Domestic Relations Disaster

Season's Greetings

2009-12-30T02:25:00.000-05:00

It's been a while, I've been thinking about posting here for some time. Got tied up in a variety of issues. I hope to get back to posting here...

I can't believe how time flies, whether or not you are having fun. I haven't had time to write on this topic, other issues are crowding them out for now. For several years I wrote prolifically so I'll draw upon that in a writing melody of sorts.

First I wish everyone the best, I said it the best here...

Freedom of Religion -- "OF" not "FROM"

Around this time of year I'm reminded of how far we've sank, from a land where government serves the people to when the reverse is true, from the founding Father's seeking freedom to practice their religious belief's to now when courts impose and restrict religion with all the veracity of a communist government, all by changing one simple word.

When I grew up marriage was a bond with God, "until death due us part", now the courts run rough shod over "what no man shall put asunder". And now Divorce has replaced Marriage in lasting forever with the courts imposing jurisdiction "post decree".

" So if I don't know you, I wish you Happy Holidays for whatever your beliefs dictate this time of year. If you are a fellow Catholic or Christian then I specifically wish you a very Merry Christmas as we look forward to the joy of Jesus Christ's birth and his second coming. if you are a Jewish friend I wish you (a belated) Happy Hanukkah, we differ in our view of Jesus, but we share a common Old Testament and belief in the Almighty God.

And no matter what you believe I wish you all a prosperous and Happy New Year and the hope that citizens will switch off reality TV, so they can participate and take control of our government as was intended. Don't drink the Kool Aide, question the propaganda (organized lies), its not pretty, but it is reality. Good night and may God bless you even if you don't believe. "

Click here for the whole message.

Seeing your loved ones during this holiday is something many of us can take for granted. But after divorce, this isn't always possible.

I last wrote about this in a post titled "Place your bets on what my son's visitation for Christmas will be"

" First off, since my ex wanted no visitation for me and I wanted shared 50/50 parenting, the plan concessions are unique and complex. There are four ambiguous schedules that need to be merged. Why? Lawyers wrote it, ..."

I go on to explain how lawyers play hardball with children as pawns to be used as leverage. Games are played, faxed demands, threats, just days before Christmas.

As I write this, less than one week from Christmas, I only have a general understanding of when I will see my son for Christmas, as to when I'll see him during his Christmas vacation that started yesterday -- your bet is as good as mine.

Click here for the whole message.

For a little more detail on how Christmas went, with Lawyers involved each step of the way see these two posts I wrote in 2007.

" This can be a difficult time of year when you are suffering. I know, I have been preoccupied with my difficulties and its hard to enthusiastically wish someone a Merry Christmas when you are under such stress. I hope you all can be diverted from this stress for at least a short time and try to have a wonderful Christmas. ..."

" When I said good bye to my son in the backseat of her car, she was waiting outside to talk to me at the other side of the car. When I closed his door, she said in a sad tone, "Merry Christmas John". It wasn't her usual snippy sarcastic tone. I was caught off guard and simply replied "Merry Christmas" in a flat emotionless tone. Odd, why did she bother? A slight attack of a conscience buried underneath all that vengeance? ..."

Click here for the whole message.

" At the very last minute as we sat in my lawyers office, a Fax was delivered. It was yet one more demand. Sign the agreement today or you will not see your son on Christmas or Christmas Eve. ...

The longer you wait the more painful she will make it, the more your son will loose access to you. Is this BIC? "No!" says the lawyer. Why is it allowed? "It is our [expletive] system, we've discussed this before", says the lawyer impatiently and indignity. This is extortion, isn't it? "Yes" says the lawyer. ..."

Click here for the whole message.

So its the end of another year, and decade, let's all hope the next ones are so much better than the last...

Status: Written 12/20/09, dated 12/30/09 to float on top of any posts I write this year.

No Foolin

2009-04-01T21:43:00.005-04:00

Yep, its been four years since we both filed for divorce and I'm still in court. I am scheduled to appear this month and next. That may not sound too surprising, unless you realize that we received a final decree almost 2 years ago.

So why are we still in court? Because the final decree isn't final, it was issued because I ran out of money to pay the Divorce Industry Parasites. It was also issued because the State Supreme Court has guidelines on case load management that say contested divorces with children should be "disposed of" within two years. Ours wasn't. why? Because I had saved and invested well and had pockets too deep for the lawyers to empty in two years.

My ex has a perverse sense of timing, she originally had planned to separate on April 1st, 2005. I found this out only a few weeks earlier. Instead she left with my son a few days earlier before April 1st, went on a 2 week spree of taking assets while I was preoccupied with trying to figure out where my son was.

I didn't really want a divorce for a variety of reasons. I don't believe in divorce. I don't think its good for children. I filed because I was told it would be the only way to assert my parental rights after she kidnapped my son.

I was told that it was important to file first. As Plaintiff, I'd likely be favored to "win" the divorce case and any controversies. And I did file first, by just several cases, which should have secured my envious status as Plaintiff. But it didn't. It seems that lawyers (sworn officers of the court) often give advice on how to circumvent court procedures. My ex evaded service (likely on her lawyer's advice, just as mine advised me later), thus causing my complaint "to fail for lack of service". Unfortunately my lawyer at the time (later fired for incompetence) did not advise me of this seemingly standard evasive technique, so I accepted service and was thus named defendant (presumed loser). It took the court over two years to inform me of their pre-ordained assumption.

So four years ago I was taken as a fool and since then I've learned a lot. People are still being fooled every day. That's the business of the Divorce Industry Parasites. And making money off others' misery is very profitable (and sleazy, I might add).

For more background of my divorce see my companion introduction page.

So on this April Fools Day, remember not to be fooled. And if you are talking to a lawyer, know that you will be taken as a fool. (jqism)

Chickenshit

2009-03-25T22:19:00.005-04:00

Do we have a new trend? Are the corrupt officials actually afraid of jail? Or maybe they are afraid of the best TV investigative reporter in our market who is famous for his ambush attacks on the guilty.

The sheriff resigned. Just like the county recorder's brother. Neither one of them put in a fair day's work. There was more digging into the sheriff's background and a closet full of skeletons was coming to light. This time it wasn't so much the print media as our best TV investigative reporter. He's the one who got the county recorder's brother too.

The sheriff claims he had a stroke in 2006 and all of a sudden after appearing in the local news for several evenings in a row, decided to retire on doctor's advice for health reasons that didn't seen to bother him the last 3 years. More likely a lawyer's advice than a doctor's. He's been in office over three decades.

So how will he be replaced? By the county political party machine. As they said on the news, "politics as usual". When is his resignation effective? April 1st, guess we're the fools, the joke is on us.

On the one hand its good to get the corrupt person out, but what's next? Can they just resign and it all goes away, "no harm, no foul"? Is voluntary resignation sufficient punishment? Not in my mind. Don't get me wrong, its a good first step, but only a small one. But its a small step that many don't even take.

Too bad my famous judge and his famous auditor brother didn't resign. They are both employed, drawing money and only an occasional headline. They aren't chickenshit, they have big brass balls. They don't care about headlines, because after a while they fade away, but their power doesn't.

Maybe it's not fair to call the sheriff and other guy chickenshits. Maybe they were doing the honorable thing? Nah! I doubt it. I think they know the media too. And resigning takes the wind out of the media sails. And it just may be the key for them to skate free of their just punishment. I guess I'm bothered that this will allow them to get out of jail free. It shouldn't be that easy.

But then my judge has escaped his just punishment and he's still drawing over $121,000 in taxpayer salary. I wonder if he's working more than three hours a day? I doubt it, old habits die hard.

Especially when you not only think you are above the law, but you know it.

Well here's hoping that we have a new trend of resignations as the rats abandon the corrupt government ship.

Law Enforcement is corrupt too

2009-03-23T00:27:00.005-04:00

I mentioned that the federal government took the unusual step of not involving local law enforcement in their investigative efforts of corruption in our county governement. The easiest and normal course of action would be to issue subpoenas for the needed info with the involvement of local law enforcement. Instead FBI agents from 3 states were assembled to do dawn raids on county officials residences. Logistically this is much more difficult, since you can't trust that you will get what you are after you have to take out lots of materials (truck loads), take it to a secure warehouse, inventory it all, and then keep it secure.

Original speculation was that the county prosecutor would be implicated since he also acts as the lawyer for the corrupt county officials and should have known of their wrong doing. Actually a classic conflict of interest because he advises corrupt officials that should be prosecuted (by him). But judges are a member of the same labor union (bar) of the people they are to manage (lawyers). So the judiciary is fraught with conflicts. He's been in the spotlight but no strong allegations yet. Guess they are still going through the warehouse of material.

But our county sheriff is attracting attention now, apparently he advised someone how to avoid a subpoena (like the ones he's charged with serving), he has relatives on the payroll (like my judge's brother did), and he only shows up to work 1 day a week, but has no trouble cashing his $110,000 pay on time. Hmmm, assuming an 8 hour day (unlikely), that means he averages 1.6 hours a day, slightly more than half of my judge's 3 hour day. That would be a theft in office of $88,000 per year. Maybe he and my judge ($75,000 per year theft) should share a cell.

The key word is should. But they won't, and that's the sad state of justice in our corrupt county.

Update1: The sheriff resigned, just about insuring he won't be be sharing any cell.

Update2: The State Attorney General raided the sheriff's offices today (03/26/09) on the suspicion that evidence was being destroyed.

Corruption, a family affair

2009-03-19T00:06:00.002-04:00

Our town has some big political names. My judge has a big name, big enough to work 3 hours a day and still get promoted. After our media had run more than half dozen front page articles on our "worst family court in the state", they moved to county government and found my judge's equally famous brother had 90 friends on the government payroll. After another half dozen front pages, they even ran a headline with the famous corrupt brothers together on the front page.

Our TV media ran a story on another corrupt political family name. This one was just a county laborer, sort of the lesser known in the family. I'm sure his name got him his job and got his supervisor to look the other way as he did just about everything (errands, shopping, etc) but his job on the county clock. Well our crack investigative reporter tracked him down pushed a mike in his face and got the door slammed in his face. They took their surveillance to the only untainted county commissioner who said he'd start proceedings to fire him. So the guilty guy, unlike the big names, decided to resign and save embarrassment. That is ironic since his more famous brother was run out of a powerful position for viewing porn on the county computers on the county clock.

What perked up my ears was talk that this laborer who earned $65,000 / year (not bad pay) could be prosecuted for "theft in office" for turning in a false time card. Wow, that would be an interesting precedent that my judge escaped from. He was found to work only 3 hours per day on his $121,000 job, thus stealing $75,000 per year. If he were criminally prosecuted for this it could end his career (well deservedly so).

But my judge did so much worse, he created false "shadow trials" to hide his absence. He allowed the lawyers to steal their clients blind by his absence and lack of supervision. I wouldn't be surprised if his total impact was over a million dollars a year, which adds up in a decade. He allowed over $100,000 to be stolen from me and I'm just one of his many cases.

Here's how I think things will go, and the thieves reactions seems to bear this out. The little guy is in danger, even with his name. He could go to jail. But my judge, the fat cat, will skate free. That's the nature of our screwed up justice system, put shoplifters and laborers in jail, while county commissioners, auditors, and judges get a free pass. I don't condone any theft, they all should be in jail. But they won't be, and that's the sad state of American "justice".

Corruption begets more corruption

2009-03-17T17:55:00.003-04:00

Our town is running a cottage industry on corruption, it is so extensive that Federal agents from neighboring states are being brought in to handle the extensive workload. It all started when our local newspaper ran a story on my judge's 3 hour work day and the rampant corruption in our county's divorce court. Interestingly, six months earlier I had an interesting conversation with the senior editor about that very subject.

After my judge made the front page, following additions discussed other judges, ruined lives by the court's inefficiency and how dismally our courts compared to other large county's in the state. The daily exposes caught the attention of the State Supreme Court that is charged with overseeing the county courts. They came to the conclusion that our county's court system was the most inefficient in the state. Not rocket science when you consider that none of the judges worked a full day.

Then the local media moved onto county government, one headline even had the famous named brothers on the front page, one was my judge working a mere three hours a day, the other as county auditor with 90 political friends on the government payroll.

Now the supreme court is considering suspending or disbarring a pair of pit bull lawyers. When I complained about my ex's pit bull tactics, bystanders assumed I was talking of this team being investigated. I wrote about them in a post entitled Circles of Hell.

There are 23 pages of allegations including lying to judges, not filing required paper work, wrongful allegations against the opposition. While this firm is synonymous with pit bull lawyering, they are by no means alone in reputation or questionable practices. My ex's lawyer practiced all these bad habits too. Maybe the State Supreme Court could investigate some more powerful lawyers in our court.

If the judges worked full days for their $121,000 per year salary and managed the lawyers who practice before them, then maybe these abuses could not occur. When I personally reported the violation of civil rules on handling of subpoenas by opposition counsel, my judge's reaction was one of amusement. He chuckled that a mere lay person such as myself caught my ex's 25 year veteran pit bull breaking the rules. It mattered not that I am college educated, a professional, and intelligent. I have no JD, and in our courts that makes me subhuman, an opinion shared by his boss, the administrative judge as reported in the same newspaper at his re-election. The judge did take the unusual step of requiring all parties to stay until an AJE was signed by all parties. But proper management would have called for disciplinary action up to contempt and sanctions. That just doesn't happen in our courts, hence the State Supreme Court's label as "worst court in the state".

Legal disclaimer, I do not know, nor have I had dealings with the lawyers mentioned in the media. I am merely republishing the media's investigative findings. My allegations of similar behavior are against the parties in my litigation covered by my legal notice.

Search for the good...

2009-03-11T03:08:00.000-04:00

Your mind can do many things, worry, ruminate or meditate. The later being more productive. In the midst of divorce your world seems like its collapsing. It's easy to see only the bleak, to fall so far that the daylight seems faint.

Reflect on good times, pray, listen for God's answer, plan, count your blessings. During a divorce, this isn't easy at all, but it is necessary.

A few years ago (during lent) in the height of nasty litigation that literally kept me up all night until I collapsed in fatigue, I participated in a retreat based on the teachings of St. Ignatius founder of the Jesuit order. I remember commenting to my group that I saw so much evil in the court system (ours is under state and federal investigation for corruption) that I could not see God's good anymore. Intellectually I knew it existed, emotionally I was blind to it.

St. Ignatius advocated seeing God's good in the world, in a sunset, in nature's beauty, in your fellow people. He also developed a set of spiritual exercises and discussed levels of prayer. We've all "talked at God", he advocated reaching a level where you quiet your mind and listen for his answer.

During this time it is easy to see evil, its all around us. It takes effort to search out the good in the world and to be comforted by it. It's easy for our lonely mind to ruminate on our misfortune, its hard to meditate and hear God's direction. It's easy to worry about the future, its hard to find the confidence to take control and direct it.

So when you are alone and tempted to worry, ruminate, and be depressed over your plight, work hard, struggle, to do something better with your solitude. If you can't, I understand, many times I have difficulty too, just keep trying. Even better, find some support to help you.

Best wishes on your journey...

PS: This is the season of lent and I just completed a 3 day Lenten Mission. It was good, but I long for more.

No Prep, No Problem

2009-03-03T22:45:00.002-05:00

It's that time again, I go to court at the end of the week. So I figure it's time to set the agenda. I am Pro Se, so I called the opposing lawyer. I ask what we're going to accomplish at the hearing.

"I don't know, my client hasn't called me. It's just a pre-trial, we'll discuss it there."

Translated: "I don't get paid to prepare for court."
Expected result: "Nothing will get accomplished, but we'll schedule another hearing."

How do these pompous assholes have the balls to call themselves professionals? Do you know any professionals that go to a meeting without an agenda and without preparation? That's a trick question. Irresponsible people who do that are not professionals by definition.

What a waste of money that could go to my son. Maybe four years from now my ex and her slow uptake will admit that, just like she recently did about her first lawyer.

Well I'm not going in unprepared. Never have, never will. As a favorite quote of mine goes - "It's not in my nature". I will file an affidavit with the court stating facts that support my request to restore visitation as no evidence has come forward to continue to justify its being withheld. It was easy really, I just wrote down what we discussed in the last two hearings. Maybe seeing it written down the third time will be a charm. I hope so.

Why don't lawyers prepare? Its a conflict of interest. If they prepare, it will result in efficiency, and that will reduce billable hours, and that is the worst thing a lawyer can do. (jqism)

Politicians are ...

2009-02-28T01:50:00.002-05:00

how can I say this...

Politicians? Insert your expletives here.

I was at a large job fair recently and there was a booth from our US congressional representative. He wasn't there of course, he's in Washington, DC, there was a "staffer" manning the booth.

This guy was getting softball questions, I figured I'd challenge him a little. I asked him what our representative thought of his home town these days, the corruption, the federal dawn raids, the state supreme court investigations of 3 hour work days and fluffing cases on unelected visiting judges.

His body language gave him away, he was uncomfortable. Why? Is he tied into the local corruption? He is a local staffer, spending his time in our town, not DC. I wasn't indicting him or his boss. I was just saying that our hometown boy needs to come home from DC and "talk to some of the local movers and shakers and move some out and shake some up".

So what does someone who is uncomfortable do, deflect! I asked if we needed a law that makes it illegal for a judge to work 3 hour days (like mine did, as investigated and reported by our major media outlet). His response, well that's out of their jurisdiction, our county courts are subject to state law, it would have to be a federal court for our US congressman to consider legislation. OK, 2 points for the technicality, bullshit deflection. I repeated my challenge, our hometown boy needs to come home from DC and talk to some people here.

He handed me his card, encouraged me to write to the congressman, and dismissed me, no doubt happy to see me go. I'll have to remember his name, in case he ever seeks election.

So how would I complete the sentence?
Politicians are full of shit!
Leave your comments on how you'd complete the sentence.

Do you know HTML?

2009-02-28T00:01:00.003-05:00

Today my son and I were doing one thing and my ex was doing her own thing at another table. While I was away from my laptop keyboard for a moment, my young son (from memory, just observing me), launched KompoZer an open source web building tool, like a Dreamweaver Lite and started building a web page. He wanted to spice it up so he launched Word and searched for clipart, then dragged it from Word to KompoZer.

He wanted some words to be big, bigger than Header 1, so he asked. Hmm, well, that's not a standard feature, we'll just edit the source HTML. He watched and read along with me the HTML source code that was generated by KompoZer. Rather than old style (pre XHTML) coding, I used a CSS style tag. Last time I showed him a simple JavaScript, I haven't shown him the more complicated version I wrote to cope with Microsoft's attempt to break javascript.

I showed him the customized iGoogle home page I set up for him, with Nasa photos and his favorite comics. I started to show him a Google Site where you can use their Web builder software since he can't install KompoZer on his Mom's or a library computer.

But here's the interesting part. My ex is looking at this job lead and it specifies that a "familiarity with HTML" is needed. She asks me, Do you know HTML? Duh, yeah, I thought. I responded, Yes and as a matter of fact, our son is getting familiar with it too.

So maybe he'll help her with that, just like he helps her with other computer questions.

She seems to be letting up a little on her technical phobia. Maybe she thought about it a bit and realized that the web site we set up presents no danger. Certainly not that she took my word, she probably consulted a bunch of non-technial friends who couldn't see what her fuss was about.

Actually her phobias aren't limited to technology. She woried when my son watched me use power tools or did any kind of work around the house. It didn't matter that I taught him saftey (wear eye protection) and the dangers of power tools and that he couldn't use them at his age. I actually spent time in court over that. Have any of you been called into court because your child saw you use a powertool? Sound crazy? Because it is?

Well he apparently learned a few things. When the handle fell off her briefcase, my son said no problem and repaired it for her. Guess he's getting to be a little handy man.

She should be happy I spend time teaching my son how to be a boy so he can help her with her problems. Maybe someday she'll admit the obvious. I'm not holding my breath, it will take a long time. It took her 4 years to finally admit that lawyers had ripped us off, but she still didn't learn her lesson on that one either. Some people are just...

Tech Phobia

2009-02-17T23:58:00.006-05:00

As I mentioned on Valentines Day we had a disagreement about a web site for my son.

My ex has a long history of tech phobia. For one birthday before separation she gave me a pair of web cams and said this is how you are going to see your son. A bit of a cruel streak too. But then she won't let him use it because Oprah said that web cams make child prostitutes. As if Oprah is technically competent to understand the Internet and protecting children on it. I actually have extensive experience in networking technology, advised the state government ISP, supported global networks, worked on computer security, and even set up the work from home network that my ex still uses.

My son has a little club and he wanted a web site for it, so he asked his Dad who has a career in computers and has plenty of web sites (that she is thankfully ignorant of). He asked me to set up a membership application and email it to his mom. She about jumped out of her chair, don't put her email on the web site. OK, I'll use an email address that I set up for my son. It contains his initials. She was worried about that. How is someone going to compromise my son's safety from a password protected web site with just his initials? The email isn't listed on the password protected site, its embedded in HTML. He actually doesn't access this email address directly, I get it and forward it to her.

Paranoia and ignorance are a dangerous combination (jqism).

He wanted to include a membership roster and I said no to that one as she was about to have a stroke. Here again, a first name isn't really a problem, its when sufficient personal info is given to identify the person and location. No location info is specified or even implied (on purpose).

I had to take his first name off everything to satisfy her which also deprives him of pride of ownership of the site that he is sharing with friends. I showed the web site to another educator of young children I work with and she thought it was neat and had no concerns.

I think my ex got over her concern now, maybe she called Oprah and got the OK, I don't know.

I don't mind debating these issues with my colleagues in the computer security industry at a logical level, but I'd rather not entertain my ex-wife's emotional hysteria or Oprah's sensationalism. Working in the computer and educational environments for 20 years and being selected to advise the state ISP and library systems on these and other network issues I feel confident in my ability to review and eliminate risks of internet access by my son. Unfortunately my ex doesn't share this confidence, she lets her roller coaster emotions be her guide.

I guess you can see my sarcasm and frustration, but I really take a more calm and logical approach. My ex takes an emotional leap to pedophile or death as the consequence to many perceived dangers. I know this has caused credibility problems with my son as I wrote in a previous post where my ex actually told my son he could die of tetanus from handling a (rusty) railroad spike. He knows that's not true and I really see no point in exaggerating.

As for use of technology, it's going to happen, it's everywhere. Rather than tell doom and gloom stories, crying wolf, and attempting to ban it, I know my son will respond better to giving logical rules.

Status: Second Draft - Last Updated 02/18/09 11 am

Valentine's Day for the Divorced?

2009-02-14T21:25:00.001-05:00

Some people talk about celebrating divorce, I see little to celebrate.

First the divorce wrecked havoc on myself, my ex, and worst of all my son who didn't deserve this.

Second, many people equate divorce with freedom. Not me, I am still faced with her because of my son. Ask me again in a decade when my son is an adult.

St. Valentine's Day holds some special meaning for me, while planning to celebrate it in some romantic way, my ex (and her perverse sense of timing) announced her decision to end the marriage. No need to discuss anything or work on it for the sake of our innocent son, just do what she thinks would make her "happy".

So how should divorcee's commemorate the day?

As for me, I'll be spending it with my ex. Yee Ha! (sarcasm!) Since my ex insists on supervising my visitation, it looks like I'll be spending time with my son and my tag along ex on Valentine's Day. How many people will be doing that? I don't particularly want to see her any day let alone Valentine's Day. My focus will be on my son.

At another divorce blog I like a lot, someone posted a Valentine's Day cocktail.

Let's see what drink would be appropriate? My usual drink is CC and Ginger. A smooth Canadian Whiskey and a not too sweet mix. 7 & 7 is too sweet.

But for this occasion I think that the better choice would be a "Snake Bite".

2 oz of Yukon Jack over ice with a splash of Rose's Lime juice.

No substitutions - Yukon Jack is a strong (100 proof) Canadian Whiskey with a unique taste (strong bite).

Yukon Jack is the "black sheep of Canadian Whiskeys", "a taste born of hoary (gray or white with or as if with age) nights, when lonely men struggled to keep their fires lit and cabins warm."

Yep that will be my Saturday toast. I checked and I have the ingredients.

If you don't have that, then how about a "Screwdriver" (to celebrate being screwed by your divorce).

2.5 oz vodka
4 oz fresh orange juice

Cheers...

Guess I'll have to stop by here on Sunday and let everyone know how it went.

Feel free to comment here and tell me how you plan to "celebrate" the day or how it went.

Update:

So I had a decent day, despite my ex being there as a tag along and being a pain. Actually I had two days... On Friday I went swimming with my son for a few hours. My visitation is supposed to be four hours on the weekend, usually on Saturday. When I asked her about Saturday (Valentine's Day) she seemed a little curt, less than enthused. I suppose she could have tried to schedule it for Sunday, but she didn't. Maybe in some perverse way she'd rather see that I wasn't with anyone else on that day. I had been dating last year, but am not seeing anyone now.

My son called me a few times on Valentine's Day morning, asking me to bring some things. The court said 4 hours, she said 3, no one tells her what to do, but it turned out to be 6 hours. On the one hand she left us alone a lot to make calls or whatever, on the other hand she had to be her controlling self. She insisted he do some school work. So we did.

We had some fun too. I brought him a bouquet of Tootsie Pops, Valentine's Day cards (from me, my parents, and his cousin), and some brownies with real frosting just like his aunt (my brother's wife) made him a few weeks ago. See my ex only makes "healthy" brownies without frosting (kind of like a hard chocolate cake, yuk). My son is tall and thin, he doesn't need to be on a diet. I could see her getting ready to raise a fuss when I brought out the brownies, but she bit her tongue and let him have it.

He was making some labels and it wasn't working so we figured it out. We had a bit of a disagreement when my son asked me to set up a web site for him. Her protectionism and control kicked in. More on that later in another post. After I got home, my son continued to call me about the web site.

In the evening, I watched some movies, dabbled on the web (for my son), had a couple of snake bites and relaxed.

All in all, a decent day. Could have been better, but these days I have to be (somewhat) happy with what I can get (jqism).

Status: Second Draft

Our courts don't work !

