Saturday, June 25, 2011

Last statement sent to Sentinel from self-immolation victim


Man found on fire dies

Police, other emergency personnel and the state medical examiner are seen outside the Cheshire County Superior Courthouse in downtown Keene Wednesday where a man was discovered on fire. The man was pronounced dead at the scene but has yet to be identified.

Posted: Thursday, June 16, 2011  
Editor's note: On Thursday morning, June 16, The Sentinel received a "last statement" via mail from a man who insinuated that he planned to set himself on fire in front of the Cheshire County Court House, and an explanation of why he intended to do so. Through further reporting, The Sentinel is confident this is from the victim of Wednesday afternoon's fire, although police have not yet received confirmation of his identity. The 15-page statement is printed in full, except for two redacted items: The names of the man's mother and his three children.  Details will be posted as they become available.

Last Statement
by Tom Ball

A man walks up to the main door of the Keene N.H. County Courthouse, douses himself with gasoline and lights a match. And everyone wants to know why.

Apparently the old general was right. Death is not the worst of evil.

I am due in court the end of the month. The ex-wife lawyer wants me jailed for back child support. The amount ranges from $2,200. to $3,000. depending on who you ask. Not big money after being separated over ten years and unemployed for the last two. But I do owe it. If I show up for court without the money and the lawyer say jail, then the judge will have the bailiff take me into custody. There really are no surprises on how the system works once you know how it actually works. And it does not work anything like they taught you in high school history or civics class.

I could have made a phone call or two and borrowed the money. But I am done being bullied for being a man. I cannot believe these people in Washington are so stupid to think they can govern Americans with an iron fist. Twenty-five years ago, the federal government declared war on men. It is time now to see how committed they are to their cause. It is time, boys, to give them a taste of war.

There are two kinds of bureaucrats you need to know; the ones that say and the ones that do. The bridge between them is something I call The Second Set of Books. I have some figures of the success of their labors. You and I are in these numbers, as well as our spouses and children. But first let me tell you how I ended up in this rabbit hole.

My story starts with the infamous slapping incident of April 2001. While putting my four year old daughter to bed, she began licking my hand. After giving her three verbal warnings I slapped her. She got a cut lip. My wife asked me to leave to calm things down.

When I returned hours later, my wife said the police were by and said I could not stay there that night. The next day the police came by my work and arrested me, booked me, and then returned me to work. Later on Peter, the parts manager, asked me if I and the old lady would be able to work this out. I told him no. I could not figure out why she had called the police. And bail condition prevented me from asking her. So I no longer trusted her judgment.

After six months of me not lifting a finger to save this marriage, she filed for divorce. Almost two years after the incident, I was talking with her on the phone. She told me that night she had called a mental health provider we had for one of the kids. Wendy, the counselor told my then wife that if she did not call the police on me, then she too would be arrested.

Suddenly, everything made sense. She is the type that believes that people in authority actually know what they are talking about. If both she and I were arrested, what would happen to our three children, ages 7,4 and 1? They would end up in State custody. So my wife called the police on her husband to protect the children. And who was she protecting the kids from? Not her husband, the father of these children. She was protecting them from the State of New Hampshire.

This country is run by idiots.

The police sergeant Freyer screwed this up from the get go. When I got the Court Complaint form the box was checked that said Domestic Violence Related. I could not believe that slapping your child was domestic violence. So I looked up the law. Minor custodial children are exempted. Apparently, 93% of American parents still spank, slap or pinch their children. To this day I still wonder if Freyer would have made this arrest if it had been the mother that had slapped the child.

Labeling someone's action as domestic violence in American in the 21st century is akin to labeling someone a Jew in Germany in the 1930's. The entire legal weight of the state is coming down on him. But I consider myself lucky. My family was destroyed. But that poor bastard in Germany had his family literally annihilated.
Arrests are mandatory for the police in New Hampshire for domestic violence. That is not law. That is police department policy. Laws come from the Legislature and the Governor's office together. God only knows where these policies come from. The State's Attorney General also has a mandatory arrest protocol for domestic violence. I call these policies, procedures and protocols The Second Set of Books. You never cover the Second Set of Books your junior year in high school. That because we are not suppose to have a Second Set of Books. This is America-we have the rule of law.

