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Posts Tagged ‘Supervised Visitation

Can You Tell the “Tells” of the DV (so to speak) CARTEL? It’s Show-and-Tell Time.

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Can You Tell the “Tells” of the DV (so to speak) CARTEL? It’s Show-and-Tell Time. w/ case-sensitive short-link ending “-3eF,” published April 3, 2016 at about 17,500 words. Length?  Well, it’s showing important parts of the whole, and I’d call it a key post.

ABOVE: New, Improved HHS Grants Database “TAGGS” image accompanying the label “DECISIONMAKING.” (?!!). I understand the trend towards “actuarial-based data-analytics” justifying (or, replacing personal accountability for) human decision-making, but it’s still weird… See also (on this blog or separately) NCCD (Oakland, CA nonprofit) and its’ various trademarked decision-making software for use in public institutions worldwide….

Much of my reporting on this blog comes from tracking HHS grants and grantees via http://TAGGS.HHS.gov.  After all, Marriage/Fatherhood funding (<== almost one billion dollars?) through HHS grants was $150M in theory — annually — since 1996.   So, that database just got a “facelift” and this image characterizes the “new, improved” ==>

“Since its launch in 1995, TAGGS has supported 
Federal financial transparency initiatives by providing 
reliable  and consistent grant award data to the public.”


KEY ASSERTION:

Evidence is practically slapping us in the face that the domestic violence field, while organizations named after stopping or being against domestic violence still involve plenty of women and what may looks like some truly feminist ones, has still been co-opted by, in fact, groups favorable to fathers’ and mens’ rights & programming FIRST, and “if we can get some safety added on to it — through technical assistance and training the judges, law enforcement, professionals– =so much the better for the PR,” despite all the rhetoric, as an afterthought.

POST SUMMARY & “GUIDE to CONTENTS”

This post is over 16,000 words, a “two-for-one.”  I decided to keep the dense-verbiage section near the top because of relevance, even though it moved the more colorful, visually fun and “higher curb appeal” logos of various organizations (see sampler here) lower down on the post.

 


 

 

 

I also, regrettably, felt it necessary to separate a discussion of key responsible fatherhood timeline events which anyone concerned about domestic violence ought to, by now, know by heart — but I doubt most do.


RE:  “SHOW and TELL.”  I tell first, but then near top of the post, show a certain California judge promoting Domestic Violence Coordinating Councils, plus some background on the Administrative Office of the Courts and its timing to increasing federal involvement in state-level family court jurisdiction and subject matter … THROUGH the Child Support sector (access & visitation public laws) of the 1980s and 1990s.

Further down, after showing more of the DV Networks (colorful logos of key some key groups, echoes a recent post on them) and another on “Strong Field Project” representing one health-foundation-funded Statewide DV network..and some of the PRIVATE-sector DV Industry collaborations (networking).

…you’ll see a logo for the MCBW —

and below that, discussions of the “TREATMENT AGENDA” response to domestic violence, as well as evidence of a Minnesota-based “DV Coordinating Council.” In looking at one of the Supervised Visitation Providers involved (?) with this one, I also noted form the tax returns that they are keeping $290K of assets with a certain “community foundation.”  I couldn’t find that Community Foundation as a separate business, but did run into the larger one it’s under.

It’s a general reminder to  continue to pay attention to COMMUNITY FOUNDATIONS as FUNDING POWERHOUSES which attract and can incubate programs without clear awareness by the public of these programs’ funding.

 I also show that one of the key people at MCBW, who is also a lawyer, has strong connections to both the Battered Women’s Justice Project (which is to say, “Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs, “DAIP” and with this connection, again, a focus on treatment/supervised visitation/trainings, etc.) and AFCC. 

In fact, here’s that quote (but to link to a person’s name, read the post!):

____has served as faculty for the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, the National Judicial Institute on Domestic Violence, the Center for Court Innovation, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, and the Minnesota Judicial Branch.


Same individual, being interviewed as faculty over at the “Center for Court Innovation” shows her BWJP/AFCC value systems — use kids as bait for ordering behavioral modification services for batterers because, after all, the “Coordinated Community Response” (courts + service providers in loco parentis) really, if trained by the right groups (=”us.”), will be wise and powerful enough to protect the children and persuade the children — and the primary care-taking parent attempting to limit the influence of abusive role models on growing children s/he is supposed to raise into upstanding citizens and participants in a law-abiding society — into accepting what’s best for themselves (link provided lower in the post):

[MCBW Interviewee]: Some judges, some court practitioners do see that perpetrators will be motivated by their kids, and access to their kids. So family court judges and family courts have this opportunity, and the proper motivation, to get perpetrators into services and into programs, to keep an eye on that perpetrator—to be like a mentor, to be a coach, to be a motivator to keep that perpetrator from using coercive and controlling violence, and they can order graduated visitation, graduated parenting time.

[CCI Interviewer]:  So the judges can use this leverage—access to the children, basically: “You can get thus and such visitation under these conditions if you receive these services, if you engage in this particular program?”

Kids as Bait for Violent (the focus being on primarily male) Offenders. What a “great” idea for kids and the nonviolent parent too. Great or not, it’s an idea that the DV Cartel has “bred into” the response to domestic violence.

[MCBW Interviewee]Yes, and it’s not only that it is an effective motivator for change, but its also completely logically tied to what is best for the children. We do want children to be able to have healthy relationships with both parents and it’s in the children’s best interest if we are able to figure out how to work with the perpetrator over time and help them develop their [[“his or her”] parenting capacity.

The steady money, moral “prestige,” and social/professional connections in the “working with the perps” fields, not to mention the conference circuits, must just be coincidental.


Finally, or close to finally, I show the MCBW discussion at a New York-based influential organization, “Center for Court Innovation,” how highly she values batterers intervention and co-parenting (despite the presence of domestic violence individual families) as best for all involved.


 I spent a few days attempting to make this one SHORT post of 8,000 words, but some of this information belongs in one place.  Dedicate some reading time, be prepared to bookmark some of the links for future reference, and you will not be disappointed.  Here goes….

What are the footprints, the TELLs

of the coordinated DV Industry Cartel?

TELL:  I use the word “tell” in its poker sense to make my point.  There are many gambling idioms in common speech.  Click here to see some.

I don’t play poker, but in case the term isn’t familiar, check here: Do you know what is more powerful than a poker tell? Understanding the difference between poker tells and behavioral information can have a profound impact on your game.” … [they describe the need for an accurate language to describe the tells]

Let’s define a “poker tell.”

A poker tell is a behavior that is correlated with a specific piece of information. This information can pertain to the quality of a player’s hand, the emotions a player tends to experience during a particular action, or even the coping mechanism a player uses to hide his behavior.

…This is a perfect example of how the way we describe behavior can significantly alter our reads  Without using the proper descriptive language we lose a lot of vital information.

…What we just described is a practical way of expressing tells at the table and is something every single player can do by approaching the identification of tells in a systematic and ordered fashion.

It’s my belief that every single player has a some sort of tell, some tells just take longer than others to identify. Tells can be found in many places on the human body, it’s just a matter of time before you hone in on the right place to look.

Key phrases for this context being “identifying in a systematic and ordered fashion” and “honing in on the right place to look.”  If you are forced into a high-stakes poker match where the outcome is life or death, how well would you focus?   Would you want to “hone in” on indicators of which way the outcome might go?

Meanwhile I am “telling” readers (in the common usage of that word) that there appears to be a “cartel” of corporations and individuals working with and for them, organized around this field to restrict outside participation or confrontation of the protected turf.  I am identifying the turf and the tells that I have become aware of  through long-term exposure (not participation!) as systematically as possible.


 DV:  DV obviously is short for “domestic violence.”

The DV cartel (my term) can be identified by key players and organizations, their networking, and their shared jargon, i.e., “tells.”   I’ll show these three, below:

  • Insisting on the Multidisciplinary Response to Domestic Violence  
  • Coordinating the Community (of professionals, anyhow) Response [“CCR”]
  • Coaching others to form local “Domestic Violence Coordinating Councils* organized at the County level.

*DV Coordinating Councils as a Concept:  Pushed since 1992 by an AFCC/ NCJFCJ well-known Judge: http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/Domestic_VIolence_Council.pdf  “REDUCING FAMILY VIOLENCE:  THE ROLE OF THE FAMILY VIOLENCE COUNCIL” by Judge Leonard P. Edwards (Juvenile & Family Court Journal, 1992). A brief resume shows that in 2002-2003 he was also President of NCJFCJ.   (In fact that resume was posted at NCJFCJ, and gives the link for his fuller one).

RESUME OF JUDGE LEONARD P.EDWARDS (ret)

Judge Leonard Edwards is a retired Superior Court Judge now working as a consultant and teacher. In his work he provides technical assistance to the courts of California and courts across the country, particularly in areas involving children and families. Judge Edwards served for 26 years as a Superior Court Judge in Santa Clara County, California. He sat as a domestic relations judge and as a juvenile court judge. He also served for six years as Judge-in- Residence with the Center for Families, Children & the Courts, a division of the California Administrative Office of the Courts.

The “CFCC” appears to have come into existence around 2000? underneath the AOC.  The AOC (Administrative Office of the Courts) is the staff of the Judicial Council.  The AOC came under fire for being over-bloated and many other things. Strategic Evaluation was commissioned and a May 25, 2012 Evaluation Report written.  This lengthy report, also featured in some of my later 2014 posts and some “sticky” ones, gives some of the history of centralization and “moving up” the responsibility for the state’s courts to the state level.  It also describes delegation of functions.

THE REPORT on the AOC, with its section on the CFCC Division IS RECOMMENDED READING for understanding many things which may relate to complaints about the family courts nationwide. Information on the AOC’s/CFCC begins on page 81:

(from a 2012 “SEC” CALIFORNIA-SPECIFIC REVIEW Of the Administrative Office of the Courts)

Division Description

The Center for Families, Children and the Courts (CFCC) was established in February 2000 through the merger of the Statewide Office of Family Court Services and the Center for Children and the Courts.

An Statewide Office on Families was merged with a Center on Children and the Courts.  Consolidation, Year 2000

The Statewide Office of Family Court Services was created by a 1984 legislative mandate to provide leadership, development, assistance, research, grants, education, and technical support to the state’s family court services programs through direct services and community partnerships.

  • READER ALERT:  I’m interrupting the quote from the report to emphasize events of 1984, 1988 and 1997, quoting other sources.  I will continue in the next yellow-highlit box below those quotes.  This is relevant and “deep” information that shows the timing of the A/V increasing activities, which should be laid alongside whether OR NOT the domestic violence agencies saw fit to inform mothers about them.  There’s no question that, overall, the leadership of the key organizations were reasonably aware of the same…BEFORE passage of the 1994 VAWA (!!!)
  • Larger context, about a key AFCC,NCJFCJ (two private 501©3/nonprofit judicial (and for AFCC, other court-connected professionals) membership associations), and AOC/CFCCconnected & (Santa Clara) county judge pushing certain kinds of programming, including but not limited to Domestic (“Family”) Violence Coordinating Councils…  FYI, In California at least now, judges are state, not county, employees…

Also (federal level) in 1984, the “Access and Visitation” program was enacted. As I went looking for a Congressional Research Service report on this, I found it posted at “Fearless Fathers” who’d picked it up on one of my posts — dated 12/5/2009 (!!).  This has a few other links on the topic.  Note — I’d only discovered what happened in 1984, as posted (summarized) in 2000, in the year 2009….

 You want to know why family courts are harassing you to pay child support (whether or not your job situation has changed) – or unreimbursed medical expenses (that your ex-wife asks family court to recover for her while she is not using your health insurance that covers your kids) and does not give the first dam of your visitation rights? Search not any more. That’s all in Carmen D. Solomon-Fears’s report 97-590 this report titled “Child Support Enforcement and Visitation: Should There Be a Federal Connection?” posted in Let’sGetHonestBlog. And this is to cry.

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The Stacked Deck, the Coups d’Etat, and the Fork in the Road.

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2016 Post Cleanup Update: Posted Feb. 25, 2014, on review I see this has an entire section on CFCC and the California Judicial Council’s website describing Access Visitation Grants (and a lot more), as well as CalPERS (history), Council on Institutional Investments, and of course, the use of Business ROUNDTABLES to sequester the real decision-making  in the “power elite.”  

I’m quoting other sources which, unfortunately, make nearly no mention of taxation vs. tax-exemption (one of my key themes, being highly aware of the power of tax-exempt organizations to cloud money movement from the public, utilizing multiple front organizations, chameleon organizations, and “take the money and run” organizations.  That’s in additino to the entire assets-acquiring-stockpiling religious-exempt sector who don’t even have to show their tax returns to the rest of us. //end 2016 update commentary:


I am so used to summarizing situations for strangers, on the phone, for people who have decided to network, and pick up this ball (and run with it — in various states), I often end up summarizing the material — in a sidebar widget. One reason I do this — I’m tired of summarizing the material one by one, and on the phone.  If it’s not clear from the blog, then — well, too bad!

NOT the best idea.

However, this post supplements one of my sidebar [widget] long, narrow, narratives — one that reads Contributions Welcome — which they are.  I’m incorporated as a nonprofit, so they’re not deductible, nor are there many of them. Intentionally so, given what I’ve seen of nonprofit funding — and also for more flexibility; I’m not a joiner, seek to avoid group-think; I just want this material written up to discover who else may be interested in strategizing for change.