2009-02-13T23:31:00.003-05:00

A reader of my post from Dec "My ex is a control freak" commented:

"I'm so sorry to hear about your situation. It sounds like you're dealing with a major control freak. I'm not sure how the court system works where you are but here in NYC she can't just change your visitation without going to court first. If I were you I would tell her that your visitation will remain the same until the court says otherwise, or somehow document the fact that she has not been allowing you to have your scheduled meetings with your son. That will play in your favor in future proceedings. Speak with your lawyer and find out what is the best plan moving forward for both you and your son's sake."

Thanks for the empathy... How do our courts work here? They don't, not just my opinion, our newspaper reported that our State Supreme Court has labeled our county divorce courts as inefficient, non-compliant, slow, and the worst in the state. What's been done about it. Nothing ! Actualy worse than nothing, see this post.

No one, and I mean no one, tells my ex anything, she doesn't answer to me, she doesn't answer to the courts, and she doesn't even answer to God (not yet anyway), when her religion frowned on the divorce, she changed it.

Our divorce courts pick a winner (residential parent) and a loser (NCP). I was designated the loser. My rights are practically unenforceable. Offically, my asswipe court order says we have shared parenting. BULLSHIT. See the long list of visitation problems I have had. But as I said before, I don't settle, I fight, but its an uphill battle.

My ex wanted to allow me 1 hour per week. The magistrate bumped that up to 2 hours after school 1 day a week and 4 hours on the weekend. I pointed out that this is still short of my (fairly limited) court ordered 4 hours after school 3 days a week. She did make a concession to allow one overnight and possibly some extended weekend visits.

At this point in time I can not afford a lawyer. That's not necessarily a bad thing, they don't work well in this county either as my many legal abuse posts show. Thanks for the encouragement. I think I'll get my visitation back, but it is a slow process that started in Nov 2008 and isn't likely to conclude at our next hearing in March 2009.

I do thank you for your encoragement, it helps me continue the fight for what is right.

Label Explanations

2009-01-11T01:35:00.007-05:00

I will define the label use here in the future....

Admin

BlogAnn - Announcements about Blog content or structure
Legal Notice - Legal / copyright info related to Blog
To Followup - The post introduces a topic which will yield a new post in the future
ToBeUpdated - Blog posts that will be updated
ToBe UpOld - Old posts that need to be updated
UnCat - uncategorized content
Updating - content is being updated
Upyymm - Content updated in the month yymm

Court Issues

Deadbeat - Issues surrounding the accusation of "deadbeat dad" and child support mistakes
Financial -
Legal Abuse -
My Case -
Process - How the legal process operates
Visitation -

Personal Posts

Aggravation -Things that aggravate me
Damage - How divorce damages people
Ex - Post about my ex-wife
Personal - Post about myself
Son - Post about my son

Content

Editorial -
Encouragement -
Political -
Pop Culture - Something from the pop culture (music, movies) that may relate
Tips -

Terminology

jqism - An interesting short quote of JQ75 imparting my hard learned lessons of the system, copyrighted, trademarked
There is a web page defining various terms I use in this blog.
If you see a term underlined, but it isn't a link, hover over it and you will see a help bubble describing it.

Status: This new post 01/11/09 will be left here for a month and then moved to the beginning of the blog in 2006. Added some terminology info including my famous "jqism" on 1/24/09

Cutting off your nose to improve your face

2009-01-11T00:38:00.005-05:00

My ex is aggravating, so finally after keeping silent about her for the first few years of this blog I'm going to tell you a little about her. You'll notice a new label on this and some previous posts - Ex. I'll use this new label for posts that describe my ex. So if you've ever wondered about her, click here, and see all the posts I've labeled as Ex.

You know the old cliche - Cutting off your nose to spite your face... Sounds stupid, but its a cliche because it is so true. That's how cliches become cliches.

What causes people to do that? Stubbornness. Ego. They'd rather be right, even if it hurts.

We were going to meet at the pool so I could see my son. She called 15 minutes before we supposed to meet to tell me he had a headache and may be getting sick with a sore throat and earache, so no pool. She said she'd give him Tylenol and call me in 30 minutes to see if he felt up to a visit at the library. I called her in 33 minutes (she's habitually late) and she said he was feeling better and was up for a visit.

So I head over to the library. Surprise, they closed early due to the poor weather. We had about a foot of snow and it took me over an hour just to snow blow my driveway earlier today. The roads weren't that great but the snow had slowed and it was passable. No problem for people used to this climate. So I call her several times and she isn't answering. So I go to her place, right next to the library to catch her before she leaves and ask where we'll meet (neutral ground, not my place or hers).

She is still dallying (wasting time) and my son is already and waving to me from the window. I tell him the library is closed. She comes out and repeats it in disbelief. So she says lets meet at the community center (where the pool is) but just spend time in the lounge area. OK.

Her parking lot was a mess, I almost got stuck. She had one foot of snow all around her car and on top of it. She was going to need to shovel the drift behind her car just to get out of the close parking spot she was in. But I made another observation, if she left her spot that had no snow in it (just around it), someone else would get it and she'd have to park in the unplowed parking lot that was nearly a foot deep throughout, possibly getting stuck like I almost did.

So I offered to drive her and my son the less than 1 mile to the community center. She quickly said NO, she would not accept a ride from me. She'd rather spend the time (cutting into my already shortened visit) digging her car out only to loose her spot and get stuck in the unplowed parking lot when she returned.

She doesn't think much of my driving because 7 years ago I got into two bad accidents caused by an undiagnosed sleep disorder while working long third shifts and commuting 100 miles per day. Never mind that this problem is diagnosed, treated, and hasn't reoccurred. So I offer that she can drive my car, the same make and model as hers except that it is newer, if that would make her more comfortable.

NOPE! So I help her clean off her car and move the 1 foot of snow from around her car as my excited son sat staring bored from the window inside (she didn't want him out in the cold). So we finally arrive at the community center nearly 2 hours after we were scheduled (by the court) to visit.

And when it was over, I'm sure she had fun in her unplowed lot. But she didn't have to lower herself to accept a short ride from me.

They say that your post-divorce relationship when you have kids should be business like. A business like relationship doesn't include stubborn ego manic behavior. It would recongnize and appreciate a win-win scenario (keep your parking spot, share a ride, save time). Four years after seperation and she's still got to be in control.

Freedom of Religion

2008-12-23T23:36:00.004-05:00

"OF" not "FROM"

It's just one word, but it changes all the meaning. When ever anyone wants to express their religion the secularist propagandizers sternly remind us of "Separation of Church and State". Their message relies on most people's ignorance of history.

The founding forefathers were very religious, not atheists, not securalists, not communist, not totalitarian. They were not telling people they couldn't practice religion, they encouraged religious expression. The term "Separation of Church and State" dates to a time when the "State" was tightly tied to a religion, many European countries were tied to Roman Catholicism, others like England sponsored their own religion. So in some countries only the Catholic religion was tolerated, if you chose another religion you were persecuted by the government. America was founded on the freedom to practice your own religion and vowed not to select a "State Sponsored" religion.

No offense to my protestant breathern, but the first time I entered the "Church of Ireland" which was really England's State Sponsored religion invading Ireland and their attempt to route out Catholicism, I was dismayed that rather than religious monuments the thing that jumped out at me was a large array of Flags bearing the Coat of Arms of Heads of State. What? Who is being worshiped here I wondered - God or Government? And that is the problem with State Sponsored Religion, it attempts to remove your freedom of belief's and transplant government control under the guise of religion. Now I assume that the Anglican religions believe in God rather than Queen these days, but it wasn't always that way.

But my concern this day is how perverted the secularist propaganda is. Rather than sponsoring a particular brand of Christianity it is, in the false name of freedom, sponsoring atheism or secularism reaching the point of worshiping the State itself. Make no mistake about it, this interference in personal freedom is what led people to flee their home and seek safe haven in America. How ironic that 200 years later people twist and distort history and try to stifle our religious freedom in the names of our founding forefathers. Oh how angry their spirits must be, surely they are rolling over in their graves in frustration and disgust. And how could this fraud be perpetrated on the public? Our founding forefathers envisioned a participative government, not passive citizenry being led to slaughter like sheep.

So if I don't know you, I wish you Happy Holidays for whatever your beliefs dictate this time of year. If you are a fellow Catholic or Christian then I specifically wish you a very Merry Christmas as we look forward to the joy of Jesus Christ's birth and his second coming. if you are a Jewish friend I wish you (a belated) Happy Hanukkah, we differ in our view of Jesus, but we share a common Old Testament and belief in the Almighty God.

And no matter what you believe I wish you all a prosperous and Happy New Year and the hope that citizens will switch off reality TV, so they can participate and take control of our government as was intended. Don't drink the Kool Aide, question the propaganda (organized lies), its not pretty, but it is reality. Good night and may God bless you even if you don't believe.

Is Mommy Stupid?

2008-12-16T13:43:00.003-05:00

That's what my son asked me one day. I've told this story many times, but I guess I never posted it. I struggled to keep a straight face and asked "Why do you ask that?"

We have two abandoned railroads near my house and my son and I often hike through the surrounding woods and on the tracks. Sometimes we find interesting things like railroad spikes. They are of course rusty, but not sharp or flaking off. The first time he found a spike he couldn't wait to show it off to his mom.

Her reaction, she recoiled back from him as if he was holding a deadly snake, she yelled to put that dirty rusty thing down. He wanted to take it to her apartment but she would not have that and said NO! I soothed his hurt ego and said that it would be better to keep it at my house.

So his answer was that "Mommy says that I could get tetanus and die from touching a railroad spike and I just know that's not true". I thought for a moment and rejected my first response "Mommy's not stupid she's just crazy" without saying it out loud. So I gave him the scientifically honest answer as I always do - "A long time ago people could get very sick and die from tetanus. You should not pick up rusty things with sharp edges because if they cut you and the rust gets into your blood stream you could get an infection. If you got cut from something rusty you should tell us right away and we'd take you to the hospital and you'd get a tetanus shot so you wouldn't get sick. It would hurt, but you'd get better and wouldn't die, not these days, we've been able to treat this for some time. A railroad spike usually doesn't have sharp rusty edges, but always look first and ask if you aren't sure."

One time when we were walking the railroad tracks my son got excited and said "Oh, grandma and I left some spikes here". He was talking about my ex's mother who apparently didn't share her daughter's tetanus phobia. When they found the spikes, she told her own mother NO! So my son put them somewhere he could find them later and we did.

So that's just an example of what my son and I have to put up with. Why don't the courts see this as unhealthy over-protectionism? Well they just like to error on the side of caution, for BIC of course. But then by definition "unhealthy over-protectionism" is an unhealthy over reaction, it is NOT in the best interest of the child (BIC) at all.

But that's just common sense and that has no place in the justice system (jqism).

My ex is a control freak

2008-12-16T13:13:00.005-05:00

A reader asks:

Is she always there when you get to see your son? Do you always have to have your joy at seeing your son dampened by seeing her too?

She never wanted me to have my own visitation with my son, but the court order does allow me to see him without her after school on three nights.

She will often "suggest" what I should do with my son or what he should eat. She questions him and I after nearly every visit. Not that she's so damn good herself, she has left him in questionable care, he has gotten hurt in her care, and he eats more fast food with her than I. Why? Double standard. What she does is OK.

One of the big restrictions is justified by my sleep apnea. She fears that I will be too fatigued to care for him or that I will get in a car accident. But I am very aware and am treated for sleep apnea and it hasn't been a problem. She on the other hand used to be asleep when I got home from 3rd shift and my son was up, unsupervised. Why? You don't need a sleep disorder to be fatigued, and she often is in the morning to the point where he is rushed to school at the last minute. What is the difference? My condition is documented AND treated, hers isn't!

Two months ago she decided that she wanted more control and has stopped him from coming to my house after school. So in the mean time I only see him once a week with her present, a violation of the existing court ordered visitation.

Yes that does dampen the visit and yes it does piss me off. Like I said in my Happy Birthday post it is awkward. And that's an understatement. But I focus on him. And hopefully an upcoming hearing is going to deny her request for more restrictive visitation.

But that's what she wants, for her to be in control and for me to be uncomfortable. I have often said, she has more control over me now than when we were married. But it's not just me. She is very controlling of my son and I'm sure that he's uncomfortable too.

She has many untreated phobias, germs too. She always has her bottle of Purell (hand sanitizer) that she uses way too much of. And sure enough it came out in the bowling alley. When he was a child she could not watch him swing, not because he would swing too high, but just because of the repetitive movement on the swing. I have a swing in my back yard that he uses and he uses the school playground at recess, but his mom doesn't swing.

I have this little glimmer of hope, that this new magistrate will see her for what she is, will see her untreated phobias and unreasonable restrictions and force them both to be fixed. Sometimes she can push things just too far and they could back fire. It would be so good if this magistrate finally applied a little justice to an unjust situation.

A bright spot

2008-12-14T20:29:00.003-05:00

Our city had a holiday celebration for kids yesterday. I met my son there, then at the magistrates' suggestion we did something fun afterwards. He suggested bowling or a movie. My ex chimed in that my son loves to bowl.

At the holiday party I gave my son a super bouncing ball that looked like a little basketball (that I got while I was downtown for court) and I got him two washers that he needed so he could fix something for his Mom better. He played games, won prizes, saw a magic show and had fun.

Imagine my surprise when I asked so when did you bowl last - about a year. If he likes it so much how come she never takes him to do it? She decided she didn't want to bowl (she's done it a lot more than I) but I did just because I wanted to do something with my son. I think it's been a five or ten years since I bowled. Never bowled much.

Why don't I take him bowling? My visitation (before her recent reduction) was so limited that I only feed him and supervise his homework. I never get him for a whole day, or overnight, or on the weekends. In the summer, I get him after his summer camp, which actually cuts my visitation even shorter (in violation of the visitation order, but my ex gives orders better than following them).

So we did have a lot of fun. I had a strike in each of the first two games, two strikes in a row the third game and five strikes in the fourth game (guess I was warming up). My son's score was keeping close to mine and he got a strike in the last game. She shrieked approvingly, he covered his ears.

The most fun of course was spending time with him...

You want that Journalized?

2008-12-13T18:49:00.003-05:00

I got extra sleep before this week's hearing and luckily I was able to think on my feet, despite the high stress of my son's visitation being on the line.

I fired a lawyer for screwing up a journalization which caused a verbal visitation agreement to be cut in half. So its odd that I had the exact opposite situation this week.

The magistrate observed and warned my ex that she was in violation of court ordered visitation. We made a compromise agreement for (reduced) visitation as I respond to her "concerns". Her lawyer asked for a visitation journalization form to protect "me" in case my ex reneged on even this reduced visitation.

First my docket is long enough and I don't need more entries in it. But there's a bigger reason, why document a reduced interim visitation schedule that could supersede my existing visitation order?

So I said that her lawyer's hand written notes of the interim agreement would be acceptable and asked her for them. This had the following advantages:

Legally my existing visitation order is still in force
The Magistrate viewed me positively as being cooperative and flexible
I have the lawyer's handwritten notes as proof of our interim agreement
The magistrate would view my ex reneging on the agreement negatively so its unlikely I need the "protection" of it being journalized

The rule has always been "get it in writing" and for the most part that is true, but remember that there is always an exception to the rule. And I think this is one of them.

Its not my job man

2008-12-13T00:29:00.003-05:00

I don't do computers

BULLSHIT!!! That makes as much sense as I don't do VCRs or calculators. It's the 21st century damn it, use today's tools or go be a covered wagon wheel maker. Computer's are today's tools, checkout clerks need to use them properly for minimum wage so lawyers making 30-50 times more need to use them too. The minimum wage wage checkout clerk can't make a $10 error in grocery's without being fired, so why should a lawyer making so much more be able to make $10,000 errors and expect not only to be employed, but to be paid for making such a careless mistake.

The direct product of the lawyer is the legal agreements and property division so when these are unusable what the hell is he being paid for? Today's tool isn't a quill pen and abacus, its Word and Excel.

But lawyers are so caught up in their legal education they feel that knowing how to properly use a computer is beneath them. Well it isn't. Its just a stupid excuse for being ignorant and lazy. Now if you have some national celebrity lawyer, maybe he can't be bothered, then get a staff, otherwise do it yourself. But if you are going to do it yourself, know what the hell you are doing. Actually in corporate law you will usually see support staff doing much of the computer work at reduced cost.

But the idea that the lawyer can charge top buck, then provide an inferior product because he is too proud to learn how to use a computer is completely unacceptable.

There is a serious cost to the client for computer misuse, first in inefficiency causing inflated bills and second in errors made and more time to correct them.

In my case, I was billed for inefficient computer use by my lawyer, then we argued about his mistakes and I was billed for the argument, then when he finally admitted the error, I was billed again for his inefficient correction. In what other profession can you make 300% as a reward for screwing up? In divorce law you pay for hours not results (jqism).

Status: First Draft - Last Updated 12/13/08 6 PM

Math for Moron Lawyers

2008-12-12T19:42:00.006-05:00

While I'm on the topic of computer use and lawyers, I might as well mention their other deficient skill - Spreadsheets.

I've mentioned this in a few other posts:

Dumb and Dumber - Commingling mistake, columns are cheap, don't commingle. Offered assistance, lawyer was too proud to accept it.

There's Big Bucks in Checking Your Lawyers Work - Cutting opposition fees charged to you, caring vs. carelessness, tax deductible by calling it alimony, misuse of Excel, saved $40,000 in one month by checking lawyers work.

Lawyers can’t do math - Math done in text footnotes, careless errors, dated spreadsheet shows it was held back to cause delays.

Divorce Lawyers are equally inept with spreadsheets. Again just using the computer like a typewriter without regard to its proper use. Their spreadsheets are so inept that it probably isn't good to try to fix it. Get a copy just to prove their ineptedness. You most likely will need to design it from scratch. Extra work? Yes! But as I said in the above posts it can cost you serious bucks.

So what should you do that your lawyer won't?

Design the spreadsheet
Let the spreadsheet do all the calculations
Use control and named cells
Use variables rather than hard coded constants (eg split = 50%)
Use extra (hidden) columns (or rows) to audit or calculate intermediate results
Use the scenario manager rather than multiple duplicate sheets
Use data validation and conditional cell formatting
Use Audit Trace feature to validate correctness
Don't commingle unlike funds (liquid/illiquid, different tax consequences, pensions, owed vs. controlled)
Save each version

You are doing this to protect yourself, not to encourage your lawyer to slide out of his fiduciary responsibility to you.

You should consider outsourcing financial issues to a CPA trained in divorce issues, they are better trained in math.

And what should your lawyer be doing?

All of the above !!!
Learn how to use their computer efficiently.
Don't keep reinventing the wheel, use templates.
Realize that legal advice is only half their job, producing usable d0cuments and accurate property settlements is equally important and requires proper computer skills.
If they can't or won't do it, then delegate it to competent support staff or outsource it to a divorce trained CPA.

Status: Second Draft - Last Updated 12/13/08 6:30 PM

Maintainable Documentation

2008-12-11T23:44:00.004-05:00

Some divorce documentation, especially the parenting plan need to be referenced, maintained, and updated over a period of a decade or more.

If you are lazy and get paid regardless off results, as most divorce lawyers are, then you slap a piece of shit document together full of tabs, spaces, maybe using auto page numbering. Without a template or structure it takes several times longer to produce and update, but that's OK because you bill by the hour, not the results. The client pays more for your poor skills and productivity.

I received a document so bad, it's outline numbering botched terribly that it actually created a legal ambiguity. After correcting and complaining several times, I told my lawyer to leave it that way (since I was sure he wasn't going to fix it) so that I could call the document's validity into question in the future and attempt to exercise the severability clause. Now you'd think he'd acquiesce in embarrassment and fix it, Nope! He'd rather show his power and control over his client than do the right thing legally.

I gave up on my lawyer being efficient and doing as I asked, I could see he was just a stubborn ass. So I did it myself and it already helped at my hearing yesterday in finding the answer more quickly and accurately to the Magistrate's questions.

What did I do? Nothing a current elementary school student couldn't do, common sense and organization. I took my lawyer's haphazard shitty document and carefully edited it without changing its meaning. I changed all hard coded tabs, numbering, etc to paragraph positioning, widow control (keep with next, keep together), defined styles, use of HEADING n styles and auto numbering.

This helps make the document more readable. The use of HEADING n styles allows use of the Outline view to focus on sections of the document and also allows you to generate an automatic Table of Contents (important when they run over 90 pages).

Was that overkill? A waste of time? NO!! Just one advantage in preparation, one need for an update and the effort is paid for. And the odds of that in a decade are guaranteed several times over.

But why, oh why, do I have to fix what I paid so much for? It shouldn't be. The legal document is the end product that is charged at a very high price. Its internal organization, readability and maintainability are every bit as important as the punctuation and wording. Anything less is careless, sloppy, and of questionable value.

And when I get the time, I will take my former lawyers to court to answer that question. They think they took me for a sucker. We'll see who gets the last laugh! Vengeance, or in this case justice, is a meal best served cold, when my anger subsides and I can define their transgressions clearly and without emotion.

Status: Last Updated 12/13/08 6:40 PM

Surprise

2008-12-11T22:35:00.004-05:00

Well it wasn't quite a victory, but it turned out much better than my expectations based on my experiences.

First I arrived on time, despite my car not being available and spending over 2 hours to get to the court building before it even opened. My ex and her lawyer arrived late.

I mentioned to the Central Motions Scheduler and to the Magistrate that I had never been properly served with the motions and that my calls for copies of them went unanswered. The magistrate gave me his copy while we waited for the tardy Plaintiff.

He chastised Plaintiff counsel for improper service and said that it was not fair to continue without it. I told him that even though I had little time to review it, I was prepared to move forward to resolve the issue. He handed me a waiver of service and thanked me for my cooperation.

He discussed my visitation and expressed surprise at its restrictiveness. When my ex tried to brag that she allowed some visitation in the last two months, he pointed out that she was in violation of an existing court order for visitation and while he understood her complaints they didn't "rise to the level of preventing visitation" and that "you need to make arrangements for the holidays". Sensing that the magistrate was serious her lawyer pushed her to make specific commitments.

Knowing my ex, I anticipated her complaints, sight unseen, and had prepared a response. The magistrate was impressed with the actions I took and my response. When he asked questions regarding the parenting plan, I had quick answers referencing a special annotated and cross indexed version, while my ex and her lawyer looked unprepared.

He strongly implied that one motion would be denied and the other two should be negotiated. This magistrate was more Father Friendly than anyone I have seen in the court system. I have to go back next month and I will be very prepared again. Hopefully we will resolve her complaint then.

I wondered why this magistrate hadn't handled the parenting plan the first time around, but the answer to that is easy, he makes the lawyers work, he pushes them to respond. The lawyers much preferred my absentee judge who wasn't even their 60% of the time, much less push them to do anything.

After four years in court I'm still observing and learning new things about how this "system" "works". And this time I wasn't intimidated to use my digital recorder either.

Back to Court

2008-12-10T01:35:00.005-05:00

Four fuckin years already and no end in sight... Just fuckin shoot me (JFSM).

As I mentioned, my ex decided to stop my visitation and file against me in court for my birthday last month. The restrictive parenting plan in place now cost me over $20,000 in legal fees, my total legal fees exceeded $100,000, I have no more money for lawyers or anything else.

So early tomorrow morning (12/11) I head to the familiar court system by myself to go up against not one lawyer but two who want to keep my son from me. Parasites sucking the life out of families for profit, kind of makes prostitution look respectable.

Luckily my corrupt judge, the Dis-Honorable A.J.R., is busy moving into his newer bigger digs, his reward for kissing lawyer ass and screwing the public who was dumb enough to elect his famous last name. So he won't hear the case, its delegated to a magistrate.

Someone commented that I appeared agitated yesterday. Yeah I'm fuckin aggitated, I'm reading and preparing for the hearing. Oh you shouldn't... No choice, no fuckin choice. That's my miserable life now, a bunch of divorce industry assholes bossing this 52 year old around like a 15 year old. FUCKIN BASTARDS !!!

I'd mention my strategy here, but some dumb bitch has taken it on herself to be contacting the parties. That's OK, when I get time I'll sue her meddling ass too.

Man on Fire

2008-11-29T14:46:00.004-05:00

I'm a photo, movie, and music fan, haven't put out anything with this tag in a while, so here's a post on a popular movie that I see a connection too.

Man on Fire, staring Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning is an intense movie about kidnapping and corruption in Mexico (originally in Italy). The movie is intense, violent, rated R for a reason. It is remarkable that Dakota being as young as she was could be exposed to such intensity. Christopher Walken stars as Denzel's friend, a different role from his usual bad guy, instead he helps set Denzel's background and add some humor. Marc Anthony plays the father of Dakota, married to Radha Mitchell, her mother. Mickey Rourke does a great job of playing the arrogant corrupt family lawyer. Rachel Ticotin as the helpful investigative reporter and Giancarlo Giannini as one of the few caring non-corrupt officials play their roles very well.

But the sub plot is how a child breaks through a man's cold heart, burned out from his intense work ethic and violent military career. When she is kidnapped, he erupts with a passion, a mission he truly cares about. To rid the system of its corruption. And that he does, showing no mercy to those who abused their trust.

If you get a chance, the double DVD version has an alternate ending suggested by Denzel. Still tragic, but some personal vengeance dispensed. Notice how the villains keep rationalizing with "I'm a professional" or "it's just business" or "I'm sorry", at one point Denzel gets sick of it and orders the villain to stop saying that.

Our judges and their "officers" (lawyer's, guardians, evaluators, social workers) are all "professionals" too and they say they are sorry that their large case load can't always deliver BIC, but then some work only three hours a day for full time pay, so what kind of sincerity is that? Lying bastards and bitches.

Certainly this storyline is intense, the heartbreak severe, kidnapping assisted by the corrupt system. Do you see a parallel? Oh technically you could say there is no comparison, but practically on an emotional level, right here in this United States; Is the breaking up of families, the relegation of NCPs to less than a parent, really so much better? Do we, us pompous ass American's, have any right to watch that movie and criticize Mexico as third world, when we American's do a very similar thing on a much grander scale? We are so blind to our own problems. And do our corrupt officials deserve any less punishment than their's? What have they done to deserve mercy?