I am a regular guy, a coffee and cheeseburger type of fellow. As remarkable as my life has been, I figure that what happens to me must be happening to others as well. I was 48 years old when I got arrested here for my first time. So I went looking for the arrest numbers for domestic violence, this new group that I had unwilling joined. I could not find anything. So I wrote the U.S. Dept. of Justice in Washington. They wrote back that they did not keep track of domestic violence arrests. The FBI keeps track of all other crimes. How come not domestic violence? I thought some low level clerk was blowing me off.

At the time, I had mailing addresses in both New Hampshire and Massachusetts. So I wrote to all six Congressional offices, the two Senators from each state and the two Congressman. They like doing favors for constituents hoping you will favorably remember their name in the voting booth. All six offices reported back the same thing. They do not know how many arrests for domestic violence have been made. I immediately knew something was wrong. And I also knew this was not going to be good.

Improvise, adapt and overcome. The Army teaches that to every soldier it trains. They say that no battle plan survives the first five minutes of combat. So your people on the ground had better be able to think for themselves. Taking casualties in war is just an occupational hazard. Taking casualties and not accomplishing your mission is a disaster. After 21 years of Army service, I am pretty good at improvising.

The first thing I found was a study not of domestic violence arrests but of domestic violence injuries for 18 unnamed states and the D.C. in the year 2000. In the study 51% of the injuries were 'no injuries'. So I knew I had a study of police reports. Who else but a police officer would record no injuries? I populated that out to the 50 states and came up with 874,000 arrest in the year 2000.

I had originally populated the number back to 1994 when the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was enacted into law. I would later find out these arrests stated with the U.S. Attorney General's Task Force of Domestic Violence ten years earlier in 1984. As individual states data became available for various years and states, I would incorporated in to my informal study. The number I have now in 2011 is 36 million adults have been arrested for domestic violence. I have a gut feeling this number could be as high as 55 million. But I only have data to 36 million. So 36 million it stays. And there is a really cool trick you can do once you have this number. You can find out how many American men. women and children ended up homeless because of these arrests.

Most of the domestic violence statistics I have seen break down with 75% male and 25% female being arrested. So I am going to used the male pronoun for the one arrested spouse and the female pronoun for the victim spouse. That should make the domestic violence feminists ecstatic-man bad, woman good. But that is okay because that is probably the last nice thing I am going to do for them today.

When then a man is arrested for domestic violence, one of two things can happen. If they are only dating and have separate apartments, then he can head home. But if they are living together, then this fellow has a real problem. Bail conditions and then a possible protective or restraining order prevent him from being with her. So he needs to find a new place to live, at least until the charges are resolved. The King of his Castle is no longer allowed into his castle. A feminist name Pence who wrote that was absolutely giddy at that outcome. So he can get his own place if he has enough money. Or he can move in with his mother, his sister or another relative. He might have a girl friend who would let him stay with her. And if none of this is possible, well then I guess he is sleeping in his car down by the river.

If he has minor children, money will soon turn into an issue. Most men I know do not mind paying child support. They want their kids to have food on their plates, clothes on their backs, and a roof over their heads. But it does stress that man's finances. Child support is usually 33% of the man's gross income. Withholding for taxes, social security and health insurance can range up to 28% of his gross paycheck. So a man making $500 a week gross has only $825 monthly left over after withholding and child support. That is not enough money for an apartment here in Central Massachusetts. That does not include other expenses like heating, electric, gas, groceries, telephone, cable, car payment and car insurance. So he is in a financial hole. Estimates of homeless men run 82% to 94%. I am going to round that down to 80%.

