated for indigent Lackawanna County Children and Families but also money from private-pay litigants.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
“SHIVENHOLD” I’m fairly sure means “SCHIENVOLD” who is AFCC leadership:
Here’s one filing in which Mr. Shienvold was called as Expert Witness for the Father, who wants primary physical custody of the children, and after the mother submitted to custody reports preceding a “Custody Trial” the mother then, of course, had to make special motions to actually read what was reported about her, and apparently planned to call him up and interview or cross-examine him. The father then protest — aw heck, look at it yourself.
http://www.courts.state.pa.us/OpPosting/Superior/out/a29038_05.pdf (his name is apparently mis-spelled here, too).
I have already posted on the forum that Mr. Scheinvold is a primary player in the Pennsylvania Commission for Justice Initiatives, and a key AFCC person, as was at least one of their judges, and that Harhut, Termini, and (was it Ross?) were presenting in Brooklyn, 2009 together at an “NACC” association meeting on matters related to Guardianship and Domestic Violence.
He is ALSO the “President-Elect” of AFCC, meaning his influence will be upon more parents than just those in this area. I hope they figure this out quickly in time for the next generation of children, that an international association with a checkered history is helping run the courthouses, but right now, most don’t seem too interested in this, they are scrambling to survive, and have not looked up to the horizons. In other words, for control to operate freely, it’s connections to other control must remain subterranean. AFCC is hardly “subterranean” when it’s publishing statewide model custody evaluation standards, inventing new fields of practice faster than the previous ones can be caught and complained about (Parenting Coordination) and with personnel (over 3,000 membership) including, for example, at least a few on the California Judicial Council Administrative Office of the Courts.
[AFCC]
President Elect
Arnold T. Shienvold, Ph.D.
Harrisburg, PA
Arnold Shienvold is the founding partner of Riegler, Shienvold & Associates. Dr. Shienvold received his Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in clinical psychology from the University of Alabama and has specialized in dealing with high-conflict families since he began his practice in 1980. Dr. Shienvold is a member of the American Psychological Association and is a fellow of the Pennsylvania Psychological Association where he also serves on the custody evaluation task force. Dr. Shienvold is a past president of the Academy of Family Mediators and a past president of the Association for Conflict Resolution. He is also a member of the Pennsylvania Council of Mediators.
The PA Adminsitrative Office of the Courts and FBI are supposedly investigating the Lackawanna County parents’ complaints, so I hope they take it upon themselves to figure out — quickly — who the Pennsylvania Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) is comprised of, paid by, and answerable to.
Commission for Justice Initiatives in Pennsylvania Changing the …
www15.brinkster.com/ncfcpgh/Report.pdfFile Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – View as HTML
Arnold Shienvold, Ph.D., brought great understanding of the dynamics of separation, ….. 3 Site visit by Judy Shopp April 5, 2006; Dr. Arnold Sheinvold provides …You’ve visited this page 5 times. Last visit: 11/30/11
I don’t know that these parents have yet accepted that a State-Level “commission for Justice Initiatives” report (2007) called “Changing the Culture of Custody” with Mr. Shienvold listed front and center as a consultant actually relates to problems they are having at the county level
Arnold Shienvold, Ph.D.
Dr. Shienvold is the founding partner of Riegler • Shienvold and Associates.Education
Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in clinical psychology from the University of Alabama. He specialized in child clinical psychology and completed his internship at the Ohio State University Hospital.Area of Emphasis
Dr. Shienvold has specialized in dealing with high conflict families since he began his practice. He is recognized locally and nationally as an expert in the areas of custody evaluations and family mediation. In addition to his direct clinical practice in those areas, Dr. Shienvold has consulted to public and private agencies, taught and lectured at a multitude of professional conferences and schools and published papers on these topics. Dr. Shienvold continues to see individuals and couples in therapy and he has an active forensic practice. Additionally, Dr. Shienvold has served as a professional facilitator for group meetings.
Yep. High-conflict families. Here’s a website I found in Australia (where AFCC has active membership, FYI) which calls “High Conflict” what it is, if I may quote them. As an added bonus, I stuck two or three comments on this post, which is a year old now. I hope that by the time 2012 is halfpast, the people in Scranton area will figure out (accept) what they are dealing with in the Unified Family Courts per se — which is an expense-paid (by txpayers) largely immune from responsibility, self-referring, self-propagating multiple income stream and often tax-exempt cash machine for paid membership of about 5 different organizations (all playing at monitoring each other, instead of, more commonly, referring each other and providing business referrals to make them look more expert than they really are. If “expert” means, learning a business-specific jargon, and to have a greater conscience about one’s cohorts than one’s clients — then a 12 year old, for example, has already learned to speak his or her own cultural language among peers, and probably knows as much about bullying, gangs, exclusion and arbitrary standards for who is IN and who is OUT.