Am I saying they should all be killed? No, that's a bit drastic. But I do firmly believe that they should pay for their crimes, hard time, like any other criminal and never hold an office of trust again in their lifetime. That would be justice. I pray for that day.

Some movie quotes:

Dear God, I do not ask for health or wealth. People ask you so often that you can't have any left. Give me, God, what else you have. Give me what no-one else asks for. Amen.
Creasy [pause] You're smiling.
[about Creasy] I think he's been sick. He's all right now, but I think he's been very, very sick.
Pita (Dakota): There are some good things in this world.
Creasy: Oh yeah, like what?
Pita: Like meeting me.
[about Creasy] She showed him it was OK to live again.
Forgiveness is between them and God. It's my job to arrange the meeting.
A man can be an artist... in anything, food, whatever. It depends on how good he is at it. Creasey's (Denzel's) art is death. He's about to paint his masterpiece.
He'll deliver more justice in a weekend than ten years of your courts and tribunals. Just stay out of his way,
You know, I-I'm a professional.
[Creasey (Denzel)]: That's what everybody keeps saying. "I'm just a professional". Everybody keeps saying that to me. "I'm just a professional", "I'm just a professional". I'm getting sick and tired of hearing that.
I got all the time in the world. *You* don't, but I do.
Last wish? I wish you had more time.
Okay, my friend. It's off to the next life for you. I guarantee you, you won't be lonely.
[Creasy is planning to go after Fuentes, a high-ranking corrupt police lieutenant]
Mariana: He's better protected than the president of Mexico!
Creasy (Denzel): He's gonna need it.
2.5 million, that's what Victor got, isn't it? 2.5 million to your lawyer [Mickey Rourke] that he put in an account in the Cayman Islands, but he won't get a chance to spend it. What happened to the other five Sam (Marc Anthony)? Huh? That's 2.5, 2.5. What is five from ten? That's five. What happened to the other five, Sam?
Do you think God'll forgive us for what we've done? No.
Revenge is a meal best served cold.

Thanksgiving

2008-11-28T22:17:00.003-05:00

Time has worn me down. I am numb. I am tired. My mind looses track what I should be thankful for. It doesn't come easy. I think hard.

I am thankful for the first 5 years with my son.
I am thankful for the limited time I had with him in the next 4 years of separation and litigation.
I am thankful I had the resources, strength, and endurance to fight for him to be in my life, even though it almost killed me. I do regret I have but one life to give to this terrible fight.
I can only hope that my restricted access to my son will end sometime in the next 9 years.
I hope with all my heart, for the best for my son for the next 9 years.
I will be thankful when my son is grown and we can finally be reunited.
I regret ever having gotten involved in this twisted notion of justice, it was never my desire to go to court.
I am thankful I have a vehicle to speak up and warn potential victims.
I am hopeful that one day, justice will prevail, my son and I will be free, and the people who feed off other's misery will receive their just punishment. Until then I remain conflicted on my thankfulness.

You can see how this mess has effected me over time, it wears you down, and that's the point...
Two years ago, my blessings easily came to mind.
And of course the wisdom of song writers can not be overlooked, in particular Don Henley's My Thanksgiving

Status: First Draft - Last Updated 11/28/08 11:30 PM

Happy F---king Birthday

2008-11-18T17:04:00.006-05:00

Another year, another year older, and another dirty trick by my ex.

My ex has always had a sadistic sense of timing.

For one birthday she gave me a pair of web cams and said this is how you are going to see your son. But then she won't let him use it because Oprah said that web cams make child prostitutes. As if Oprah is technically competent to understand the Internet and protecting children on it. I actually have extensive experience in networking technology, advised the state government ISP, supported global networks, worked on computer security, and even set up the work from home network that my ex still uses.

She filed for divorce on April Fools day.

And now she decided that my restricted visitation is just too liberal and is taking me back to court to restrict it further. In the mean time, I haven't seen my son in two weeks and I didn't know when I'd see him again. She called today to say that she will meet me at a restaurant on my birthday and bring my son and let him see me there.

I miss my son terribly and will be happy to see him in one sense, but what mixed emotions, how stressful to know that when my meal is over, he'll go back with her and I won't know when I'll see him again.

Yeah, I'm gonna have a real Happy Fucking Birthday... Thanks to my ex.

Update

Well I waited a half hour for my ex and son to come. It was awkward, tense, and unnatural, hardly fun. But beggars and NCPs can't be choosers, after all we are the losers. (jqism) Nice pun, nice rhyme? I brought a set of inexpensive magic tricks, that my smart son quickly figured out to the amazement of my clueless ex. The one trick (coin switch) he figured out instantly. So at least that was a tension breaker for him as he practiced them while waiting for the food to arrive.

Less than an hour...

Earlier that day I asked my ex to withdraw her court request to alter visitation and go to a mediator instead. She was non-committal. I challenged her, "Didn't you learn anything in the last four years? Can't you see that the court's could give a shit about our son? Don't you see how much they've taken from him already?". She needs to think about it? What's to think about? Has she really thought about any of this, beyond her own selfish needs?

Divorced for 18 months and she's still fucking me royal.

Status: Second Draft - Last Updated 11/20/08 9 PM

The new face of our courts

2008-11-13T23:14:00.004-05:00

So the election is over. BFD!

My judge, the Dis-Honarable [SIC] Judge A.J.R. has been officially promoted as Chief Probate Elect Judge, starting his new term 1/1/09, leaving the divorce court where he can only fuck divorcing couples to the Probate court where:

He can fuck over everyone, we all die and go through probate
He can make competency declarations
(now that's kind of scary, he could declare me insane for speaking out against him, ala Soviet Union tactics).
He has full authority over the court as the Chief Administrative Judge
He also has wide reaching power to appoint boards to our park system, health care, etc.

This is a man who

Worked three hours a day, effectively stealing $75,000 per year of public funds
Allowed the lawyers to plunder the assets of divorcing couples and stealing the support and inheritance from children (BIC of course)
Falsified public records to cover up his theft in office by entering "shadow" trial dates when in fact no trial took place

So how can you top that? Its hard, but they did.

My judge was replaced by an incompetent part time civil (not divorce) magistrate who just started practicing family law recently (part time). No doubt she realized that the divorce industry is a recession proof growth industry.
She was ranked as "Not Recommended" 0.0 of 4.0 by all four bar associations. That is hard to do as bar associations tend to protect "their own". It's also hard to achieve that unanimous rating from these ideologically diverse bar associations.
The court continues to be led by the Dis-Honorable Chief Judge T.M.F. who also earned a 0.0 out of 4.0 rating because he refused to cooperate with the four bar associations in their mission to rate the judges.
Being in this court since 1992 he probably feels a sense of entitlement to this position and feels he no longer needs to respond to the public. His sarcastic responses to our newspaper showed this contempt clearly. I believe he is entitled to be unemployed or in prison for his betrayal of the public trust and stonewalling of the State Supreme Court's investigation into the inefficiencies of his court.
This man is so out of touch that he believes the biggest problem is litigant's exercising their constitutional right to self representation. He fully supports the status quo of judges' allowing the financial rape of the citizenry by greedy self centered lawyers, as well as the elitist view that litigant's are not c0mpetent to deal with the court.

So after 1/1/09 my judge has moved on and I have an opportunity to motion the court with a new judge assigned to the case. Local court rules assign the presiding trial judge to any post decree motions, which won't be possible since he has left that court for greener pastures. But who will I be assigned to, one of the recently elected 0.0 out of 4.0 rated judges or the other two that are proably equally poor.

Status: First Draft - Last Updated 11/14/08
Readers are reminded of terms and conditions not to contact the parties

Just filling in the bubbles

2008-11-11T22:45:00.006-05:00

that is what many people's idea of voting is

Cynical opinion? NOPE! That's what the numbers say. So here are my observations from my county's vote results.

Only 1.36% had the courage to vote outside the major parties for President
43% of those who voted for President voted for our corrupt unopposed divorce judges
99% of those voting for the corrupt divorce judges voted for the totally incompetent judge who was rated unqualified by four separate bar associations.
59% of presidential voters voted in contested judicial races
45% of presidential voters voted in unopposed judicial races
82% of presidential voters voted in contested county races
59% of presidential voters voted in unopposed county races
77 to 95% of presidential voters voted on state issues

More observations coming... or maybe not if I get too disgusted...

PFS (Pretty Fuckin Sad) !!!

Every one has the right to vote, but most don't understand the responsibility to be informed voters. (jqism)

Status: Final Draft - Couldn't bear to update this after the 12th

A temporary tangent

2008-11-06T20:36:00.005-05:00

I've gone on a temporary hiatus, on a political tangent. Have no fear, regular domestic relations disaster posts will return here shortly after election day, although while the election winds its way through the courts I may still post some more political commentary.

For the record I think both Major Political Parties have serious flaws, if I appear to criticize the Democrats more its just that I'm trying to counter the media's blind love affair with them.

PS: This post will float to the top as I add new political posts...

PS: Well thankfully the election process is over, but have we learned anything?
Back to your regularly scheduled program, already in progress.

PPS: If you have a favorite Domestic Relations Disaster topic, let me know here by comment or by email and I'll see what I can do to address your interests.

Status: Last Updated 11/13/08 11 PM

The old man didn't do too bad

2008-11-05T00:06:00.003-05:00

Considering the millstones he was carrying.

McCain had insurmountable odds...

He had the terrible legacy of Bush, branded and labeled with his mistakes just because he was of the same party. But of anyone in the Republican party, McCain was the least likely to toe the party line, it is so ironic that he was branded, white washed with the same broad brush of those in his party that he often disagreed with. This is the downside of party politics.

No one would have taken office without introducing major change. But McCain was branded as sam ole sam ole Bush. McCain was not a dim witted drug abusing draft dodger, why would anyone think he'd act like one? His opponent slung that shit at him and it stuck. Partly due to McCain's big mistake of not distancing himself from the leader of his party who isn't anything like him.

One thing won't change, we'll have an old man tripping over his words and saying dumb things, only it will be the VP instead of the President.

It is said that bad things come in three's. The first for McCain was the terrible Bush legacy. The second was a total economic meltdown at a critical point in the campaign, unprecedented in American politics. And even though this meltdown was a product of both parties, the shit stuck on McCain and slid off Obama. But still McCain pushed on.

And last, but not least, just as McCain was making progress, in the eleventh hour, VP Cheny, in the ultimate campaign sabotage endorses McCain. WTF was he thinking? Is Cheny so vain as to think there would be some benefit in a war monger lending his tarnished name to the untarnished war hero? Was this some type of campaign euthanasia?

Or was this a twisted plot to sacrifice McCain for the benefit of the future of the Republican party. There are those who say things are so fucked up that no one can fix them and who ever tries, which ever party wins this dubious honor, is doomed to failure and loss in the next election. Was Cheny trying to protect the Republican party from its demise by throwing McCain under the bus and allowing Obama to walk into its path? As Denis Miller said of one of the losers of the Republican primary, "the man should drop to his knees and thank God he was passed over for this challenging situation".

And despite all this adversity, and the 2 to 1 loss in electoral votes, McCain only lost in the popular vote by 52 to 47.

Say what you will about McCain, but he is no Bush, he is a trooper, and he deserved better. Hopefully these positive traits will be recognized, respected, and sought out by the new administration. To ignore a man of such tenacity, simply because of his party affiliation, would be a disservice to the country that needs all the help it can get.

Who's really disenfranchised?

2008-11-04T19:20:00.005-05:00

My view is not what people would think. I propose that the blind ambition to ensure voters are not disenfranchised has gone overboard in fact disenfranchised the responsible voter.

Should everyone vote?

Do I blaspheme? How dare I take the elitist view that maybe some should not vote? But think about this with an open mind. Should the uninformed be voting and disenfranchising those who took the time to take their civic duty seriously and are informed voters? Do you think that maybe the forefather's envisioned that people would be informed before voting, rather than voting for the candidate who attracted the coolest celebrities to perform free concerts?

Aggressive Voter Registration

ACORN

ACORN isn't responsible

Really, WTF. Then who is, you, me, God, no one? Look ACORN hires workers, gives them instructions, then incentitives to violate voter registration laws. Do we need to debate this? ACORN is responsbile for their workers, for their insentive to violate laws, and for the actions that occur violating laws. The individual workers are also respobible for their violaion of the law. Their collective actions disenfranchise responsible voters and represent a crime against the people and the government, nearly akin to treason.

I'll hold off on their execution at dawn, but I don't hesitate for a second to see them all jailed, fined, and made to clean up the fraudulent registration mess they made.

Registration Fraud isn't Voter Fraud

Oh please, can the bullshit. Shit is shit and it stinks and fraud is fraud and its a crime. Splitting hairs and semantics makes no difference. It's a technical academic argument of no practical value.

Voter Fraud often begins in Registration Fraud.
Registration Fraud often leads to Voter Fraud.
Both are bad, neither should be tolerated.
PERIOD, FUCKIN PERIOD, END OF ARGUMENT.

Partisan Board of Elections

Our corrupt state has had both Republican and now Democratic Partisan Board of Elections, to the determent of the people. As our Sunday paper editorialized, there is no place for politics in the election process. It should have only one goal, fairness and the upholding of the letter and spirit of the law.

Making voting too easy

No ID required

Media Manipulation

Its all about money

Early Voting

Electoral States

The Electoral State process marginalizes individual voters rights. It even creates bell weather and irrelevant states. How should a voter feel if they live in a guaranteed red/blue state verses a schizophrenic bell weather state like I live in, where our red/blue sections are constantly vying for control.

h3

xx

Status: Rough Draft - Last Updated 11/04/08

Big surprise!

2008-11-04T17:21:00.005-05:00

I already knew how I felt about the divorce judges in my county, they all need to be unemployed. But today I looked up judicial rankings for the other judges so I could make an informed vote. We are lucky enough (out of necessity) that our good ole boy judge network is so corrupt that a coalition was formed to inform the voters about the judges credentials. Four different groups and new newspapers rate all elected judges and put their ratings online.

It is imperfect as the bar and the power circles have some impact on the judicial ratings, but they do rate some judges as "adequate (1)" or "Not recommended (0)". And it beats the bias ads.

So while I was reviewing the various judges, I came across the divorce judges. The chief administrative divorce judge has been stone walling the State Supreme Court investigation into "the worst divorce court in the State". So it came as little surprise that he also refused to cooperate with all six rating agencies, earning himself a rating of 0.0 out of 4.0.

The second divorce judge up for election did cooperate and received a "Not recommended (0)" rating from all agencies, for a rating of 0.0 out of 4.0.

My divorce judge is a political power broker with the famous brand name and was able to get a 3.0 out of 4.0, and as for judicial skills that may be fine. But when you factor in corruption, theft in office ($75,000/year), and ruining people's lives I think he too deserves a rating of 0.0. Imagine how bad the other two were to get that. My judge is not running for re-election, but rather for a promotion to Chief Probate judge where he can wreck havoc on the lives of married and divorced alike.

So I did not vote for any of these three, NO! But that doesn't matter, they have already won. They, like many other judges in our one party county, won the Democratic Primary and were running unopposed. This election is a meaningless formality as the unqualified will wrongfully take their place in our corrupt government and pass judgment on us.

Too bad our local judges can't be handled like presidential judicial or cabinet nominees. If the legislature (or in our case the judicial rating agencies) believe all candidates are unqualified, they simply refuse to allow them to take office and another candidate must be submitted. Crazy idea? Or is having 0.0 out of 4.0 candidates getting into office even more crazy? I think the latter is crazy. No judge is better than an incompetent one.

What of my judge's 3.0 rating, should he be allowed to get in? Well as soon as he is promoted out of the Divorce Court (Jan 2009) and can no longer control my case, I will be writing letters to every judicial rating agency and suggesting that the judge's ethics be considered along with their judicial skill. The best judicial skill means nothing when ethics are absent.

Anyone else who shares my location, or has this problem in another area and wants to join my effort or share my ideas, please email me. Our rating agencies have very clear definitions of their standards and I have very strong evidence of how my judge has violated these standards. Even if you live elsewhere, my case may serve as a good example of the activism needed.

Why bother? I've been fucked, and getting corrupt judges unemployed won't undo that. That is an irresponsible attitude I will not take. It is lazy silent inaction that acts as a co-conspirator to corruption.

Speak up, or shut up and don't complain (jqism).

So how did I vote? Any candidate with 3.0 and less did not get my vote, even if they were unopposed and that included all three divorce judges and a few others too. Wouldn't it be wonderful if others did that too? It might be humiliating and at least send a strong message if an unopposed incompetent was sent to office with less than 10% of the vote. Stay tuned, I'll be looking for the final vote counts.

And what of the other unopposed, did I just leave them blank, since they are getting in anyway? No, if they had a rating close to 4.0 and I believed they were a good candidate, they got my vote.

You still have a choice with only one candidate! Vote for them if they are qualified or leave them blank if they are not. To fill them all in, because they are the only choice, or to leave them all blank because they will be shooed in, are both irresponsible and derilection of your civic duty.

Who's vote will you cast?

2008-11-04T03:25:00.003-05:00

Will it be your own? Or will it be so influenced by other factors that it won't be your own?

Will you buy the media hype, don't throw away your vote, vote for the winner they tell you to? Is voting your mind, even at the risk of your candidate loosing, a waste? Or is voting for the media chosen winner you have reservations about a betrayal of your civic responsibility?

Did you know something about all the candidates and issues you voted on? Did you get info from multiple sources or a biased source? Did you vote for unopposed candidates to fill in the blanks or because they were worthy of your vote?

Did you get discouraged and stay home? Why bother? Maybe your state isn't a bellweather state. Maybe your local board of elections is ruled by partisan politics and is rigged or corrupted (by ACORN).

The purpose of voting is to express your choice, win or lose, popular or not. The only right vote is your own. Not voting, for any reason, or voting for who the media tells you to, or by gender or race, or anything that you don't truly believe in, is wrong.

Do the right thing!

They called me stupid

2008-11-02T19:48:00.004-05:00

As I complained about how the divorce system was treating me, I was told mater of factly, "Well you're stupid!" And by inference they were calling my parents and their whole generation stupid too.

See I was brought up old school - work hard, save, invest, and your efforts will be rewarded.

And for nearly 30 years of my adult life that served me well. Until big government, the big brother that was never born into my family reared its ugly head and got more involved in my life than anyone has a right too.

That's when greedy lawyers with the assistance of a corrupt judge taught me a lesson my parents never did. They stole my hard earned money, my son, my family, my job, possibly my career, everything I had worked so hard for 30 years to build. They have stolen every meaningful part of my life for their own personal enrichment or out of callous disregard for other's personal rights.

Big Government is not the answer to your problems it IS your problem, if not now, someday soon!
Big Government is always bad for civil liberties and democracy.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

What was my stupid mistake? Saving, investing and owning. See if I just spent, rented, and owned nothing, then I would not be a target. I would have empty pockets instead of deep pockets and would not been a target of the divorce industry's lustful desire.

As we move toward our great socialist experiment, where hard work is considered stupid and penalized (as mine was) we will pay dearly for our collective stupidity of believing our forefathers were stupid!

We will move from a ladder of classes where people can hope, dream, and work their way up, to a new class structure as follows:

The Super Rich (and powerful)
The Government
Government dependents gaming the system (the Great Welfare/Socialist masses)
Old school middle class who will be crushed and beaten for their "stupidity"

There will be a large chasm between each of these classes. You won't climb a ladder you will attempt to jump and if you miss you will fall into the bottomless abyss that separates them. Most people will be content to sink into reality TV and the welfare masses to escape the miserable reality of their lives living as slaves waiting for their masters in the government to give them their next handout (or beating).

Which class will you belong to? How "stupid" are you?

Status: First Draft - Last Updated 11/03/08

She changed her tune...

2008-11-02T17:07:00.006-05:00

"I would bring a life time of experience to the White House, McCain would bring a life time of experience to the White House, Obama would bring a speech from 2002."

-- Hillary Clinton

Of course Hillary changed her tune and her official response to this message being replayed recently is "Why aren't they quoting my current support for Obama."

Well my dear Hillary there are 20 million reasons why!

See when you said this, you were speaking from your gut, back before you lost the primary. But when you lost you had $20 million in campaign debt. OUCH!!! The day after Obama won, you and Bill were pissed!!! But even when you were passed over for VP, your mood lightened and that's because Obama bought your endorsement in return for paying off your debt. You swallowed your pride very well, but then that's a lot of grease you had to help you swallow it.

Election Day

2008-10-29T21:04:00.006-04:00

Our country's future is at stake... Don't blow it.

A picture is worth at least 1000 words...

Photo from http://www.motifake.com/. Click on photo to see it enlarged or post header to see the source web page.

McCain's Mistakes

2008-10-26T13:32:00.004-04:00

McCain has made big mistakes...

McCain was too respectful to our current President.
He only recently criticized Bush and showed where he disagreed with him.
McCain was too respectful to his opponent.
He has not criticized his opponent's many flaws or staunchly defended himself from attacks.
xx

Remember McCain is not Bush and Obama is not Clinton.

As an example, who is for equal pay for equal women? Careful its a trick question.

Obama has lots of ads promising equal pay for women.
But Obama pays 83 cents per dollar to women on his Senate Staff.
On the other hand McCain has equal pay for both genders on his campaign staff.

So how are you gonna vote by words or actions?

Status: Rough Draft - Updated 10/26/08 4 PM

Do we even need an election?

2008-10-26T13:06:00.003-04:00

According to many NO!

We have ACORN stuffing the ballot boxes.
We have Democratic Election Officials more interested in representing their party's Presidential Candidate then fulfilling their sacred duty to a fair election.
We have pollsters telling us the election is over and who has won.
We have the media telling us, as American's we must vote for the winner they tell us too, otherwise we are throwing away your vote.

If you understand what your voting obligation is then you must

Protest anyone's attempt to stuff the ballot box.
Vote crooked, biased Election Officials out of office.
Tell pollsters you can make up your own mind and that their popularity contest is irrelevant.
Tell the media to can their thinly veiled attempt to influence the election and their trite bullshit propaganda.
Go and vote your conscience, not for popularity, this isn't American Idol, this is your future, this is your real life, act like it.

If you don't understand your voting obligation then

Sit on your ass, listen to the boob tube, vote for your American Idol (or not), and shut the fuck up when he screws up, you deserve what you got.

Status: First Draft - Last Updated 10/26/08 1:30 PM

Democratic View on Terrorism

2008-10-25T04:59:00.008-04:00

A Barack Obama campaign spokesperson, Bill Burton, argued that Barack didn't say:

"Iran doesn't pose a serious threat to us."

What Barack Obama actually said, verbatim, in full context, was

"I mean think about it Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, these countries are tiny compared ta the [SIC] Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us and yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at a time when they said we're going to wipe you off the planet. And ultimately that direct engagement led to a series of measures that led to a series of measures that helped prevent nuclear war and over time allowed the kind of opening that brought down the Berlin wall. Now that ... That [SIC] has to be the kind of approach that we take. Uh ... We ... We ... We shouldn't be... [SIC] Iran may spend 1/100th of what we spend on the military. I mean if ... if [SIC] Iran ever tried to pose a serious threat to us they wouldn't ... they wouldn't [SIC] stand a chance."

So what is Barack really saying?

Can he possibly be serious? Is he trying to say that there is no difference between a stable communist government and radical suicide terrorists? When did Russia ever say they were going to "wipe us off the planet"? Thank God, that was never their stated goal or it would have been done already! They were capable of it because we were capable of it. It was a "cold war" with minimal casualties, not a terrorist war with suicide bombers /pilots on American soil or against American outposts overseas.

"If Iran ever tried to pose a serious threat to us they wouldn't stand a chance?" Was 9/11 a serious threat? Did it take a lot of money? Did they stand a chance? Can he possibly believe his own words?

The naivety of comparing a stable government with terrorist radicals is dangerous to each and every US citizen.

So when the Obama campaign spokesperson argued with Fox News about this quote, insisting that it was never said, he was a bold faced liar. We all know that lawyers and politicians lie, but this is a lie that threatens your life. Its much more dangerous than all of his other campaign promises that he is sure to break. And lying about that is unacceptable.

And then Joe Biden, who should certainly know better said:

Mark my words, a terrible threat will come to America to test Barack's mettle, just like Kennedy was tested with the Cuban Missle Crisis. You may not think Barack's response to it is correct at first but bear with us.

WTF!!! What the Fuck!!! Did he think for two seconds on that?

Is this supposed to be comforting, reassuring? Do we need another Cuban Missle Crisis? Is Barack anywhere near as ready as Kennedy was? Will he be talking to the radical terrorists as we see mushroom clouds in the sky over US soil? Do you think the leader of Iran is as easy to reason with as the leader of Russia? Even today's KGB Putin is a pussycat compared to the leader of Iran.

Why? Because Putin doesn't have a death wish, he isn't looking forward to 72 virgins!

Has someone checked the mental health of Joe Biden lately, a heartbeat from the presidency? All his "gaffes" are cause for great concern. As dumb as Bush is, he hasn't even said anything that stupid.

Is all change good?

There's one thing we can agree on, the Democrats will bring change. But will it be good? Would McCain's mettle be tested this way? Not like that it wouldn't. For all the criticism of Palin, has she said anything that dangerous? NO! As I said I have problems with the Republican's too.

But let's be fair, McCain is no Bush and Obama is no Kennedy!!!

Status: First Draft - Last Updated 10/25/08 12:30 PM

Note: Obama's quote has been carefully reviewed from tape and is verbatim.
I haven't reviewed Biden's quote from tape for accuracy yet, please bear with me if I have a minor misquote in this draft as it pertains to Biden's remarks.

Barack Obama the Spammer

2008-10-19T16:16:00.010-04:00

If you fill out any political surveys make sure you don't use your main email or phone number. Not because the candidates will abuse it, they won't, except for Barack Obama. His support machine is aggressive and relentless. Once they have your info they will harass you constantly without let up. You will get several emails per day, every day. Your info will be spread throughout all the Barack Obama support structure all over the United States. You will receive phone calls, even on Sunday.