After the King has left his castle, his wife runs into a problem. She was use to getting his whole paycheck for the household. Now she get a third for child support. Figure they both work and made the same money, her budget went from 100% down to 66%. If she was running the house on $3,045. a month when the King was home, now without him she only has $2,220. Most households in America cannot withstand a 27% hit on the household account. She'll juggle the bills but eventually most wives figure out that they can pay all the smaller bills if they just does not pay the big bill. That would be the rent or the mortgage. So six to nine months after the King is out of the castle, the Queen, the Princes and the Princesses are also on the street. Domestic violence feminists state that 50% of victim spouses of domestic violence end up homeless at some time in their lives.

The last group of homeless from these arrests are children. The domestic violence feminists state that 70% of domestic violence couple have children. So 50% female times 70% children equals 35%. But children is plural. So we will double to 70%. (Odd isn't it? They know that 50% of victim spouses end up homeless and that 70% of them have children. How can they know the percentages when they do not know how many total arrests were made? Those people at the U.S. Justice Dept. cannot even pull off a credible cover-up. )
Men are 0.8, women are 0.5, and children are 0.7 for a grand total of 2.0 homeless Americans for every domestic violence arrest. Multiply that by 36 million and you get 72 million men, women and children ending up homeless at some point in their lives over the last 25 years because of these domestic violence arrests.
That is a really large number even by Washington standards. That is almost 25% of the entire population of the U.S. using 2010 census figures. Which begs the question did these homeless people contribute to this latest economic meltdown, or did they cause it? Because if they did cause it then the recovery will not be measure in months or years but in decades.

Some of the boys in the Father's Movement think Congress might have shot themselves in the foot over this one. Personally, I think they shot themselves some place anatomically higher. No wonder the Speaker of the House is always crying. The Dummies on the Potomac.

Twenty-five years ago the federal government start pushing these arrests on state's legal systems. Now, we have an economy on the rope. They have thrown a huge amount of money at banks, big business and local and states government. And we are still in the mud. But no economist either at the Treasury Dept., Federal Reserve, universities or think tanks are even looking at the impact of all these broken families. If that 36 million arrest is correct, then 72 million men and women, have been throw out of the middle class into subsistence living. Or is the number 55 million and 110 million? No one knows and no one is even looking. But why should look? According to the Attorney General, we do not know how many arrests we have made.
And if the Tea Party is any indication, insurrection is brewing in the land. Just a coincident? Not likely. This is what happens when the government wipes out the middle class.

The idea for these arrests came from something called the Minneapolis Police Experiment (MPE) of 1981-82. In the experiment police offices were given pads with one of three words written on them; counsel, send or arrest. Counsel meant the officer was to try to mediate the couple's spat. Send was to send one of the spouses out of the house for eight hours as a cooling off period. Arrest was arrest one of the two spouses. The officer was to do as the top paper on the pad said to do. The experiment was set up by the Police Foundation and Lawrence W. Sherman was the lead researcher. The results show counseling resulted in a future assault in 24% cases, send was 19%, and the arrest option resulted in a future assault in only 10% of the cases. Perhaps a cheap way of cutting down future domestic violence.

In 1984 The U. S. Attorney General's Task Force of Domestic Violence recommended arrest as the primary weapon in domestic violence assault. Lawrence W. Sherman recommend not using the arrests because the MPE was just one study and it could be wrong. They ignored him. And by 1992, 93% of the police departments in the nation had adopted some form of mandatory arrest in domestic violence cases.
But by 1992 five more addition studies similar to the MPE became available. Lawrence W. Sherman reviewed all five studies. Then once again he wrote that the police should not use arrest. In two of the five studies, they found the same result as they did in the MPE, that an arrest cut down the odds of a future assault. But in the other three studies an arrest actually increase the odds of a future assault. So arresting someone in a domestic violence situation to cut down on future assaults did not work any better than just flipping a coin. I do not know if Lawrence W. Sherman is still alive. But fortunately he wrote a book call Policing Domestic Violence that was published in 1992.

So we have 800,000 American police officers arresting one in every six adults in the country and throwing 25% of the men, women and children out on the streets in an effort to enforce a policy that they knew did not work back in1992. And I had always assumed that you needed a man to really screw something up. Oh well, there goes another glass ceiling.