In order for this field to continue until each generation of Family Court professionals retires (and eventually some will die of old age, though many of the originals are still collecting royalties, probably through Kids’First type operations nationwide), it MUST continue the lie (that’s L.I.E.) that adult parents are by and large to be treated like misbehaving children, or punished until they play along.
This has been going on SO LONG that what they are studying and conferencing about now is basically a contaminated sample (of people and personalities). In addition to the many factors of society contributing to any parent’s “psychological profile,” is probably such things as motherless children, children in foster care because there’s an incentive to put them there, kids who run away from abuse because there was no other safe option (they do not all turn out as well as Alanna Krause of Northern California, whose father, once he got custody, sent her away at age 13 to some kind of reform camp), and a series of protective mothers who feel it necessary to flee the US, or the state — although they, too, are quite likely to be hunted down and incarcerated.
Here’s a 3-page outline from a 2007 Texas Meeting of the AAML ( a group which initials anyone with a family law case should look up themselves!)
DEALING WITH CLIENTS WHICH ARE TOO HARD TO LOVE
The presenters gratefully acknowledge the work of Arnold T. Sheinvold, Ph.D. Dr. Sheinvold is the managing partner of Riegler, Shienvold & Associates, a comprehensive psychological practice in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The materials in this presentation were developed and presented by Dr. Sheinvold {{that’s SHIENVOLD}} at the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers’ 2007 Midyear Meeting. The presenters appreciate Dr. Sheinvold’s generosity in sharing his materials with the Texas family law community.
(and lists the personality types — borderline, narcissistic, histrionic, antisocial, etc.)
Here’s a 2006 article (abstract, I guess) from the FAMILY COURT REVIEW — which is a publication jointly published by AFCC & Hofstra Univ. in New York, listing this psychologists among others the parents are protesting, a number of AFCC personnel, including Philip Stahl, Ph.D. which virtually guarantees there will be (more) conversation about parental alienation (one of Dr. Stahl’s favorite topics), etc.
Article first published online: 7 DEC 2006
DOI: 10.1111/j.1744-1617.2007.129_3.x
Additional Information(Show All)
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
Ronald Refice
“A Bit About How It’s Done” (familycourtmatters Sept. 2011 post)
Here’s one of my former posts showing people samples of how to look things up — corporations, associations, just stay persistent!
Today’s Post is “all over the place” but provides a sampler of how — with as clumsy tools as various states give, the habit of searching for corporations and people who incorporate them, and then comparing boards of directors, whether they actually file tax returns or not, and whether while the press is all about justice, children, and helping resolve conflicts, a view at the nonprofit characterization many times simply categorizes the group as “Board of Trade” “Business Promotion” — which is what it is.
Too bad Thomas Szasz professor took up with a cult that’s been literally booted out of a country, the Church of Scientology — but think about what’s being said here:
Thomas Stephen Szasz (
/ˈsɑːs/sahss; born April 15, 1920) is a psychiatrist and academic. Since 1990[1] he has been Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York. He is a well-known social critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry, and of the social control aims of medicine in modern society, as well as of scientism. His books The Myth of Mental Illness (1960) and The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement (1970) set out some of the arguments with which he is most associated.
I wonder how the book compares to Phyllis Chesler’s “Women & Madness”
His views on special treatment follow from classical liberal roots which are based on the principles that each person has the right to bodily and mental self-ownership and the right to be free from violence from others, although he criticized the “Free World” as well as the communist states for their use of psychiatry and “drogophobia”. He believes that suicide {{!??!}}, the practice of medicine, use and sale of drugs and sexual relations should be private, contractual, and outside of state jurisdiction.
In 1973, the American Humanist Association named him Humanist of the Year and in 1979 he was honored with an honorary doctorate[2] at Universidad Francisco Marroquín.
Who wants a CONFLICT-FREE SOCIETY? Is this some sort of death-wish, or a wish for a sedated society? Or a managed society, as opposed to one where leadership is not shut down (because most leaders are going to cause some conflict; in fact some of the most significant leaders around — Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and others – (may I say Jesus Christ in this context?) — end up getting assassinated — yet their work lives on. Most particularly, Gandhi was assassinated, but through NONViolent protest and understanding the economic system, helped get the British Empire out of India. Maybe all of us should re-read his “moment of truth” and get to ours, quicker, building upon what others before have actually learned — and not continually recreating from scratch as if the world has no history.
These groups are causing the conflict themselves by a number of habits:
I hope that protesters, besides correcting the spelling of “SHIENVOLD” (for credibility reasons), also feel free to search my site reporting on LibassiMediation being built by revising rules of court, into the custody modification form, my comparison of KIDS FIRST to KIDS TURN (California)*
And come to realize that a fifth column of psychologists, psychiatrists (adult, child, whatever) and mental health experts is basically a “Family Court Archipelago.” Even physicists have to examine their fundamental assumptions from time to time (cf. Newton, Galileo, and the recently publicized “String Theory”) not the least by at least examining evidence. in this field — ONE NEVER HAS TO; It’s just about become THE primary field of the US Government (world’s largest contractor, and debtor) — and there are no right answers. There is only a caste system: Paid Expert v. Humble Subject matter).