And what we need to change is the system of taxes creating for-profit and not-for profit corporations to start with, which makes it impossible to track where ALL government funds (collectively) are going.  That alone (let alone other factors) means we can’t humanly know what we have invested in through our contributions to government for those who work.  It also stacks the deck away from those who pay taxes (except upper-bracket incomes, or those with other income streams) and towards the the wealthy and influential.

So, after considering how to incorporate, I decided against a 501(c)3.  Smaller amounts will help pay for basics for me, the blogger — and as possible for some platform upgrades (I have two in mind, neither too pricey) and after material is in good enough shape, some PRWire press releases, etc.  I’m not trying to turn this into a livelihood — just preserve the record, and to silence some of the groups which have censored this information and, in so doing, discouraged individuals from getting their comments in on time to, say House Appropriations Committee on welfare-reform issues (for starters).

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Essentially, once I start talking, I am going to be talking about the context and citing examples, evidence, and lay down a challenge.

Look, across society in the USA, things are sliding downhill fast, and knocking people out of the competition along the way.

Did anyone see this competition, recently?

snowboard-cross.jpg

(link to article below).  It has been compared to a demolition derby.  However –notice these people have snowboards, jackets, boots, and helmets.  They know when they push off, they might get taken out in a moment, maybe even injured — but they will get up and race again another day.  they may not know the whole course, but they know there’s a finish line.  They have sponsors, team-mates and a training regime.

Not so for our nation as a whole.  We have public schools, we have education THROUGHOUT this system and we have been induced to pour billions into the “training” functions of almost every major federal agency, while the same continue to misplace trillions  (this post, below), especially the Dept. of Defense and Housing and Urban Development (HUD).  My category in this subject matter is moreso HHS and to a degree, DOJ.

But we are deliberately NOT being brought into the planning sector — which has been compartmentalized by profession, then centralized through affiliations and institutionalized into leadership from certain universities, which then maintain loyalty to their own (while collaborating on how to run the world).  The leverage has been moved away from individuals.

DOWNHILL SLALOM SNOWBOARD CROSS, SPEEDING, JUICED UP ON LIES,  “STARVATION SLOPE” — and we funded this ourselves, and facilitated it, too.

While some sectors are prospering, they are doing it at the expense of others and because of positioning in the market, or previous positioning in the market. The market is affected by the caste system enabled by the tax system, which sets up nonprofits for some and wage deductions (for taxes) for others; and wage deductions AND child support garnishments for others.

For yet others, their assets (or, if they had none, children) are being stripped out simply through the family courts, conciliation courts and/or “Unified Family Courts,” with presiding judges strapped into the “AFCC*/CRC**/NACC/*** “CFCC” etc. system.

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“Comment Submitted To:” (Supervised Visitation, Interlocking Nonprofits, in Minnesota)

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I submitted today to:
Carver County (MN) Corruption // AFCC chart page

COMMENTARY ON THE COMMENT:

Conceptual Thinking (understanding systems) is Essential to Freedom.
Networking for mutual self-support groups is wonderful, but failure by support groups to scout why one needed them to start with, is suicidal, in the long run. Support groups simply go form their silos of information and shun information which doesn’t fit with the status quo.

This is a great way to overspecialize and become an extinct species. We HAVE to be able to speak a language that incorporates understanding of the systems that structure our lives. We aren’t. There are crackups, domestic violence, gang violence, and various kinds of “roadkill,” to which people have conveniently (for those who DO understand systems, and own them) self-separated into their groups by label: Protective Mothers, Battered Mothers, Fathers’ Rights, Family Values vs. Pro Choice, etc.

Have you ever seen skilled sheepdogs in action? Consider what they do — they face off with the sheep; one dog can control a sizeable clump. Now — who does the sheepdog answer to and who feeds and trains him?

Now, who pays the man (or woman, I suppose) who trains, feeds, and runs the sheepdogs?

The real question is, who owns the ranch. And that’s what family court reform groups (male or female) simply forget to specialize in, and train each other to respond to signals from, that is, to respond as the owner of the ranch might — not as the sheep might.

I don’t know if you can get a visual on this — but picture sheepdog trials, and a batch is let out at time, and the canine “middle mangement” of this operation called a ranch, who do a lot of the running around, but appear to be innately designed for this — they LOVE running the sheep — are running one clumped together focused on the sheepdog (not the farm owners) and facing it, either face-off and freeze, or running. Eventually they ARE going to be run into the pen, where after a long (Or short) and domesticated life, during which they will be sheared and produce more lambs — eventually they will be possibly eaten. Such a life!

Divide, shepherd, shear, and eventually eat. Control reproduction. Sort for desired qualities.
That’s for sheep, but it’s been applied on people. And the sheepdogs bark and posture. The sheep don’t even have a language to talk back with that means anything other than what sounds they are making on the way back into the fold (pen).

As human beings, if we want freedom, we need to speak more than one language, and understand which language one is hearing at a given point of time. We also had better get a lid on understanding systems, AND becoming a better judge of character.

I read tax returns and look up corporations not because it’s profitable, or inherently more interesting than other things I could do with an immediate (though very transient, in my situation) profit. I read tax returns and look up corporations (and ask others to) because it tells me about who is doing what in the commercial landscape. I think the basics are clear, and a lot of the continued lookups I may (and am) still doing, are part for personal insight — but moreso for demonstrating to others.

This kind of data (even as poorly sourced as the free databases are, and as unwieldy as they are to produce any kind of report from) — givesi us a headsup on which way the economy has been going, is going and on WHY certain groups and talk like they do. It is one way of standing a little aprt from the clump of sheep to consider the patterns of frantic running around.

As a domestic violence survivor, I have also believed that the middle of pack of sheep frozen in certain language patterns and dashing around the internet to bond with their own kind, producing more of the same kind of (outdated though still valid in parts) information is producing inbreeding –and doesn’t increase the defensive or safety position one iota.

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In the Beginning, in Hindsight (more on early AFCC newsletters, SVN/CRC, and could we have prevented this?)

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Just grabbed this section off a recent post “Why Supervised Visitation Sucks” after posting it. I’m a woman and I get to redecorate at will.

I’m trying to consider whether anyone could’ve then (and could, now) headed off at the pass the multi-state shape-shifting nonprofits involving public officials (such as AFCC, SVN and CRC, mentioned herein).

There’s no question they are networked, and fast moving; like a maurading invasive species. Such is the nature of how danged easy it is to incorporate anywhere, anything (A few bucks and a statement on a piece of paper), and how we, the public, still don’t know how to track down how our own public officials are being funded.

It seems to me quite intentional that the purpose was to bypass representative legislation through forming multi-state and international nonprofits up front, attracting funding, and holding conferencs where the sun don’t shine (actually meaning, out of state for the target jurisdictions; they have been known to prefer sunny climates for conference locations. Like, Hawaii, or Bermuda, or in Southern California…).

I wanted to reference the AFCC talking about starting up this field (or at least the SVN), and decided to add an inset on the infamous Viola Stroud… I wonder in retrospect, how things might have gone if more of the public knew how vital it is to follow the money, and watch the conference circuits of groups like AFCC and CRC, not to mention SVN, and then connect this to the federal funding. Instead of go with the social scientist crowd, and (while making a fine living off grants to evaluate these programs) quipping, well, it’s OK…. so long as they are well-trained and recognize a batterer or abuser when they see one? Let us see how we can fix that….

AFCC Startup Literature, and Viola Stroud/CRC (inset)

AFCC Newsletter Fall 1992 (Vol. 11 No. 4) leads off with announcement of the formation (previous May) of the Supervised Visitation Network in New York, and presenter Tim Ballew (see also below) explains how it was funded and run. This is in Indianapolis.. So now, I have three states (so far) in which SVN was incorporated: New York, Tennessee and Florida… Above all keep in mind it is a NONPROFIT CORPORATION (to the extent that SVN has been operating legally, which as it turns out, is hardly all the time) whose board members tend to run NONPROFITS that take FEDERAL GRANT SUBSIDIES for this field, which was heavily promoted for application to divorce, not just kids in placement (dependency, that is). Why stop a “great” idea when it’s started??

Perhaps records don’t go back to 1992, however only a 2005 incorporated NEW YORK CHAPTER of the SVN actually shows up as a nonprofit. Search HERE, check status type ALL and search option “Contains” to view. A search of “Charities.NYS.gov” on “Supervised Visitation” pulls up only the “Little Angels” one (infamous for having involved a woman later convicted of robbing the estates of elders; with this corporation involved, aka Viola Stroud. Who was involved in the famous (to some of us) Genia Shockome case as a supervised visitation provider….).

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Join or Start a Conversation on Family Court Matters. Jump in Somewhere!

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[Looks like this one started around May 16, 2013; it was then left “pending” for a long while, and now being re-published along with original comments on November 16, 2013 (after some days of adding too much, then splitting off the added insight from later months after all). I apologize for the inconvenience and for not having figured out what the Contact Form was earlier in the blog!

Believe it or not, I do want feedback.  Comments have always been open, and some of my ongoing network comes from people who commented; we are continuing to compare practices across jurisdictions and problemsolve, support, etc.  

The “contact” form here raises general topics and asks for feedback for any post (or link) on the entire blog. Don’t miss the “drop-down” menu on one of the fields below.  I have participated in “forums” before, but they are time-intensive and not usually set up for problem-solving.  I’m looking for people who perceive issues, can state them, and want to do something about it.  

Usually this is people who are already stuck in, or have been devastated by (current or past) the courts.  Of those people, who else is ready to frame the discussion and can actually handle the existence and relevance of the material I blog?

If disagree — what’s the basis?  If agree…..

I’m looking for better ways to organize and communicate the material, as well as better understanding of what does, or doesn’t communicate to people IN custody situations.   I have a lot of personal feedback through networking, and from some people who took time to comment and I can tell from other groups who formerly resisted talking about some of these essentials who now, have had to — because their followers also read this blog. Word is getting out.

I can show which direction human beings are driving this entire system (the Titanic ship of state, including the courts) based in a common language of economics and evolving corporate structures. Whether or not that’s a good or desired direction, matters.   Wouldn’t this knowledge be helpful for whether to start “fixing the broken courts” (tinkering with their settings) or dismantling them for other, different options?

In 2016 this blog (and my life) are at different states of awareness, and urgency. A significant 2016 insert follows because I’m going to either make this post “sticky” or re-post it, showing that three years ago, I was responding to the symptoms of what can now be better documented and defined — in part because I found documentation in the course of continuing to read, and in part because in the past three years, the means to continue changing the public perception of what “Paradigms” ought to reflect government itself, continue their expansive momentum, and showing more of their true character.


But First, As usual, “In My Opinion.”   Please argue it if you disagree, or state your own elsewhere, including in the contact form!  Bulleted commentary on, essentially, the conference circuit and its publications, may be helpful insight.

In my opinion, some of those who set this up maybe foresaw this day and have carved out other professional niches involving fewer judges, called “collaborative Justice.”

In other words, perhaps planning was made for the eventuality that the public catches on…. and shuts it down by simply refusing to feed the system, particularly as more of (us) start exposing how the system is actually fed, the funding… Read the rest of this entry »

“Finding Ground Zero in Connecticut,” the Underground Economy in an AFCC Courthouse?

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[THIS POST has been expanded and revised to about 6,000 words, much of it quotes, and has a feedback form. It links to two groundbreaking “Washington Times/Communities” articles on very disturbing custody cases; what’s groundbreaking is the angle of approach, and type of evidence posted. This post begins referencing TANF, because “TANF” funding is often operative in such cases. And it posts a comment on one of them I couldn’t get posted over at the WT.

My post explains “AFCC Courthouse” (my generic term) in some detail. In this Connecticut case, “AFCC Courthouse” refers to the “Regional Family Trial Docket” in Middletown Connecticut presided over by a certain judge. However the term in general refers to the nonprofit organization (AFCC) started in Los Angeles County [at least, they claim exactly, i.e., 1963] five decades ago, which has a tendency to set up specialized courts, once its judges (membership) are in charge of a family division, or in positions of influence to do so. I forgot to mention, that in its early years, it also incorporated in a variety of states, changed its corporate name (and EIN#) several times, and probably is not properly registered as a nonprofit to this day in all states and territories where it operates (most likely, all 50 + territories). See early newsletters at bottom of my blog. AFCC runs conferences, trains its membership and others, and lobbies for legislative and administrative changes in the way divorce, custody, and dependency law works. Hence calling a certain docket an “AFCC Courthouse” is often very accurate shorthand for that particular courthouse, or docket.

This post was, however, to also publish my comment which didn’t make it onto the Washington Times comments field, for unknown reasons, and for further reference to interested readers. Last I looked, only one of my very generic (nothing specific) comments was cleared. AFter technical difficulties and over three days, I decided to bring my response over here to the blog.

Although I believe the blog makes this plain, FYI I am a survivor of not this type of case (mine involved DV not identified or reported child molestation) and know how devastating it is. I also network with people who believe that the key to this is the money trail, not the harm done the children, which we believe is more likely just collateral involved in extracting the maximum $$ (public and private) through this abusive system of handling such matters. If this subject matter interests you, a contact and feedback form is on the post. (I would’ve added them earlier, had I noticed the widget available on wordpress!)]]


The Time is NOW to Speak Out regarding TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families) Extension!