Why would they push an arrest policy that does not work? There are two schools of thought on the reason why. The first comes from Lawrence W. Sherman. He calls it the Law of Just Desserts. Revenge for slights and offenses, real or imagined. I am sure there are some that would argue that women are not vengeful. But what is that old saying? Hell hath no fury.....

The second idea comes from the mother of the second wave of feminism. I do speak of the brilliant Betty Friedan. In the Epilogue Chapter of the 20th Anniversary Edition of her book The Feminine Mystique, Betty relayed why she resigned as the first president of the National Organization of Women in 1970. Betty wrote that she, "was unable to openly fight the man haters and unwilling to front for them any more..." So man hating bigots no only existed 40 years ago, they were also grabbing power. Now Washington is funding them. Makes you wonder what bigots they will fund next. Maybe the Klan?

Feminists had always claimed that when women took over, we would have a kinder, gentler, more nurturing world. After 36 million arrests and 72 million evictions what we got was Joe Stalin.

The third wave of feminists do not like to call themselves feminists. The word feminist could be perceived as gender oppression. These third wave of whatever-we-call-you got that right The treachery of our legal system over the last 25 years may end up giving all feminists a bad name. Which would make us as bigoted as the man-hating feminists who got us into this mess to begin with.

So let us talk about those bureaucrats that do. These are the ones that actually carry out the evil deeds. I like call them the do-bies.

Any one swept up into legal mess is usually astonished at what they see. They cannot believe what the police, prosecutors and judges are doing. It is so blatantly wrong. Well, I can assure you that everything they do is logical and by the book. The confusion you have with them is you both are using different sets of books. You are using the old First Set of Books- the Constitution, the general laws or statutes and the court ruling sometime call Common Law. They are using the newer Second Set of Books. That is the collection of the policy, procedures and protocols. Once you know what set of books everyone is using, then everything they do looks logical and upright. And do not bother trying to argue with me that there is no Second Set of Books. I have my own copies at home. Or at least a good hunk of the important part of it.

I got my Second Set of Books when I sued the Jaffrey NH police department. Under the discovery rule, I write them with the material I wanted and it would arrive in the mail a few weeks later. I got the Police Academy Training Manual. I got the Department's Policy and Procedure Manual. I got the no-drop protocol that the attorney general sent to all his or her prosecutors. I even got the domestic violence protocols for the court system, one hundred pages worth. Once you read it the material, then you will know what the police, prosecutors and judges will do. They are completely predictable once you know what set of books they are using.

The police academy training manual states that an arrest in a domestic violence call is the preferred response. They cite the Minneapolis Police Experiment (MPE) as its justification. But the author of the MPE, Lawrence Sherman, said do not use arrest because five follow up studies show that it did not work. The would be a violation of the 4th Amendment in the First Set of Books against unreasonable search and seizure. Then there is that whole issue of whether the police have the right to arrest for any reason other than they believe a crime was committed.

The Jaffrey Police Department Policy and Procedures Manual states that if a wife says she does not want her husband arrested, the police are to ignore her, arrest the husband, and get with the prosecutor to see what they can work out. In other words, make the arrest and then see if you can Mickey Mouse it. The wife is eligible for spousal immunity. If she invokes it, then no statement she mades, written or oral, are admissible because she cannot be cross examined about it under oath. ( Did you say that? What did you mean when you said that?) With no statements the police have no probable cause in most cases to make an arrest. Also a violation of the 4th amendment in the First Set of Books.

The actor Nickolas Cage was drunk in New Orleans with his wife. Everyone else is drunk in New Orleans, so why should Nick be any different. He and his wife were arguing over which house the rented for their stay. Nick grab his wife's arm and started to lead her to his house. The police arrested Nick for domestic violence. His wife was stunned. That was not domestic violence. "Nothing we can do," the police explained to her. "Just following orders."

That is an accurate explanation for victims, even if they do not think of themselves as victims. The police have a zero tolerance towards any physical contact. Things might get worse in the future is the feminist logical for this present iron fist approach to domestic relations. I would have to agree with them. After all the arrests, poverty, homelessness and misery, I can assure you-things are going to get worse.