Am I being too sensitive? NO!!! I have sent the same communication to other presidential candidates, to my state and federal legislators. Each of them acknowledged my email with one or two emails in a week time span. Only Barack Obama went into full spam mode, from multiple sources. This must be what the Acorn Voter Registration Victims must be experiencing. I guess I almost understand them signing papers just to make them go away. But they don't go away. So I will need to make them go away, using the same forceful tactics they do.

We have a local Barack Obama campaign office, I will visit them to lodge a formal protest of their harassment of me and let you know the outcome. I encourage you to do the same. Stay Tuned.

Well I haven't gone to Barack Obmama's campaign office yet, I need to work up to dealing with his brainwashed koolaid drinkers. In the mean time I added an email filter to deliver his spam unopened to a spam subfolder so it doesn't vie for my attention from email that I'm expecting.

Status: First Draft - Last Updated 10/23/08 8:30 PM

Another Stolen Election

2008-10-19T06:53:00.002-04:00

body

Two wrongs don't make a right

Acorn

Pleading Ignorance

Acorn claims that they can't help it if their workers are corrupt and fraudulently registering phony names. Really!?! Do you buy that bullshit? They aren't responsible - period! And as such they should not be allowed to register voters at all.

Disenfranchising Who?

You!!! In an effort to get lazy people to vote for candidates that they wouldn't bother going out of their way to vote for, so that they weren't disenfranchised from a right they cared little about, who is really being disenfranchised? Our Secretary of State justifies her participation in Acorn's fraud by saying that if she released the suspect ballot list to the counties that suspect ballots would have to "wait in line" longer and may become discouraged.

Well I don't know about you, but I am pretty damned discouraged that my legitimate vote could be undone by a fraudulent vote.

h3

xx

Status: Rough Draft - Last Updated 10/19/08

The Mortgage Mess

2008-10-19T04:20:00.003-04:00

body

They're both guilty...

... So just how are they going to fix something that they broke?

Deregulation

That's the conservative republican view. Big bumbling government will likely do more damage than good. Makes some sense, right? Well there is a big assumption, that the free market is free from greed, fraud, and a bail out.

A chicken in every pot and a house for everyone

If a chicken in every pot is good, isn't a house for everyone better? Well I don't think people should be homeless, but can we just loan out any amount of money with no down payment, with no incentive to pay back? If you weren't sure of the answer before, I think the mortgage crash answered that. Is it fair that hard working people who made a down payment are screwed by this mess? According to the redistribution of wealth theory espoused by liberals - Yes!

Greed

The investment community has moved to full out greed.

Pleading Ignorance

Does anyone believe that billions (even trillions) were invested in complex derivatives that no one understood? Really!?! Sure they didn't bother with the details, they didn't need to! They understood all they needed to, the government (would stand behind Fannie & Freddie) was on the hook. They didn't need to exercise caution, they didn't need to understand the risks, they had a gullible government on the hook.

Before corrupt lawyers assisted by a corrupt judge stole all my money, I was an active trader, I had invested in options, commodities and derivatives. But no one was going to bail me out, so I took the time to understand them. And that day in Oct 87 when the market crashed and I was on the wrong side of a derivative, a naked call on a basket of stocks, an aggressive investment vehicle. I received a margin call for $25,000 to cover my position over and above the securities I had already pledged. But there was no bail out for me, I worked hard for two weeks to unwind my position, I continued my hard work over the next year in a risky, volatile market to make the loses back.

Who to Bail Out?

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Status: Rough Draft - Last Updated 10/19/08

My Political Endorsements

2008-10-19T02:32:00.010-04:00

For those of you who know me, who live nearby, you will know what I mean. For those of you who don't live near me, there is some generally applicable advice. For those of you who aren't sure, email me.

Presidential Race

Both major parties are responsible for our current economic problem and the largest corporate welfare package in history. That alone should encourage you to vote for a third party or a write in. If everyone followed their gut rather than the Media Manipulation, neither party would get even 40% of the vote, this would be enough for them to sit up and take notice.

But if you must vote for one of the two media manipulated choices, consider this.

Do you want to vote for a party that believes two wrongs make a right? That the solution to the mortgage mess is to redirect the bail out to Acorn who had a hand in making the mortgage mess? That the solution to the last stolen election is too stuff the ballot box with illegal votes from Jive Turkey, Mickey Mouse, from dead people and children, from kids taking a break from overseas studies who have crammed in a rented house and are voting here because our Secretary of State supports the rigging of our election?

But more importantly did you know we don't have a democratic or republican candidate? The democratic candidate is a socialist who will break his candy for everyone promises or kill the economy trying to keep them. The republican candidate is a centrist, a party maverick who is disliked by his fellow Republicans for having the courage to descent from the party line. Only recently has he had the greater courage to disavow Bush. This man may not be liberal enough for you, but you will still be living in the USA if he wins, not the USSA (United Socialist States of America).

Do you believe in the distribution of wealth fairy tale? Will you still believe it when you are selected to pay for it, when you hit the glass ceiling of average and the more you work, the more you contribute to those less fortunate than you? And when you see those gaming the system at your expense will your benevolent attitudes survive or be soured? Do you seriously believe that higher corporate taxes won't be passed on to you in higher prices or lost jobs?

Do you believe that government is so efficient that they will solve all problems as their grow to consume all that you have? When this expanding government swallows up the middle class and there is only the elite (many in high government posts) and the poor, which side will you be on? Ready to bet your future on 50/50 odds? They aren't that good, it will be 10% elite, 90% poor.

Chief Probate Judge

My judge, the Honorable [SIC] Judge A.J.R. left his three hour per day working schedule at the Domestic Relations Court for greener pastures. It was getting warm there, as the media attention attracted the notice of the State Supreme Court who quickly determined that our Divorce Court was the worst in the state even when compared to similar large caseloads. Is that any wonder? Three hours a day! No one works an 8 hour day in our Divorce Court, the media investigation proved that by analyzing records from secured judicial parking. But that's just the beginning for the corruption, stay tuned as I make the rest of the story public.

Thanks to a complete monopoly on political power in our local government he easily won the primary with his famous name and is running unopposed in the general election. What can you do? Just don't vote for the crook! Oh but you'll be leaving that office blank and he will get in anyway. Yes, but the alternative is for you to endorse a crook. A person who did so much more damage then just stealing $75,000 ($121,000 x 5/8) per year, he wrecked people's lives, not just mine, lot's of honest hard working tax paying citizens. He allowed lawyers, through his inattention, to steal the life savings of the public who pays his salary and expects him to work an honest day for a generous paycheck.

Leave the selection for Chief Probate Judge blank. If he wins with 10% of the voters, it will send a message to him and to potential competitors that his time is up. Remember he will have much broader power in probate court, he can wreck your life now.

Other Judges

Corrupt Officials

A few months ago local politics were shaken by federal dawn raids on the homes of a county commissioner and the county auditor. Just a few weeks ago we had two more dawn residential raids. There will be more.

There was a much easier way for this to be done, IF the feds had any faith in local law enforcement, but they didn't. Rather than issue a subpoena and risk a corrupt local law enforcement tip off, they did it the hard way. A raid is much less efficient. All potential evidence must be taken to prevent destruction and trucked to a warehouse, inventoried, then reviewed to find the info that could simply be gotten by subpoena.

The calculated risk that the feds predicted that our local government officials were so corrupt that they would destroy evidence because local law enforcement would tip them off is a very serious charge of obstruction of justice, the complete breakdown of their duties to the public. It is not good enough to say that most common criminals would act this way as common criminals are not eligible for elective office. This breach of trust is a crime against the electorate, a crime against the people at large. As such it takes on a special importance, demanding special action by each of us.

But what can you do, its the system? Do you really believe you are that helpless or are you just too damn lazy. Have you sent an email up the line or are do you prefer watching reality TV rather than participating in the reality of life? County officials in the ruling party first asked their own endorsed criminals to resign, they refused, so they appealed to the governor to pressure the county officials to resign. So what can you do? Add your voice to theirs!

Stand up and be heard or shut up and don't complain about the criminals screwing you. (jqism)

Will your email to the corrupt officials, their peers, the ruling party bosses, the governor, and your state legislators single handedly solve the problem? No, there is only one guarantee, that your silence will count you as a co-conspirator who gets the corrupt government that your laziness deserves. You don't even have to leave the comfort of your well worn lazy boy recliner, you can send email or scribble a letter while watching reality TV. I'm watching a very technical science program right now as I write these words on my laptop. I don't need reality TV, I have too much of that in my real life.

County Prosecutor

So why don't the feds trust local law enforcement? What does that mean? The county prosecutor is the head law enforcement of the county. He executes subpoenas against county officials and he acts as their lawyer too. Hmmm, a bit of conflict of interest. But there's more, one of the charges is bid rigging. The county prosecutor legally approved the bid rigging, he was charged with being the check and balance to the corrupt commissioner, he failed, he will be the subject of federal investigation as they process the evidence they have seized.

We are a liberal county (high concentration of poor in the urban metro center) in a conservative state. Our county government, including the judges and prosecutor are democrats. So if you are one of the many liberals in our county are you going to re-elect this co-conspirator along party lines? Or does job performance count more than party affiliation? Can we afford "liberal" law enforcement? My answer is NO! Its time for a new prosecutor who can stand up to corrupt officials.

Bid Rigging

As a person who worked nearly two decades in the public sector and had extensive involvement in bids, including being a whistle blower on a bid rigging attempt by my superior, I know something about the seriousness of this. This is a serious charge that was not applied lightly. It is a difficult charge to prove, so to get reasonable cause there must be some blatantly poor behavior.

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County Commissioner

One of our commissioner's is under Federal Investigation for various charges including bid rigging, he has refused to resign and he is not up for reelection. Only one of the other two commissioner's is up for re-election. Unlike my judge, a suburban mayor has taken the opportunity to run against the unindicted commissioner who's term is up. She is smearing him with the corruption of his fellow commissioner.

My first impression is that they are all dirty, toss them all out. But I have met this man personally, he is an outspoken person on Father's Rights. I think his work in this area, and his not being indicted by the federal investigators (to date) earns him the benefit of the doubt.

Don't vote for his opposition merely because his fellow commissioner is corrupt, vote for her only if you feel that she is qualified to move from a rich outlying suburb up to county government with all its urban problems of the poor. If you think that's a stretch for her, then compare that with the accomplishments of the incumbent. Remember, he is a relative new comer compared to his entrenched colleagues. He has voted against them. If you want to make an assumption of guilt, its his other more entrenched (yet to be indicted) commissioner that is part of the good ole boy network, not him.

Unopposed Candidates

Don't take the easy way out and ignore the races without opposition. You still have a decision to endorse the candidate with your vote or to condemn them by withholding your vote. Don't check off a box unless you know that they are worthy of your vote.

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Status: First Draft - Last Updated 10/19/08 6:40 AM

Politcal Bullshit

2008-10-18T13:37:00.006-04:00

Anyone else saturated with this longest and most irritating season?

I have usually steered clear of pure politics, but its gotten so deep, I'm ready to explode, so I'll throw in my two cents. When I think of it politics plays a big role in this Disastrous Divorce Industry.

How to Vote

We all know how to do this, right? NO, WRONG! We are a nation of arrogant, ignorant, lazy jerks who are hypnotized by TV and what ever it tells us to do. You want to vote for a winner right? You want to vote against a loser, don't you? What the hell ever happened to voting for the best person? When did it become acceptable to voter for the lesser of the evils? Why do you think that voting your true conscience is "throwing your vote away"? Isn't voting for someone you don't believe in the true "throw away"? When there is only one choice, do you just check it, because there isn't any other choice? Don't you have the choice of leaving it blank?

Muzzle the Media

The media is fully engaged in manipulating the elections, just as bad as any third world First they brainwash the suseptable public that you are an arrogant American and you must win, so you must vote for the winner. How will you know? No problem, just listen to the media, they are happy to tell you who to vote for and prevent you from "throwing away your vote" on a loser. Think about that, who is the loser? We all are, by being trapped in a never ending cycle of lies, corruption, and mediocrity.

Sure the early decenters won't win the first election. But they will have voted their conscience and set the ball in motion for others to consider voting their conscience. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. As long as everyone believes the media crap that they only have two choices we are guaranteed to all be losers.

The other disgusting habit is the media's last minute babbling, jockeying for the last word like the last minutes of an ebay auction. If people haven't made up their mind on election day, they should stay home. We don't need the media's last word on election day, telling us who won with 1% of the precincts reporting. There should be a gag order shutting them up at least a day before the election, if not a week, and not saying anything until at least all elections have ended in Hawaii. And even then, do we really need a play by play as if it were a horse race, can't we wait until lets say 50% or even 80% of the vote is in? And since the elections are moving from the polls to the courts its all moot until the court challenges are over.

Another Election Stolen

Liberals will say the election was stolen from Al Gore 8 years ago, they've been moaning and groaning about that for years. So what do they do about that travesty, work very hard to steal it from McCain through Acorn's voter fraud machine. Did no one teach these people that two wrongs don't make a right?

Going to stay up to see who wins? Don't bother, the election will be decided by the court judges that no one voted for or voted for out of ignorance of their record. The election will be decided long after the polls close on Nov 3. And just like 8 years ago, the controversy will not end on inauguration day. Any bets on what tactics the Republican's will use to steal it back again in the next election?

We have no business criticizing others

For decades we've criticized the integrity of other country's election process, most likely with good cause. We've sent delegations of people to observe and critique their processes. When will the third world return the favor and tell us how to properly manage the voting process in a democracy? We are long overdue for it.

My View

How dare I criticize this country, am a communist? No. I love the country that was built 200 years ago, but its gone down hill in the last half century. Why? Because too many people are too busy doing who the hell knows what to give a shit about this country. These quiet lazy ones are the true cause of our downfall, they enable the corrupt power mongers to run over the great principles that founded this once great nation.

Staying silent while corrupt officials manipulate and steal the government from the people is very unpatriotic. To criticize todays governmental travesty and call for the return to the wisdom of the founding fathers is the true mark of patriotism.

Status: First Draft - Last Updated 10/18/08

Alec Baldwin on the View

2008-09-25T01:29:00.007-04:00

Well I missed 20/20, but I TIVOed "ALEC BALDWIN and TALK SHOWS" and got the view. When the program came up, the thumbs down rating showed, but my TIVO program over rode it. Thank God for fast forward, geez, tinkling on toilet seats and jiggling butts for the first 28 minutes. Alec came out and gave the jiggling butt girl money and kissed each woman. So the gals went gaga over Alec, not hostile as I heard Diane Sawyer of 20/20 was.

Alec

They started the chit chat complimenting him on his Emmy. Then they talked about the nasty voicemail that Alec left in frustration for his daughter when he couldn't reach her.

So the meat of the interview started at 35 minute mark.

Alec started talking about PAS. He was careful to not disparage Kim.

He mentioned that he was held to the myth of perfect parenting, situations that wouldn't be of any concern in a normal marriage were exploited as "abuse". He said that PAS makes normal parenting "abusive". If you try to discipline your child by saying "Stop misbehaving or I'll take away video, TV, and cell phone", in a normal marriage, your wife would say "listen to your father", with PAS, its off to court you go as an "abusive" parent.

In the last generation, father's worked and were uninvolved, and mother's parented full time. That's the way they did things. In this generation, especially after a divorce, a father may want to take a more active role in parenting. Alec didn't mention it, but I'd say that as more women entered the workforce, traditional father breadwinner, mother housewife roles changed. Now father's are more active because the mother is no longer a stay at home mom, even while married. Another trend I believe is important, is that the higher divorce rate also contributes to higher father involvement. In the older generation, divorces had a reason, a grounds, so the separation seemed more rigid. Today's "no-fault" divorces seem to make a lot of "involuntarily divorced father's" who really didn't want to leave their children in my opinion and they feel a sense of profound loss in that these outsiders have wrestled the ones they love from them.

Alec advocates for an immediate default of 50/50 parenting unless the Father really doesn't want it. Many court systems give lip service to this, but most still follow the old standard, every other weekend visitation for the newly demoted NCP, former Father, and nearly sole (residential) custody to the mother. If the mother wants to make accusations, then the father's visitation (as mine is) can be limited even further or eliminated all together.

Courts have given lip service to abandoning the "tender years doctrine" which says that only mothers can take care of infants. Aside from breast feeding there wasn't any care my wife gave our son that I didn't, even after working a 14 hour third shift with my 100 mile commute because she was "tired". This was even when my son was sleeping through the nights, so I don't know why my wife was so damn tired, but I'd come home to see her sleeping while my young son was up and wandering the house. Interestingly, Alec took the position that the "tender years doctrine" should be respected because no Father would wrestle away a toddler from his needed maternal connection 50% of the time. Hmmm... Lucky I was around to pick up the slack for my son's tender years. Well my son just turned 9 so that issue has changed. Now, as far as I know, when he wakes up before her, he wanders unsupervised. At least that was the explanation when his reading log showed 45 minutes of morning reading and tardy arrival at school. Yeah that single parenting thing works real good (sarcasm).

Alec stated that there should be an immediate order for co-parenting at the time of filing for divorce. Alec also stated that when PAS arises, then "bang" order therapy to prevent it.

Barbara mentioned that Alec was so distraught by this process that he contemplated suicide and that his book even mentions the ways that he had thought to commit suicide. This agonizing time occurred when the voicemail to his daughter was released. Alec explained that orders were in place, not just a verbal agreement, but orders as a result of a full trial. Alec said at that time Kim violated orders frequently. But enforcement of these orders is "Ala Cart", the victim must pay a lawyer and sue the victimizer to enforce the orders. Alec said the court orders are "not worth the paper they are printed on". I refer to court orders as ass wipe, that's the only useful purpose they could possibly serve.

Alec could have sued Kim over her court order violations, but he didn't. And for his generosity, he was rewarded with the voicemail tape being released to the media. It was then that he realized that this was all about how to abuse him and that he couldn't do anything to reduce the hostility.

Alec didn't blame it all on Kim, "she was in the hands of lawyers" who were hell bent antagonism. Alec said that "Millions were wasted that could have gone to his daughter".

PAS

Its very interesting that the radical feminists oppose PAS because they say it is only to allow abusers to get off. Alec mentions, Father's rights advocates don't want abusers to endanger children, they just don't want women to get away with lying that responsible fathers are abusers when they are not. This is a broad and complex topic I will take up in another post.

Two more Guests

Two more guests joined came out at the 52 minute mark, one was a mother estranged from her child due to PAS, and xx American Coalition of Fathers & Children

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The estranged mother mentioned that her children were turned against her and claimed to be "fearful" of her. Alec echoed that this is the frequent method used, a supposed "fear" of the alienated parent is claimed.

Alec said -- Judges afraid of lawyers, they let them do it. Judges pick a side, can't undo it

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Barbara Walter's asked, "What has this done the children?", and as Alec was going to answer, she promptly told him they were out of time. Too bad, because this is the biggest problem of all, the damage to the children, our next generation. For what? Lazy judges and greedy lawyers?

Status: First Draft - Last Updated 09/29/08 4 am
I will review this program in detail and update this post.

Alec Baldwin's Book

2008-09-22T17:17:00.008-04:00

Alec Baldwin wrote a book titled A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce based on his and three other men's experiences that will be released soon. This post is based on the excerpt released here. In my previous post I was quoting Alec in his ABC interview. Here in this post I am quoting from his book excerpt. Where emphasis is added it is my own, where indented comments appear that too is my response.

Alec's Book

"Because of the scope of the problem this book explores, the issues raised could never be fully articulated through my own case alone. Therefore I have chosen three men to share their own stories and perspectives. All of them have changed their names and the specifics of their identities. One of the subjects is an amalgam of different individuals' stories, including my own."

According to the excerpt the following topics are examined in his book:

Prenuptial agreements
The decision to file for divorce
Divorce strategies and assessments for couples
Selecting an attorney. Is word of mouth all its cracked up to be?
Private mediation versus going to trial.
Observations on judges, forensic accountants, custody evaluations and evaluators, collateral witnesses, child psychologists and other court appointed therapists.
An examination of actual custody/ visitation strategies.
The newly divorced parent's life and the hopeful prayer of constructive co-parenting.
The political influences on current family law. How the political apparatus of lawyers, judges and feminist groups assault fatherhood and impact custody.

Alec mentions that his book covers the range of high to low profile and high to low asset divorces (no doubt because of his three contributors).

Alec's excerpt

I found myself nodding in agreement as I read each paragraph of the first half of the excerpt which discusses his feelings as he beat his head against the stone wall of the system. The second half is his personal story of how they met, married, then things went awry.

Alec describes the intense emotions, the need to vent to anyone who even brings it up, the toll of the intense emotions that finally leave you "spent" and "hollowed out".

This can not be good for a person, their health, their relationships (personal and professional), or their ability to contribute or be productive in society.

He goes on to describe the spent feeling and your thought that you just want to put this behind you.

I had always wondered how this widely spread injustice hasn't resulted in rioting in the streets, and I think Alec has hit on it. The injustice is so traumatic because it involves such basic needs as family, that almost like a post traumatic stress reaction, the victims are unable to fight back. Again, this is just a terrible thing to do to a person, with wide consequences.

"They "wrote off" not only their first marriages, but their children as well. Many went on to remarry. The chance to "make things right" meant starting another family." He went on to say that he could never understand this.

Actually Alec is contradicting himself. He admits that his anguish was so intense he contemplated suicide. I'd have say that is the ultimate "write off".

Before you criticize the people Alec is referring to, consider just how much anguish a person is going through to come to the point of "writing off" those they love or contemplating suicide. Hopefully no one who hasn't been through this can even imagine it.

"The problem lies not only with antagonistic lawyers who perpetuate conflict, but also with the judges who sit idly by and do nothing to rein them in."

Why would anyone in his right mind think the solution to a troubled marriage would be more antagonism? The problem is they have allowed greed to override their mind. The court takes a bad situation and makes it so much worse. But if the judges MANAGED the case and the lawyers tactics the situation could be improved.

Divorce court is as much a solution to a troubled marriage as gas is a solution to a fire. It makes it infinitely worse. (jqism)

"The truth is that we maintain a system in which destroying one's ex-spouse, not effectively resolving conflict, is the order of the day."

The reason for this is a very strong profit motive. This needs to be removed. We can no longer afford to reward bad behavior.

"As all divorce litigants should eventually realize, attacking the other party is not in anyone's interest, especially when children are involved."

How interesting that Alec understands this while Kim abuses it.

"Everyone knows little good ever comes out of our legal system, only varying degrees of bad."

I believe this is true, but I feel even stronger that this is exactly why they are in need of massive changes to bring their actions in line with their forgotten mission.

"I ignored the less than subtle message that tells non-custodial parents, especially fathers, to abandon such hopes and face the realities of this system. Walk away, we're told."

When the system gets too big for its britches it imposes its will on its victims as a demonstration of its power over them, rather than serving its constituents. This is clearly a system out of control, needing to be reeled in and get in touch with its true mission.

"I had a contentious divorce because I wanted a meaningful custody of my daughter."

This is exactly when a contentious divorce does the most damage and not coincidently is the most profitable to the divorce industry.

Status: Rough Draft - Last Updated 09/23/08 3 am

Corrupt, Inefficient, Lazy, Stupid

2008-09-20T15:00:00.023-04:00

Enough to drive you to Suicide...

You may recognize these words if you've read or seen Alec Baldwin recently as he is referring to his divorce from Hell.

Welcome to our club Alec... They don't interview us for national TV. I wish I would have seen it but I had a power failure. In most cases celebrities could escape the mundane crap regular Joe's are subjected too. But since the divorce system is driven by the judiciary and greed, they can't escape either.

Alec's Quotes

Here are some things Alec said and my response...

"I don't care if the judges and the lawyers die of heart attacks in the process of getting their job done."

Not very likely Alec. These jerks live the good life, better than you. You work long hours on set, they work short hours and adjourn to golf. Their job is to pass out shit and take none, and from their side, they have very low stress.

I pick this quote because its probably a common misconception, so many people probably figure if their was a simple solution we'd see it. Well there is a simple solution, but the resistance will be immense.
Hold all divorce industry people accountable to new higher ethics standards without loopholes.
Remove the bar association conflict of interest for judges.
Citizenry should know about a judge or not vote, if a quorum of informed voters relative to total voters can not be obtained, declare the election null.
When only one political party is represented, delay the election to the general election so that all voters can decide, rather than letting the party bosses decide. This is a problem that goes beyond the judiciary in this era of two mediocre unresponsive political parties.
Give the lawyers a taste of their own medicine. When they milk a case, come unprepared, or what ever else, sanction them, then jail them, it won't take long to make major improvements.
Subject lawyers to consumer protection laws rather than the incestuous union (bar association) they belong to.
Rather than triple billing for errors, require a triple rebate as some consumer laws now dictate by law.
Oh but the lawyers won't like this. Too fuckin bad, its for the good of the people, the family structure, the economy, and the innocent child victims. This country was founded by "We the people", not "We the privileged class".

"The judges are like pit bosses in Vegas casinos. Their job is to make sure everybody stays at the table and keeps gambling."

A very interesting analogy, showing the corruption of judges, who aren't interested in solving problems, just keeping lawyers fat and happy so their own bar ratings stay good.

"We all take chances when we get married."

And with this corrupt system where the outcome can ruin your life, one wonders where the future of the institution of marriage that has severed our children well for thousands of years, is headed.

"When I'm with her, I'm happy", said Alec referring to his daughter.

Why is the court so blind to this. A loving parent is happy to be with their child and the child is happy to be with the parent. We were guaranteed the "right to pursue happiness" and the court is constantly interfering. As adults we are more able to cope with this unhappiness, although as an adult we also know that this is inescapable injustice and as such it leads to severe depression. But the innocent child being deprived of access to a loving parent is a serious crime.