*which is virtually a training ground for the California Family Court personnel (almost everyone has been on its boards, not to mention a person who was “most-wanted” or close to it as a Tax Evador — Halsey Minor (I think he’s on the Board too), plus the defenders of the high priestess of Satan against the High Priest (LaVey, and I”m using the terms loosely), operating at the time out of the same address were, it seems, Kids Turn was operating (2nd floor, 1242 market Street) and I posted that link also.
with thanks to its author for presenting another outlook on the “experts” causing the trouble above.
The evidence-based revolution in psychology.
Copyright © 2011, Paul Lutus
For decades there has been increasing evidence that psychologists can’t reliably diagnose or treat mental illnesses, or mental illnesses aren’t objective illnesses as that term is understood, or that psychology has no testable scientific content. Psychologists’ reaction to this long-term trend has been to add more human behaviors to the “mental illness” category, in order not to lose more ground to medicine.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)5, what many call the “Bible” of psychology and its single most important guide to practice, shows this trend clearly — each new edition contains more conditions thought to merit the label “mental illness.” Here is a count of “mental illnesses” included in the DSM by year:*
Year Number of mental illnesses 1952 112 1968 163 1980 224 1987 253 1994 374 Obviously this trend might reflect an increase in our understanding of mental illness, and there might really be hundreds of legitimate mental illnesses. But let’s take a closer look at some conditions listed in the current DSM, conditions thought to require intervention by a mental health professional:
- Stuttering
- Spelling Disorder
- Written Expression Disorder
- Mathematics Disorder
- Caffeine Intoxication/Withdrawal
- Nicotine use/Withdrawal
- Sibling Rivalry Disorder
- Phase of Life Problem
Hmm. It seems if you don’t like your older brother, or can’t spell or do math very well, you aren’t just growing up, you’re suffering from a mental illness and need help from a professional. But I favor another explanation — as time passed and psychiatrists and psychologists realized they couldn’t reliably diagnose or cure real mental illnesses, they decided to repurpose themselves as academic tutors, babysitters and hired friends for wealthy patrons.*** For this strategy to work, the DSM needed to include ordinary states of being that could only justify the help of a teacher or sympathetic friend. In other words, in rewriting their profession’s guidebook, for self-serving reasons psychologists deliberately blurred the distinction between everyday problems and mental illness.
This Image from Oct. 2011 AFCC Regional Training Conference“ (“Pdf” of full conference brochure from AFCCnet.org website~~>)Working with Violent and High-Conflict Families: A Race with No Winners” in Indianapolis added during May 2018 post update. The phrase “high conflict” (no hyphen, only) used 18 times in the brochure. For a change, the word “alienation” was used only twice…
Yet another AFCC-style wet dream… Someone needs to mop up around here. [‘Conflict Happens'[like in the Seal Beach massacre?]/High-Conflict Institute’, Publ. Nov. 16, 2011] (Case-sensitive shortlink here ends “-UD”)
(Some format & minor amount of content updates (such as the image to the right and some others and post title extension starting at the ‘[” added May 14, 2018: I had occasion to reference this post on Twitter). Almost 24,000 words, but still important basic reading though originally written barely two years into this blog:
From the “High Conflict Institute”
No longer are DIVORCEs or FAMILIES “high-conflict” but “People” are. In fact, the issues are not the issues either.
When someone comes up to you with an issue — he or she (<=the usual application) doesn’t really mean what s/he says and is not to be taken at face value (ask the forensic psychologists). The REAL problem with family courts isn’t the family courts, and it isn’t even high-conflict families, or high conflict all by its rocky-mountain-high* self. The REAL problem is high-conflict people. Buy this book [“Splitting”] to know if you’re dealing with one:
AFCC 47th Annual (2010, Denver), Traversing the Trail of Alienation
<=**AFCC 47th Conference, Denver, CO, June 2010 (“Traversing the Trail of Alienation,” a trail with “Mile-High Conflict and Mountains of Emotions”)
Promo for “Splitting” from New Harbinger Publications
Bill Eddy image from publications page, Click image to enlarge. Note his affiliations.
Randi Krieger, from publications page (for “Splitting” book out 2011)
|
Splitting
Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder
By authors: Bill Eddy LCSW, JD, Randi Kreger
|
This book is advertised with others on alienation at the NCRC (more, below), as they are in the same professional circles. In fact, it appears he’s on the payroll here (2018 comments: link was to Canadian Bar Association. Search of “high-conflict” brought up just 3 articles, but not accessible without sign-up, which I didn’t at this point). (or is “Senior Family Mediator”) as well as his own split-off “High conflict institute” (see last sentence at the link I just provided).
Books by William Eddy, LCSW, Esq.
Bill Eddy provides Divorce and Family Law Mediation at NCRC as well as training for family law attorneys and other professionals at the High Conflict Institute. Please visit HCI atwww.highconflictinstitute.com for more information on Mr. Eddy’s trainings. He has written numerous books on the subjects of families and high conflict personalities, listed below.