But that nothing we can do, just following orders the officers explain always sounds so timid and lame. The police need to punch their explanation up a bit, make it more authoritarian. And there is a quick, low cost way of doing it. The police officers only need to say it in its original German.

The state Constitution in NH said the prosecutors job is to promote justice. The Attorney Generals protocols said that domestic violence case are no-drop cases. (Unless, of course, they take the Deal. Continue the case for a year, go to counseling, and everything falls off the books after the year. They did after all find some way of getting rid of all these cases.)

The Attorney General can hire, fire, layoff, promote, demote, commend or award bonuses. The constitution is some old, quaint, dusty document up in the Statehouse some where. So which one do you think is going to get obeyed?

Prosecutors are funny. Some, maybe most, have egos the size of Cape Cod. But of the three, police, prosecutor and judges, prosecutors have the least protection. Micheal Nifong, the prosecutor in the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, was fired, disbarred, convicted of a crime, and actually jailed for trying to enforce the no-drop prosecution protocol for sexual assault in the Duke case.

The prosecutor in my criminal case fared a little better. I filed a complaint with his boss for summoning my two daughters, ages 7 and 4, to court. I had already conceded that the facts were not in dispute. The trial would be about the law. No witness were need much less a couple of toddlers. He still summoned them. (The Second Set of Books tells the prosecutors to get a sympathetic face in front of the judge or jury. What's more sympathetic than toddlers.) The prosecutor could not refute my allegation because I enclosed a copy of the trial transcript. I had to pay for the transcript. When the prosecutor read it, he gave his two weeks notice and then blew town. That transcript was the best $46 I had ever spent in this life.

There is a name for what happens when a bureaucrat is destroyed by the First Set of Books for attempting to enforce the Second Set of Books. It is called the Abu Ghraib Syndrome. The people within the law enforcement community no longer seem to know the difference between the law, with its checks and balances, and the policies, procedure and protocols that constitute The Second Set of Books. In some cases you do not even know who wrote the policy, procedure or protocol. It could have been the local high school gym teacher for all anyone knows. Many of these bureaucrats are eventually going to learn the different between the First and the Second Set of Books. And my guess is that many of them are going to learn it the hard way. Because the only checks and balances in The Second Set of Books is The First Set of Books.

Judges routinely use our children as bargaining chips. Get the adult into counseling, continue the case for a year, and then drop it. This will open up the docket for the new arrests coming in next week. These judges that use our children are not honorable. Which is why I never use the term 'Your Honor' any more. I just call them judge.

Alex Baldwin, the actor, wrote that you have never seen a coward until you have seen a Los Angeles County judge. I call my judges-Sullivan, Arnold and even Runyon-cowards, too. When I first started observing them, nothing made sense. Arnold was completely infuriated when he was maneuvered into ruling not guilty. He verbally went up and down me so many times I lost count. What was the big deal? If I was not guilty just say and then we could all go home. But that was back in the days before I knew about The Second Set of Books.

I lost visitation with my two daughters when I got arrested. One was the victim-the other was the witness. After a not guilty, I expected to get visitation with my girls. But the divorce judge, Sullivan, decreed that counseling was in order and they would decide when we would reunite. I told the judge that the decision on whether these two girls had a father or a fatherless childhood was not leaving this courthouse. There would be a couple of reason for that decision.

First, by then I knew of the Second Set of Books. As much as I had prayed for the return of my children, I knew that this counseling might get thrown in the way. Judges are addicted to counseling like a meth-head is addict to crystal meth. Sullivan wrote in the divorce decree that he envision only one or two meetings with the counselor. There is no counseling done in the first meeting or two. It is intake-who's the players and what are the issues. But Sullivan was not interested in counseling. He merely wanted to unload the decision out of habit. And if we do not shut them down now, they will be doing it to our kids in twenty years from now when they have little ones running around the house.

Second, just exactly where does the buck stop with our legal system? Police have to make an arrest. The prosecutor has to pursue the case. Judges now also walk a away without rendering a verdict, and passing the buck does not constitute a decision. Can those mental health counselors slide the decision over to someone else? Just where does this end? Who is responsible? Who is accountable?