And as I advise people, speak up. I did, I let the judge and all the divorce industry representatives present in his chambers, know that the opposition's interference in my custody was child abuse. At that point I was ejected and made to sit in the hall for 10 minutes like a school child caught passing notes. I was called back in where the judge announced that all the guilty parties agreed "No error at law was made". Well la de dah, skip the CYA and call it as it is.

Baldwin Describes 'Parental Alienation Syndrome'

There are groups like NOW that fight fiercely against this in order to maintain the status quo to maintain the upper hand for their members. Interesting that the radical feminist cause trumps the interest of innocent children, even daughters who will grow up to be wounded women by the absence of their Father.

We can only hope Alec makes use of his tremendous wealth to battle the radical and entrenched that are destroying families. This isn't a Father's only issue so it should be resolved for estranged mothers as well.

Corrupt

Today's judiciary is corrupt by design. One of the biggest flaws is management and labor are in the same labor union - the bar association. It is the job of the judge to MANAGE the case, the lawyers and the parties. In a perfect world, a "professional" lawyer would aspire to a set of ethics and conduct and self management. But divorce court will never be confused with "perfect", unless you follow it by "fuckup". When a lawyer is unprepared, opposition counsel can motion for sanctions, they never do. The judge with his almighty god-like power could simply instruct the lawyers or even hold an unprepared lawyer in contempt. That will rarely happen. The judge needs the votes of the bar, the labor union that he is to manage, in order to keep being a judge. Conflict of interest by design.

My judge was well liked by the lawyers. He worked 3 hours per day, and let the lawyers do what ever they wanted, he let them milk the case for all they could get. And when he finally got close to getting in trouble for not managing his case load, he threatened me. How can he threaten me, I vote him in after he gets the bar association backing. But I don't count, because I'm in the minority, he will get re-elected without my vote. Half the people are not there long enough or are not observant enough to catch up to his games. Eighty percent of the voters don't even know who he is and they'll re-elect him because he belongs to an exclusive club, he has brand/name recognition, he belongs to our local political dynasty, guaranteed employment for life unless he really screws up badly.

Inefficient

The divorce court is the most inefficient way of dealing with a troubled marriage. The word doesn't even begin to describe it. Inefficiency is encouraged in the divorce system and goes well with laziness. The use of computers and the method of handling financial issues shows this clearly.

As a computer professional I am truly appalled at their lack of skill. I mention this in a recent post on my Popular Technology Blog. The computer masks their inefficiency with neat laser crisp output, but behind the scenes you see them using yellow pads and long hand math, just as they did in the movie Apollo 13 in 1969, nearly half a century ago. They say the wheels of justice move slow, sometimes I wonder if you can call that moving at all.

If you are lucky they may outsource financial issues, but more likely that will occur only for pension issues that have particular legal issues. Actually you should demand they be separated and sent to a CDFP, a CPA specializing in divorce financial issues. Why? First even this level of CPA is cheaper than any lawyer, second, he knows what he's doing, and third he's not a math moron who could care less like your lawyer is. Oh your finances are simple, lets take this simple problem, 5 components of a house valuation need to add up to the total value of the house. Sound simple for a college graduate? Should be, my 9 year old son can do it. Well that's a sucker bet becuase we're talking about shyster lawyers who don't care. Yes, my lawyer made multiple mistakes of over $10,000 because he left his laptop on his spotless desk with his wonderfully distracting penthouse view. Some scribbling on a yellow pad didn't get transferred to Excel and wha lah, crisp clean computer output with errors.

Another favorite financial tactic favored by math moron lawyers is commingling of disparate funds. This would no doubt make any auditor, CPA, or financially trained person loose their lunch. There is a reason that you can't commingle the values of a house (illiquid), savings (liquid), investments (commissions), pensions (should be, but are not protected, tax consequences). If you want to take your chances that they will err in your favor, consider Vegas, your odds are better, otherwise consider a CDFP.

But that's OK, because my lawyer billed for screwing up, billed for the argument that it took for me to convince him that he really couldn't add 5 numbers and that he and not Excel made the error, and then I had to pay for him to correct it. Where else can you triple your income by being a fuckup? (jqism) Powerful incentive to be inefficient and lazy. Dumb? No I don't think so.

Lazy

There are huge incentives to be lazy. If a judge were to actually manage his cases and the lawyers, they would become bothered and withdraw their valuable bar rating causing him to loose his job. So for the judge to be popular, he lets the lawyers run wild, its easy. The lawyer's don't care about the specifics of your case, they have a worn out cookie cutter they will use, its easy and they still get paid. And sometimes even the divorcing parties are lazy, failing to manage these lawyer consultants on their payroll. Lawyer's make that difficult.

Stupid

Now I have a disagreement here. I'll admit that they act stupid, but I don't believe they are truly stupid. They're stupid like a fox. They pretend to be stupid when it suits their purpose. They appear stupid because they don't give a shit. They get paid no matter what, so they don't care to do things right. A contingency lawyer or corporate lawyer get paid for results, divorce lawyers get paid no matter what.

Don't give a shit

Back in the 60s it was the summer of peace and love, now in the 21st century we live in a time where no one gives a shit about anything. My judge has a cushy job for life, only works 3 hours a day and gets paid over $100,000 a year. He gets paid whether or not he's working, no matter how many lives he ruins by his inattention. He even steals money from kids to pay lawyers. And still he gets paid, after all he is the closet to having God like power on Earth. Why? Because many uninformed voters who could give a shit about who the judges are, vote for the local brand name, members of several political dynasty families. We left the land of royalty two centuries ago because we believed that the people not blood lines should rule. How ironic that we forgot why the hell we came here and are voting for blood lines. God save the queen, why don't we bring her over here to rule, then we wouldn't have to be bothered voting.

Suicide

Alec Baldwin said he prayed his life would end. He seriously contemplated suicide and the only thing that stopped him is his concern for his daughter loosing her father. What anguish. Those of us in it know the feeling. We wrestle with it. We wonder how much more we can take before we explode, before we run to escape the heavy hand of the judiciary gone wild. NCP Father's have one of the highest suicide rates around. I understand it well, and this blog is like the tip of the iceberg, you are seeing maybe 10% of the anguish I have experienced. At over 300 posts, I easily have 3000 more I could write. And even then, these are just words, their is no way to fully describe the terrible feelings that you experience.

It's all about money

No surprise here, the root of the evil in the divorce system is money. Ultimately they are stealing from the children which is truly evil. Even the guardian's who are paid to protect the children's interest are not immune from the greedy feeding frenzy. The system is designed to suck you clean of all your money. And by that I mean all of it. What you have, what you saved, your pension, social security, retirement accounts, even the home you live in.

There is a whole industry of lawyers, social workers, psychological testing, custody evaluators, parenting monitor and classes, every one with their greedy little hands scooping money out of your child's piggy bank like a starving glutton.

If you want a nice visual on this, watch Intolerable Cruelty where George Clooney has nightmares about becoming his boss, a man barely alive but still obsessed with billable hours. I have to warn you, it will either make you laugh or cry, there isn't much in between. If it makes you laugh its because it hits the mark. If it makes you cry its because your judiciary inflicted wounds are still to fresh.

If you have no children, well they're still stealing. If you have no money, they'll find some you didn't know you had. If you are living in a box under a bridge, then they just won't take your case.

Change is avoided

In today's brave new world order of globalization and short term profit motives, we as people are expected to be infitately flexible, innovative, and adaptable, as if we were made of liquid rather than thin flesh and brittle bone. But the justice system is immune to the world around it, creeping at its petty pace, loosing races with snails as it steadfastly avoids change in every aspect of the justice system.

Many people are college educated, nearly everyone is literate. Why does the court require we pay our entire life saving to someone who used to represent the uneducated and illiterate? And they do this despite evidence that shows that a party is in fact representing themselves better than a lawyer. What? Do I blaspheme? Am I arrogant? Nope, I give a shit about the outcome and the lawyers don't. For me this is about my life savings and my own flesh and blood, for them I am just a billing code that is another step toward full partner. That my friends is an advantage that can not be underestimated.

If you want anything done better than half ass, you've got to give a shit. Pun Intended. (jqism)

Here's the routine, your lawyer goes behind closed doors and bullshits with various court employees, flirting with cute ones, socializing, on your dime, while you are expected to sit in the hall like an statue or an asshole quietly staring ahead at the wall symbolizing your respect for the "honorable" court. Day after day, losing work and pay. Forty five days for me. All in the off chance that someone may need you to answer a question, which they rarely do, especially with lax case management. If you protest this old bad habit, you are threatened with contempt and a bench warrant for your arrest, at your work place which will earn you some points with your employer. In this day and age of cell phones etc, is there a reason for this other than "tradition".

Economic Devastation

The economic devastation done to both parents, the children, and the wide ripple effect hitting their creditors as they can't meet their bills, while parasite lawyers feed on their misery is nothing short of legalized thievery.

Family Devastation

An unrepairable marriage is a shame. But the court system takes repairable marriages, ups the antagonism, plays on emotions, lies to obtain cooperation of their clients into this financial and family structure suicide.

Conclusion

So I'm glad ABC News decided to run a story on this underbelly of our government. But will anything move forward? Or will people just shake their heads and be happy that it didn't happen to them, happy not giving a shit?

For all of you in that category, consider this, there for the grace of God go you... You've been lucky, I was too, for quite some time, but when you're luck runs out and you are dragged into court, get ready for the most stomach churning ride of your life. You will be lucky to get out alive, but you won't think so, you won't have a shred of dignity, money, or hope, that will be squeezed out of you like blood from a rock.

And worst of all you will be demoted from Father to NCP. As a Father you take so much for granted, as an NCP, you will need to fight for every inch on the miles of rights you used to have.

BTW, I have "shared" custody in name only. But when I read the 91 pages of divorce decree I had all the restrictions of an NCP and then some. When I noticed this they said well that's so you have a "path to normalcy". So they can milk me for each attempt to remove an NCP limitation for the next decade. A piece of shit by any other name is still a piece of shit, cover it in sugar and you won't be fooled. This call it one thing to make it more palatable is frequently used, just as passing out final decrees that are far from over.

Status: Final Draft - Last Updated 09/22/08 5:50 PM
Post has been split, this post only deals with the Interview Press Release
The next one will deal with the Book Excerpt
And the third will deal with the reaction, as reported by others.

Deadbeat Propaganda

2008-09-15T13:00:00.000-04:00

While reading another blogger's post about the "Deadbeat Witchhunt", it got me thinking of what a paradox that is. What makes it a paradox is how inconsistent it is. There are times when the enforcement agency takes action in a month, and there are times when they refuse to take action in a decade. WTF! How could that be?

Well there are two reasons I can think of, one I think is an absolute and one is controversial.

The absolute reason is caring, plain old giving a shit. You see, when they, or you, don't give a shit, I mean really enough to get up, stand up, speak up, or do something about something, well that makes all the difference. This whole deadbeat thing is all about the government AND the people, not giving a shit. And that's the important thing, both don't give a shit. If people gave a shit, they could force the government to act appropriately. But they don't give a shit, not yet, not until it affects them personally, but then it will be too late.

Ask yourself, do you care? If someone uses the word "deadbeat", do you correct them, do you even know how the word is misused? If, not, try clicking here. What will it take to make you care? Maybe a personal experience, with a close friend, or even a new spouse? So lets say it gets personal, you know someone who is labeled a deadbeat. What will happen?

They get assets seized
They loose any claim to government money, tax refunds etc.
They loose their passport and travel privileges. When they travel they will be treated like an 9/11 terrorist. Crack mules have more rights.
They loose their driver's and professional licenses -
Which leads to them loosing their job
Making it impossible to pay, because loosing your job doesn't affect you still owing support
Then they will be arrested and thrown in jail
Where their debt will continue to grow

And all this to pay for the mistake of getting married in the first place to a cold hearted bitch who takes advantage of the system. Will all this take years? No, more like months. Will there be due process. HELL NO! You will see our judiciary at its worst.

And you will only have your own apathy and inaction to blame. I'm sure you have your own problems and issues. I'm sure you have plenty of excuses. But when it gets personal and close to you, will any of that matter? No, you will wake up and scream about the injustices to you, but who will listen?

With all the injustice in the world, what can you do? First, don't remain silent. When you hear ignorant people or media say something stupid, correct them. That's not hard at all, if you give a shit. Next, be informed, participate in government. But where will you find time to give a shit, to stay informed? Spend a little less time with reality TV and a little more time with the reality of our government going awry due to the neglect of its citizenry.

Freedom isn't free, it requires the active participation of the citizenry in the operation of the government. (jqism)

The government is apathetic too. The enforcement agency's lay blame on each other through their hierarchy - federal, state, and county. The divorce lawyers actually agree that the enforcement agencies are incompetent and when they complain to the judge, he agrees too. But do any of these government entities do anything about it? Do they have the courage to stand up and do something about it as they are obligated to do by their public salary? Hell NO!!!

And the government's apathy, what of it? Is it just apathy or is it more sinister? The divorce industry and its governmental support has an improper compensation model. Their incompetence is rewarded, they have a negative incentive to do the right thing. Rather than get paid for positive results, they are paid regardless of results, so they take the easy way out because they are not held accountable. Its actually even worse, in many cases they are rewarded for incompetence. We all know lawyers are paid more when they screw up then when they do things correctly, efficiently, and quickly. They are paid for their errors too.

When someone is labeled a deadbeat, federal funding to the support agency is increased, regardless of whether it is true or not. So when you try to defend yourself, you are literally taking money out of their budget, maybe even their own pocket. That's a powerful negative incentive to not correct injustice, federally funded to boot.

But why does this agency not pursue the terrible deadbeat cases we've all heard of. Wouldn't pursuing everyone make them even more money? Well the money supply isn't endless. If they got a real live decade deadbeat to pay up, or even start paying for the second decade what would happen? Well these ignored decade deadbeats serve an important propaganda purpose. They serve to inflate passion, among the legislature, budget decisions, and the general public. By pointing to these worst cases, they can keep the deadbeat lie alive. Just like the lawyers, the enforcement agencies are rewarded for their mistakes.

The agencies would rather hound an honest dad and label him a deadbeat than go after someone who is resistant and dishonest. Why? Its easier! And no one is questioning them, no one is holding them accountable. We live in the computer age, and the enforcement agency has hooks into everything, new employment, tax payments, nearly all government information. But they still don't enforce child support. In fact a mother can even give them all the info they need, address, phone number, job, and they still don't follow up. They just don't want to, and they don't have to either. There is no penalty for letting a decade deadbeat go, there is only the PR reward. The government doesn't have enough money to compensate them for the decade deadbeat and the enforcement agency can get the same money going after an honest dad if he's one day late or if their own records are wrong.

The problem is so bad that real deadbeat victims have given up hope. There was the commenter I responded to recently, and I know two people personally who haven't seen any support money. And they all seem to have this, "well that's the way it is" feeling. Why? It isn't that way for everyone, why for you? Speak up or shut up!

So is my blogger friend correct, will we have "Deadbeat Witchhunt" ?

Its all up to you, will you speak up, will you encourage proper compensation models? Don't look at me; our county commissioners, state and county agency directors, and courts have all seen their fill of me. Show them I'm not some crackpot activist. Prove them wrong, that people do care, and that their jobs depends on them doing the right thing. Don't just register to vote, be informed, and make your voice heard. Take back the government that has always been rightly ours in the first place.

The dynasty took a hit

2008-09-14T01:00:00.002-04:00

Somewhere I mentioned that my judge was part of a local political dynasty with a well recognized name. There are over a dozen political officeholders in this county with that famous last name. In fact one woman who had gone by her maiden name professionally actually changed her name to her married name while in the process of divorcing her famously named husband just in time to launch an election. How screwed up is that?

Never underestimate the power of name and brand recognition in this age of sound bytes, when no one has time to hear any more than the 5 seconds the media has decided to push at us repeatedly in surround sound. (jqism)

After our local media exposed the corruption in our Divorce Court, they moved on to other county agencies and guess what, they found more corruption. So media exposure has the State Supreme Court investigating the county Divorce Court, while the FBI and IRS led surprise dawn raids on county officials without involving local law enforcement (they're next, word is the county prosecutor is on borrowed time).

And what else did the media notice... LMAO... Well two of the worst offenders had the same last name, they're brothers, one was my judge.

Well did the public read the paper that day? Did they figure that out for themselves? Has the brand been damaged? One can only hope that the good name is tarnished, that the dynasty crumbles and that people properly associate the word "CORRUPTION" to that name. We will have to wait until November to see.

In the mean time how have these people under investigation reacted to being caught and under the bright light of the media headline story? Have they done the honorable thing and resigned in disgrace, as President Nixon did? Hell no, those morals are of a bygone era. Not only do they remain in office, but they are resisting calls from the local party bosses and even the State Governor calling for their resignation.

And my judge in particular, slippery devil that he is, he ran against a relative unknown in the primary for a different branch of the judiciary and beat them before his name could be fully tarnished. Did the media hold off on their expose? Well in this county our judges are heavily Democratic and no Republican opponents. The Republican party bosses were caught napping, they didn't have a candidate ready to challenge him, so he will run unopposed in November and get his promotion to another branch of the judiciary where he can continue to work his 3 hour days for over $120,000 per year.

Where in the Constitution do we abdicate our control over government to party bosses? What is their purpose? Where does their power originate from?

In the end how big a hit will the dynasty name and brand take? Are we just so tired of hearing about corruption that we've all stuck our heads up our asses and so we don't have to hear it anymore?

I for one, will not conform, I don't care what the polls say, or how big a majority of the public prefers to wear their ass hats, I will call them as I see them, with clear vision, unimpeded by the ass hat style.

Ruining Reputations

2008-09-12T03:33:00.002-04:00

A parental rights blog I read regularly mentioned that their namesake was going to be confused with them and their "outspoken" reputation.

As if being "outspoken" is a federal offense. Oh I probably shouldn't say that, maybe it will become one.

There are a lot of people, even in my town, that share my name, only one is related, my father.

I hadn't given it much thought but I've impugned them too, since around the court house I'm known as being a "poor litigant with a poor a attitude relating to the court".

Pointing out that I was there to prove I was a good father not a good "litigant" garnered no understanding. I even stated that I had no desire to be a litigant and did not understand how playing the "litigant" games related to my parenting skills. Unfortunately they assumed my literal question was simply rhetorical.

How arrogant of the court to think that I should treat them as well as I treat my own son who I love. What has the court done to earn my love? NOTHING! In fact, their corruption and ineptitude have earned my contempt.

Some "fun" with the ex...

2008-09-05T03:43:00.006-04:00

Two months ago my ex was talking to me about the issues of of some fall out litigation a year after our final decree, how can this be??? She has an interesting personality, she can compartmentalize like Clinton, be in a state of denial, and seem to be in her own virtual world. I was rather agitated by this case and she wanted to cut the conversation short because it only affected me, never mind that her divorce and hired bitch lawyer caused this shit for me. I mentioned the interference of the divorce court and she blurted out that was over a year ago, that's over, well that really pissed me off.

I spent most of my career as a member of the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) instead of Social Security (SS), but it works the same way. The divorce settlement says she gets a portion of my PERS retirement income starting when I retire until the day I die.

Isn't that wonderful, its proof that Marriage is only Temporary, Only Divorce is until Death Do You Part (jqism). Fucked up isn't it! But true.

I suppose I am a nonconformist, I see things differently, I think for myself and don't need or want media propaganda to tell me what I should think or accept as "normal". The difference between the nonconformists and the general population is we see the truth that others miss (jqism).

Well just two days earlier, over one year after the final decree, she brought over the PERS DOPO (Division of Property Order) for me to sign.

So I said, really, REALLY !! Well then I have a pile of unneeded asswipe on my desk that I no longer need. Since this DOPO contains confidential information I will have to shred it. I walked over to my desk picked up some blank paper and put it in my shredder. She must have been silent for a full minute.

LMAO at the BITCH !!!!

You have to find humor in this tragedy or it will drive you crazy. (jqism)

Never Ending Litigation

2008-09-05T03:14:00.006-04:00

Last May 2007, I spent one month full time to finally bring my divorce case to a close in its 3rd year. I did this for several reasons...

Pressure was on the judge because the case had gone on too long, and that pressure was passed on to me the presumptive loser. No such pressure was put on my ex.
The judge demanded only my appearance on multiple days to increase the pressure on me.
The judge was clear that he would increase pressure on me, in fact he intimidated, threatened, and extorted me in chambers. More on this in another post.
This was not lost on opposing counsel who took advantage of the judge's bias to add more last minute demands (to items already heard) in the settlement while not responding to issues that I raised that were not heard.
Much was left undone, to my determent, in fact there is still much undone 15 months later.
Seeing the judge's bias, I had limited time while he was out of town to have the case heard by his magistrate.

But its still not over !! How can that be, I have a final decree? When I'm talking to women I need to explain this carefully so they don't think I'm some married playa creep. LOL...

The answer is simple, the judges lie for their own benefit. Our county divorce judges fall under the control of our State Supreme Court that has guidelines on how a judge should manage his caseload. If cases aren't "disposed of" within these guidelines (one year no children, two years with children) the judge comes under their scrutiny and no one wants to be under someone else's scrutiny. So I have a final decree that says I could legally get married (oh yeah, sign me up for doing that again...). But careful inspection of court documents will show some are missing, and some issues were completely ignored causing other litigation to be filed.

A divorce consists of a group of court orders...

Final decree
Parenting Plan
Division of Property
Pension Issues QDRO and DOPO
Seizure of Assets (for legal fees)
Cancellation of Temporary Orders (contingent upon seizures)
Future Actions to be taken

Depending on local court rules these may be merged or separate orders.

xxx

Status: Rough Draft - Last Updated 09/12/08 5 am

Some Updates

2008-09-01T13:38:00.008-04:00

Updates to this blog were a bit infrequent lately as I battled some busybodies who thought it was a good idea to attempt to interfere in my case and release my IRL identity along with those of parties to the case. While this was occurring I was preoccupied with removing that information which violates my privacy, my copyright, and my terms of use as is clearly spelled out in my legal notice.

Now that I have prevailed in that disagreement, I can get back to regular updates of this blog as well as my other blogs. You will notice I added a humor blog which is drawn on from my spamming relative (we all have one), I simply repost the best of what his emails minus chain letters or really lame jokes. Its important to maintain some sense of humor, this crap can drive you nuts if you don't (and I am serious about that).

I am adding more posts to my popular technology blog, lately I have been talking about photo hosting and I will be adding some blogger tips too. My most recent topic is how people really haven't embraced PC technology 25 years after its introduction. This became painfully obvious in seeing just how poorly my own lawyer used a computer.

If I really get ambitious, I will start posting to my Mainframe Adventures Blog. It will be aimed at describing how the top end technology works for the general public. I have at least one fellow mainframer as a regular reader and this won't be written for mainframers, it will be to introduce the fascinating capabilities of this technology to the public.

I have added some new blogger features to the sidebars of my personal blog, JQsLife, and to the humor blog. I will probably post about these features in my Popular Technology Blog.

As a reminder, I use the HTML title feature to give you a hint when you hover over terms that might not be common knowledge. In this post you will see IRL, BIC, and NCP underlined and in a special color, when you click nothing happens, but if you hover over it you will see an explanation. I will write a post in my popular technology blog explaining this technique. You can also click here to see a glossary of terms that are used on this blog.

I don't post a large list of divorce resources, I pick just a few that I find extremely compressive. Today, thanks to one of the blogs I follow I am adding Fathers Rights And Men Ending Discrimination (F.R.A.M.E.D.) to the list of extremely useful sites that I personally read. Each of the sites in my list have their own extensive list and you can no doubt pick your own favorites from their lists.

And just so everyone understands, let me qoute the author:

" FRAMED is not just about Father's, it's also about Children, Mothers, and Families. Right now the majority of Father's are at a disadvantage compared to mothers when it comes to parental rights.......these parental rights need to be equal between both fit Mother's and Father's! For the sake of our Children! "

In the name of BIC the courts decide who the winning parent is, which guarantee's a loss for the child. The court is ass backwards, to meet the best interest of the child, start with the child's interest. The child needs emotional parental support every bit as much as monetary child support. But there is no money for the family destruction (divorce) industry for a simple solution, the simple solution is the child should have equal access to the parents, unhindered by the divorce industry.

Rather than waste time, money, and resources picking a winner (residential) and loser (NCP) parent, the court should simply admonish the parents to cooperate to meet the child's needs and sentence the uncooperative alienating parent to mandatory psychiatric counseling until they comply. (jqism)

Ignorant "deadbeat" attacks

2008-08-24T02:45:00.005-04:00

The media article I mention earlier was first jumped on by parent's rights groups who personally experience the devastation of the divorce industry. But it was only a matter of time before bleeding heart ignorants would jump on the bandwagon and weigh in with their uninformed views.

The word "deadbeat" as it applies to child support should be stricken from the language until the divorce industry who are the true deadbeats can get their shit together and make the word mean something. The word is applied to all fathers regardless of whether they are registered with the support agency and regardless of whether they truly owe any child support.

How could that be, it doesn't make sense! Now you are catching on.

You probably assume there is some competence in the divorce industry, that's the first mistake. The enforcement agency makes so many mistakes including simple arithmetic that their entire appeals process focuses only on arithmetic errors and is four months backlogged. WTF??? I shit you not!!!

Do a search on the deadbeat label just to see the screwups they've done to me. That's not even a complete list. Feel free to add your own in comments here.

So I whipped off another editorial reply to the uninformed as follows:

Bringing people to church to harass them about child support is not the answer for any town... Stop judges from bypassing CSEA (child support enforcement agency), disbar every single judge and divorce lawyer who does not understand and follow CSEA rules (that would be almost all of them). Stop judges from seizing child support funds and reallocating them to legal fees. My judge reallocated $10,000 held by CSEA to lawyer fees then CSEA labeled me a deadbeat for the judge's decision to steal from my child.

My question to this media station is why don't you dare report the real facts, are you too afraid of the political powers in this town? Sure you are, everyone is!

But the real problem with CSEA is all they do is brow beat those who are registered with them. The real deadbeats fly under their radar and they are never bothered for a penny, while CSEA squeezes the last dime out of honest fathers. CSEA is too lazy to track them down. I know of people who haven't seen a dime for a decade, but that's because CSEA won't bother to enforce against someone who simply ignores them, even when they know where they live.