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Technical Assistance and Training = Silencing Mothers’ Voices, Taking their Money…

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[post is about 11,000 words long.
I am showing many TA&T [Technical Assistance and Training] programs and their relationships, although my interest in Battered Women’s Justice Project (BWJP) stems from their recent collaborations with (instead of confrontation of) “AFCC” and drawing upon public funding (HHS grants) to do their analyses.  It’s pretty obvious that the organizations writing up the projects/situation/subject matter are not going to BE the subject matter — and if so, it will be self-description.
My takeaway is, the better way to describe “the situation” is corporate economic viewpoint.   I use corporate lookups, tax return lookups, sometimes grants lookups to describe (and compare to) any organization’s self-description on its colorful, hyperlinked, “Donate Here” websites.  
I also  try to remember which nonprofits have spun off earlier ones that made a name and got the grants.
In that regard, Technical Assistance =  Propaganda Promotion, even if the topic they are writing about is or was indeed legitimate; to dominate the field by the internet, conferences, training, federal funding, and nonprofit status — is to exclude the clientele’s voices as an equally relevant viewpoint.
It should be remembered that several of these organizations got their start in the 1980s, before (really) the Internet Revolution got underway.  However now that it is, business just got easier, and for individual victims of (for example) battering or abusive control — who are often fighting for sheer access to an internet (i.e., isolation is a factor in controlling others) — to expect to keep up with the rapid expansion of certain viewpoints (which are good for sales, if not necessarily good for actually stopping violence against women, or promoting responsible fatherhood EITHER) — is, well unreal.
The only way to even the playing field (being outnumbered and out financed, and less well organized) is to, I hope others also will, EXPOSE the circumstances, and then demand that certain programs be DEFUNDED (they are not reducing “roadkill” they are simply spawning more proselytes and building professional conferencer-careers) –and the organizations pay their own way through life.
When it comes to ECONOMIC control, the United States (obviously) has collective wealth beyond individuals — but I suggest addressing this issue sooner rather than later, anyhow.  TAKE A LOOK!  No matter where one digs in, similar behaviors will prevail; this is as good an entry point as any….]

SOCIAL CHANGE TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN:  

HOME OF THE DULUTH, MODEL

This website has changed, and no longer openly lists certain projects that are underneath it (an older version may be on my blog)…  Which I seem to recall included groups like PRAXIS International:  “integrating theory & practice,” which like DAIP, had close ties to Ellen Pence (who actually was Praxis “founding director.”  Their home page still holds a eulogy, as Ellen Pence died recently:

Praxis believes in social change through advocacy & training “since 1996”.

  •  “Since 1996, we have worked with advocacy organizations, intervention agencies, and inter-agency collaborations to create a clear and cooperative agenda for social change in their communities.

Like others, they endorsed the “SUPERVISED VISITATION & EXCHANGE” (USDOJ Safe-Havens grant series support):

 Since 1996, we have worked with advocacy organizations, intervention agencies, and inter-agency collaborations to create a clear and cooperative agenda for social change in their communities.

Interesting year — startup year coincided with welfare reform…  Like OH SO MANY helpful nonprofit groups getting significant HHS and/or DOJ grants (although I DNR what Praxis got) — they are really “into” technical assistance and training” and quite willing to help grantees — from a safe distance from ongoing, shall we say, volatile, situations at the street level.  Maybe the founders had this experience initially but after all, people age out, and it’s safer to teach than to confront in a group setting — or dispense studies on-line.

Read the rest of this entry »

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..]

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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 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,,,

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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]]


assn.gif (5213 bytes)  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)?

[UPDATE:  Amazingly, tax returns (at the IRS) as late as FY2019 (YE Dec) are still around.  It’s filing a Form 990EZ (deprives people of significant details, such as naming its “affiliate”) and is claiming negative revenues (after raising $62K with “direct expenses” of $118K.  “Go figure…”  It also must be a business association, as its 990EZ filings are also labeled “990EO” where the “E” represents the EZ (abbreviated) part and the “O,” that it’s not filing as a public charity (501©3) but likely 501©6.  For comparison, the American Bar Association files as a 501©6 also.//LGH 2022]

….. (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.”

Copyright © Design Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Last update 01/10/2010)

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.

University of BaltimoreSchool of Law

Contact CFCC

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 School

UB 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 Center

Former 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.

As we can see, this emphasis is on substance abuse and truancy (juvenile matters).  Applying this same model to divorce courts on the basis that divorce, too needs “treatment” is seriously questionable!
 For example, a symposium makes it clear who is leading the charge to change, and how they view themselves at UBaltimore.  I need to note that Ms. Babb has some prior experience and ties to Southern California.  California also has a “CFCC” but under the Administrative Office of the Courts.  Maryland has its one at this school of law, but that’s Ok — the courts are being transformed anyhow:

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.

Most definitely, if laws, and law systems are to be seriously changed, it should be through closed-door conferences of high-powered experts excited about their collective clout, at law schools –and absolutely not through the legislative process involving the general public voting on bills they had some say in, or (God forbid) perhaps even initiated.

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”???

The 2008 newsletter I quoted is titled” Families Matter.”  Now that we know where that came from, let’s go back to this 2008 piece of ?? listing marketable commodities to connect with court reform years….

“. . .Paper, Cotton, Leather, Fruit, Wood, Iron…”

SERIOUSLY?

Yes, apparently.  Look for yourself:

Newsletter of the Department of Family Administration

…and this is now nearly four years ago!  Shame!!! on those who did NOT blog the AFCC when they blogged against “PAS,” subconsciously? taking cues from leadership who, while knowing quite well about this, chose not to mention it in their press releases, news letters, or triumphantly mainstream on-lines, leaving the job up to volunteer bloggers, commenters (on those on-lines) and other “lone wolf investigators” who were honest enough to recognize something was missing in the protective mothers AND in the domestic violence rhetoric.

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?

  • PAPER

  • COTTON

  • LEATHER

  • FRUIT

  • WOOD

  • IRON

  • WOOL

  • BRONZE

(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:

  • PAPER COTTON LEATHER FRUIT WOOD IRON WOOL BRONZE

By the most obvious (to me, at least) functions of the material, it would go:

  • Writing, clothing & linens, clothing & bookbinding, FOOD, building & fuel, Building & tools, Clothing, Statuary-sculptures.
By perhaps flexibility?  That makes no sense — as “fruit” is in the middle.
By FLAMMABILITY?  – – –
  • very, very less, Huh?, yes, with some tinder, no – must be smelted, yes, no unless you have a serious furnace.
But the people who put this together are not little kids learning to sort, prioritize and categorize — they are adults seeking to expand an expensive bureaucracy with authority to decide whether Mom & Dad get to raise their kids, (or which Mom which Dad) — or have them institutionalized and raised by foster parents, or adopted out.  These are major responsibilities.  It would be a little more reassuring if the people facilitating them had a little basic common sense!

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.

The passage:

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.

 As it goes, they couldn’t, and so the order was dispatched to dispatch all the wise men, etc., including at this time Daniel.  Daniel got his moment in the sun, and said (after introductions):

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

 Right or Wrong, Real or Imagined, the image has persisted such that even infidels.org can discuss its meaning, centuries later, according to its organizing principle(s). . . .

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.

SO, What, exactly, is the organizing and ordering principle behind this Department of Family Administration Newsletters’ selection of:

PAPER COTTON LEATHER FRUIT WOOD IRON WOOL BRONZE

IS THE TRUE MESSAGE BEHIND THE METAPHOR ITS INHERENT MEANINGLESSNESS?

BASED ON THE CONTEXTS, POSSIBLY THE CONTENTS AND WORDS ARE, INDEED MEANINGLESS, ESPECIALLY GIVEN WHICH IS NEXT TO WHAT….

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”??

Scroll past my indented summary in this color font, to get to that discussion.  The choice of metaphors is basically frivolous and meaningless — the real agenda has already been identified years earlier and is in operation nationwide, anyhow.  The newsletter simply makes it sound more legitimate….

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:

Family Administration – Maryland state court system (http://mdcourts.gov/family/index.html)

(image removed/broken link, but it had been labeled: “Department of Family Administration-Administrative Office of the Courts 410-260-1580”

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.”

There’s a long, colorful newsletter above, which mixes talk of in order, page 1, Civil Protective Orders (DV issues) &  Parent Coordination Promotion.

(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!

NEWSLETTER, PAGE 1, TOPIC 1 — “SEE, WE ARE HELPING STOP DOMESTIC VIOLENCE!”

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….)

The Statewide Domestic Violence Coalition here is (was) working with the “Department of Family Administration.”  Who the “Department of Family Administration” is, matters.  How did the AOC (Admin. Office of the Courts) get a DFA? (Dept. of Fam. Admin.) anyhow — expanding bureaucracy?
That can be discussed in a moment, but let’s look at the focus of the “Executive Director” of this DFA in our next article, which I believe is clear enough…

PAGE 1, TOPIC 2 — “BUT DON’T WORRY, DADS & AFCC PROFESSIONALS — WE REMEMBERED YOUR AGENDA TOO”*

(*Maintaining a mechanism to apply “PAS” theory, retaining privileged quasi-judicial status without accountability, and more of us in every custody case)

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.

Paragraph 1, above, starts with a lie — it’s dissembling.  This is CLASSIC AFCC — referring to its own members as if they were actually independent of each other, in the overall strategic plan!  Here it is, again:
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.”
LIE#1:   Innovation IN THE COURTS doesn’t happen on the ground, it’s mostly a top-down strategy, possible because those in control of the families in the courts are the judges — and AFCC overall is not at all lacking in judges.  Calling lower levels of courts “on the ground” is dissembling.  A pretense, in some senses it’s fair enough to call it simpy a lie.   AFCC’s own history page prides itself in spearheading innovations in family law practices.  That’s hardly “on the ground” except in a world of ranking professionals which excludes the very much “on the ground” litigants:

(AFCC) “History”

AFCC’s self-definition on their main website, at the top (it is the “motto”)is:
An interdisciplinary and international association of professionals
dedicated to improving the lives of children and families
through the resolution of family conflict.
It’s hard to know where to start, outlining the problems with this, given who the AFCC membership is.  DOES resolving family conflict (IF AFCC did this – it doesn’t, it exacerbates it, incites it, and then calls in its “experts” to allegedly resolve family conflict) improve the lives of children and families?
Who — besides this crowd — says that “family conflict” is the major problem facing families these days?  Go tell that to Jaycee Dugard; go tell that to the parents of Trayvon Martin.  Go tell that to MaryAnne Godboldo, who stood off a home invasion (unwarranted) to protect her 13 year old daughter from being forcibly put on Risperdal by CPS after a medical doctor had warned her to take her off it:

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. 

This mother above, and the community that rallied to defend her (she got her daughters back and felony charges dropped) have a “high conflict” with treating their children as state hostages when they resist forcible drugging and unwarranted home invasions of their kids.  This was a single mother, and the nonresident father had no conflict with the mother’s resisting the situation.  44
AFCC believes that the primary social ill is conflict — not crime.  It believes that its professionals can, and should “improve the lives of children and families” according to their definition, and given the membership, they have the collective clout to do this pretty much over the objection of any individual family in any given case.
They are collectively dedicated to playing “God,” Declaration of Independence aside…. (all men created equal ~ which would mean that AFCC profesionals are not more “equal” than non-AFCC professionals, such as “flawed parents” (a term actually seen in one of their brochures) and endowed with their Creator (not AFCC) with “certain unalienable rights.”
AFCC most especially is concerned — in their policy agenda of playing God to “children and families” (note the order of nouns) — with getting rid of any God-given or due-process rights of individuals which might “conflict” with their determination to help people against their own will, in order to establish family peace, under conditions of extortion (virtually).
RE:
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.”
 