The mental health crowd is the third reason I said no. Some people think they are geniuses with their Masters and PH D's. Others think they are so wacky that they call them fruit loops. Well, I have a third name for them. Suckers. They did not get hired for their medical ability. They got these because they were willing to take these cases off the judge's hands. Which has done nothing for the credibility for their profession. We are not here to help-we are here to unload. And they created a liability that did not previously existed. If a judge releases a defendant and he goes kills someone, that judge or the judiciary cannot be sued. But a mental health worker, and their employer certainly can be held liable. Our judiciary is now using the mental health field like a ten dollar whore.

I sued Monadnock Family Services to make them go away. I told their lawyer Byron that they were a legitimate target for men. We settled for no money. They would have nothing to do with this reconciliation. The counselor was released. And they would no longer get involved in any domestic violence cases.

Every time we ended back in court over whatever squabbles, I would ask Judge Sullivan for my children back. The decision belong to the counselors he would tell me. But he knew he had screwed up. I could see it in his face. But he would not fix it. He would not step out of that box those domestic violence/sexual assault advocates had built for him. After five years, he retired to a part time position at the Littleton courthouse 120 miles away.

So when guys like Alex Baldwin and I call judges cowards, we have legitimate reasons for doing so. It is not good for judges to be called coward. It is unlikely that it is good for the rest of us.

I do not claim to have all The Second Set of Book. I know of one book that I do not have. And I would have love to read that one. That would be the seminar that the domestic violence and sexual assault advocates put on periodically for legal personnel including judges. These advocates are camped outside every state, not federal, courthouse in America. The U.S. Dept of Justice provides 50-100% of their funding depending on the program. They have three day seminars at resorts where everything is paid for except the liquor. Judges in NH are ordered to attend. Neither Sullivan or Arnold would confirm or deny they had attended. They actually said nothing. It must be like the Masons where they will not say anything about the organization until you show them the secret hand sign.

Supreme Court Judge Louis Brandeis once wrote that the best description of a judge is the impartial guardian of the rule of law. How does three days of wine, women and song contribute to impartiality? It does not. So it should not have been any surprise that they would not answer me. After all, they were not on trial. I was. But they are going to be. They were suppose to protect to rule of law not collaborate in its demise. They have failed miserably.

A guardian ad litem is an attorney appointed for a child. The attorney solely represents the child. I got one when I was first separated to get a neutral pair of eyes and ears on the family. I was disappointed in his findings.

A few years later, another guardian was appointed for one of the kids. A regular report filed with the Court painted me as some sort violent psychopath. I thought that was uncalled for seeing as we had never met. It start a flurry of nasty letters between until we both came to the conclusion that this was not about us. We ended on a friendly note.

At a Court hearing later on I approached him. I asked him if he had had any domestic violence training. He said yes, that it was required to become certified as a guardian ad litem. Another chapter for The Second Set of Books that I never managed to acquire.. So men, if you were thinking about getting a guardian ad litem for an unbiased assessment, then you should ask for the domestic violence material that certified the guardian. And do not worry that you are not sure what you are looking for. It will stand right out.

There are more sections of The Second Set of Books. Medical personnel are supposed to report suspected domestic violence. The college professor Angela Davis has a story of a Latino couple in California getting in trouble feeding the dog his liver for dinner. Mental health employees are also required. Think of Wendy threatening our kids with foster care. Teachers, day care providers, the list just goes on and on. The East German secret police, the Stazi, had 25% of the population on record as informers. The United States is not that high yet, but we are still growing.

These people-police, prosecutors and judges-are suppose to protect us. They are checks and balances to prevent injustice. That is why we spend so much money of police training. But if the police screw it up, the prosecutor can catch it. If the prosecutor misses it then the judge can step in to fix it. But if all three have been compromised, then what does one need to do to get justice? Go to the appeals court or the Supreme Court? That seem a little ridiculous particularly when the zero tolerance has arrests for something as trivial as touching.