So for those who would comment [to this media report], try some research in what is really going on, rather than trite generalizations. Spend a day at the court house talking to those sitting in the hallway [like assholes] while the judges and lawyers plunder what little they have. The judicial theft from children far exceeds anything that disagreeing parents would cheat them out of, the real deadbeats have jobs in the courthouse. They work 3 hours a day for over $100,000, they charge over $250 / hour to argue endlessly over trivia with the absent judge's blessing.

So save your uninformed opinions and investigate the facts.

Its not a contest

2008-08-23T01:03:00.008-04:00

I am sometimes misunderstood. I write about the terrible experiences I have had in Domestic Relations Court, but I am under no delusions that I have had the worst experiences.

Quite the contrary, I know there are many more that have it worse than I, and I have great sympathy for them and hope they will share their advice as I share mine.

But not having the worst story, does not make my story superfluous, its not a contest, its what I know, its what I can write about passionately and answer for personally.

Another issue is gender. I am an NCP father, and much of the problem is directed at father's and I use that as an example many times. But I have learned during this blog that there are indeed many female victims of the system. So I hope everyone can translate what I write to be gender neutral. I understand and fully recognize that female victims exist and their plight is equally bad and unjust.

Someone posted a comment to this post on their terrible experience, rather than simply responding to them by comment, I will post their entire comment here with some of my thoughts.

Hey, you think you were robbed?

Well yes I do, and I see you were too. The problem is too many people are robbed.

I did not even get child support for my son for 7 years,

Well that's one of the biggest problems, there are fathers going homeless paying child support to a mother who doesn't need it and there are other fathers with more than sufficient means not paying a dime. Kind of like our tax system.

most of which time I was unemployed due to the break down in our economy, loss of my main career (I had been a cop, but my son's father carefully crafted my demise there), and very little experience in any other type of work.

And that's another major problem, the divorce process can cripple someone's career in a variety of ways.

My average income during those 7 years was $15,000/ yr., and I had a second son to support, so I was supporting 3 people on $15K in the SF Bay Area. you do the math.

Well that's not much to live on in the first place and in the SF area that is a much larger problem with its higher cost of living.

The father meanwhile was earning 6 figures as a cop, and another $645,000 in business income from his P.I. business. We were denied our rights to the child support because the judge said I decided to not take it from him anymore????? and had signed away my rights. sorry, but in CA, I had no rights to that money, or the ability to "sign it away".

I have been amazed at the arbitrary nature, callous disregard, and apparent ignorance judges seem to display for the law they are charged with interpreting. When a judge became upset with a point I raised he threatened to arbitrarily double my child support to exceed my mortgage.

Under the Family Code, child support is the child's money and no one can deny that money to the child. It took 7, count them, seven years of litigation to finally re-instate the child support, but the judge denied any retroactive pay, and just ran the support from current day forward, at that point my son was 14!! I had finally re-trained myself in another legal field, as a paralegal, and was making decent money, so our monthly check was rather small.

Judges have an affinity for the status quo. Personally I think it is subconscious arrogance in not wanting to admit that they or another judge or lawyer may have been wrong. The idea of "temporary order" is a misnomer. Any order, once made, is likely to remain in effect no matter how ludicrous or obviously mistaken it may be.

When I finally hit a point where I could no longer work due to my cumulative injuries from being a police officer, I was approved for SSI, a measly check of $610 a month. My child support was reduced by half of what it had been, $1200, and my son got a measly $600 for the next 3 years from a father who never saw him once, and now made over $1,000,000 in personal and business income.

xx

My son should have been getting at least $2000 a month for all the years he was alive, and we got less than 1% of his father's income when state guidelines calls for it to be 25%. I paid for his braces, a $5,200 expense, all on my own, and was never reimbursed the %50 as per the law and our court order. I paid for all his glasses and basically all his medical care on my own. Again, never got the 50% reimbursement.

xx

And now who is paying for his college? Me! We will never see another penny from that father, not a dime, as the child support is cut off effective the day my son my son graduates from high school, June 14th.

xx

You like to bitch, I can see that,

Well if you want to call it that, but as I see it too many people are being too quiet about this bullshit, there should be more bitching, until this problem receives the attention it deserves.

but fathers are not the only ones who get robbed.

As I mention above, I don't always say it, but I do know it. It makes no difference what gender is robbed, it is bad. I just don't like to use dual he/she father/mother language. Sometimes I use gender neutral language like NCP.

Most of your problems are the opposite of mine as I am falsely labeled a deadbeat and you are the victim of a real deadbeat. I have heard some stories like this but can't write about them authoritatively. I encourage those, like yourself, who can to do that.

Our very different examples only go to prove one thing, the whole damn system is screwed up and it needs a major overhaul, no band aid will fix this hemorrhage of injustice (jqism).

Status: First Draft - Response being updated - Last Updated 08/23/08 2:30 AM

Deadbeats go to church to turn themselves in

2008-08-22T23:45:00.004-04:00

I saw an article that just raised my ire... I had to comment on it. The article was about allowing child support "deadbeats" to turn themselves in at a church. If you've read this blog for any length of time you will realize that the process of naming "deadbeats" is very flawed. My editorial response follows...

How ironic that the church, historically a sanctuary for the falsely accused is being used to lure people in for prosecution. And the benefit to the person turning themselves in would be what? They won't be shot on sight, arrested in front of their children or at work? Wow what a great deal!

What a dysfunctional system! I've had judges allow raiding child support accounts twice when lawyers wanted it for their own fees, to the tune of well over $10,000 that judges ordered stolen from my child, and then label me a deadbeat because of the judges' orders, the same judge who works 3 hours a day while earning over $100,000, the same judge who will win a promotion to probate court unopposed because of his famous last name.

And you have the guts to call me a deadbeat? The domestic relations court, the judges who are in bed with the lawyers, the lawyers, the guardians, the custody evaluators who allow themselves to be intimidated against the father's parental rights, the whole damn corrupt system are the real deadbeats. They should be the ones turning themselves in for crimes against the people and against the family structure all in the name of personal greed.

The enforcement agency who can't even tell you how much you owe, who constantly finger points between county and state for their variety of screw-ups, who only take one day to trigger an automatic enforcement action, but over four months to schedule a hearing appeal and then deny you due process with all kinds of restrictions on how you can appeal their erroneous decisions is an agency that lives off the misery of the Non Custodial Parent (NCP) like a parasite, worse than any blood sucking leech.

And to the news media, is this the best you can do in your reporting? Don't you see the travesty, destruction and stink of corruption right under your noses? Are you so blind? Or do you, like the whole dysfunctional family destruction industry, just not give a damn either?

History will judge this era of family destruction very harshly, but then it will be way too late to close Pandora's box, all the destruction will have occurred marring our nation for generations. But I'm sure there is more important crap on the news or the front page, right? No, I don't think there is anything more important than the destruction of the family.

But who the hell am I, I used to be a Dad, I fought for over three years to stay one, but the court picks a winner and a loser, and I am the loser, I am the NCP. But there is one automatic loser, one that occurs in every single court decision, and that is the child, for they are no longer allowed to have two parents, only a "single" parent and a visiting NCP.

For thousands of years everyone knew it took two parents to raise a child, now in the 21st century we are destroying something that worked for millennia. So we can enrich the family court industry on the backs of the citizenry. That is not the government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" our nation was founded on over 200 years ago. The time is long overdue for a revolution to return the control of government to the people where it belongs.

Happy July 4th, 1776

2008-07-04T22:00:00.007-04:00

2008 is another story

Don't get me wrong, read this with an open and critical mind. I have always been patriotic, conservative, without any leftist leanings. But most of that was based on the history I learned at school and no personal experience with the government engine.

Now at an older age and a very personally devastating view of the bowels of the judicial system I am very disillusioned with the propaganda taught to me in school. In the spirit of our founding father's I have some constructive criticism of our government gone awry. And that is far more patriotic than those who sit by and watch our country go down the tubes while waving a flag and singing a patriotic song. It takes far more than fluff to stand up for our once great country.

I DO believe our founding father's built a very superior government.
I DON'T believe we are living up to its ideals today.

So what happened? Well do you recall the famous line, "A government of the people, for the people, by the people". A three legged stool with all the legs broke. By the people, what people, our government is by the special interest, to hell with the average Joe because people don't participate. They are too busy with daily bullshit, TV, reality shows and the real reality of our government gone astray never gets noticed. Our fore father's envisioned government as a participatory not a spectator sport. our citizenry has abdicated their very critical responsibility.

Two Party System

Let me be clear from the start, I think our 2 party system is failing us. Today's debate is between dumb and dumber. Both these parties need to be disbanded and replaced by parties that truly serve the people. I don't mean communism or socialism, I mean parties that truly serve the people, not special interests. As Ralph Nader said, in the history of the US, all great movements forward were initiated by a third party and that isn't possible today.

For the sake of argument, lets say you were a staunch Republican. Was Bush the best Republican for the job? There weren't any better Republicans in the entire country? NO!!! Even Jebb Bush governor of Florida would have made a better president. So why did we get the dumber one? Back Room Party Politics, that's why. Deal makers out of the public eye.

Voting

A basic way we participate in our democracy is by voting. But how many people vote? A minority! And how informed are they and by who? There is lots of coverage about the main executives (Mayor, Governor, President), less so on the legislative, and hardly anything on the Judicial Branch.

We have a free press but how open is the main stream press. Kind of like the same crap in surround sound. Who does the tough stuff, the investigation, the exposes. Far less of that and most people look at it with a suspicious eye, they don't want to hear it.

Political Dynasties

Kennedy, Bush, Clinton
Local dynasties... in our town we have several families

One family name beginning in R had the honor of full page coverage twice in the last few months. One was my judge, criticized for working only 3 hours a day and having the worst record the state. The other is my judges brother, the county auditor who has over 90 political connections on various government payrolls. The FBI and IRS recently raided his residence along with another top ranking county commissioner without notifying local law enforcement. Last year we had a judge who went by her maiden name, decide to change to her married name while in the process of divorcing the famous last name. She had a terrible judicial record and almost won but for the heavy publicity on her name change before election stunt.

How did she get (almost) elected? Her famous last name! How must the qualified opponent feel to have almost lost because her name wasn't part of the local dynasty roster? What does that say about the actions of the citizenry? Well it's not good!!!

Qualifications

Political friends
FEMA chief, no experience, screwed up Katrina
Justice department won't prosecute politically motivated issue, demand their resignations.
Congressman who cheat on their wives, solicit homosexual acts in public restrooms, ....

Media Influence

Vote for a winner, not the best candidate. You don't want to throw your vote away.
Who's a winner? Well the media tells you who to vote for.
So if you vote for who the media tells you too, then haven't you thrown your vote away?
Why vote if you are going to not have the courage to vote for the best candidate?

Early predictions with 1% in, why should California or Hawaii even vote, they've been told who will win before their polls close.

Issues

Gay marriage??? What about the divorce crisis and broken families in straight marriage? Should we address that first?

Oil crisis, that thing we experienced over 30 years ago and have not done a damn thing about?

Arguments that climate change is OK???

Outsourcing. Exploiting the third world.
Illegal Aliens.
Terrorism.
Companies moving their address offshore to avoid US taxes.

Class War

Upper class - golden parachutes, lifetime security
Middle class - drowning
Poor - have programs
Lazy, burned out - take advantage of programs, work the system

Special Interest Influence

Billions in lobbying

Moral......

Status: Rough Draft - Last Updated 07/05/08 2:45 AM

The Games (Lies) Lawyers Play

2008-05-05T11:11:00.004-04:00

In my previous post, I mention some of the games/lies that lawyers play. Keep in mind that the judge should manage the process, but most take a rather passive role. Only mediating if one lawyer objects.

The other ironic thing is that judges can be very impatient with the citizenry especially if they don't abide by century old dogmatic traditions. Judges demand respect, but they don't seem to mind the patronizing, phony "respect" they get from lawyers who are trying to get away with something.

If I were a judge, I'd run things a lot more stringently, I'd be pretty unpopular with the lawyers and their union, the bar. I'd be accountable to the people not the lawyers. I'd hold the lawyers to a higher standard, they should know better than to game the court. That means I'd be a one termer.

When I caught a lawyer bullshitting the court, wasting time, playing games, I'd hold them in contempt to discourage injustice.

Why should the following behavior by lawyers be acceptable to a judge?

Lying, exaggerating, drama, or telling "partial" ("un") truths
Shopping for an ignorant or favorable jurisdiction or judge
Coming late or unprepared to court
Freezing/Seizing assets for legal fees ahead of existing creditors
Treating clients as they did two centuries ago when many were not educated to the level that is common today

This is all abusive behavior and as a consumer of legal services you have every right to demand better service. Doing it won't make you very popular though.

Status: First Draft

Stealing Candy from a Baby...

2008-05-05T00:41:00.012-04:00

...Who would do that, a lawyer that's who!

Well not candy, money, child support to be exact. What is the purpose of child support? If you answered to support the child you are naive. That's what the system says, its BIC of course. BIC is a myth, whenever you here it be suspicious, very suspicious.

First Time

The first example of stealing child support is when the child support enforcement agency (CSEA) intercepted my $15,000 end of year bonus. The reason for seizure was because my employer's payroll schedule was different than the CSEA collection schedule. This is quite common, the result is at any given time you can be up to one month behind. The law requires that any lump sum payment must be approved by CSEA before making payment to the NCP. If, at that moment in time, CSEA believes their is any arrearage, they will seize the entire amount. They claim they don't know how much you owe and usually conduct an audit because their records are so often incorrect.

How can you avoid this? You must enroll in the online CSEA reporting system and then check it regularly, especially before any possible lump sum payments, including IRS tax refunds. To avoid seizure, you will likely need to overpay at least one months child support (a windfall to your ex if you pay high child support as I do). Be aware that arrearages are collected immediately, overages are not refunded until after all your children reach age of majority (without interest of course).

My employer had under withheld about $500, less than one month of child support, so CSEA seized $15,000, or 30 times the short fall. The lawyers argued like vultures for 6 months about who would get this money, both lawyers, the guardian, the custody evaluator, or my ex. Uh what about the kid, oh nobody was speaking up for him.

One of the things that kept this going was the hired bitch's contention that I was lying on my financial disclosures. But she knew that to be false because she subpoenaed records directly from my employer (a large insurance company with legions of lawyers). But I became aware that she had done that, not through mutual discovery as required by the civil rules, but because the corporate lawyers knew me and complained of the hired bitch's harassment (not a good sign, winning negative points with my employer).

The impasse was only solved by me firing my lawyer on the spot, threatening the judge with appeal if he denied my motion to release (again), and me handing the judge the proof of the undocumented subpoenas and asking for the reason they were not filed with the court. But to really brake the impasse, I motioned the judge to admit my employer as a third party defendant (six defendants already, what's one more) and rule on their alleged perjury (what the hired bitch had implied). The judge found it amusing (actually chuckled out loud and smirked) that I had out foxed the hired bitch. To which the judge turned to the red faced hired bitch and asked "Are you prepared to do that at this time?" and her replay was "No your honor, that won't be necessary".

The end result - the lawyers got 2/3 of the CSEA seizure. And since this whole bullshit vulture attack on my son's child support took six months, I was listed as a deadbeat. That's right, CSEA had the money but would not payout child support without instructions from the judge, but called me, rather than the judge, a deadbeat.

Second Time

Now most recently, a creditor who refused to recognize the property division jurisdiction of the County Court - Domestic Relations Division, decided to go to the Civil Division (superior) Court to make their plea for property division outside Divorce Court Jurisdiction. This is a classic technique, shopping for a favorable or ignorant jurisdiction, even a Municipal (City) Court is considered superior to a County Divorce Court. This is why my litigation is in five jurisdictions.

Only the matter of law was ruled upon and my lawyer decided he would not defend me (unbeknown to me until after the fact) because "he didn't know what I wanted him to do". There is an interesting concept here, I took such an active role in my divorce litigation that when this creditor issue came up he was spoiled and continued to expect me to do his job while billing me for my work that he was responsible for. After three years I was exhausted and thought I'd let him do his job for a change. But in his defense he was looking at it strictly "as a matter of law" and not from a practical perspective. Only when I called his office and reported that my legal representation "dropped the ball" and allowed a judgment to occur "without opposition" that was against "explicit instructions of the client to oppose the action" did he put his thinking cap on and started coming up with practical alternatives. I knew he wasn't dumb, he was just lazy and uncaring, as most lawyers are (jqism).

Why did it take this terrible turn of events to get him to do his job, where he is literally on the end of a thin branch ready for malpractice. And this is not a dumb guy by any stretch. The issue is not giving a shit about accomplishing the client's goal, you are just a billing code (jqism).

The creditor received a default judgment due to "no opposition". They were aware of my divorce action and reviewed my divorce decree. In the divorce decree is an order requiring me to maintain two months child support in an escrow account, the details of the financial institution as well as the account number is listed in the order. This was an extra layer of administrative harassment that the hired bitch got into the final decree.

The creditor knew very well what the account was for. They informed the court that they had found assets and were entitled to seize them. They did not inform the court

How they found the assets (reviewing another court order)
That they deliberately circumvented another jurisdiction
That another court jurisdiction was involved
That it was a child support escrow account
That if they prevailed I would be held in contempt in another court jurisdiction

Why? Because the canons of legal conduct do not require them to be honest with the court. Lawyers are not sworn to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth", so they are free to tell a "partial truth" (which isn't really truth at all) if it suits their client needs and furthers their cause.

So the judge granted an ex parte motion to seize the child support escrow account (not knowing what it was). I received notice after the fact, I filed for an administrative hearing. I was told, those are a formality and of little practical value. I informed the court administrator of the other court jurisdiction and that the Civil Division was causing me to be in contempt of the Domestic Relations Division's court order (both are part of the same County Common Pleas Court).

So the court administrator picked up his various stamps and approved an administrative hearing to object to the seizure which was in possession of the court. The court on seeing this approval, granted it, journaled it and then a few days later released the seizure to the plaintiff before the hearing to object to the seizure. WTF!!!

So I had my hearing, my lawyer stifled me and warned me to stay back, it was continued because the other party wasn't there to explain why they should be allowed to steal child support money that is court ordered. Why couldn't the court make an ex parte default ruling considering the Plaintiff did not show when duly notified, had withheld pertinent info from the court, and had deliberately tried to circumvent another jurisdiction's ruling and order? The only thing I can see them explaining is why they didn't inform the court of the whole truth. So in the meantime my son doesn't have his support and I am once again, officially a deadbeat by the hand of another.

An aside

Our justice center complex holds three court jurisdictions, plus the central city police station, the county sheriffs, and a major jail in a large downtown campus, one mile away are are two more court jurisdictions. Our FBI office has been moved from our Federal Government Buildings to a new, very secure, unapproachable (on the side of a cliff) location. We also have a local Secret Service branch office and a Federal Reserve Bank.

I am a photo enthusiast and I really wish I could photograph/video the filing clerks, grabbing the legal files from the lawyers, two hole punching them, and then picking from at least a half dozen stamps and stamping the papers with the efficiency and stiff mechanics of a robot. It is almost funny, but sad too. The impersonal assembly line way the judicial branch treats the citizenry and their grievances. I have to see the humor and chuckle a bit so I don't cry.

Universal Theft

Lest we forget the biggest thief of all is when lawyers enter the marriage to rape and pillage the finances that would support the children. The divorce industry and particularly the lawyers are never BIC (jqism).

Status - First Draft - Last Update 05/05/08 6 PM

Coming Soon...

2008-04-25T06:00:00.004-04:00

I'm going to try to catch up on regular updating of my blogs...Coming attractions this weekend...

Good News? From Courts ???

I received notification from one of the five court jurisdictions that I currently have litigation in that a lawsuit was dismissed. Great! Should not have been against me in the first place. Great news? Well. not so fast, there is a judgment lien still on file in a superior court and of course its on my credit report.

Stealing candy from a baby

Who would do that? Lawyers that's who.

Default decisions

When my lawyer didn't act or show for a hearing, a default judgment and a seizure order was issued with no attempt at determining why the lawyer was absent or without notifying me of my lawyer's malpractice. When I filed for a hearing to object, it was granted for cause, but the seizure was allowed to proceed. When the Plaintiff didn't show, the hearing was rescheduled, rather than rendering a default judgment for their absence. Guess things work different for the parties (Plaintiff vs Defendant) or the party status (Corp vs Citizen).

Foreclosure - Good or Bad?

A year ago I was advised that foreclosure was no big deal, its OK. Maybe because lawyers would then be able to obtain the equity from the house. This year I was advised, by the same senior partner of a law firm, that I had to do something or else I could be subject to foreclosure, implying that this was now a bad thing. Why the changed in attitude? This action would be a result of his firms malpractice, subjecting him to a huge liability for his recently promoted full partner (the junior "pussy").

Appeal or Malpractice

Well they screwed the pooch (me) this time. Which avenue should I proceed with?

One more

It will come to me...

Will try to have these posted by Monday morning....

I'm still here....

2008-04-20T02:30:00.007-04:00

And that wasn't always a given....

This week was a doosy, I had to prepare for a court appearance to protect property from seizure. On Thursday I went to court, then I spent the rest of the day with a friend and had a very enjoyable dinner. The next morning I spent time taking action to protect property and then I spent the rest of the day on the Lake Front, a wonderful sunny day, exploring some new areas with my DSLR, so take a look at the slide show here or on my other blog.

Just trying to achieve some balance. I'm kind of proud of myself for splitting the day between court drudgery and enjoying myself.

I am sorry to have neglected my blogs, you would be surprised what's happened to me IRL in the last 6 months. Everything from a whirlwind romance to a carjacking burglary that nearly killed me. It was a violent hate crime a few months back.

Two car accidents, one that totaled my car and would have killed me if I would have been a five feet forward, tore off the front of my car and spread it for over 100 feet. The road had to be closed to clean it up.

Why should my my property be seized? Well my lawyer screwed up big time, but that's a subject for a whole post in itself. Speaking of posts, I've had a ton of thoughts for posts, just not enough time, energy or motivation to complete them. My writing style is different... I use a technique popular in computer design. I pipeline, at any given time I have dozens of ideas in various stages of draft... Being a recovering perfectionist, I tend to rewrite and proof them several times before posting.

Then there is overcoming the aggravation that some post topics cause. Reading some of my posts you can see I may not have overcome it too well.

For this blog, I have over 50 post ideas, some partially written, and then there is my legal battles, got a few down, plenty more to go... Those will be more posts above the 50... What I should do is post the ideas in my pipeline and see what people would like to hear about.

And as if divorce court wasn't bad enough. Some former blogger buddies are even taking it upon themselves to try and interfere with my visitation IRL. Divorce actions and legal harassment still present 10 months after final decree, but I'll save those details for upcoming posts.

But I'm still here... Alive and well, despite the wear and tear. And I'll try to get this blog updated more regularly.

Status: First Draft - Last Update 04/20/08 3 AM

Welcome to my world...

2008-02-19T18:20:00.003-05:00

Doesn't feel so good does it... LOL

Yup, my ex was finally exposed to a little bit of my world and the crocodile tears were a flowin... Boo Hoo I should feel a little sorry for her, she doesn't have half the intensional fortitude or logical skills I do to withstand the onslaught. But this is all her doing, and I've suffered plenty so she's gonna have to keep looking for that sympathy, I have very little to spare.

You see my ex had chosen the easier and riskier, ignorant blissful route. And of course being the Plaintiff, a woman, and having shopped for the bitchiest lawyer in the state helped. I had too much going against me to even consider that route.

So I learned the nasty nature of the dysfunctional domestic relations system long ago. But all she did is hear bullshit platitudes from her lying bitch and sit in the court hallway like a model litigant. Meanwhile I was exposed to all the dirty nasty tricks of her hired bitch and the horse trading that my lawyers sold me out for when they were too outmatched by the hired bitch and her prestigious firm. This hardened me into the poor litigant I became, jaded, demanding, mistrustful, blunt without the expected decorum. Each threat of contempt was a self fulling prophecy and made me more contemptuous of the system.

But being forewarned is being forearmed and no one likes to be blindsided, st least yell "FORE" before the hammer hits my head. Now my ex didn't exactly get blindsided, I warned her plenty of times, all for naught, dismissed as the ramblings of an unhappy person. Well karma is a bitch and now she's an unhappy person, having been threatened with civil suit twice this week. I couldn't help myself, I blurted out, "Welcome to my world!!! I see this shit 2-3 times a week every damn week". Oh she burst into tears and hung up. I'm such a sucker for being a good guy, its not like she doesn't deserve that and a whole lot more. So I called her back and said its just intimidation, don't get upset or worry about it, they're just fuckin with you, just like they are with me. Your hired bitch will tell you, she did it to me, its nothin that doesn't happen daily, they got a long list of people they're fuckin, it will take them time.

One action against her is from a creditor, just like me. Another is a debt that was assigned to her but they went after me. When I kept them at bay they got a judgment lien, then they got a judgment for seizure of property, but they covered their bets and got it against both of us on the publicly disclosed bank with the most money - HERS!!! I told her, no big deal, just withdraw the money, problem solved. But I need to pay bills, she says. Yeah, I know that can be a bitch, oh well, there are other ways to pay most bills.

The Paper Tiger

2008-01-09T02:29:00.003-05:00

Divorce Court is a paper tiger. On the one hand it will cut the parties to shreds like a paper cut, stinging without relief. But on the other hand, anyone else just simply looks at the paper tiger and laughs. That's why I refer to Divorce Court Orders as Asswipe, it protects you like a thin ply of toilet paper and its only good for wiping your ass. And I mean that quite literally.

The court will order a division of property and they will assign debt to the parties. But the creditors who hold that debt do not care about the divorce court. Why? Well since the divorce court is run more like a Kangeroo Kourt (no offense to my Aussie friends), other entities have taken steps to protect themselves from them.

First they will do the simplest thing, simply ignore the court. The court does not followup. If pushed, they will claim a jurisdictional problem.