Bill sure was ahead of his AFCC time. While others were simply developing and lobbying for more parenting coordinator rights in Florida, Texas, and wherever — he was writing this book explaining that the Issue is not the Issue, and all the conflict in the family law venue really comes from disordered personalities in the court system.
Protect Yourself from Manipulation, False Accusations, and Abuse
Divorce is difficult under the best of circumstances. When your spouse has borderline personality disorder (BPD), narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), or is manipulative, divorcing can be especially complicated. While people with these tendencies may initially appear convincing and even charming to lawyers and judges, you know better—many of these “persuasive blamers” leverage false accusations, attempt to manipulate others, launch verbal and physical attacks, and do everything they can to get their way.
Splitting is your legal and psychological guide to safely navigating a high-conflict divorce from an unpredictable spouse. Written by Bill Eddy, a family lawyer, therapist, and divorce mediator, and Randi Kreger, coauthor of the BPD classic Stop Walking on Eggshells, this book includes all of the critical information you need to work through the process of divorce in an emotionally balanced, productive way.
I find it odd that he’s working with the author of “Stop walking on Eggshells” which someone gave me about halfway through the divorce fiasco, post-restraining order. They meant well, but like Lundy Bancroft’s “Why Does He DO That” — and regardless of some truths it may have held, neither one (conveniently) mentions the custody racket, financial incentive, fatherhood funding, welfare reform or in short anything which would give me a concise narrative of why the courts don’t take death threats followed by family suicide, or a stalking combined with previous death threats and violence, seriously — and insisted on psychologizing all terms.
People who have lived with this (and I acknowledge it exists) don’t need guides — they need out of the relationship.
Which is precisely what people working with the organization Mr. Eddy helps market through, are not going to let happen. Nope. If we wish to detach from a borderline personality, abuser, or simply an ex (and birth happened in there somewhere), we WILL be forced, most likely, to deal with an AFCC-devotee somewhere along the way — or most of the way along the way.
I have the book “Stop Walking on Eggshells” and it didn’t take to long to recognize it was an updated rebuttal of a 1970s feminist classic, (shown in 2005 version) Women and Madness (by Phyllis Chesler, PhD)
(Link expired: but see 12/31/1972 Review by Adrienne Rich. Reading it again now (2018) with my perspective, both experientially in the American family courts (post-battering interventions, 21st century) and having read so much anti-woman, anti-mother, values-driven (garbage) from the same sources she critiqued originally in this book, I have to basically agree. (I also FYI had this book as a young woman).
It asks:
Why are so many women in therapy, on psychiatric medication, or in mental hospitals? Who decides these women are mad? Why do therapists have the power to deem a woman mentally ill when she asserts herself sexually, economically, or intellectually? Why are women pathologized, but not treated, when they exhibit a normal human response to abuse and stress – including the lifelong stress of second-class citizenship?
Phyllis Chesler confronts questions like these and persuasively argues that double standards of mental health and illness exist and that women are often punitively labeled as a function of gender, race, class, or sexual preference. Based on in-depth interviews with patients and an analysis of women’s roles in myths and history, Women and Madness is an incomparable work.
Originally published in 1972, this classic has sold over two-and-a-half million copies. Passionate and informative, with a new introduction that examines the trauma of psychiatric labeling and envisions a psychology of liberation for the ages, this special twenty-fifth anniversary edition of Women and Madness remains frighteningly up-to-date.
By now there should also be one called “Children and Madness,” for the labeling children get when they report abuse, when they are active and assertive, and when they need to be controlled after any of the above. That’s been documented elsewhere, and comes under
Psychotropic Drug Abuse in Foster Care Costs Government Billions :
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |||
________________
________________
(Blog Navigation Links):
________________
________________
Ten Most Recent Posts, ‘Display Content’ added 27 April, 2022. (For some, that only shows my typically long post title + shortlink, but in the future I’ll move that part further down in post body for better results on this widget).
OfflinePosts: 1,704
______________________________________
|
This Absolutely Uncommon Analysis shouldn't be!