LIE#2:  The courts are not trying to “better serve families” — they are serving themselves TO the families forced into their courtrooms, for profit, and for their overall agenda stated above.
This agenda includes transforming the justice system (complete with concepts of individual rights, due process, basic standing as an individual in the courtroom, right to confront one’s accusers, in fact just about anything traditionally considered a “right” including a little right to privacy, right to be free from undue search and seizure, and not be deprived of things unlawfully.) into a therapeutic turnstile attached to an ATM.
Part of which includes the power to traffick children, for profit, into the juvenile justice system (see Luzerne County kids for Cash RICO case!!) or, for drugging/drug-testing and Lord knows what else, into the foster care and from then on, adoption system.  A handy aspect of the permanent threat to all standing parents to having their children improperly removed is keeping adult parents in line, too, and/or extorting them financially. It’s a FANTASTIC wealth transfer system.  Saying this somehow “serves families,” in context of reality, is pure bullshit, and is keeping the blogsphere and, at times, the FBI, busy.
LIE/Truth#3:   Courts have experimented with emerging-practice models.  
Courts (meaning AFCC professionals, or courts run by them – if you want proof, or some samples, hit me with a comment below, I’ll post some) are, rather, experimenting with how asleep the American public is.  It’s not a true experiment about whether or not, for example, “parenting coordination” actually works.  The agenda is to ram it through over the objections of parents, and sometimes over a state Governor (Florida 2004, Gov. Jeb Bush), which AFCC has done and knows how to do.  
The word “emerging” from this group is never an honest assessment.  Read their conference brochures.  they don’t talk about emerging practices — they talk about THEIR practices, and discuss results, and how to expand the collective model  (refine it slightly, or re-shrinkwrap the concept).
For example, parent coordination is expensive to train for (check Parent Coordination Central, Boyan/Termini website), and has a host of products associated for sale (even though they are incorporated WHERE ?  ????).  It’s also not free to the parents.  Yet, I saw an AFCC conference brochure, I believe it was, discussing how to utilize this for the poor indigent parents on Title IV.  Surely they needed parent coordination more than food, housing, clothing, medical care or transportation in the form of child support or TANF benefits, right?   After all, wasn’t the reason they are poor, their “family conflict”???
PHRASE/Stray Concept #4:   with promise for assisting high conflict families . . . .
If AFCC has an agenda as a NONPROFIT alone and wants to pursue it — more power to them.  Take their funding from wherever (membership fees, people who wish to contribute to the cause, gaining a little tax-deduction charitable contribution perk also, for mutual benefit:  donor/Donee.  I have no problem with that.   It’s elective.
BUT AFCC is comprised in large part of JUDGES — who are public employees, MEDIATORS who are many times court-appointed and county-supported (plus some A/V funding to go along with it), and they are in positions which require them to (??) take oaths of office to uphold the constitution.  I hear that some jurisdictions do not– but their function in society is as public servants.  As such, they have no right to be pushing a PRIVATE, FOR_PROFIT AGENDA utilizing the authority of their office which was designed to rule in matters dealing with JUSTICE.
AFCC has rejected the concept of individual rights and placed it with the language of collectivism.  
As such, it might as well be a religion, or an instrument of socialism, as far as I am concerned.
The best assistance any judge can offer is to READ the case file (which many don’t), OBEY his/her own laws of procedure and Judicial Canons promoting ethical behavior, RECUSE him/herself when there is a conflict of interest (which no AFCC judge can deny exists when there are related professionals to steer business towards in the same jurisdiction), and honestly attempt to ascertain if one party or the other’s evidence does not support the claim.  To refrain from extensive ex parte and in-chambers deliberation, and to act in concert with the criminal law — not attempt to ignore the criminal law, create new “psychological crimes” (PAS theory) and so forth.
None of these judges are likely to do this, or they’d quit the organization.  The law as stated did not suit them so, acting more as priests than judges, they simply collaborated (“innovation and collaboration” is accurate, above) to alter it to suit their private purposes, which (see the cases I highlit above) conflicts many times with individual rights of U.S. citizens, and parental rights to avoid having their homes invaded, and their children kidnapped and institutionalized simply because Mom or Dad protested improper and physically/mentally dangerous drugging!


COMMENTARY, EXPRESSING INDIGNATION ABOUT THIS:
(These paragraphs may not be in the best order.  Please take them individually.  I tried yesterday, but PTSD was an issue in contacting the organization to talk about this, or emailing them. I suspect a phone call would work better).
By the time some file for a domestic violence restraining order (sometimes called Protection From Abuse, etc.) with kickout — a person has sometimes tried long and hard to handle the situation without legal action, and may have simply tried to stop the abuse, or get help to stop the abuse, before making the tough situation to throw someone out legally in order to stay alive or physically intact.  
In my case (now about a decade old or just more), as an educated, fairly liberal (I like to think) woman, I told people in my social sphere about the abuse.  The range of people who knew, witnessed dramatic incidents and longstanding patterns that clearly speak of domestic violence and “intimate terrorism”** was very wide.  Men and women of all ages, married and single, employed and stay-at-home, sometimes facilitated temporary survival post-incident, or to temporarily avoid one, but collectively it was a wash — no interference, no confrontation, no referral to outside resources, and no personal hard talks (man to man) with the father saying “stop!” Collectively, I have to say, society still values marriage over sanity, i.e., when marriage seriously endangers & compromises basic life, then it’s not worth preserving, and THAT marriage is NOT part of the “social unit of society.”
(**such as my fleeing my home to theirs for safety overnight; property destruction symbolically targeted towards what was of value to me, work sabotage by refusing to reliably watch our children, or be home in time for me to get to work, serious attempts to prevent me from access to transportation, or basics like holding an open bank account (there was never any joint one), or participate in inspiring or encouraging community activities, interception of mail, weapons collection used to terrorize me out of certain activities, and seeing me in complete trauma over a period of years and immediately after various incidents; seeing a mother and children without necessaries, yet a father with multiple pairs of shoes, electronics, and etc.; indications that the house was not being maintained in a functional manner (utilities, etc.) . . . .

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.

“Strong Field Project” caters to DV industry’s networks, enabled by ?? “Three Cities that Rule the World”

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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.

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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….

  • The AFCC is definitely international (Australia, Canada, UK, . . . . . .), as is the associated CRC (Children’s Rights Council).  Well custody disputes sometimes are international; sh*t happens.
  • International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution > Home

    http://www.cpradr.org/  The CPR Institute is an independent, nonprofit think tank that promotes innovation in commercial dispute prevention and resolution. By harnessing the collective 

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.

I don’t have a problem with this, except when it comes to the family law courts handling criminal behavior involving physical assault and battery, or child molestation.  That’s where the line should’ve been drawn, yet intentionally wasn’t.  This crowd continues to promote dispute resolution for almost everyone, and the profession, including those that go on (as retired judges, as psychologists, or as attorneys, presumably).  I am working on a separate post (other blog), and have, yes, found it sponsoring work with AFCC, among plenty of other places; it has plenty of funding to go around for these grants, too.   The board members of this represent a host of major (multinational) corporations, and its chair (a Judge, or retired judge) formerly worked for the FBI and the CIA, which I think at least should catch someone’s attention.
Then Thomas J. Stipanovich stepped down from this nonprofit to run the Straus Institute of Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine, in Malibu, California.  In looking at this, and the related school of law, I couldn’t help but notice the close connection to London, and after this, conferences involving THE top justice of England and Wales in concert with a justice at the Supreme level in Belgium as well.
How in the world could we expect such globetrotters to see the safety element when it comes to dispute resolution in the family law arena?  Is that an unreasonable mountain to scale, or train to (somehow) hop — catching up with this global elite and saying STOP IT, DAMNIT!

. . .

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 bread4But 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 me10Then 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 beand 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 more12The 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 wailing16And 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 off18And 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 deceived24And 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.
I’m putting this in to remind us about the medium of exchange we call “money” and how fiat money  and “bona fide” money cannot exist alongside each other, really — because the owners of the fiat money (private bankers) depend on an addicted population for their business.  Free, choice-driven populations and those informed on the situation, would never choose the one that kept their country free over the one that enslaved it, would they?
So lies (deceit, as in ‘Deceived the nations” of Rev. 18) also has to be involved in the “sale” of this solution.   I do look forward to the day when this type of deceit, as well as (while we’re here) I hope the extreme deceit of the people I share DNA with, who have for years been selling abusive “solutions” to the problem of my intent to remain free of them, by working, legally, as I CHOOSE to – also comes out in the wash.  If the Bible is the word of God, it will.  Other than this resurrection and day of judgment thing, I figure it’s a toss-up, but am intending to balance the odds in the favor of the basic truth, while I can.
The book of James also (chapter 5) talks about the behavior of the rich (it’s pretty much throughout the scriptures) and warns the readers about “respect of persons.”  In this worldview, a future Judge is definitely coming; be patient and endure, is the mentality:  Remember Job:  God is just in the long-run.

<< James 5 >>
King James Version

1Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you2Your 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 sabaoth5Ye 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.

I realize i’ve quoted from two books (James, Revelation) not among the earlier ones; apparently James wasn’t quoted til around 225.A.D.

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).

Don’t forget my recent favorite book “A.D. 381
I should pick on Protestants too — at least the link “freethought” brings up the topics.  Atheists know this, but perhaps don’t think about it too much.  They are surrounded by attending Christians who, if they thought too deeply about the canon of the scriptures, would stop attending, I imagine….  And they vote too, so might as well all of us get some concept of it in operation:  The mainstream religions as we see them nowadays are basically spinoffs of empires and workign alongside them.  Before a certain piont in time, they were only “sects” and followers, many of who were persecuted.  Now adays when we see this type of centralization then called “empire” — we could as easily call it empire, or simply, fascism.

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).
In the gospels, the books Jesus quoted the most were Deuteronomy (the law), Psalms, and Isaiah.  On the day of Pentecost, per Acts, Peter quoted two only psalms and one prophet (?), and then got right onto explaining what they’d just seen and witnessed in that context, and exhorting people to “repent.” No “theology’ was apparently involved at the time.   It was also prophesied (according to John) that the disciples/apostles would be hauled in front of the authorities to give their answer, and to not pre-meditate what they’d be saying, it would be given to them in their hour.
What then, we might legitimately ask, is going on every Sunday morning (and/or evening, or Wednesday evenings) when people congregate to hear someone’s homily or sermon, or inspired display, of what the scriptures mean, that they couldn’t themselves read, deduce, and act on, assuming they were walking in the same spirit?  At least Catholics seem to keep it mass these days short, and give one time to think during the liturgy!!!  One’s eardrums aren’t assaulted…
Or, for a more secular viewpoint yet, how about from Infidels.org on the canon, making reference to Thomas Jefferson (who didn’t believe in the miracles of Jesus and produced a skinny version, “The Jefferson Bible”, I gather):
The Secular Web
Who says “a mature Christian must ask the question that skeptics ask…” (not a short read, but several good questions and points, for example, about “magic books” and who gets to decide which ones they are:

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.

It’s kind of a moot point, anyhow, when one can simply dial a preacher or (til the Crystal Cathedral had to change its stripes) pull up to a drive in and watch the show.  The more I think about these things, and connect them to lived experience(s), the more I do see the influence of the remains of the Roman empire, working through highly visible buildings and structures in this world.  It’s obviously (though more obviously than actual scripture, Old or New, seems to justify) a male-dominated, heirarchical religion — that’s hardly debatable now, is it?  (or, are ordained priests marrying with the blessing of the Pope since I last tuned in?)
Here are three photos from an article on “The Three Cities” found on the same forum — what do you think they typify?  The female reality, or the male?
Think about it:

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.

~ ~ ~ back to that prophecy (statement, anyhow) in the Bible:

 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.

LONDON — financial empire
VATICAN — religious empire
D.C.           —  military empire.
(see “pentagon-vatican connection” also).
Revelation 18, above, cursed and looked forward to the fall of the city of Babylon, because of its deception, and its bloodshed involved in the merchandising of all kinds of delicacies, including slaves.  I don’t know when this book was written, but it scarcely seems to be coming from the point of view of a triumphant Christian empire, with real estate, monuments, a well-clothed priesthood, etc., nor does James.  So modern readers (i.e., agnostics, atheists) are hardly neutral, or fair, to place on its author the same hypocrisy we see everywhere today.
Now, we call this “human trafficking” or “child trafficking,”  and my country, this country, the USA, is governmentally involved in two kinds:  Over the counter (that’s CPS and pharmaceutical friends whether Texan or Wolverine (Michigan, both pushing Risperdal) and under the radar, possibly deliberately, for which you can go read about the Jaycee Dugard situation; in fact, she has begun to speak out on television now; the settlement she was paid for California law enforcement screwup was, as I remember, around $29 million.  WHOSE funds paid that?  Because it was “only” around $14 million that Los Angeles was withholding (collected child support, Silva v. Garcetti) from actually reaching intended customers back in the late 1990s.
Texan:

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)

While people like these have to fight — with whatever they got — to keep their kids, another one DID fall between the cracks, in N. California (I also have a page on this — to right), and at least one post; an alert UC Berkeley campus security guard (mother) was alert, and followed up, leading to the YOUNG mother below’s release, along with the two kids.  After 18 years in captivity!

Jaycee Dugard Files Lawsuit Against U.S. Government

PHOTO: After being held captive for 18 years, Jaycee Dugard talks to ABC's Diane Sawyer in her first interview since being discovered and freed.
After being held captive for 18 years, Jaycee Dugard talks to ABC’s Diane Sawyer in her first interview since being discovered and freed. (ABC News)
By   Sept. 22, 2011

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,”

. . . .I said, the US Gov’t was trafficking in children under the radar.  Here’s one:

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.

 She said:
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”

Rebecca Bailey, PhD – Psy 18732

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.

I’m sure that Jaycee Dugard and her mother do not know what this represents, links found on the TF site, and that (as a victim of stranger kidnapping and rape), she wouldn’t approve of the use this theory has been put to, to keep children who have been, at times, raped by their relatives/Dads, back in their custody, and how it FAILS to account for abductions of children by such men, from their mothers, or provide any sort of reunification services for them, either.    I know too many of these situations.    I do not believe that Jaycee and her mother would approve of funding such situations.  I speak as a mother to whom this happened, illegally, permanently (to date) and without real remedy (to date).  My kids’ still don’t know all the truths of their situation, and they most especially don’t know that the stage was set by the works of groups like AFCC and Warshak (and the federal funding, etc.) to make sure this can and does happen.
Men & Dads that need bribes (carrots and sticks) to do the right thing, won’t do the right thing with the bribes anyhow.  They’ll take the bribe (whether it be elimination or reduction of child support arrears, or other rewards, including a sense of control regained over their “ex” // “revenge”) and dump the kids afterwards anyhow — either off with the next wife/woman, or somewhere else.  I know woman who grew up, that experienced this.  Child is sold or farmed out to foster care anyhow, too many times.