Credit cards have contracts and they will claim that the divorce court can not vacate or alter their contract. So if the division of property assigns debts and issues an order, shouldn't that order be issued to the creditor? It isn't ! It is issued to the parties who can't get along in the first place. Does that make sense?

Nothing about divorce or the court or the process or the industry makes any sense at all (jqism).

So what happens, well if the court did its job and beat the parties into mindless depression and submission, then the ordered party will do what they are ordered to do. But if you have a cocky party who doesn't give a shit (like my ex bitch for example) then they will simply default on the loan and guess what will happen, the credit card company will tell the other party they don't give a shit about no asswipe divorce court order, they have a contract and you will pay or they will sue.

But you don't owe you may say. Not their problem they will say, its yours, your the dumbass that married the bitch. That will teach you to enter into a civil agreement that is one sided. Oh you thought you had a contract with God, not in this separation of church & state secular nation. So what good is that expensive order you have, what can you do with it --- ASSWIPE !!!

Well what if you can't pay either? What will they do? Just what they said they'll do, SUE! No problem, the divorce court has jurisdiction over the matter, right? WRONG! They aren't stupid, they'd loose, no they'll go to another court and try the issue on the details of their contract. Will they mention that this matter is being tried in another court - HELL NO! And they will win. So don't pay, then they'll go to a superior court and get a judgment lien to attach to your property. Yep I have them both. I have an asswipe court order declaring my ex bitch responsible for a debt and I have a judgment lien for that same debt.

Beware of the paper tiger, you'll get a paper cut and it won't scare anyone (jqism).

Anatomy of a Motion

2008-01-05T11:22:00.000-05:00

A "motion" is a document to get the court to "move" or decide a particular matter. A motion starts with a caption, naming the parties (people getting divorced), the court, the case number, and the title of the motion. It describes what is wanted, and in legal terms why. It is signed by a lawyer with his bar number or by a party followed by "(Pro Se)" as in representing yourself.

Typically a motion requires supporting evidence in the form of an affidavit (sworn and notarized statement) from the party to certain facts. This might start by you telling your lawyer something in plain English and then the lawyer drafting carefully worded sentences layering a single fact on top of the previous sentences' facts until all facts build to the required information needed to support the motion. Since it is usally the party that has the first hand knowledge of the supporting information, it is the party that must sign the statement. It is inappropriate for a lawyer to take a statement from a client and then sign the affadivit although I saw the hired bitch attempt to do that.

To be fair, all relevant parties must be notified, so a certificate of service must me attached to the motion. This is a sworn and notarized statement by the "mover" that a copy of the motion and related documents have been sent to the parties. The parties must be named and the method of service must be described, such as regular US postal mail, fax, personal delivery, etc. Some lawyers (hired bitch) like to play games by serving by fax after the office closed, Friday at the end of day, or by armed sheriff. These are meant as aggravation and harassment techniques to pressure the opponent to settle under less favorable terms, they are designed to wear you out, and are tolerated by the courts. Typically the lawyer rather than the actual party is notified and the lawyer notifies his client. But I have had armed sheriff's serve me at my home, to scare my son and the neighbors. They were also sent to my workplace, my brokers office, and my banks which is meant to cause trouble with people you deal with.

In divorce court, the judges rarely write the (asswipe) order. The moving party writes the order for the judge as a convenience. Blanks are left for dates and signatures. The judge will then decide whether to rule on the motion or hold a hearing, requiring the lawyers and the parties to appear in court where he can hear arguments by the lawyers while the parties sit outside in the hall like assholes, loosing money and missing work. The parties are there for the convenience of the judge in case an agreement is suggested to get the approval of the parties. And after you sit out in the hall for a few hours in extreme boredom and then hear your lawyer come out with his sugar coated turd explanation, you are almost ready to agree to anything just to get out of that hell hole twilight zone. Most judges do not want to call the party in to hear directly from them because they don't have the required judicial (kiss each other's ass) decorum.

So those items are taken to a clerk of courts who grabs them, two punch holes them, stamps them with various stamps and may take a filing fee. All with the precision and personality of a robot.

Then a copy of those documents usually with a cover letter meant to be cold and intimidating is sent to the other party's lawyers as required by the certificate of service.

So that's my task at hand for the motions I described in my MSNY post below.

MSNY

2008-01-05T00:10:00.000-05:00

More Shit - New Year

Un-fucking-believable, I almost added a new line to the list below, but this deserves its own post.

Last night the hired bitch, my wife's lawyer, called me on my cell and went off on me over my repeated protests of "My son is here I will not discuss the case". The case that is supposed to be the fuck over. What does final mean to you? I often hear from my brother Friday afternoons if he is up to going out and doing something. His private number comes up blocked and I thought it could be him. I forgot the hired bitch's tactic of last minute filings on Friday afternoons. I will not accept blocked calls again. My brother will have to just dial *82 before my number to unblock it so I know it is him. I will also formally notify her to use my efax service to notify asap (Friday, not Tuesday) of any issues she has.

I was not allowed to fire my lawyer to save money because the judge said the QDRO and DOPO raids on my pension plans were too complex for me. But after $40K of billing and the QDRO still delayed by the opposition and the DOPO motion being dismissed as overly burdensome to a superior state agency, my lawyer quit because I told him that I required the work to be reviewed by a CPA because of multiple mathematical mistakes he had made in amounts over $10K. So now I am supposed to take opposition counsel's word that it is OK. The same opposition that has lied, cheated, manipulated me for three years? I don't think so!

While my son was 3 feet from me, opposition counsel

issued an ultimatum that I respond my Monday end of day
threatened motions to compel, sanction, and fees
sarcastically wished me a good visit, this from the person who has constantly interfered and prevented visitation.

I remained surprisingly calm and kept repeating that I would not respond at this time during visitation with my son.

I will file the following motions on Monday Morning:

an objection that I was not allowed to represent myself, violating my constitutional right to self representation, to save $40K.
an objection that my lawyer who was required, by order of the judge, was allowed to withdraw by that same judge, prior to completing the task at hand, protecting me from the QDRO/DOPO raids on my pensions.
an objection that I was not allowed to protest the withdraw at a hearing the way I was required to do on the previous legal withdraw.
a motion to sanction my prior counsel for fees required to have a CPA and legal review of QDRO/DOPO.
a motion to show cause on why opposition counsel could not act in the best interest of the child and cease her interference with my visitation.
a motion to sanction opposition counsel for improper harassment and interference in visitation.
A proposed QDRO settlement that is actually fair to me, that says she must settle for current market value, for no tax considerations (as I had none), and keeping the remainder in my name rather than assigning the whole pension including appreciation to her.

And that's just for starters, just in direct response to her actions yesterday. But all the rest of the bullshit needs to come out.

I think I'm done being (relatively) nice, its time to trade in the kitt gloves for boxing gloves, its time to stop walking on eggshells with these pompous assholes and let them have it with both barrels. Conventional wisdom would say, hire a lawyer and let them take care of it, but my third lawyer quit in disgrace and I think three lawyers failing to address my well articulated needs strongly implies a trend. If you want it done right, do it yourself. And this old dog can still learn new tricks... The hired bitch wants to "paper me", "slam me", threaten me, motion for sanctions and fees, well two can play at that game. And I have a key advantage, I don't need the hired bitch as a professional friend as my three lawyers did. See the hired bitch is big in this town and she commands respect and gets it. But she isn't gonna get it from me, she hasn't earned it, she has won my contempt instead.

Status: First Draft, last update 01/05/08 9:30 am

Footnotes:

To "paper" someone you keep them tied up in paperwork, filing questionable and nuisance motions to "churn fees" and aggravate the opposition into submission.
To "slam" someone you do rapid fire "papering" with motions for contempt, sanctions, and fees.

SSNY

2008-01-02T18:19:00.000-05:00

Same Shit - New Year

What to say, Happy Fuckin New Year. Well there are some improvements in my life, so my mood isn't as sour as this title, but the promised freedom from my ex 7 months ago has failed to materialize. We separated in March 2005, the divorce was final in May 2007, it is now 2008 and this is my life in the new year.

Still in legal battles, not by my choice.
Still do not have releases to allow access to my son's records, if I had to take him to emergency room I could not consent to treatment, I am NCP (fn 1). A paramedic stranger has more rights over my son. The court ordered me to receive shared parenting rights, my ex has not chose to grant them.
Still being arbitrarily shorted on visitation.
Still have driving restrictions for my son despite successful 6 year treatment of Sleep Apnea and no motor vehicle accidents or even incidents since.
Still do not have Guardianship for my son's savings account that I made all the contributions to as ordered by the decree.
Got a letter from my former lawyer a few days ago, haven't opened it yet
Ex announced she will default on credit card she is ordered to pay, doesn't matter to her, the card company does not recognize her as responsible despite the court order, they take the stance that their contract holding me responsible supersedes any court order, so I am on hook for it, so I am forced to pay it, making the order --- wait for it, wait, wait --- ASSWIPE!!!
Shouldn't I be able to respond in kind, pay legal bills with the same useless asswipe as they provide me?
Later the same day after I paid this month's bill (fn 2) she threatened me that she would keep defaulting.

And what are many people advising me? Accept the unacceptable (shit), settle. But one special close friend is telling me to never settle. Why such disparity in advice? I believe the extent to which people care about an issue has a lot to do with things. The simple advice from someone who could give a shit is just settle for what you can get. Is it ironic that they call it a divorce "settlement", or is it just the literal definition of uncaring people who are uninterested in your welfare? I suggest it is the latter.

Should I settle? Should I embrace misery as my destiny (as the majority has counseled me to do)? The idea doesn't sit well with me.
How much sugar is needed to make these turds taste better and where can I get a recipe for preparation? This is a dish I will pass on.

Part of my personality, my perseverance and perfectionism contributes to my viewpoint on this issue. When I see an injustice like the divorce system I know it shouldn't be, and I want to overcome it, but it is so deeply entrenched and the system "fights back" to assert its authority. This is where the serenity prayer should take effect, but what is the balance point, what can be overcome. I think the system conspires to dupe people into thinking they have no choices where they really do. On the flip side, it may be too idealistic of me to think I can completely overcome it and never settle.

Intellectually I'd have to say its a challenge of finding a balancing point. And since conventional wisdom has broken down and provided no real guidance, then the task at hand is to aggressively test the divorce system's boundaries and its negative impact to be very sure if it must be accepted or if there is indeed a more acceptable alternative.

What I have learned is that there is absolutely a better alternative in many cases, but the parties involved and the system's greed conspire to make them illusive. What it really needs to come down to is the divorce industry needs to be less self centered and more problem solving. But this is such a gigantic paradigm shift which worries all the divorce industry on whether they can be as successful as their current parasitic feeding off their clients. It is much too idealistic to think that the mere transformation from parasite to improving force would motivate the good in these people to do the right thing.

There is another major reason for challenging the system, "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem". And people's silence for the travesty that occurs daily in the divorce system allows the arcane abuse to continue to occur. Is it fair that someone who is a victim of the system be called on to summon even more strength to fight the system? NO! But the system isn't fair either. I know I will not single handedly change the system, but I may impact some areas, and I know I will fail if I don't try. And just settling, giving up, not trying, not caring, is the worst type of failure there is. It's been said I'm not good with failure, so if I'm gonna fail it won't be for lack of trying. It's the only way I can live with myself, and its important to be able to do that.

There are success stories in my case where I have pushed the boundaries of conventional wisdom and they have yielded. Why should I have made progress in my case where others have failed? The simple answer - CARING! When you care deeply about something you can skip past all the formal training there is, past the so called experts, to the front of the line.

All the training and credentials in the world don't amount to a hill of beans if you really don't give a shit (jqism).

And I give a shit, I care, I don't accept that I must accept the same shit on a new day.

Accepting the unacceptable, settling, is the quick path to not solving the problem in front of you. (jqism).

I'm not in this for quick non-solutions, I prefer quality real solutions, but like anything worthwhile, it requires work, its not easy nor quick. (jqism).

Footnote 1 - I will be adding a new HTML technique to my posts using the ANCHOR TITLE tag, the NCP is an example of it, if you hover over it, a tool tip opens up telling you it is a Non-Custodial Parent. When you see an underlined colored item it is usually a link, if you see an underlined uncolored item it may be a TITLE tag, hover over it and see what else I am telling you about it. This is kind of a short cut, but not a substitution for my terminology page on my companion site.

Footnote 2 - Rather than just pay it without an audit trail, I wrote a check to my ex for the amount with a memo line that said "short term loan" and told her to go to that bank, cash the check and take the cash and deposit it into her account the same day, she balked, I insisted and said that I would go with her to ensure it was done.

Now this is the least level of precaution, the next is a more formal loan agreement, I have a sample if someone needs it and will write a post about that. The last level, which you can obtain from a bookstore is a formal legal promissory note.

I keep three separate checking accounts at separate banking institutions because of the litigation possibilities for subpoenaing records, freezing accounts, or seizing funds. These are a divorce account used for child support and divorce related items, it is the only account I allow my ex or lawyers to know about. The second is my full service personal account that I use to carry on my daily life, pay bills, etc. The third is my private emergency account, this account is kept private from everyone, extra funds not needed for bills are in this account.

It is important that separate banking institutions be used because litigation will apply to all accounts at an institution. If two of your banking institutions merge, you must move an account to prevent this exposure. When opening or using an account you are likely to notify the IRS (for interest), the credit reporting firms (for a credit card or overdraft protection) and Bank Systems (used by banks to know of people who bounce checks). The private account should be setup up as non-interest bearing with no credit or overdraft to minimize the reporting. (See full legal notice for restrictions applying to this footnote).

Status: Last updated 01/04/08 5:45 am

And the winner is...

2007-12-29T11:42:00.000-05:00

NOBODY!!!

When one party decides to play child custody games, everyone is a looser. If the system worked, the first incident of this would be greeted by mandatory inpatient mental health confinement until the offending party learned the folly of their ways. No instead, there is money to be made in these games, so there is an industry built up around supporting the custody abuser, insuring employment for all manner of magistrates, lawyers, guardians, evaluators, social workers, etc.

So it is simple math, BIC is statistically outnumbered by special interests who hurt children under the rhetorical banner of BIC. Oh sure its a lie, propaganda, but the trick is to keep repeating it and the constant dripping of the message will convince people.

So I knew no one would take my sucker bet, but the combined pressure from myself, my brother, the fact that my ex needs something in legal arena and the judge is denying it and that means she needs my cooperation (as I am Pro Se now) and I am not kissing her lawyer's ass as mine had was just enough incentive to almost get her to comply with the court order.

The key to being an NCP is to set your expectations low enough. To think that you, the NCP, the looser, could expect the winner, the residential parent, the only parent that matters to the system, to comply with asswipe orders is just not realistic. The very best you can hope for is close. You can also expect to have to fight for close which will cause you aggravation that you must conceal to prevent the self fulling prophecy of you being labeled a "poor litigant" with a "poor attitude", if you continue to push for what's right the system may retaliate by calling you "nuts", no one else is standing up for their rights so you must be "nuts" for doing so. Neat game, if your the winner.

So she only shorted my son by by one hour of visitation, a mere 10%. Not bad, 90% compliance with the law. My ex on the other hand had all of her visitation and extended it too, so she had 370%, which makes cheating me out of 10% seem all the more petty and unacceptable. Now if you don't have leverage or are not willing to put up with the aggravation, expect a much lower compliance level. You can not depend on the system to ensure compliance, only the good will of your ex in understanding the true meaning of BIC.

As an NCP, never expect to receive 100%, but do expect to give over 100%. (jqism).
Divorce court grief, the "gift" that keeps on giving. (jqism).

Place your bets...

2007-12-20T22:53:00.000-05:00

... on what my son's visitation for Christmas will be...

Well it should be easy right? There is a visitation schedule, what does it say? Doesn't matter really, oh technically maybe, but practically, its just more asswipe (worthless court order) coming from an asshole (judge).

First off, since my ex wanted no visitation for me and I wanted shared 50/50 parenting, the plan concessions are unique and complex. There are four ambiguous schedules that need to be merged. Why? Lawyers wrote it, and they don't speak English so they can ensure future business.

After you go through that schedule merge, my son should see his NCP (previously known as father) from 10 am to 8 pm on Christmas day, by order of the court. Any deviation by over 15 minutes is a violation of court order (asswipe), and subject to motion to show cause, contempt of court citation and review of parenting plan for offending party. Happy Horse Shit, practical value, none!

First the winner (custodial parent) can do what they want with the asswipe including, using it as asswipe, hence the name. Surely the custodial parent is assumed to be making decisions, as they've been granted authority to do, in the best interest of the child (BIC). Now that's just bullshit. Seeing a pattern forming.

First, there is no way to get the order enforced in real time, police won't do it, courts won't do it, it just doesn't happen. Second, a simple denial of visitation done even on a major holiday like Christmas, won't be entertained by the court, its likely to not be scheduled. The victim must bear the burden to prosecute this violation that isn't likely to yield a correction of the poor behavior.

Why such a cynical view? Historic observation, plain and simple.

The first year, I was notified on Dec 23, that new, impossible conditions were arbitrarily put on my visitation for Dec 25. Legal challenges were made until 5 pm Dec 24th before the issue was resolved, costing thousands of dollars.
The second year, an extortion threat was faxed to my lawyer while I was meeting with him, threatening Christmas Eve visitation once again 4 days prior to the day.
This year it was suggested that my ex's schedule, which includes Christmas Eve and two days prior didn't allow for meeting my son's 10 hours of court ordered visitation would be reduced by 4 hours (40%). After some bickering and because of my status as Pro Se, my ex updated her plans and will "try" to get "close" to the court ordered 10 hour visitation, but may be "off by" two hours.
And since she can get away with this continuing aggravation, it insures the NCP will always be the looser, even if I do finally get the full visitation awarded by the court, because her goal of making my life difficult after I have been granted the "freedom" of our dysfunctional domestic relations court's divorce process has been achieved. (jqism)

So you want to place your bet, how much visitation will my son get? My bet is 8 hours, a 20% short fall, vs the 38 hours my ex will have. Not quite 50/50 is it? Not even 80/20. But nothing is fair for the NCP. (jqism).

Since...

2007-12-08T00:14:00.000-05:00

...Domestic Relations judges main output is asswipe (orders that are meaningless and unenforced), then...

It seems that would make them assholes?

Well maybe not in the strictest sense, but surely there can be no argument that assholes and asswipe naturally belong together.

Pinch me....

2007-12-07T23:40:00.000-05:00

...LOL...Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while...

I have a stack of court notices I've saved up to open when I feel like being aggravated. So I open them up Motion to Compel the State Public Employee Retirement System (PERS), the usual heavy handed tactics. Opps a surprise, notice from assigned judge:

Plaintiff motion dismissed w/o prejudice, full costs assigned to Plaintiff

Yee Ha, who woke up the judge? Six months after the final decree and the Plaintiff is still issuing needless 10 page motions and the judge finally realizes she's milking a case long after the final decree. Thank God for the little miracles.

I just want to know what took the asshole so long. Maybe its because someone at State PERS asked what the hell the littlest court was doing trying to compel it. They say "better late, then never", personally in this case, I think that's splitting hairs.

Coincidence - I think not!

2007-12-05T03:55:00.000-05:00

My mom was the first to make this observation, but the chance of it being a coincidence was completely blown away today.

My mom observed that the times that my son is allowed to visit her (or me) seem to be optimized to maximize the meals that his host provides. For me that is usually just one, because the most I get him is 4 hours. But occasionally my mom will get him for 6 hours timed to be between two meals.

Now neither of us have a problem with feeding him, but because we only get him for such limited time, this just further chips away at the quality time that we can spend with him. For example the time I get my son straddles his meal time making it impossible for me to do much at all with him. My ex is paid child support that is higher in dollar and percentage of anyone that I know of. In one case my support payment is 9 times higher.

Sometimes this has been very blatant. On school holidays she is ordered to allow him to visit at 2pm to 7pm, which she has trouble complying with. She has brought him over after 2 without lunch, so I am expected to feed him twice in less than 5 hours. I really don't want to sound petty, I feed my son well, but is it fair that of my extra holiday time of only 5 hours that 40% of that time be spent on feeding him. If she isn't going to feed him lunch, why not bring him over at noon, instead of after 2pm. Now if I had normal visitation where he was staying the whole day and overnight, then feeding him would not take such a large chunk of time out of our visitation. It also seems quite unreasonable that he hasn't had lunch by 2pm.

As an NCP I am nothing more than an unpaid restaurant and baby sitter to be used or not at the discretion of the "winner" who withholds visitation without consequence.

Well today, I was scheduled for a full eye exam that should have made me an hour late for visitation. I have had significant problems in my right eye and warned my ex that this could run over, but I had little flexibility for scheduling this appointment. Things didn't go so well, the techs could not get a consistent Rx on my right eye. A surgeon was called as a consult and intensive tests were done requiring several rounds of local anesthetic to the eye. I was told that a very dense cataract needed to be removed and replaced with an artificial lens. It would be a higher risk procedure because of other conditions with this eye, but they said I "was practically blind in that eye now", so that didn't leave me with much choice. Most people have no difficulty seeing the top letter in an eye chart, I could not see any formed letters and was only aware of the bright light and its general shape.

So I was delayed 3 hours with these extra difficulties and only had one hour of visitation left. Now by this late hour, he should have eaten. My ex is well aware of the intense exam I would have gotten. What did my son say as he walked in for a mere one hour of visitation as I just concluded 3 hours of poking, prodding, and bright lights shined into my eyes? Hi Daddy, what's for dinner? You mean you haven't eaten yet? Nope! If I feed him that late she complains, but then that's typical for her rules for me not to apply to her.

Well as usual I tried to make the best out of the limited time, talking from the kitchen asking him about various things. But it falls short of the fatherhood I remember when he was young.

Life as an NCP sucks, it does not even come close to being a real parent! (jqism)

The littlest court

2007-12-04T04:32:00.000-05:00

The standing of Domestic Relations court is tragically and pathetically ironic.

Consider the following about the Domestic Relations court.

is at the bottom of the US judicial system
is extremely inefficient and error prone
exercises more power and control of the litigants than any other court
is routinely ignored or circumvented by entities that would sue a spouse for the results caused by the Domestic Relations court
routinely denies the litigants their rights to

-due process
-self representation
-trial by jury
-trial by non-prejudicial bench

routinely issues stranglehold restraining orders
fail to properly oversee lawyer abuse
allow lawyers to pad the case to fleece the litigants of the little money they have
operate in secret, proceedings in chambers, no court reporter, no record of abuses
suspend civil rules on acceptable evidence
accept prejudicial statements from lawyers as evidence

There is no simple band-aid solution, the corruption must be killed as a cancer that it is on the justice system and the Domestic Relations Court needs to be rebuilt with citizen's needs and constitutional rights as the top priority.

This won't be easy as a Divorce Industry has grown up around the Domestic Relations Court corruption and is dependent on it for their own survival. This special interest lobby, as all of them, are working directly against the interests of the majority of the citizens interest. This is the process that has bastardized the democratic rule of the people.

This post will be the basis for follow up posts describing these issues in more detail. Feel free to comment on your experiences or which of these issues you are more concerned about.

Birthday Update

2007-11-19T00:43:00.000-05:00

Well, I hope the turnaround trend continues.... Some good fortune and a bunch of last minute coordination has turned things around.

Visitation

The court order does not grant me flexibility to schedule a birthday celebration that includes my other family members, its does grant me Thanksgiving Day every other year, but my ex has ignored the visitation schedule when it suits her without consequences. One of the reasons I was going to travel is because I would not be allowed to celebrate my birthday or Thanksgiving with my son, so traveling would have helped distract me from this NCP reality.

Well I got some unexpected gifts at the last minute. A major tactic to prevent my representation in court was defeated because my investment adviser claimed the court had no direct jurisdiction to circumvent their fiduciary responsibility to me. It pays to develop strong partnerships that will stand beside you in contempt for the contemptible family court. This may have been the trigger for the following two events, my ex broke up her long weekend plans to accommodate my son celebrating my birthday with my family. She also is giving me visitation on Thanksgiving day for the first time in a long time.

Each year I review the 4 conflicting parenting schedules, in the 35 page parenting order, apply the rules in a priority sequence and mark all the special rules on a calendar. In a few cases the order is so ambiguous that I mark more than one schedule in a day. Why is it this complex? Because the lawyers and Guardian drafted them that way. Why did I sign it? Because my ex's hired bitch faxed a threat to take away Christmas visitation last Christmas if I didn't sign it, just like the year before. I paid a few thousand in legal fees the first year to get the Christmas visitation that year, so last year I submitted to the hired bitch's extortion on advice of counsel and accepted the unacceptable overly complicated, overpriced, unusable parenting schedule.

So after checking my court calendar, I saw that in fact, I should have my son from 10am to 8pm on Thanksgiving, so this wasn't any special favor but compliance with the court order. So what did she do, follow the order to a T? Hell no, she is cutting my time short by 2 hours because the weather forecast calls for 2 inches of snow and that will increase her travel time. My suspicion is she wants to get him earlier to take him to her parents. And as usual, the NCP gets the short end of the stick.

My Son

At my son's class last week, the teacher wished me a good holiday and I said that it was my birthday too. So after their usual thank you of a class cheer, the whole class sang Happy Birthday to me. It was very cute. Oh and finally that PC that I diagnosed, was back in service.

Family Celebration

My brother has been involved in a very large project working many hours and it was unclear when we could get together. Well he came through and brought his family to my parents. My son and his cousin had a very good time together as usual. It was very nice to have the whole family together. We all had a very great time.

My ex

My ex asked what my dinner plans were for my birthday. I said well I have a couple of ideas, why do you ask. She cooked for my birthday "so I didn't have to go to McDonalds on my birthday". I responded, well I was thinking more upscale then McDonalds. Rather an odd comment, I think there was some subtle sarcasm implied. I am not a frequent visitor to McDonalds or any other fast food restaurant. I actually shop and prepare food. I'm no chef, I take advantage of shortcuts. I could have prepared something easy or gone to a medium scale restaurant with my son. There are three new restaurants in the area I was considering, None of them using infrared heating lamps.