What I do here: I expose the Systems Design, and the Designers, so Y.O.U. can Show Others, and to notify those playing certain games, "you've been flagged." Heard of "disruptive technologies?" Disruptive innovations? Despite the blog's appearance, I know what I'm doing! You're looking at long-term leverage, in the hands of the "non-experts," in the public interest, not public funded propaganda to drive business to private pockets. Hence, I'm not afraid to ask: The formula for this public/private business model isn't really that complex, but the concept itself was just so devious, insidious, parasitic, grandiose, and by now, so baked into the economic, institutional infrastructure, people either don't notice, or, in a common, cowardly, but all too human response they see, and just start denying, or looking for nicer explanations of an ugly truth -- where it's heading. For lack of nicer, but still honest terms, it's heading towards yet more slavery (and tolerating it) and genocide (and tolerating it). [[2019 comments: and the ability to drive the U.S., in particular, into even more, bigger, and more costly/dangerous wars, discrediting us (further) internationally. But I wrote this sidebar many years ago..]] As a woman, mother, a family court and domestic violence survivor [yes, he was a hitter, and more], who has already 'faced the music' in more ways than I can count, to the best of my ability, I do not do "denial." I also ask the public, what's left of it, to just not go down that Denial Road, and with it lose more of their innate humanity, perception, and ethics. There is another way out, one with a conscience: Really want system change? Make up your mind to understand government financing -- change yourself first. Find and read your local "CAFR" (government's Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports), a wonderful source of information, with flow chart, descriptions of component or blended government units it's reporting on, and reporting the balances in each fund -- ever heard of a "Balance Sheet"? Looking for this also reveals just how many governmental business entities ARE there? Find them. Read. Think about what you see. What does it mean? Governments tend to pool their investments, for example, "CALPERS" (essentially created ca. 1931) is the largest "public pension" investing platform around, or at least in the country. Getting started earlier sure helped, then adding players (subscribers) over time ALSO did. In 1985, add "CII" Council on Institutional Investors (members: in 31states and D.C.) (LA Times 1985 article on Calif. Politician (state treasurer, assembly speaker) Unruh whose idea it was for the Council so institutional funds could "flex their muscle"; and push for corporate governance reform. CII members now control $3 trillion of assets)-- my point being, government holdings are invested and when pooled like this, are major clout, but the average person never reads even a single government entity's annual financial reports to take a look. (I wasn't aware of them til 2012!) Governments not only invest their funds in business, they also by legislation, patenting, and protections, set them up to win, or lose. So, "know thy government" is a great place to start. (See blog/see links in the blog). 2019 updates: This widget's (text box) full contents, along with others', now can be viewed (better -- full-page-width) at: Many of My Sidebar Widgets Now Live Here...[Published July 9, 2019]Published short (url short-link ends "-abt") (and may eventually replace current sidebar contents, or most of them). I also published a second, similar post with other sidebar widget contents(url short-link ends '-ahh') on July 19, 2019. Thanks for your patience (and any NOT-tax-exempt donations) meanwhile.//LGH |
ColdHardFact$ PostsDoorways to Key Parts of This Blog (I split the long Dec. 2019 Widgets. Added 27 Apr. 2022).
Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History 
Children’s Institute, Project Fatherhood(tm), and Fatherhood Nonprofits that make you go “Huh?”
leave a comment »
(with respect to the late Dr. Hershel K. Swinger, I cannot respect using TANF and other funds to proselytize, and then cheating the California out of transparency and accountability).
(And I SURE as heck don’t respect anyone using the US Government to try to evangelize ANYone!)
This is a SHAMELESS transmigration from a long (project) I’ve been posting over at Scranton Political Times Kids for Cash thread. ALthough it’s actually in response to Joe Pilchesky having posted a SAVING DAMON case (from Southern Cal / San Diego area, and with full panoply of Protective Mothers Rhetoric and groups) on there. Totally out of character for him, but I then decided to look closer at the situation and open my big mouth.
(Better understood in the larger context) I feel sorry for mothers who are (like I was) led around by the nose to become activist before they activate common sense lookups of who they’re dealing with — both as advocates and as adversaries in the court system. For example — get this — Cindy Dumas had somehow a declaration (on her behalf) on “William Eddy” complaint form, but signed by Erik Fox, Ph.D. (who runs sexual abuser treatment programs all over, and actually recommended “abuse inoculation” treatment for Damon, Mom & Dad. I gather that hasn’t happened yet. [The Rest of This Comment on nonreporting [to California] $40million-budgetChildren’s Institute in Los Angeles, incl. its “Project Fatherhood(sm)”]: I’m trying to find out exactly what it is!
Things that make you go “Huh?” In that chart below (TAGGS list of “fatherhood” grantees — at least a few of them) notice the one “Children’s Institute, Inc.” of Los Angeles? Grant (for 2010) two different grants — $1,000,000 + $500,000 ??? That’s a hefty amount, right? I looked at this one before, and the pattern is just TO O o o o…. common: One has to usually check at least 3 to 4 sources AFTER seeing the HHS grant:
1. State Incorporation record (SOS),
2. State Charitable Record (if they’re a nonprofit or taking donations),
3. Sample check some IRS forms (I use “Foundationfinder” or “Nccsdataweb.urban.org”) — and actually look at a tax form (it gets easier with practice) . . . . and then
4. what does their website say as well?
Here we go: 1. California Corporation (Sec of State) registration — there are TWO with the exact same street address (which doesn’t match address on HHS grantee, either).