“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.
If this person Dr. Bailey wanted to be logical, HONEST & consistent, with her “Transitioning Families” team — she’d treat Mr. Garrido and Nancy Garrido and Jaycee’s daughters (after all, biologically, they were Phil Garrido’s offspring) as the family and get a court order (being a recommending evaluator or parent coordinator and force reunification services on the Garrido/Jaycee’s two daughters — and put Jaycee, the biological and falsely imprisoned, severely abused & sexually assaulted mother on supervised visitation, at her expense until she could learn that “families are forever” meaning, “fathers are forever,” even if they’re temporarily in jail (again) for kidnapping and rape of minors.  This especially seems to apply if one’s family was poor, or one’s skin is a little darker, i.e., Title IV.
But that’s not the way the cookie crumbles while there’s still money in the system — any system —  to be extracted.  Meanwhile, honest people, who helped me during certain years — are paying taxes on the US Debt which is to allegedly provide social services.  I wonder where the millions came from to settle this case — there must have been millions sitting around somewhere.  Interesting.
I wish someone had been around for me to do “reunification services” after the father abandoned OUR kids, failing to tell me when he did so (after having made sure it was a no-contact situation for a long time), and I attempted to regain contact properly and legally.  Instead, I was treated abominably by a local D.A. (though I had written evidence of the abandonment which, like child-stealing, is also a crime) who used sarcasm, ridicule and an attempt to extort more services out of the system — for me.   The man was middle-aged, white, and obviously male, and not on tape.  I left there (another back-burner project) realizing that NO female should ever walk into a room with an investigator, police officer, or district attorney — at least in this area — without the tape recorder on, to keep him or as it may be, them,  in check.  I was foolish to walk in with “only” evidence, and without an advocate — but after xxyy years in the system, there sometimes are no advocates!
Dr. Bailey’s site has rules for Supervised Visitations posted — you should read it.  RULE #1:  “No inappropriate physical contact. Hugging and kissing are okay upon greeting and parting only. This must be acceptable to all parties. No lap sitting.”   RULE #2:  No discussion of molestation allegations, custody or legal situation with the child. If the child brings it us, the parent may acknowledge the topic, but may not respond to the allegation unless the parent wishes to make amends for said action.
ASIDE on seeing the form for Supervised Visitation in association with the JAYC Foundation! 
Reminds me of why Jack Stratton, Ph.D. wrote (1992/1993) is supervised visitation FAIR for children of abusive men?  What does it teach the kids?  (Click on my gravatar logo to read it).     Consider Rule 1 — if the supervised visitation was being applied for the purposes it was sold us under — to prevent molestation ONLY — then that would be one thing.  But, if a child HAS been molested, allegedly, to fail to be allowed to (if young and this would otherwise be appropriate) simply see and hug his or her Mama — if SHE is the one on supervision due to having allowed the child to report, or see a mandatory reporter, or even if the child simply bumped into a mandatory reporter at school or elsewhere — (all situations that have indeed led to mothers being supervised at times, in state after state) — then that’s simply wrong.   I can understand Rule 2, part 1 — but look at the second part of the topic.  This literally means that contact with the non-molesting parent will be closely monitored to make sure a child does NOT report further abuse if it happened.  Both the nonmolesting parent AND the child(ren) must be trained — by this “reunification specialist and via supervised visitation) that any further mention of current abuse, or distress from it (i.e., comfort-seeking with a familiar parent) — will be punished.  The most logical form of punishment would be (for that nonmolesting parent / mother) to have NO visitation whatsoever.
And, here, the fee is $150 per hour.  Remind me to make sure this is no access/visitation subgrantee also …..
They are hurting around this issue over in Scranton, PA.  “Kids for Cash” in neighboring Luzerne is already history . . . Remember Viola Stroud case! (Dutchess County, NY)  Remember Helen O. Page case (Amador County, California).  Now there’s another high-profile case in Connecticut, too; the mother’s parents have put up so far $1 MILLION to help in the case — and are living with THEIR parents, I heard, having mortgaged their own property to help protect their grandson.    It does seem to be a pattern.

ANYHOW . . .  The Three Cities and Fiat Currency . . . .

And one of the most important things in life is to know when someone else is, habitually, lying, and cease doing any kind of business with them until they stop, and permanently, if they cannot stop broadcasting their own lifes based on own perceptions and intent to dominate another person against his or her will, illegally and by fraud.
 This person also posted the article I put on the other post, at link http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=106799.msg648631#msg648631, thread “Empire of the Cities – The Three Cities that Rule The World.”  this is the entire post, dated 5/21/2009….
It has some details about “tallies” and “stocks” you may not know.  Italics (or other font changes) are mine.  I haven’t fact-checked (you can).  But does it start to make some sense, yet?  I’m talking, income tax, federal reserve, for-profit not-for profit distinction (which only the income tax makes possible, really).

The Moneylenders Take Over England

In the 19th century, the Rothchild banking family’s Nathan Rothchild said it well:

“I care not what puppet (sits on) the throne of England to rule the Empire on which the sun never sets. The man who controls Britain’s money supply controls the British empire, and I (when he ran the Bank of England) control the British money supply.”

{{2012 is an election year.  Americans (USA) would do well to keep this in mind also.}}

Centuries early, moneylender power was absent. But after the 1666 Coinage Act, money-issuing authority, once the sole right of kings, was transferred into private hands. “Bankers now had the power to cause inflations and depressions at will by issuing or withholding their gold coins.”

King William III (1672 – 1702), a Dutch aristocrat, financed his war against France by borrowing 1.2 million pounds in gold in a secret transaction with moneylenders, the arrangement being a permanent loan on which debt would be serviced and its principle [“principal”]  never repaid. It came with other strings as well:

— lenders got a charter to establish the Bank of England (in 1694) with monopoly power to issue banknotes as national paper currency;

— it created them out of nothing, with only a fraction of them as reserves;

— loans to the government were to be backed by government IOUs to serve as reserves for creating additional loans to private borrowers; and

— lenders could consolidate the national debt on their government loan to secure payment through people-extracted taxes.

{{sound familiar yet?}}

It was a prescription for huge profits and “substantial political leverage. The Bank’s charter gave the force of law to the ‘fractional reserve’ banking scheme that put control of the country’s money” in private hands. It let the Bank of England create money out of nothing and charge interest for loans to the government and others – the same practice central banks now employ.

{{{“TALLIES”}}

For the next century, banknotes and tallies circulated interchangeably even though they weren’t a compatible means of exchange. Banker money expanded when “credit expanded and contracted when loans were canceled or ‘called,’ producing cycles of ‘tight’ money and depression alternating with ‘easy’ money and inflation.” In contrast, tallies were permanent, stable, fixed money, making banknotes look bad so they had to go.

For another reason as well – because of King William’s disputed throne and fear if he were deposed, moneylenders again might be banned. They used their influence to legalize banknotes as the money of the realm called “funded” debt with tallies referred to as “unfunded,” what historians see as the beginning of a “Financial Revolution.” In the end, “tallies met the same fate as witches – death by fire.”

{{ACTUALLY– SOUNDS LIKE THE REVERSE WAS TRUE.  TALLIES WERE FUNDED, AND THE BANKNOTES, WERE NOT}}

They were money of the people competing with moneylending bankers. After 1834 monetary reform, “tally sticks went up in flames in a huge bonfire started in a House of Lords stove.” Ironically, it got out of control and burned down Westminster Palace and both Houses of Parliament, symbolically ending “an equitable era of trade (by transferring power) from the government to the” central bank.

{{simple explanation:on the terms, and this burning:  terms “tally” “stocks” “broker” (Stockade) and “Exchequer”, Charles Dickens quoted}}

(MY INSERT — more on TALLY STICKS:

Original Wooden Tally Sticks (2)
[England, Westminster, c. 1250-1275]

hickory wood, the larger end cut diagonally, edges roughly squared off leaving traces of bark, each inscribed along one side with the name of the payer and the upper and lower edges cut with notches (“v”-shaped for pounds, broad grooves for shillings, sharp cuts for pence), each piece then split with a knife by cutting diagonally across the thicker end of the reverse side and pulling away a length which would be retained separately by the payer as proof of payment, written in thirteenth-century charter hands. c. 175-200 mm. long (each).

Rare survival of a medieval form of financial record-keeping, the tally stick provides the origin of many words used in modern money markets: stock, foil, stockholder, bank stock, and check. The vast majority were destroyed in the nineteenth century in the fire of the Palace of Westminster and the Houses of Parliament.

INTERESTING:

Tallies provide the earliest form of bookkeeping. They were used in England by the Royal Exchequer from about the twelfth century onward. Since the notches for the sums were cut right through both pieces and since no stick splits in an even manner, the method was virtually foolproof against forgery. They were used by the sheriff to collect taxes and to remit them to the king. They were also used by private individuals and institutions, to register debts, record fines, collect rents, enter payments for services rendered, and so forth. By the thirteenth century, the financial market for tallies was sufficiently sophisticated that they could be bought, sold, or discounted. 

“Tallies were … a sophisticated and practical record of numbers. They were more convenient to keep and store than parchments, less complex to make, and no easier to forge…. Of the millions of medieval tallies made, only a few hundred survive.” (Clanchy, p. 96; see also p. 95, n. 28, pl. VIII). In 1724, treasury officials commanded that tallies no longer be used, but it was not until 1834, with the reform acts and the abolition of the office of the Receipt of the Exchequer, that a huge bonfire of the then-obsolete medieval tally sticks was held. Started in a stove stuffed full of sticks in the House of Lords, the fire quickly got out of control, spreading to the paneling, and burning down both the Palace of Westminster and the Houses of Parliament.

In 1911, Sir Hilary Jenkinson knew of only three Exchequer tally sticks in private hands (pp. 292-3, 330, and 350).

The evolution of money technologies originates with the tally stick. From tally stick comes the modern word “stock,” meaning a financial certificate and deriving from the use of the Middle English for the stick. The piece retained by the bank was called the “foil.” The holder of the stock was said to be the “stockholder” and owned “bank stock.” A written certificate presented for remittance and checked against its security later became a “check.”

According to legend, Wall Street was founded in its present location because of the presence there of an enormous chestnut tree, said to be plentiful enough to supply enough tally sticks for the emerging American stock market.

LITERATURE 
Clanchy, M. T. From Memory to Written Record, England 1066-1307, Cambridge, Mass., 1979.

Jenkinson, Hilary C. “Exchequer Tallies,” Archaeologia, second series, 12 (1911), pp. 292 ff.

ONLINE RESOURCES 
Tallies and Technologies, by Dave Birch, Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce
http://www.arraydev.com/commerce/JIBC/9811-11.htm

The Origins of Mathematics
http://www.math.tamu.edu~don.allen/history/origins/origins.html

[[The other source cited is the link, above to definitions]]

forum.prisonplanet. . . cont’d….

Henceforth {{1834ff?}}, private bankers kept government in debt, never demanding the return of principle [“principal”], and profiting by extracting interest, a very lucrative system always paying off “like a slot machine” rigged to benefit its operators. It became the basis for modern central banking, lending its “own notes (printed paper money), which the government swaps for bonds (its promises to pay) and circulates as a national currency.

{{BONDS — hold that thought}}

Government debt is never repaid. It’s continually rolled over and serviced, today with no gold in reserve to back it. Though gone, tallies left their mark. The word “stock” comes from the tally stick. Much of the original Bank of England stock was bought with these sticks. In addition, stock issuance began during the Middle Ages as a way to finance businesses when no interest-bearing loans were allowed.

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….

He is thinking in terms of the Corporation that holds the (moulah) versus the “State” which is subject to it.  It’s a BIG deal!

That meeting, the ESM and the Crown – why Cameron said NO

( Dec. 2011)

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 oState above the EU and its institutions.

For BMCC Day 1: Why VAWA, DV Groups Basically Can’t (Won’t?) Stop [Terroristic Threats, Murder, Assault, Battery, Stalking, False Imprisonment, Harrassment– Child Molestation–or other Crimes]

with 2 comments

Why?

Well, I have one line of reasoning — that there is a family court around basically creates an immense loophole; any police officer anywhere can just about get out of arresting domestic violence perpetrators (they could anyway) by, when children exist, simply failing to arrest, and letting it land in the family venue.  Ditto with CPS.  But even if they didn’t, they still have immense discretion to simply not arrest.  If they DO arrest, the DA’s have immense discretion not to prosecute also.

WOMEN’s JUSTICE CENTER /CENTRO de JUSTICIA PARA MUJERES

Santa Rosa, California

(a site I quote below, and refer to often enough) I see has written an October 2011 letter to:

Dear Feminist Law Professors:

I’m a women’s rights advocate who has been working for the last 20 years in the exasperating struggle to end violence against women. I’m writing because we’re stumped, and we need your help.

My opinion:  these feminist law professors and women, in many respects,  have for over a decade completely ignored the role of the family courts, and their relationship to the criminal prosecution of (see title) real-time crimes play in simply invalidating domestic violence law, child abuse law, in fact most criminal laws of any sort for women who have given birth.   And women who give birth, aka MOTHERS, represents a significant portion of women against whom violence is routine.