So I accepted. It doesn't begin to fix the last three years, but I have no need to give her cause to call be ungrateful or who knows what.

So while my ex was making a birthday dinner for my son and I, my son decided that fresh baked cookies would be the natural addition to the meal and he even offered to help. So she made cookies with some help from my son too.

And we ate it all and suffered no ill effects. Wonders will never cease. LOL

Birthday Bummer

Well, how could my birthday pass without its usual bump. As a teenager, I had an accident that broke a front tooth, it wasn't capped, it was pinned and rebuilt, it wasn't expected to last over a decade, but it lasted several. Until my birthday when it finally gave way and broke, leaving a hole for the holidays. So the next day I called the dentist, expecting that I'd be sporting an odd smile for a while and guess what? More luck, when I called, they said they just got a cancellation and could get me in that day. So now I have my old smile back, just in time for a thankful Thanksgiving Day.

Thanksgiving

My son probably can not remember the last time he celebrated Thanksgiving with my family. Well this year he will finally have the chance.

Status: Actively Being Updated - Last Update 11/21/07 1am

Halloween

2007-11-07T04:48:00.000-05:00

Well apparently I have an avid computer using neighbor.
How do you like his pumpkin smiley?

And here's my son, hamming it up for the camera in a scary mask.

My son had fun decorating my house, putting lights in the windows, spiders, skeletons, ghosts, and eyeballs. He keeps opening and eating Halloween candy so I had to run to the store on Halloween day and get some.

Check out my ex, the bitch, on Halloween dressed as herself, a monster. LOL

Display censorship by bitch

Halloween was on Wednesday, my visitation day, but as usual the ex shows up to supervise the trick or treating. I wouldn't necessarily mind if I saw similar flexibility as it relates to me, but my ex likes one way streets, her way, or no way.

The next day was my volunteer morning for my son's computer class. I brought left over Halloween candy to the class. That made me even a bigger hit with the kids than usual.

This year's computer class is such a marked difference from the prior year. My son's teacher can see that I am a big help and occasionally leaves me with the whole class. She has an interesting custom, my son gets to select one of several class "cheers" that the class will do to thank me. Last year's teacher, preferred to use two inexperienced helpers rather than me and closed me out of every volunteer opportunity. Another teacher in this grade that follows my son's class prefers to use no helpers and I have sat through her class and its a zoo compared to my son's class. Just an interesting social observation. I'm happy to contribute and since their other coursework is integrated into the computer lab (in other words they use the computer to do course work not just for the sake of using a computer) I get a closer look at what's going on in my son's class. Funny my ex had signed up for computer lab, but then decided to switch to a different subject (Art I think). Just as well, I don't really need to see that "monster" any more than necessary.

Birthday Bombs

2007-11-07T04:09:00.000-05:00

Well my son's birthday has long passed, had some thoughts to blog about but I was overwhelmed with the events surrounding post decree harassment (PDH). Not much progress there. The courts are acting against me, without representation, the county clerk of courts forwards me the results of their decisions but never am I called in for a hearing to present my side. My birthday is fast approaching as is the six month past post decree point.

My Son's Birthday

My son's birthday party is awkward. In order to invite his child friends it is held on the weekend, when I have no visitation rights. My ex invites his friends, her family and my family. The trouble is that my family are not good actors or hypocrites. They saw what my ex's actions did to me and my family, they saw that as they tried to help our marriage stay together, her family placed no value for the marriage knew in advance of the kidnapping and assisted in it.

They view this as unforgivable and literally can not stand to be near them. I am forced to put up with a lot, just to see my son. My son wonders why my family doesn't come to the party with his friends. For the good of my son, I put up with the pain of being amongst those who helped plot and execute his kidnapping. Sometimes I wish my parents could do the same, but I understand how difficult that would be. So my son and my family celebrate his birthday separately.

My Birthday

After six months of being divorced I was hoping that would be the end of the post decree chapter and the start of something new. But alas my ex's hired bitch plans to make this a career of torturing me. If I just sold the house so she could lay claim to the $100K equity that is locked away in it for fees it might end quicker, so I guess in that respect I have chosen the torturous route, but is that fair, I ask stupidly and rhetorically, I think not is my answer.

I was hoping that I'd celebrate my birthday with a nice vacation, maybe meet some friends, and have fun. So just before my birthday, I get sick, then I find some of my planned destinations are not open, a friend decided that they couldn't meet me, so everything started falling apart.

But then what was I thinking, I have a bit of a birthday curse. Over the years many of my major illness, injurys, car accidents, occurred on my birthday. So being sick for several weeks before my birthday could have been easily anticipated. But I've been working hard in the week prior to my birthday to get things back on track...

So for the latest status on my birthday see my latest post.

This is Child Protection?

2007-10-16T04:41:00.000-04:00

A blogger buddy of mine researches and writes about some truly horrifying aspects of the family court arena. I must thank her for this timely article that helps set the stage for me to finally be able to tell my personal experiences with CPS abuse.

Please read this very informative article. Disgusted with the system: This is Child Protection?

You may have seen my earlier post from events over three weeks ago. The subject is filled with so much intense emotional pain and stress that I have been unable to write about it and shared the details among only a very few close trusted people.

Thanks to Louise's post, I think I may finally be able to find the courage to publicly disclose the details of how CPS is being used by my ever vengeful ex in her continued attempt to limit my son's access to me and continue her obsessive control of me using my son as a weapon.

It is vile, disgusting and should be illegal. But instead it is an example of the once free democracy of the once greatest country in the world failing to meet the goals of the founding father's mighty intentions.

Let this be a call to action, to take back the freedoms and government that we are entitled to.

You can find a link to Louise's Disgusted with the system Blog as well as another very informative site for NCPs - SPARC on my sidebar.

Placeholders

2007-10-08T14:37:00.000-04:00

What's with these placeholders...

I haven't posted in a while, and that happens on many blogs, but usually for different reasons, people start to run out of topics after writing hundreds of posts. I have different problems in between posts.

First I have so many topics for this blog and even a bunch for other blogs. some of which are not launched yet, that I don't know which one to do first. This blog in particular being started 18 months after my potential topics started piling up has a large backlog of partially written posts. In fact the reason this got started is because I had dozens of pages of word document on potential topics.

Second, being a recovering perfectionist, I tend to go through a few drafts to try to cover the topic adequately. I may delay the post because i want to add a photo or because some background should be established first.

Third, and maybe this is more common with my fellow bloggers, sometimes I am just too stressed to write. I may know what I want to cover, know the key points, but just can't sit down and put the sentences together. This happens especially for more emotionally charged subjects.

So rather than have people checking the blog continually and seeing nothing new, I thought I'd think out loud a little. I'd take the skeleton of the post and publish it as is, and then fill it in, hopefully by the end of the week. That way you'll know I'm still here, you'll get a taste for whats coming.

Now granted it means that you may have to scroll down several posts to see the finished versions of the placeholders. And I realize that's kind of inconvenient, so I don't intend on making this a new writing style. I just wanted to give a good explanation by way of illustration.

I also did it as a way to force myself out of being comfortably numb and back into writing. By having the placeholders out there I will embarrass myself into finishing them.

If you didn't notice it, I gave another demonstration of my personal writing challenge in a post that had very strong positive and negative aspects to it. I normally would have split that into two posts concentrating on each end of the experience. Instead I intermingled it, which is confusing, but its the way things are for me IRL... Good and bad are constantly intertwined like a bowl a spaghetti.

In yet another post I tried to add an uncharacteristic (for me) sports analogy spin on a post.

Note: After this post was written a turn of events has taken me from numb to severe panic to be explained here.

You just have to amuse yourself

2007-10-08T14:36:00.000-04:00

otherwise who else will...

Another blogger mentioned the reaction you get from unexpected simple human interactions, things that can bring a glow to you and others. Things like a stranger saying hello with a smile. I try to practice that in a vain attempt to build up positive karma to override all the negative shit in my life. Sometimes I just crack myself up while cracking others up too.

Football in the drugstore

While getting a few things in the drugstore, I saw these small footballs with our home team on them. And I thought of my son who's too young to get his hands around an official size football, especially as you would need to do to throw a spiral pass. Now I'm not a rabid sports fan so I wasn't buying it out of any personal fan loyalty, although I try to see our home teams once in a while.

So I get to the cash register and the lady gives the football a double take, I said "It's for my son", she said "Suuure it is", so I showed her the photo of my son in my wallet and said "Does that look like me?" She still seemed disbelieving, so I explained further, "Yeah I need a smaller ball to teach him to throw a spiral". She said you just do this, and she motioned. I said no that's not how you do it. The other younger clerk said, like this and motioned the same overhand toss. I said, "No you have to get some spin on the ball like this". So the younger clerk is assuring me she can throw a spiral and I said no you can't, not like that, here you throw me one.

So there we are in the drugstore about 15 feet apart passing a small home team football back and forth. See if you don't get spin on it, it wobbles or worse will go end over end. When I was done several employees and customers were looking, smiling, in disbelief about the spiral football passing demonstration. I left the store with a broad smile too. Hey maybe they thought who is that crazy guy? But what's so crazy about having fun?

Picking Buckeyes

There is a buckeye tree next to my son's bus stop, so I've been watching the tree for a few weeks, anxiously waiting for the buckeyes to get ripe and fall. I've picked some and cut them apart for my son so he can see how they form. First there is the outer green prickly shell that keeps any animal from eating the seed before its developed. Then the shell starts getting brown, less needles and begins to crack open. At this point they may be fully developed and may fall to the ground. Eventually the outer shell opens enough for the buckeyes to fall out.

So for the last week I've been collecting buckeyes before and after my son gets off the bus. And this week they are fully developed and we've been picking dozens of them. I don't know what about picking buckeyes is so fun. Maybe its opening the shell and finding the prize inside, different shapes & sizes of buckeye, some with flat sides, some more round. I remember doing it as a kid. So now my son and I are sifting through all these buckeyes. It's still kind of fun.

Why not keep your eye out for a buckeye tree and see what kind of prize you may find?

So...

What do you do to amuse yourself? Leave your suggestions in the comments...

Stress Continum

2007-10-08T14:14:00.000-04:00

Placeholder check back

When a person is stressed what happens? I like to think of things on a spectrum, from one extreme to another, with a balancing point in the middle. This is admittedly an analytical approach, some may say overly analytical, but I'll write off that criticism as an occupational hazard from spending my lifetime in an analytical career.

Stress is impossible to avoid, and can serve a positive purpose if successfully managed. To be managed you need to be self aware, where are you on the spectrum, which way are you headed and what corrective action should you take to reach balance.

Now those who feel this is overly analytical or are believers in ignorance is bliss may want to stop reading now, for once ignorance is pushed aside, bliss may be gone forever. As for me, my analytical instincts are nearly uncontrollable, like a moth to a flame, I am continually on a quest for the reasons, even though I sometimes know I won't like them, I somehow can't leave well enough alone. Oh well, we all have to have our flaws.

So what does the stress continuum look like? Well it can vary from paralyzed with fear, to effectively dealing with it, to just paralyzed. Lets explore the spectrum.

Scared Shitless

yyy

Panic

yyy

Effective

yyy

Comfortably Numb

yyy

Zombie

yyy

Importance of Self Awareness

yyy

Dangers of Ignorance

yyy

What a difference a week makes

2007-10-06T21:56:00.000-04:00

EXISTING VISITATION ENDANGERED ONE WEEK after overnight visitation miracle.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS ON 2 WEEKS after overnight visitation miracle on 10/8 at 8PM - THINGS HAVE GOTTEN MUCH WORSE

The court is now involved and actively considering suspending my visitation entirely.

This is not an unusual occurrence with an NCP during contested custody.

I am no longer numb, I am scared shitless... on 10/8

On 10/15 feeling better thanks to details in Louise's article and CPS not contacting me yet. I am trying to remain hopeful that they will understand this is a bogus complaint.

On 11/07 still no contact from CPS, so that's good. But I have yet to meet with the person who reported my ex's bias account. That was scheduled for tomorrow, but I have a conflict so it may have to wait another month. Depending how that meeting went I could feel better.

I suppose, as I mentioned somewhere, the worst of it is, I can never feel free, as long as I choose to see my son, the threat of CPS abuse looms over me, thanks to a very dysfunctional and often abused system.

I'll finalize this post when that meeting occurs...

Status: Actively updated as of 11/07/07 6 am

Nothing Short of a Miracle...

2007-10-06T21:52:00.000-04:00

ROUGH DRAFT

I can't believe it... OMG...

You know how my son doesn't get to be overnight with me... supposedly because of my sleep apnea. Well my brother and sister-in-law have wanted him to spend the night so he could have a longer visit with their daughter, his niece. They have a lot of fun together.

Well she confirmed that she'd let him go there from noon to 5 to celebrate his birthday with his cousin. So then I said (and my son could hear in the background) how about if he stayed for a bonfire with marshmallows and popcorn and then camped out there. She said, ummm, he said yes, she said well that's a long day, I said that's the point..., she said OK!!!!

She's gonna take him there at noon Sat and he'll spend the day and stay over night... I'll be there too... This is only the second overnight since March 2005.

I really can hardly believe it...

I wonder if its got anything to do with that court order that just came through where she gets the whole $60K appreciation rather than the $39K in the settlement. Nah, she'd have to be one callous bitch to sell an overnight visit for $21K. The last one cost me 1/10 as much.

So......

CHECK BACK

Court Actions Pending

2007-10-06T21:07:00.000-04:00

PLACEHOLDER CHECK BACK

Well boy do I have my hands full now, all these court actions are pending against me...

Court Action 1 - Post decree implementation

There are still implementation items outstanding from 4 months ago that are yet to be taken care of. Nearly all of my parental rights notification were left undone because the lawyer refused to take care of them. For example it I rushed my son to the hospital I would not be allowed to consent to treatment, he would have to wait for his mother or a hospital decision. I have considered writing the needed letters and sign them with a phony name on phony letterhead with a phony lawyers registration number. No one would bother to check, and if they did I'd just be asking for the rights already granted to me in the decree but people will accept it in a letter from me since I am the NCP, loosing party.

In some ways, I can now see why people are proposing gay marriage to obtain legal rights for their "partner", now that I have lost legal rights for my own son. I would have to say that we should restore Father's rights before we get busy establishing gay rights. Something to ask any politician who has misplaced priorities in this area.

Court Action 2 - Debt lawsuit

The judge granted my ex's request for more than half the assets and less than half the debt on the grounds that men are more capable of earning money, even when harassed out of a job. When I objected to this, there was some prejudicial consideration of my premarital safety net, even though the judge ordered it seized for legal fees. This was the point where he said he'd take my house unless I "agreed" to take on an extra $30,000 debt. This lawsuit is scheduled for a hearing in Dec 2007 and for a multi-year trial to begin in March 2008.

Court Action 3 - Deadbeat Enforcement

As mentioned in the previous post, I received another notice on an enforcement action, all future federal and state tax refunds will automatically be seized. I have received a State Department warning. The next actions to follow quickly will be passport revocation and drivers license suspension. Without a driver's license I will find it impossible to maintain meaningful employment in my city. I will be forced to relocate to the inner city along a bus line and accept employment as a day laborer.

Court Action 4 - No representation

The judge granted my lawyer's request to withdraw ex parte, without allowing me a chance to voice the effect on me. As a three lawyer looser, I will be unable to obtain legal counsel, not that I could afford it anyway. But with a dozen actions pending this is getting to be a little more than I can handle.

Court Action 5 - Ex Parte Decisions

The trial judge, having dismissed my counsel, and determined not to allow me to represent myself, is now accepting ex parte requests from opposition counsel to allow her to request a hearing in my absence, present only one side and then have him render an opinion under a little known local rule regarding an "uncooperative" party.

Court Action 6 - Seizure of Pension

My ex has know made a motion to the court to seize the public employment retirement pension that I built up 15 years prior to marriage. Having been in that system nearly long enough to retire leaves me with insufficient Social Security credits to collect from that pension, leaving me with the prospect of working until I drop dead at work.

Court Action 7 - Failed Service

A new court action has been taken and I don't know what it is because I evaded service. As I am now being sued in two municipal courts, domestic relations court and county common please court, I have some docket searching to do to track this down.

Court Action 8 - Visitation Reduction Request

My ex has a need for absolute control for a variety of reasons, likely stemming from deep seated and currently untreated emotional problems. Visitation has been a constant struggle, she is not satisfied to simply allow me or even my family access to my son without anal retentive control. When she drops him off, she'll have a list of suggested activities, snacks, food, clothing, etc. It concerns me because living in a bobble or with those short "apron strings" would make the most well adjusted person neurotic.

Every opportunity she gets she looks for "concerns" to bring up. These have cost me tens of thousands in evaluation interviews all of which have come up with no other concern then "we look at things differently"... and that's being kind, I'd say that her obsessive, phobic, neurotic behavior presents a danger to my son's healthy up bringing. But that has fallen on deaf ears, mothers are "wired" to be the perfect nurturing parent, what the hell could a sperm donor lend to the situation after conception?

At any rate, even post decree, she is still reporting her "concerns" and now that the divorce is final and I have been deemed the "looser", my risk of loss of visitation has increased substantially. During the divorce when the looser wasn't declared there seemed to be at least the protection that I would get some visitation. That protection is gone.

Court Action 9 - Visitation Mediation

xxx

Court Action 10 - Supervised Visitation Request

xxx

Court Action 11 - County Prosecutor Audit

During the course of reviewing supporting documents for the final decree, I found a fax from the county prosecutors office to the opposition counsel responding to child support audit request. This request would normally be an administrative matter handled by the support agency. By making the request to the prosecutor, knowing that she had diverted in excess of $5000 of support outside the agency records she knew the audit would come up as eligible for action by the prosecutor. At no time did she indicate her deliberate action to hide funds paid to her client, thereby deceiving the prosecutor. I had asked for a full disclosure of all correspondence to the prosecutor and a letter to the prosecutor bringing to light the facts with held. My counsel, already uncooperative at the time refused to implement my request. This action remains pending.

Court Action 12 - Opposition Legal Fees

My counsel needlessly exposed me to opposition legal fees twice after the judge had made a ruling on the level of my wife's fees I would be expected to pay. First when the fee negotiation cut her fees in half, no record of that discussion or the detailed fee schedule was provided as I had repeatedly asked for. This allows her to simply submit a new fee schedule and claim its the correct version, post decree as she has not settled her fee with my ex yet, leaving the door open to collect it from me.

Second, when I repeatedly asked for a sanction for the delay in the QDRO transaction, and it was ignored this allowed the opposition to pursue delay charges against me since none were lodged against her. My lawyer then claimed he had notified me a month earlier when my records show I was unable to reach him or the senior partner because they were out of the office. When I asked for proof of the notification, none was provided. My voicemail boxes, caller ID logs, and email contained no record of any attempted contact by my counsel which was very untypical. With the support of my counsel against me in an ex parte hearing, it was determined that the delay was my fault on my counsel's word. This is the second exposure to fees.

Status: Second Draft - Last update 10/9/07

Deadbeat Again Dilemma

2007-10-06T21:05:00.000-04:00

It's almost unbelievable...

In the US, the federal government mandates a nationwide child enforcement bureaucracy that has the dubious distinction of over collecting from those who are honest and not collecting at all from those who are not.

I have continually been on the deadbeat dad enforcement action list since I was first registered with them. In fact the very first month, they claimed I was $3000+ behind because they used the wrong starting date. I have never been behind in child support and at times have had as much as 2.5 years of support held in escrow. Wait, how could that be, that means I would have prepaid all my support to date... Yep, and I did, except the judge ordered 2/3 of my son's support seized for legal fees. Because the judge decided it was BIC for my lawyers to get the money rather than my son. Where was my son's guardian on this issue, protecting his interests? Nope, she had her hand out too and got part of that 2/3.

Last year I came within 2 weeks of loosing my driver's license and only thorough shouted threats at my lawyer every few days did I obtain the court order that notified the agency that they were in error. One year later and I'm at the same ridiculous point. Every single month I call the agency get someone to run an audit and audio tape their response. Last month they said I was at a surplus in my support payments. This month I received a notice that said I was 3 months behind and enforcement would be escalated by seizure of both federal and state tax refunds. How could this be? A bunch of do nothing, could give 2 hits, careless, government employees who screw up constantly. I may start posting these audio tapes...

How can you be at a surplus and behind? Well child support is broken into two segments, support sent to the mother with no accounting for how it is spent, and "poundage" a fee (2%) collected as a percentage of the support amount to support the inefficient error prone government bureaucracy something you thought taxes paid for.

This creates two interesting problems. First, depending how they apply the money they get, they can have an excess in support and a short fall in poundage. If they allow this shortfall to go uncorrected for a few months, then you will be targeted for enforcement. So last month when I had thought I was even and they reported a surplus that should have been my warning sign to file for a court ordered intense audit. Something that I am likely too late for.

But the second problem is more insidious, a built in conflict of interest and the reason why every Dad is labeled a Deadbeat. Their very existence, their paycheck is funded by poundage, by the level of support they claim you owe. By inflating their estimated outstanding support obligations, they inflate their poundage and hence their own budget. That's right, the government learned a lesson in creative bookkeeping from the private sector, ala Enron.

I have also received the Federal Sate Department warning that my passport is eligible for seizure. Being on the sate department list, my travel by major means can be scrutinized and denied. At the last minute going through airport checkin, my boarding could be denied just as any terrorist's could be. See in America, Divorced Dads are viewed with the same contempt by the government as terrorists.

Well almost, because if you are a terrorist in the US, the government will not interfere with your driving privileges. But as a Divorced Dad, we are subjected to automatic suspension of our driver's license if listed for enforcement action. And just as an enemy combatant we are relieved of our due process. Oh they say you can apply for an appeal, but your license is taken first then good luck ever getting the appeal.

How does this happen? Deceitful people "working" the system and those responsible to keep things in control (judges) allowing them to do it. The easiest way to achieve this is by forcing support payments to be made outside of the enforcement agency, to write ambiguous support order adjustments, and to communicate conflicting information to related government agencies.

Over the last few months I've let my beard grow in, maybe I could travel more freely under false ID looking like a terrorist.

And the saddest part of this whole story is this is typical.

In the US, all Divorced Dads are labeled as Deadbeat Dads, some by error, some for cause. (jqism)
Divorced Dads don't run away, they are chased away by the courts. (jqism)

Status: Second Draft

Welcome to my Roller Coaster Life

2007-10-06T01:12:00.000-04:00

IRL I don't much like roller coasters, maybe its because my life seems like one huge roller coaster...

Last week in just 4 days...

For only the second time since she took my son in March of 2005, she was going to allow my son to spend overnight with me. Not at my house but at my brother's to celebrate his birthday. This is huge progress!
My son's overnight visit (Sat to Sun) went very well.
After my son left I spent some time with just my brother, first time in a long time, we walked the lagoon/lakefront for hours
I missed a message on my cell Sun afternoon, in the evening I found it was a fairly serious medical problem with my Father.
Monday morning I got Sat's mail to find three serious court actions.
The first was stepped up deadbeat dad enforcement after I have paid extra support and had monthly audits the last which said I was at a surplus, I called and raised a big shit, got to the county directors office, all kinds of finger pointing and they say I'm OK. But I'm not - court action is initiated by the State, and when I get called into state court and tell them the county director said it was OK, they say it wasn't in their jurisdiction. The next steps will be a permanent travel ban like a fuckin terrorist and then they will take my driver's license and prevent me from being employed.
Number 2 court action is ex parte rulings against me, I am no longer being represented by a lawyer, nor being allowed to represent myself. My ex's lawyer is getting judgments against me without due process.
Number 3 court action is a seizure of my public employment retirement account that I have instead of Social Security, without that I will have to work to my fucking dying day which I hope comes so very soon.
Then I find out my son is very sick and can't even leave the apt, I had no contact not even by phone on Monday....
I felt like shit, how do I get past this... I pushed and pushed myself and decided, I will go to a concert, I'll do something for me. I got dressed in a typical old style California Cool, all black. I was lucky to get a ticket, the mosh pit and seating were full, SRO (standing room only). It was a cool concert, kind of mellow. I enjoyed myself...
Got up Tuesday, worn out, a little hung over, and in the mail a fourth court action attempted service, don't even know what it is...
Later on that day I had personal misunderstandings that just added to my stress.
At least on Wednesday my Father's condition was stable.

The Chinese say may you live in interesting times... My times are too fucking interesting, I am ready to be bored. Or at least climb a mountain and stay there for a while before crashing down at high speed. So after Wednesday did things settle down, did they get tolerable? Fuck no, things are continuing to plummet downward at high speed....

Another one bites the dust....

2007-09-18T23:04:00.000-04:00

It been one week since my lawyers CYA email and my response, I got the pussy's response by mail.

Motion to Withdraw as Counsel of Record

This motion is made "for cause" of "no longer able to work together" and he is obligated to withdraw "pursuant to the Code of Professional Responsibility".

Well good riddance pussy, not gonna miss ya, just one question, when you ignored my explicit directions where was your fuckin code then huh??? And does the Code include taking responsibility for your fuckups rather than your obligation to walk away from them?

You ignored your fuckin code, when you exceeded your authority, when you refused to follow directives, when you trusted opposition's word and failed to obtain agreements in writing. Now we can't work together so you invoke the most honorable fuckin Code. Well la de fuckin da. Thank God for your Code of Unprofessional Irresponsibility or whatever you like to call it.

This will be amusing. If the Honorable Judge accepts the Motion, I will be Pro Se, something he refused to allow in the past and something that opposition counsel will object to vehemently. In the past the judge refused to release counsel until I had new counsel appear. But I will submit evidence of malpractice and financial hardship. I will petition for reassignment to the Administrative (most senior) Judge for a hearing on the matter.

Now interestingly enough there was an attempt to serve me by certified mail today... This game I know. As my wife did, as my current lawyer advised me, you simply don't accept certified mail and the process service fails, not forever, but it delays formal notification. And without notification, the court can not proceed.

And that will frustrate the other playas, tough shit, welcome to my world.