(per IRS form) 2009 salaries of key officers (5 highest) were plenty high: Mary Emmons (see corp. registration) — $310K; Nena Revoyr, $136K, Jeff Catania, $161K, Hershel Swinger, $167K, Kendis Heffley, $131K. (plus retirement & other income from this or related orgs.)). These are the US Trademarks still “LIVE” with the word “Fatherhood” in them. I didn’t find the one mentioned in the Children’s Institute descriptions, “Project Fatherhood” But it’s interesting one of them is from a PA corporation. You can see the details, including first use, whose idea it was and see that someone showed real forethought. Keeping in mind that welfare reform and the loosening up of federal aid to states for diversions into fatherhood & marriage promotion, both was anticipated — and happened in 1996.
Quite a few, eh? PROJECT FATHERHOOD // Dr. HERSHEL K. SWINGER was started in 1996:
July 8, 2011
Strengthening relationships between fathers and their at-risk children
Children’s Institute Hosts 4th Annual Fatherhood Solution Conference
(very nice youtube tribute to him at the link…)
“Due to the recent passing of Dr. Hershel K. Swinger, CII Senior Vice President and Founder of Project Fatherhood, the morning plenary was a special tribute to his life’s work and accomplishments. Project Fatherhood is a nationally-recognized program for disadvantaged fathers to become more engaged and effective parents.
“Speakers included Dr. Ken Canfield, president and founder of the<> National Center for Fathering; <> Dr. Thema Bryant-Davis, Director of Pepperdine University’s Culture and Trauma Research Lab, an expert on partner and child abuse and societal trauma due to racism, sexism and poverty; and <> Charles Lee-Johnson, MSW, CEO of the National Family Life and Education Center,…”
In reverse order:
EIN# 95-4423621 ; their charity is marked “CURRENT” however they haven’t filed an IRS with the state since 2007, or an RRF (state report) since 2008. Received a Deliquency warning 6/5/2008:
“WARNING OF IMPENDING TAX ASSESSMENT FOR WHICH YOU MAY BE PERSONALLY LIABLE ..The Attorney General has not received your organization’s annual report(s) as follows:…IRS Form 990, 990-PF, or 990-EZ report(s) for the year(s) ending: 06/30/03, 06/30/04, 06/30/06, and 06/30/07“
###
[spoiler]
IRS inconsistent between two sites (State AG vs 990finder). One year, the top 3 officers are receivng $65,73 & 95K; (is Joyce Johnson his wife?) another year, nothing, or something. The 2006 tax return at 990finder was stamped received in 2011; etc. etc. Very inconsistent. The “2009” filing below is an empty form, basically… They have no direct HHS grants but some of the RRF forms show they did receive two or three sources of gov’t support, inl. DCFS (note: they are dealing with foster care youth sometimes). Assets — two chevy vans; — ??
[/spoiler]
http://www.drthema.com/biography/
Dr. Bryant-Davis received her doctorate from Duke University in Clinical Psychology with a focus on the cultural context of trauma recovery, as well as the intersection of gender and racial identity. She completed her post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical Center’s Victims of Violence Program. From 2001-2004, she served as Senior Staff Psychologist and Coordinator of the Princeton University SHARE Program. Dr. Bryant-Davis is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Pepperdine University where she teaches on the topics of indivdiual and family development as well as intimate partner violence. She is a contributing author in the books The Psychology of Racism, The Complete Guide to Mental Health for Women, and Featuring Females: Feminist Analyses of the Media.
Dr. Bryant-Davis served for three years as an American Psychological Association representative to the United Nations where she advocated for mental health and human rights globally
MINISTRY:
Apparently also preaches at her brother’s Mega-Church also:
Dr. Thema Bryant-Davis is a licensed preacher in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. She preached her initial sermon at Empowerment Temple AME Church where the pastor is Rev. Jamal Harrison-Bryant.:
[spoiler]
“He is the leader of a new breed of ministers who embrace the idea of capitalizing on the ever-increasing marketplace of Internet and technological innovations to spread the gospel. With more than 7,500 members attending weekly services at Empowerment Temple in Baltimore, Maryland, and approximately 35,000 followers on Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace, he believes that “God is not just in the church; He is also in technology.” His mission is to “empower people spiritually, develop them educationally, expose them culturally, activate them politically, and strengthen them economically.”
FAMILY: Bryant has four daughters Topaz, Grace, and twins Angel and Adore. They reside in Baltimore. He is also the brother of Thema Simone Bryant Davis.
Mega church pastor Jamal Harrison Bryant and his wife Gizelle are headed to divorce court. After 5 and a half years of marriage Gizelle Bryant filed for a divorce in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County on January 9. The clergyman [i.e. Jamal] also filed divorce papers in Baltimore City Court on the same day, the Baltimore Sun reports. . . . (then article launches into some more flattery….)
. . . Scandalous rumors of alleged affairs with several women have been rampant since the couple’s engagement. His supposed womanizing went overboard when he impregnated a church member said to be 17 at the time of the time of copulation. [“the time of copulation”?