In this current climate, and while that off-ramp from the criminal justice system (if the reporting and prosecution even gets there), it is next to impossible for these women to get free from an abuser – with children — and stay free unless HE simply chooses not to sue for custody or further bother her.  And, if there’s a Title IV-D child support order around, even if he doesn’t want to bother her, the county can and will go after that family and those kids anyhow.   That’s My take on it.  So I would not be asking a feminist law professor for help, based on the track record and under-reporting of this scandal.  And I’ve talked to some of them (including in my area).  However, this writer has a point:

The problem is this: Modern violence-against-women laws are in place throughout most of the U.S., as are crisis centers, hotlines, counselors, and shelters. But a critical piece is missing. We don’t have anywhere near adequate enforcement of the laws. Nor do women have any legal right to enforcement of the laws, nor any legal remedy or redress when police and prosecutors fail to enforce the laws.

As such, the laws are meaningless to us.  However, it takes a while — and sometimes costs a life — to recognize this.

. . . But the daunting and particular problem for women is that these absolute discretionary powers are in the hands of law enforcement agencies that are rife with anti-women biases, structures, and traditions. Violence-against-women cases are the cases these officials are most overwhelmingly prone to ignore, ditch, dismiss, under-investigate, under-prosecute, and give sundry other forms of disregard. This disparate impact and denial of equal protection is undermining all the other monumental efforts to end violence against women.

Despite all the high flying official rhetoric to the contrary, way too many police and prosecutors don’t want to do these cases. They know they don’t have to do these cases. They know a million ways to get rid of these cases. They know nobody can hold them to account. And the Supreme Court keeps driving this impunity deeper into the heart of American law. Not surprisingly, the violence against women rages on.

We can social work these cases endlessly, but when police and prosecutors don’t do their part and put the violent perpetrators in check, the perpetrators easily turn around and undo any stability and safety we and the women have attempted to secureThe freer she gets, the angrier he becomes. Without adequate law enforcement, victims of violence against women are doomed. And then they are double doomed by the void of any legal cause to hold unresponsive police and prosecutors to account. And then, all too often, she is dead

Notice that at the end of this eloquent (and I believe, truthful) letter, she refers to the “Judicial Ghetto of Family Law.”  It is this Ghetto that has to be addressed if “violence against women” is to stop.  To date, we are still the gender that produces children, gives birth to them, no matter how nurturing Dad is.  As such, this arena, that ghetto, ALSO has to be addressed, or as an obstacle to life itself for those in it, removed:

We urgently need your help. Not in the judicial ghetto of family law where victims of violence against women are too often shunted to fend for themselves.

Why NOT?  Why should women have to fend for themselves in a biased system  — because thats where it typically goes after any civil restraining order (see VAWA, below) is put in place.   Perhaps if there’d been more “feminist law professors” who’d gone through leaving DV AS MOTHERS, this might have been handled by now.  Not saying that it wasn’t a tough uphill battle to start with.  But we mothers are certainly not ballast in this journey; just treated like it in these circles!

But in criminal law where the state itself must take responsibility for securing justice for these heinous crimes. We can’t solve this problem without you.

As a first step, please pass this on to colleagues you think would most fervently fight to create a women’s right to justice. And then consider joining in yourself.

Thank you for your concern.

Marie De Santis, Director Women’s Justice Center Centro de Justicia para Mujeres

mariecdesantis@gmail.com www.justicewomen.org

We like to believe that criminal law always applies when crimes are committed (the title lists some of the crimes which comprise “Domestic violence” and “Child abuse” and characterize the lives of people who sometimes, after years enduring these things, end up dead, or paying their abuser, which is a form of institutionalized extortion).

BUT — when a case is labeled “high-conflict” or “custody dispute” of any sort, BY LAW (apparently) it comes under the jurisdiction of a different court — which is not a real court, it’s a business enterprise.  (See this blog.  See other NON-federally-supported blogs or articles.

For example get this (“johnnypumphandle, re:  Los Angeles “Public Benefit Corporations Supported by Taxpayers”   Not only ALL the people walking through the halls — but the real estate — the halls themselves, apparently are often part of this enterprise!  Why this never occurred to me before reading these matters, I don’t know.   The family court is in a separate building from the main (Criminal) courthouse in MANY towns and cities across the county.  That alone should have caught our attention.  Now (same general idea), they are building, sometimes, “Family Justice Centers” as part of a National Alliance movement (see “One-Stop Justice Shop” posts, mine).

I reviewed this material carefully before, it takes a while to sink in.  It will NOT sink in if all you see mentally is the visual of the building and its inhabitants.  In order to “See” straight, one needs to see and be willing to think in terms of corporations, tax returns, and cash flow.  And something relating the words “taxpayer” with “tax-exempt.”  As the site says:

 We have again reminded the IRS of the same scheme being perpetrated by the Private Corporation – Los Angeles County Courthouse Corporation – with the same bond guarantees by the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers. Taxpayers are still getting stiffed by this scam, since there is no accountability for the money and NO TAX FORMS HAVE EVER BEEN FILED!

Key in this EIN#

470942805

to This Charitable Search Site (for California) — and tell me why the Relationship Training Institute — which does business with and takes business FROM the court, evidently — is still marked “current” when no (zero, nada, zilch, nothing at all) has been filed (and uploaded) by this organization for the state of California as a charity -EVER; even though it’s filed with the IRS?  Is that cheating the citizens of California, or what?   Here they are (and here goes continuity in my post today):

Relationship Development and Domestic Violence Prevention, Training, and Consultation

The Relationship Training Institute (RTI) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, established in 1986* by David B. Wexler, Ph.D. to provide training, consultation, treatment, and research in the field of relationship development and relationship enhancement.

Entity Number Date Filed Status Entity Name Agent for Service of Process
C2583174 05/17/2004* ACTIVE RELATIONSHIP TRAINING INSTITUTE DAVID B WEXLER

Because — in the 7 years (at least) it’s been operating in California, David B. Wexler, Ph.D.’s group has not bothered to file it’s (by law) annually required tax return with the state (NOTE — which provides the California Attorney General with a Schedule B showing names and addresses of contributors, and has to list government funding) and because the CA Corporations search site is so limited, I can’t see  from there OR its founding articles if this is a domestic (Ca originated) or “foreign” (out of state) corporation.   

On the other hand, the group California Coalition for Families and Children which incorporated in 2010 (per same site) — and is critical of the San Diego Family Court Practices — has twice received a “file your dues” letter, which you can search at the same charities link, above.  It has no EIN# because it hasn’t registered yet.

Entity Number Date Filed Status Entity Name Agent for Service of Process
C3284403 03/09/2010 ACTIVE CALIFORNIA COALITION FOR FAMILIES AND CHILDREN CORPORATION SERVICE COMPANY WHICH WILL DO BUSINESS IN CALIFORNIA AS CSC – LAWYERS INCORPORATING SERVICE

I believe any group that calls itself a 501(c)3 (or “4”) should fulfil the requirements of it.  However, there seems a bit of favoritism (OR, This group has no bribe to pay — below the table — for the regulatory agencies, including the OAG?); Emad G. Tadros, Ph.D., checked out the suspicious credentials of a custody evaluator, discovered a custody Mill (plus that a house cat got a diploma from the same place) and put up a website about all this, plus filed a suit, which was simply the right thing to do.  In retaliation for challenging the right of the courts to continue their fraud up on the public he was fined $86K in fees, and an attempt has been made at obtaining interest, too.   Apparently, this group has not cut a deal with anyone, and so the OAG WILL go after their nonprofit status.  Here’s the link to “San Diego Court Corruption.”

So, as to The Relationship Training Institute, I guess not filing with the state is “close enough for jazz The Office of Attorney General.”  And also close enough for an NIMH sponsored grant on Domestic Violence in the Navy, too.  If our Navy was run this waywe’d be losing a lot more wars.

RTI offers an on-going series of informative workshops and state-of-the-art training programs for mental health professionals and for the public, bringing innovative leaders and teachers to the San Diego community. RTI staff also travel throughout the world training professionals in the treatment models that we have been developing and publishing for over 25 years

So, don’t try to tell me the courts and attorney general are unaware — see its website, and see the detail on its charitable registration.  A letter has been sent to this charity, and its site claims it’s approved by the Judicial Council of California to provide CLE credits for its trainings!

(the logos of approving organizations).

Approving Organizations

APA American Psychological AssociationWDCA Board of Behavioral SciencesBRN Board of Registered Nursing     CATC Certified Addictions Treatment CounselorJudicial Council of California Administrative Office of the CourtsNAADAC Association for Addiction ProfessionalsNBCC National Board for Certified CounselorsNevada Attorney General

By the way, Dr. Wexler is listed under another one, IABMCP or something:

David B. Wexler , Ph.D., Diplomate IABMCP
Director, Relationship Training Institute, San Diego, California

International Academy of Behavioral Medicine, Counseling and Psychotherapy  (group registered in Dallas, TX in 1979, EIN has 11 numbers # 17523304719.  Usually it’s 9 or 12):

Name Taxpayer ID# Zip
INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF BEHAVIORAL MEDICINE COUNS 17523304719 75225

The actual EIN# is 751726710 and it’s registered in Colorado as a 501(c)6 ” Business leagues, chambers of commerce, real estate boards, etc. formed to improve conditions..”  It has a tiny budget and apparently exists to distribute a newsletter, per 990 (2010 ruling.), registered as a foreign nonprofit (citing the Texas org.) since 1999 and apparently is filing its reports in Colorado OK.

2010  751726710 International Academy of Behavioral Medicine Counseling and Psychother CO 1980 06 31,455 1,402 990

Dr. Wexler anyhow, is on its Advisory Council, along with a long list of mostly but not all male personages, including Deepak Chopra…

I also note that this domestic violence training is very man-friendly…  But RTI is apparently the group that does the trainings OUTSIDE the courthouse, which makes them part of the personnel bill.  The earlier article was about who pays rents on the real estate, who owns the real estate, of the courthouses themselves?  Reading on:

August 25, 2001 – Los Angeles County Courthouse Corporation and others. e.g. Los Angeles County Law Enforcement-Public Facilities Corporation and (too many to name or to discover). The Crusaders think that there are over a dozen of these ‘Public Benefit’ Corporations hiding in LA County. If you are aware of any of the others, drop us a line.

These companies are established as Tax exempt ‘charitable trusts’ under the Federal Statute – 501(c)(4)They direct millions of dollars but are basically unaudited. The Los Angeles County Courthouse Corporation (LACCC), for example, controls projects for $632 million, but as yet has not registered with the California Department of Corporations even though they have issued outstanding securities for this amount.

They have established trust agreements with banks, lease and leaseback agreements with developers, securities agreements with underwriters, legal assistance from high powered law firms, yet they have no employees. All work is done ‘outside’ on authorization from an officer of the Company. e.g. bills are paid, rents are collected, legal services are performed by outsiders through agreements. As an exampleO’Melveny & Myers pays the fees for this Corporation.

Is this a donation? Somehow, I think O’Melveny & Myers are not providing legal services for free.

The company has offices in the LA County facilities, claims no employees, but has all of its utilities, telephone, rent, etc. paid by the County.

Who answers the phone? A county employee, doing ‘part time’ work but receiving no pay. At least the Corporation claims to have no employees.

How are bills paid? We have a letter to Henry P. Eng, an auditor , who is told that he will receive a check for $4,730 and a like amount will be charged to the rent due to the corporation in order to balance the books. You see, the Corporation has issued bonds (Certificates of Participation) recently for $115 Million to build the Antelope Valley Courthouse. The Banc of America and four other underwriters have guaranteed the purchase of all of these certificates.

So WHY do I make those claims in the Title of this post today?   Well, for one, I research TAGGS grants, and read conference brochures, and pay attention to what groups do – -and don’t — report on, including the various elephants in the room…  

I’m not the only one, either, questioning what VAWA is for, except to inspire a lot of anti-feminist backlash, give Fathers & Families (GlennSacks hounds) something to complain about, and a source of funds to set up websites and conferences (ad nauseam) to perpetuate the illusion that whatever a civil — or even criminal — domestic violence action DOES, Family Courts will not quickly UNDO, even if neither parent  asks them to!

You might want to look at this article:

VAWA Critique
In Which a Little-Known Legal Brief Plows into Hallowed Terrain

I almost felt like a traitor (though I was sure in my opinion) with this round of requests I write someone to reauthorize VAWA.  WHY? I thought.  I already know who’s collaborating with these other courts.  Well, another (non-federally funded, intentionally so) site – I like this site, too — explains:

Ever since the U.S. Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was passed in 1994, women’s advocates have rallied again and again to assure that VAWA stays authorized and funded. The steady torrent of threats against the act from antagonist men’s groups has left advocates with little inclination to question whether VAWA is truly delivering what’s needed to end the violence and secure justice for women. But a little-disseminated legal brief we came across recently rips along the fault lines and suggests that giving VAWA a thorough critique may be one of the most important steps we should be taking to advance the struggle.

“The legal brief, signed by a dozen domestic violence scholars from around the country and submitted in 2007 to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, emphatically makes the case that VAWA not only is failing to protect women, but that this failure is rooted in fundamental flaws in VAWA’s structure and administration. “VAWA is a limited remedy,” the document states, “That fails to protect women or to discharge the United State’s obligations under international law.”

(it’s going to talk about the Jessica Gonzales case, and the IACHR. However, NO — I say that these DV scholars have simply fallen asleep at the switch, or decided to look the other way, to keep their publications, etc. coming.   )

In summarizing their analysis, the brief states, “VAWA fails to accomplish four crucial things: 1) It does not provide any remedy when abuser’s or police officer’s violate victims’ rights, 2) it does not require participation of all states or monitor their progress, 3) it does not fully or adequately fund all the services that are needed, 4) it does not require states to pass or strengthen legislation around civil protective orders or the housing rights of domestic violence victims.” . . .