]When accusations of this affair surfaced in the Summer of 2007, church leaders asked him to step down while they initiated an investigation and awaited paternity test results. Months after the investigation, Jamal Bryant remains the pastor of Empowerment Temple. Court records acquired from the Circuit Court of Maryland do indicate the pastor is the father of a least one other child who was born before he got married. The couple has a set of 1-year-old twins and a 3-year-old.
As Wikipedia shows, guess he had some of the “evangelizing” [Missionary Position?] (of other women while married) issues common to some in his field. Baltimore Sun article, 2/16/08 by Samathi Reddy:
Bryant and his wife, a former model, are known for their flashy lifestyle, which includes a Bentley and a multimillion-dollar Canton waterfront property. Their lifestyle has attracted criticism from those who say the church is more about his business enterprises and building wealth than religion. Her original divorce complaint stated that he earned more than $350,000 a year.
He is seeking a “limited divorce,” while his wife has requested an “absolute divorce,” according to papers filed in Baltimore Circuit Court. A limited divorce is a voluntary legal separation required in Maryland for a year before most absolute divorces. Absolute divorces, however, are allowed immediately under certain circumstances, such as adultery and cruelty. In Gizelle Bryant’s filing last month, she accuses her husband of adultery, cruel treatment and “excessively vicious conduct” that caused “reasonable apprehension of bodily suffering so as to render cohabitation unsafe.” [/spoiler]
One of MANY reasons I’m not too impressed with the concept of soliciting faith-based organizations to teach responsible fatherhood! However, Dr. Thema Harrison-Bryant is not her brother . . . . More background on their parents’ involvement in civil rights, time in Africa, social justice concern, leadership over many churches
“His efforts ( Back to Hershel K. Swinger of The Children’s Institute)
resulted in a major expansion of Project Fatherhood – through funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – to 50 organizations located in various parts of Los Angeles County.”(Very nice obituary in the LA times notes what he did):
Hershel K. Swinger dies at 72; founded a program to aid urban fathers
The clinical psychologist who taught at Cal State L.A. created Project Fatherhood, which has provided therapy, support and training for more than 7,000 low-income urban fathers since 1996.
June 12, 2011|By Elaine Woo, Los Angeles Times
Swinger, a clinical psychologist, was a senior vice president of Children’s Institute who taught counselor education and directed a state-funded child abuse prevention center at Cal State L.A. for many years.
He was the founder and senior director of Project Fatherhood, a program that has provided therapy, support and training for more than 7,000 low-income urban fathers since its inception 15 years ago. Under Swinger’s leadership, it received a $7.5-million federal grant in 2006 to replicate the program in 50 agencies in Los Angeles County. It was recognized as a model program by the Obama administration last year.
Familiar with studies showing that children with absent fathers are far more likely to be poor, abuse drugs, drop out of school and enter the criminal justice system, Swinger believed that focusing on the fathers was a crucial part of the solution.
No mention of “present mothers” or of the fact that since 1996, one of the most dangerous places to be as a mother is attempting to leave violence with children and having a father contest custody — in other words, the climate towards women because of these programs, has become literally hostile. If indeed those facts ARE so, who is to say or not say that the real cause was “father-absence” or not something else? Is that a universal truth, like gravity — or a social construction? It helps expand a grants program if you are on the advisory council to another foundation: Federal funding allowed Project Fatherhood SM to expand in 2006 across Los Angeles County. Now, through a community grants program*, small faith-based and community organizations have been empowered to replicate the Project Fatherhood SM model in their own neighborhoods. …*The Project Fatherhood SM Community Grants Program is part of the Responsible Fatherhood Initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance.
ORGANIZATION NAME
STATE
YEAR
TOTAL ASSETS
FORM
PAGES
EIN
Purpose of this group (KS location):
LIVE SEMINARS ON STRENGTHENING FATHERS. EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS PROVIDED FOR FATHERS. PROVIDE LEADERSHIP TRAINING FOR FATHERS. RESEARCH FOR ABOVE SERVICES. SEE ATTACHED SCHEDULE OF PROGRAMS.
One employee listed got $62K — that turns out to be severance pay:
“KEN CANFIELD, THE FOUNDER, RECEIVED PAYMENTS FOR SERVICES PROVIDED DURING 2007.
JIM MOORE RECEIVED PAYMENT IN ACCORDANCE WITH HIS SEVERANCE AGREEMENT. ($62K)”
The National Center for Fathering seeks to improve the well-being of children by promoting responsible fatherhood and equipping men to be more engaged in the lives of children. Programmingissummarizedinfourareas: Research,Training,ProgramsandResources.
Training (notice how many are trademarked. (from 2007 tax return: of its budget, $914K that year was “government grants.” So this is what our gov’t is sponsoring:
. TheNationalCenterforFatheringconductslivetrainingseminarstoequipmen for their role as fathers using its research-based curricula. Specific curricula developed by the National Center include : The 7 Secrets of Effective FathersTM,[+ Book, $12.99] Connecting With Your KidsTM Quenching the Father ThirstTM,Dads ofDestinyTM and R.E.A.D. to KidsTM The Center ‘s father training courses all include a version of its Personal Fathering Profile TM, a self-scored assessment that allows dads to compare their fathering practices with a national database. The Center also conducts train-the-trainer workshops to equip locally-based father trainers who work independently in their communities through faith-based,social service and other organizations to equip men.
I guess if all those fathers need train-train-trainers, maybe they ain’t nuttin’ but a hound-dog, and never will be, according to HHS!Either that, or there’s another reason for all this obsession.
Carey Casey honored as a “Champion of Change” – Watch Video
JUNE 12, 2012 BY CAREY CASEY 2 COMMENTS
As Father’s Day approaches there are so many reasons to be encouraged here at the Center … One big reason is an opportunity I had to visit the White House. I was one of ten people honored as “Champions of Change” in the field of fatherhood. This is an effort by the White House Office of Public Engagement and Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships to promote positive fatherhood, and it’s my privilege to be there and talk about Championship Fathering … “from the White House to the outhouse,” as I always say. I am also humbled. I know that I … [Read More…]
(ET . . .CET. . . eRA). . . . here’s USPTO.gov — wonder how many of those “tm” items really are “tm” ed! Colorado State marketing a booklet ‘Connecting with your Kids” http://www.courts.state.co.us/userfiles/file/Self_Help/CO_Parenting_Time_Book2004.pdf
Connecting With Your Kids
Copyright © Colorado Foundation for Families and Children
But it thanks Ken Sanders of (the) “Center on Fathering” and a “Colorado Fatherhood Connection”
Notice that in the MIDDLE of “fathers.com” top row of hyperlinks (to other pages) is “STORE” The store page kinda reminds me of the “cooperative parenting institute” store page (Termini & Boyan):
Championship Fathering Wristband 2 Models / Great for Father’s Day Give-Aways!
The 21-Day Dad’s Challengeby Carey Casey & 19 others
Championship Fathering by Carey Casey
52 Things Kids Need from a Dadby Jay Payleitner
52 Things Wives Need from Their Husbands by Jay Payleitner
Some are even on discount!
Monthly Specials For July
There now — that’s WAY better than actually helping custodial mothers and the children in their house DIRECTLy through, say, child support enforcement — or TANF (food stamps / cash aid) — or else, who knows what might happen? Mom might pick up a pair of extra underwear for her kids, and start feeling more, er independent than is appropriate for faith-based, er, churches… **Re: the woman’s version of abstinence education (for those who don’t know this already) is I guess the counterpart to “every man’s battle” which is aimed at men, and the most obvious of the 10 commandments (in sex realm), thou shalt not commit adultery & I guess thou shalt not covet . . .. http://everymansbattlevideo.com/
While I could care less about the original book, here’s what another Christian commentary says about it, which seems apt: “Psychoheresies”: http://www.psychoheresy-aware.org/emb112.html [PAL Vol11N2 Apr-May ’03] “EMB is loaded with unsubstantiated information…There is no reference to research to support what Arterburn says. When important and critical statements like that are made, the reader is entitled to some proof beyond Arterburn’s personal experiences…” “Faulting Fred’s father is repeated and amplified throughout the book. It is sinful to give such details because it violates the commandment to honor one’s father. Such details also give the impression that it wasn’t really Fred’s fault that he sinned in this way. One gets the distinct impression that Fred is painting a picture of personal victimhood.“ “the authors do not just refer to these sinful activities by name; they spell out these sinful activities and explicitly express details of “ogling,” sexual dreaming, “sexualized acts,” and “rampant masturbation,” 
etc. Such explicit details feed the flesh and work to build camaraderie among those men involved in lust. …“ Author Stephen Arterburn is the founder of the chain of New Life Clinics (p. 3). The clinics are advertised on a number of pages in the book with a full-page ad on page 230. An underlying idea here is that, if the reader just can’t make it on his own with this self-help book, he can find help at one of these clinics. As far as insurance coverage is concerned, New Life Clinics function like other secular psychological and psychiatric clinics that dispense psychotherapy and drugs.
SHARE THIS POST on...
Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up
July 3, 2012 at 8:27 PM
Posted in 1996 TANF PRWORA (cat. added 11/2011), Business Enterprise, Designer Families, Faith-based grantee scams, Funding Fathers - literally, Healthy Marriage Responsible Fatherhood (cat added 11/2011), HHS & HUD fraud, Organizations, Foundations, Associations NGO Hybrids, Where's Mom?
Tagged with AME mega-church, Childrens Institute (Los Angeles), Dr. Hershel K. Swinger, Dr. Thema Bryant-Davis, evangelists and splashy divorces, Every Mans Battle (psycho-heresy or just marketing?), fatherhood, HHS-TAGGS grants database, Manhood, men's rights, National Center for Fathering (KS), National Family and Education Center, Project Fatherhood, Read Them 990s!, Rev. Jamal Harrison-Bryant, social commentary, U.S. Govt $$ hard @ work..