VAWA: “primarily a source of grants” which has not reduced domestic violence

The brief goes on to characterize VAWA as “primarily a source of grants” with non-binding terms, voluntary participation, unmonitored compliance, and which mandates nothing. And the funding is paltry. According to the brief, in 2007, the median total of VAWA grants to individual states was 4.5 million dollars. That’s less than the cost of one wing of a fighter jet allotted per state to combat violence against women.

If the core of this brief is accurate, despite the services VAWA has provided to tens of thousands of women, the message VAWA delivers to law enforcement and other public officials throughout America is disastrous. ‘You can prevent, investigate, and punish violence against women – if you feel like it. But if you’d rather not, don’t worry about it. VAWA doesn’t mandate that you do anything. And if women are upset by that, rest assured, VAWA and the courts have also made sure there’s not a darn thing women can do about it to hold you to account.

Most troubling of all, the brief finds that in the time from VAWA’s passage in 1994 to 2007 when the brief was filed, VAWA has not reduced domestic violence in the U.S., despite the U.S. government’s claims to the contrary. As stated in the brief, “Since the passage of VAWA, domestic violence rates have not been reduced in proportion to other violent crimes

This site writes their rationale:

And perhaps worse, these fundamental flaws in VAWA are not even a matter of discussion, debate, or protest among frontline women’s advocates. It’s critical for progress in ending violence against women that that discussion begin.

which they analyze as, and I can see this:

The Tie that Binds

VAWA requires that shelters and rape crisis centers that receive VAWA funding must demonstrate their cooperation with their local law enforcement agencies.

Individual states that administer the VAWA grants have implemented this requirement in various ways. But typically the shelters and crisis centers seeking VAWA grants must obtain signed operational agreements with their local law enforcement agencies. This has given law enforcement veto power over the survival of the violence against women centers, a controlling power law enforcement has not hesitated to use.

People should read this article — and a lot of this site, based in Sonoma County, California (wine country north of SF).  I notice that the Family Justice Alliance Center made sure to get a center into Sonoma County — and if I were going to donate to somewhere to stop violence (other than the time I’ve donated, here, and off-blog) it’d be to this group, responsible for the website:
Feel free to photocopy and distribute this information as long as you keep the credit and text intact.
Copyright © Marie De Santis
Women’s Justice Center,
www.justicewomen.com 

rdjustice@monitor.net

VAWA is a Federal Act of Congress first passed in 1994.  By Contrast (and to oppose its premises), the National Fatherhood Initiative is a NONPROFIT started by someone with close connections to HHS, and Washington, and now many legislators — and is not only still funded, but has permeated the structure and purpose of violence prevention, child welfare, and child abuse prevention  areas of goverment.  While VAWA (which at least went past Congress initially — the NFI did not) promotes one kind of training, NFI promotes the opposite theories.

Then the two groups get together, for example, The Greenbook Initiative and congratulation their federally-paid-behinds for being able to get along, while women continue to die after breeding and leaving abuse.  And etc.

The DOJ Defending Children Initiative:  even has an “Engaging Fathers” link:

The ILLUSION that there is protection for women and children through groups such as “Child Protection Services” is fatuous.  That’s not what they’re there for, apparently.  Nor, apparently, are the civil restraining order issuers (typically a domestic violence nonprofit of some sort, or possibly a parent might get one on his/her own) there to prosecute or punish any crime.

I heard this from a woman (grandparent) in an unidentified urban area, regarding her grandchildren’s being in the sole custody of an abusing father AFTER CPS and police had confirmed sodomy and forced copulation with the (young boy):

Hearsay #1:

There are no laws or penal codes against child abuse by a parent.  Child abuse by a parent comes under the Welfare and Institution Code (WIC).

The welfare and institution code does ONE thing — offers reunification services to the abuser.  The one and ony law mandated by legislators (in such cases) is reunification.

Since the theme is “reunification” (and really, let’s get honest — “supervised visitation” concept comes from this field, reunification), no family court has any interest in re-unifying a protective mother with her child once that child has been completely (and physically) “reunified” with the abuser father.  There are no fatherhood-promotion services for this (access/visitation concept is actually a fatherhood concept).  Supervised visitation with a sex offender (young) father and mother has resulted in child-rape INSIDE a supervised visitation facility in Trumbull County, Ohio, recently.  It has resulted in financial fraud on East and West Coast both (Genia Shockome/Karen Anderson of Amador County, PA), it has resulted in a child literally being supervised by a woman who had criminally sexually assaulted a DOG in Contra Costa County California courts (Welch v. Tippe), and — the commissioner? who made that order, as recommended by her court-crony, is I believe still on the bench — and has been, while we’re at it, on the Board of Kids’ Turn, too.  After all, it’s all about the “Kids” and what’s best for them, right?  How often do women whose children have been abused get put on supervised visitation for “alienating” the father by reporting — or allowing their kids to even report to someone else unsolicited, like a schoolteacher — real live criminal activity upon themselves?

Hearsay #2:

Child Protective Services labeled our case high-conflict which put it in custody court.  Neither the father or I had even mentioned divorce at the time.

This mother says she saw it on their report.  I’d like to see that report.  Assuming it’s true, this means that CPS knows quite well that they don’t have to prosecute anything against a parent when it comes to abuse of children; they can shunt it off to family court.

Hearsay #3 (to you — this is my case):

When my children were being stolen (abducted), and I was protesting on the basis of a valid court order giving me physical custody, an attempt was made to bring CPS in — although no abuse was being alleged!  When I pointed this out, the officers supervising the exchange — which I’d requested for personal safety — refused to enforce the court order, mocked me, and when I realized there was no recourse from this crew, I had to let my “ex-batterer” and the children’s father, drive off into the sunset with children I’d raised, and from this point forward (til today) not ONE single court order was consistently obeyed for more than a month, including visitation or phone contact with me, alternating holidays, or the children with the mother on mother’s day, all of which remained in the CUSTODY order.

In short, if I wasn’t going to voluntarily justify bringing on more (paid, public employee) professionals AFTER existing paid, public employee professionals simply refused to do their job (which I later learned — they don’t have to, even if not doing their job results in someone’s, or even three children’s, deaths.  See Castle Rock v. Gonzales).

Talk about “interlocking directorate” – – – – I also heard from a savvy investigator (mother) (noncustodial) in another state how that, literally, when a father is accused AND found guilty of abuse in one sector (for example, criminally, or child support services) this literally causes the father to be declared “incapacitated” or incompetent — making the child a “dependency” case.  The court that the mother then walks into is, in effect, a “dependency court.”  The state owns her child, and if she can’t ransom it back, too bad.  The ransom process is simply this:  the hearings go on, and on, and on and as much money is extracted from the mother, who WILL fight back, until she’s broke too, if not in spirit.  That’s the plan.  That’s not an anomaly or “burp” of the system — that IS the plan.

We have heard also of horrendous situations, and I’ve reported this, of dual electronic docketing.  (“Computerized or Con-puterized?”  Janet Phelan on Joseph Zernik reporting.  One week after she published the layperson’s explanation of this, he was picked up by police without cause and held).   We’ve heard of collected but intentionally not distributed child supportin the millions of $$ (Silva v. Garcetti (who was Los Angeles D.A., involving Richard Fine).    Even a brief look at what happened to Mr. Fine (besides getting incarcerated and disbarred) and how the California Legislature handled the fact that the entire judiciary was subject to bribery at the county level by payments to judges — from the county — in cases where — the county — was a party.  It retroactively granted immunity, and did this quickly, lest the entire judicial system get shut down.  (SBX-211) — that brief look should say, what we are dealing with is XX % crooks, and X% enablers or people who can’t themselves get out of the system because by participation, they’d be prosecuted too.  Talk about “gangs” . . . that’s a Gang.  Sometimes deals go between one jurisdiction and another, making them a little harder to catch (Gregory Pentoney)

Two other things which I’ve heard of from a non-BMCC “let’s ask the expert source” in recent times — and again, I present this as Hearsay, but it’s entirely in character for the venue — of more than one physical case file being kept.  One is shown to the litigant when she can afford it (which ain’t always), or qualifies as low-income enough to be shown it.  The other is shown and hauled out when it comes to justifying program billing — that one or both parents may be totally unaware of, occurring in their case, under their or their kids’ social security #s, and in their name.

Again, my plan is to curtail posting on this blog (I believe I’ve “said my piece” on most major points) at the end of January, and get about other aspects of life.  Oh yes, and I signed the blog up for Twitter, which should curtail the length some, like by ca. (10,000 to 14,000) – 140 characters!

I realize that conversational style isn’t communication, yet the information is urgent to present and get out.  The “end of January” date was in honor of the BMCC conference, which I plan to comment on every day it’s in session.  Ideally, you will see one post a day from here til 1/31, however, some of the material does cause vicarious trauma to report, which may affect quality of post, or my getting one out on a certain day.  While I know what I know, from study, research observation, reflection, and synthesis, expressing it is another matter.

Also, the conversing with the material style is laborious, and takes hours.  Whereas in a personal conversation, say, by phone, with interaction, I know I could convey the key FAQs, overall, in 10 minutes or less, and tell people where to find more information, should they be motivated.

So here we go:

Some people I know are headed up again to the Battered Mothers Custody Conference IX in Albany, New York again this year, where the same basic information will be presented by experts, while mothers are welcome to participate from the floor and by adding their square to the quilt, by buying books which the presenters will be selling (last year’s hot-off-the-press available in softcover and at a discount – only $59 — for conference attendees) and donate, too.   This is addressed to mothers who are probably being fleeced in the courts, have tortuous situations to handle, and some are paying child support to their child’s or their abuser, which is why they pull it together to come to this conference, seeking help and answers — from the experts.

One difference — a positive one — THIS year is the attendance of Dr. Phyllis Chesler, who also will be selling her newly revised “Mothers on Trial”  which I know incorporates some new stories, and I plan to order it on-line.

However, I also know that it’s not about to contain the information on this blog, on NAFCJ.net, or much on the AFCC, Welfare Reform (1996), and the role of the Child Support $4 billion industry in prolonging custody conflicts, for profit.  However, it will be a new presenter, and an experienced feminist who I’ll bet is not afraid to address some of the issues of Gender Apartheid (which also results in “Battered Mothers”) in front of this audience, and on which she is an expert.  Perhaps she will — as I don’t think others have — bring up the impact of religion on this situation in the family courts.  It’s there – -not talking about it would hardly make sense.

At the  bottom of this post, I am going to list the Presenters, and brief comments or links on the ones I know.  The ones I don’t, I’ll look up.  Perhaps in the next post (as this one expanded into handling a few other items).

And in this post, I’m going to charge pretty hard into the entire concept behind this conference, as I did last January, afterwards.

NB:  I attended one conference in all its years, but primarily to meet mothers I’d been blogging with; I’d already realized that it was a marketing conference.  That’s responsible behavior for people shelling out travel, hotel, and conference fees, not to mention in general.  You find out who’s saying what and evaluate it.

The Title of this year’s conference is apparently “IS WHAT WE’RE DOING WORKING”?

HUH?

 

  • We who?  (Mo Hannah, Barry Goldstein, et al.?)

  • Working for whom?*

  • Define “working” — what’s the goal here?  (Sales, Self-Promotion, Shaping Distressed Mothers’ Perceptions?)

Ask a foolish question, you will get a very foolish answer.  Act on those answers and you become a fool.  A sucker is born every minute, and I regret every minute of my own “suckerhood” which listened to domestic violence rhetoric for too long, and didn’t think to GO CHECK TAX RETURNS AND NONPROFIT FILINGS FIRST, which might’ve had a different result.  

That’s why I believe that it’s the “experts” that should be sitting around the tables in the conference and taking notes, and the women themselves that should be up on stage giving testimony, ideas — and controlling the microphones.  Then some of the questions they have might get some answers, through collective wisdom, as women tend to do — when not co-opted into the hierarchical model of relating to each other which is more characteristic of males, and of this society we live in.

The structure of this type of conference is didactic — from presenter to participant.  They are the dispensers of wisdom, women & mothers attending, the recipients.  Go forth and deliver the expert wisdom to your areas, (seek to hire us as expert witnesses in your court cases) and if it doesn’t work — next year we are going to do the same basic routine anyhow, and your feedback will NOT be front and center, if it is allowed at all.

Seriously — that’s how it goes.  And anyone with a child in a custody case has a ticking clock, if not time bomb, which is running.  We do not have time to beat around the bush and fail to address things in PRIORITY order.

So anyhow, “is what we (?) are doing working?”

Somehow this is going to be stretched out into a weekend’s worth of material?  Is there a better question to ask, such as — what can we do to either clean up or shut down the family law courts if they refuse to clean themselves out, which is unlikely?  How many experts does it take to distract a mother’s attention from who is paying her abuser and the judges that gave that kid to the abuser?  Why doesn’t this conference ever bring up child support, welfare reform, or mathematical issues, such as economics?

Or, for that matters, why are not the people who experienced abuse considered THE experts, and why are the true experts (the battered mothers) not as informed as the presenting experts on things that others figured out over 15 years ago in this field?

This is, among other things, a marketing conference, and a chance for women to sit with each other and have company in their distress.  It is NOT a place for them to actually reform the courts, or learn the most direct possible ways (if any ways are possible) to get their children back, or a crooked judge off their case.  That I can tell.

*A comment on the site says women can contribute to a quilt for missing children.   (Which somehow reminds me of a church situation — you may attend, women:  Here — serve some cookies,  greet perhaps, and of course work child care, the sermon and other important things will be piped in from our (male) minister).  . . . . now, there are presenters who are mothers on the platform, some of who I know by name, and I know those mothers are not about to rock the boat — by reporting on what you’ll find here, NAFCJ.net, Cindy Ross, Richard Fine (Emil Tadros either, for that matter) and other places.   Somehow that information isn’t worth informing Moms of, which results in Uninformed Moms, wondering why things aren’t changing.

You see, professionals (and I was one in one or two fields) know they’re not expert in other fields and so tend to defer to people presenting as the experts in a different field.  This works REAL well when mothers in panic, danger, or serious trauma go for help to DV experts who are hired (or volunteered) with agencies which do not themselves see fit to look at the larger picture AND TELL THE MOMS ABOUT IT.

Moreover, once a case — or person — moves out of their area of “expertise” — meaning, case in point for mothers, into the family law system — it becomes “not my problem” and they can, I suppose, somehow sleep with themselves at night (those who actually have functional consciences) without drugs or sedatives, by saying – it’s out of my hands now, I did my part!

Ay, there’s the rub.  It’s a win-win for the civil restraining order (DV agency) field AND for the Family Law Field, because no one “out-ed” either field’s collaboration and centralization over the years.  No one has done this much to date  because so few people follow the funding, particularly experts protesting “Child abuse, Domestic Violence” and so forth.

RE:  “IS What We’re Doing Working”

Here’s a short answer:   “ExcUUse me?   You  * #$!- ing (kidding) me, right?”

Slightly Longer answer, Fresh kill, two children (10 & 14) into someone else’s care (foster?  relatives?)  this week in California.  The woman showed up, obediently, for a family court hearing, and was murdered in cold blood, in her car.

Authorities say the man shot his wife, gave chase to police, then shot himself; they were scheduled to appear in family court for a hearing

BY JOHN ASBURY AND KEVIN PEARSON

STAFF WRITERS

kpearson@pe.com | jasbury@pe.com

Published: 04 January 2012 08:42 AM

A man at the Hemet courthouse for a child-support hearing calmly walked up to his wife’s car and fired two fatal shots, then led police on a car chase before killing himself Wednesday morning, according to witnesses and police

. . . .

Costales had no criminal record in Riverside County, and the couple had no history of domestic violence with each other, nor was there a restraining order in the case. However, Costales was accused of domestic violence in a previous divorce.

The two children now aged 10 and 14, we don’t know who their biological mother was –whether the woman slumped over in her car that day, or the former Ms. Costales:  However, they were born (do the math, see article) prior to this marriage:  2012 January minus ten, minus fourteen years.  Mr. Costales prior marriage had mutual restraining orders as of the year 2000.

‘A HORRIBLE SIGHT’

Kimberly Jones, 45, of Hemet, said she was in her car when she heard the first gunshot, which she thought was a firecracker. She looked back to see Schulz back away quickly.

Jones ducked as additional shots were fired, then ran over to find Schulz bleeding and slumped over in the driver’s seat. Jones, who is a nurse, said she tried to resuscitate the woman in the parking lot as Costales casually walked back to his car.

. . . She moved out, not him….

Schulz told the court in September that she was unemployed and receiving $550 in monthly aid. She asked for Costales to be required to make child and spousal payments and to make payments on their Honda Pilot until she could afford to get her own vehicle.

“I need hearing because of no income but aid,” Schulz wrote in court documents. “Living on my brother’s couch, looking for work daily, been unsuccessful. Children need their own home and stability.”

The age difference:  Him vs. Her — was 17 years.  We don’t know this situation, but here’s a woman who never apparently even SAID “domestic violence” — and yet still died asking for something reasonable.  Did she bring children into the relationship (was he their father?).  Did he seek a needy woman with children to make up for loss of his first wife and two sons (now adults)?

Do second wives EVER believe the record on the first wives’ court docket?

I went to look this one up at the Riverside Court, but found out that it’s not even free to view the images, and in doing so, they will know who is looking.  So much for public oversight from a safe distance!

Police closed off a portion of the courthouse parking lot, stranding about 50 people who were unable to get to their cars to leave, but the courthouse remained open. The Hemet branch of the Riverside County courts handles family law cases in addition to civil, small claims and traffic issues.

Why did she leave?  Who knows?  Was this unreported violence, nonsupport, or what?  Where are the children going to live now?  Who HAS them now?

This was a TANF case.  She was on aid — that means that only if there has been violence, or some severe extenuating systems, is she allowed some sort of diversion away from seeking child support from the father.  The county wants its programs funded.  If “aid” goes out, the County controls the collection of child support.  This was likely an administrative hearing — there seems not to be any discussion over custody or visitation.    This woman didn’t know, and now never will, what receiving welfare from anywhere in California puts one at risk of.  Had it not ended this way, it might have stretched out for years in the courts as well.

Suppose this man had not been just Mr. Costales, but Mr. DeKraii, and been in a real bad mood that day?  Who else might have died?

Hence, we have to re-think this phrase:  “Clear and Present Danger.”  It has 3 usages.

1.  In the law, unless it’s been rescinded by now — in California, a Batterer is a “Clear and present danger to the mental and physical health of the citizens of California.”  If one continues reading the law, they then talk about something like a task force at the District Attorney level.

2.  In Usage by AFCC,  “Lack of Resources” to the family courts is the “Clear and Present Danger.”

3.  I feel it’s safe to say now, clearly, and quite presently, that “the family courts are a clear and present danger to the citizens (not just parents) of the state of California.”

So much for the domestic violence industry.  It doesn’t hold water once it’s in “conciliation court.”  They just forgot to tell the mothers this, evidently.

I fully realize that’s “heresy” (but the courts themselves are based on psychological theory and clear intent to undermine the meaning of criminal law and drive business to therapists, etc.) but anyone concerned about my POST-battering relationship, POST-family law custody matters (like we say, it goes, so long as minors and two parties are all alive, until the children reach majority) — I have no criminal record and no criminal intents either.  I showed up to court hearings no matter how scared I was, and was forced to sit at the table with my ex, and from this close range, somehow “negotiate.”

People want to “reform” Family Court.  That’s crazy thinking.  It doesn’t account for the roadkill.

Although I can’t blame the average citizen, who thinks that his /her taxes are going to support something noble or good when it pays these salaries for family courts throughout the land, and more.  When the situation hits them, personally (evidence is that not all close relatives or friends figure it out, either), perhaps the 2 + 2 will = 4.    Who has it helped, and what’s the ratio of helped to roadkill, to children being tortured, children sent into foster care, parents experiencing MIA children, etc.?   That’s a system someone can supposedly MANAGE?

Here’s a summary, a post from long ago (about 1.5 years ago) which I’m amazed it still gets attention, and was today:

Toms River NJ femicide/suicide post-mortem concludes strangled DYFS worker should’ve hooked up with “agencies such as ourselves

I posted this on August 17, 2009

This detailed a murder/suicide which occurred FIVE HOURS after the man posted $1,500 bail and was released.  The woman did everything right — almost.  She didn’t leave her job and the area, she didn’t evidently know to insist that if this man was released, she be notified (nor was she, apparently) in fact, perhaps she didn’t have a fast enough learning curve to understand that once provoked by resistance, some men become extremely dangerous, at which point in time, it is imperative to stay alive — and anything short of ENSURING that is risky, even putting job retention ahead of it.
I then in the blog talk back to the various circus of people saying “it spiraled out of control” and so forth, essentially failing to analyze.  THEN I go back approximately 10 years and look at DV murders in that area and in NJ, compare it to the money spent to stop domestic violence, and have to ask, HUH?
There are a few things I noticed on the re-read of my older post, which I may get out later.  For example — that the Prosecutor quoted had been Presiding Family Law Judge, and it had been a civil restraining order.
Is it possible that this very system of civil restraining orders, although they jumpstart safety, are themselves a fail-safe, which still end up with dead bodies afterwards?  How sad – in that this young? woman wasn’t a mother yet, either- – she really could’ve possibly relocated.  It is easier for a single person who doesn’t have to deal with ongoing visitation, custody orders, the children’s change of schools, etc. — to locate, than a woman with children attached.  Not that it’s easy, but it would seem LEGALLY easier.  If she wants to go, they were not married, have no property in common — what could LEGALLY prevent her from leaving?
But it’s not that way when there is a family around, in the eyes of the state.
Meanwhile:  We have a 7500 word post here, and below are the listed (possibly not the latest list, but from the website) PRESENTERS at BMCC IX.
I have to go now, but will comment another time on those that I know of.   It is not an alpha list and I notice that Jennifer Collins (who is a young woman and associated with or running “Courageous Kids” — daughter of HOlly Collins) is on their twice.
Several of these people, I have personally and sometimes several times, talked to about why there is so little tracking of AFCC, fatherhood funding and other things, in their advocacy.
2012 PRESENTERS   Bios to be added shortly

Jennifer Collins

Carly Singer

Michael Bassett, J.D.

Carol Pennington

Liora Farkovitz

Lundy Bancroft- author

Barry Goldstein – author, former attorney

Joan Zorza  – DVLeap, doesn’t blog family law matters

Kathleen Russell*

— *of Center for Judicial Excellence.  Won’t report on AFCC, barely reports on fatherhood funding, but loves high profiles.  Not a mother.

Connie Valentine  (CPPA)

Karen Anderson  (CPPA and her case is detailed in Johnnypumpandle — but this crowd simply ain’t interested.)

Phyllis Chesler  

(if there were better company I’d try and get there this year, to meet her)

Gabby Davis

Loretta Fredericks

Loretta Fredericks in my opinion should not be allowed to present.  She should be put on the spot and have women fire questions about her.  Unfortunately, so few women know ANYTHING about MPDI, Duluth Abuse Intervention Programs, Battered Women’s Justice Project, how much TAGGS says the MPDI (etc.) got (HHS funding) — or the infamous collaboration with the AFCC in “Explicating Domestic Abuse in Custody” (or similar title) which was also public funding.   She also is featured in AFCC as a presenter, i.e., on the conference circuit?   Has she influenced them to understand abuse — or vice versa.  This situation (not her personally — we’ve never spoken) PERFECTLy represents what Liz Richards of NAFCJnet has correctly (my research validates this) calls a DV expert functioning as a “heat shield” for fatherhood providers.  They lend legitimacy where there is non.

Michele Jeker

Maralee Mclean

Angela Shelton

Wendy Murphy

Jennifer Hoult

Sandy Bromley

Renee Beeker  (advocates court watch)

Joshua Pampreen

Nancy Erickson

Karin Huffer

Jason Huffer

Crystal Huffer*

*Huffers talk about and help women deal with Legal Abuse Syndrome).

Holly Collins

Jennifer Collins

Zachary Collins

Garland Waller

**Collins and Waller are central to the conference and high-profile, I believe people know about them.

 

Dara Carlin*

*Formerly DV advocate from Hawaii, then it happened to her.  Didn’t notice that the legislator she was sure was on women’s side actually had close ties to a Fatherhood Commission in Hawaii (a What?).  This was how I learned about Fatherhood Commissions, actually.  She didn’t “Get” it.  Also hadn’t noticed that AFCC was presenting — in Hawaii — on PAS, etc.

Toby Kleinman

Linda Marie Sacks

(mentioned in my 2nd “About This Blog” — how to get to the Supreme COurt citing Dr. Phil, Oprah, and a Radio show onesself was interviewed on, thereby giving the rest of mothers protesting abuse a nice reputation for not being too bright.  Seriously!)

Rita Smith*  

(NCADV Leadership.  NCADV is atop the pile of statewide Coalitions Against Domestic Violence which are state-funded, although not too much funding.  It takes fees from these organizations and sells things, has conferences, etc. Was cited positively by Women in Fatherhood, Inc. which I find interesting …..)

Eileen King  (“Justice for Children” also I think on Linda Marie Sacks case, which Supreme Court refused to hear).

Mo Therese Hannah

(self-explanatory — and running the conference, with help It says from Ms. Miller.  I don’t recoqnize the other names).

Liliane Miller

Raquel Singh

Tammy Gagnon

Louise Monroe

Chrys Ballerano


Hopefully publishing this post won’t cost me what friends or colleagues remain (which is few anyhow), but I always am favorable to truth over friendship, when the latter compromises it and so much is at stake.  This conference, unless it exposes the operational structure, financing, and purposes of the entire family law business enterprise, can probably not help mothers win their court cases, u9nderstand the situation, and will redirect their activism towards asking for more task forces.  We just got this — and not one family law spokesperson on the last one (for Children Exposed to Domestic Violence).
Perhaps they all need a year off, and to go take a starter course from H&R Block, spend some time on their state corporate and charity websites, learn how to write a FOIA, WRITE some, and look at what comes up.  NOTE:  That’s not Rocket science, doesn’t require a Ph.D. and they won’t perish if they actually learn from sources, in tead of as interpreted through people who have things to sell.
I reserve judgment (any further judgment) until I find out who the other presenters are.  Meanwhile, say some prayers for the two children of Mr. Costales and his “estranged wife” he just murdered, while she was complying with a court order in order to have enough to live on after leaving him, this past week in Hemet California — which is in Southern, CA, Riverside County.
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