On one hand we have the law. On the other hand we have what we are really going to do-the policies, procedures and protocols. The rule of law is dead. Now we have 50 states with legal systems as good as any third world banana republic. Men are demonized and the women and children end up as suffering as well.
So boys, we need to start burning down police stations and courthouses. The Second Set of Books originated in Washington. But the dirty deeds are being carried out by our local police, prosecutors and judges. These are the people we pay good money to protect us and our families. And what do we get for our tax money? Collaborators who are no different than the Vichy of France or the Quislings of Norway during the Second World War. All because they go along to get along. They are an embarrassment, the whole lot of them. And they need to be held accountable. So burn them out.

In the last 25 years they have arrested one in six adults in this country and forced 25% of the men, women and children into homelessness. In 50 years it will be one in three adults arrested and 50% of the men, women and children ending up homeless. Most of our kids will live to the age of 68 years old. As bad as it was for you, your children will have twice the odds of it happening to them.

Some of you will say that 50% homelessness sounds absurd. But 25% is absurd and that is already here. There is no evidence that the police, courts, or government is planning to do anything different in the immediate future. And they will not do anything different until we make it so uncomfortable that they must change. Bureaucracy at its worst. So burn them out. This is too important to be using that touchy-feeling coaching that is so popular with business these days. You need to flatten them, like Wile E. Coyote. They need to be taught never to replace the rule of law. BURN-THEM-OUT!

Most of the police stations built in New England over the last 20 years are stone or brick. Fortunately, the roofs are still wood. The advantage of fire on the roof is that it is above the sprinklers. But even the sprinklers going off work to our advantage. There is no way they can work in a building with six inches of water. And I am certain we will disrupt their momentum once they start working out of a FEMA trailers. If they still do not get the message, then burn down the trailers.

The easiest way of burning a building is with the Molotov cocktail. It was invented by the Finns when the Soviets invaded in 1939. You fill a bottle with gasoline and stuff a rag in the end for a wick. You light the wick and throw bottle, It shatters on impact spraying gas everywhere and the wick ignites the gas. Simple, readily available, and effective. And only two things to remember.

First, use a glass bottle. Thinner glass is better than thicker glass. You want it to shatter on impact. When I was teaching a kid at the high school on the West Side Worcester, MA. threw a Molotov cocktail into his school. Fortunately, he used a plastic bottle. It burned about three square inches of carpeting. I had to laugh when I said to myself, "Thank God for dumb kids."

Second, you need to tie the rag to the bottle. Nothing worse that throwing a Molotov cocktail, landing where you wanted it, and having it shatter perfectly. Then you noticed the wick had fallen out on the way to the target. No wick-no fire.

Some of these building will have brick faces and metal roofs. Just break a window and throw the Molotov cocktail inside. Carpets, furniture, computer plastic, even paint on the walls will burn. It is okay if the sprinkler goes off. I wonder if you can get hip waders over a gun belt?

We had a kid in my hometown that burned down the old junior high school. He walked up to the front door one night with a can of lighter fluid. The applicator on the end squirts the lighter fluid out. He squirted under the door and along the seams and lit a match. The kid took out the entire old part of the building. Why are kids so competent when it is something they should not be doing?

There will be some casualties in this war. Some killed, some wounded, some captured. Some of them will be theirs. Some of the casualties will be ours.

Now, nobody wants to get killed. But let us look at your life. You are broke after paying child support. She and the kids are not doing any better. None of you are middle class any more. You have no say in the kids education, their health treatment, you may not even have visitation with your sons and daughters. And everything you thought you knew to be true-the rule of law, the sanctity of the of the family, the belief that government was there to nurture your brood-all turned out to be a lie. Face it boys, we are no longer fathers. We are just piggy banks.

So you are not losing anything by picking up the Molotov cocktail. It may be too late for us. But without something changing, your kids will have double the odds of it happening to them. That will knock them out of the middle class again, providing they ever get back in. And their kids, your grandchildren, will end up damaged goods before it is over. So it is okay to run. You just need to turn around and run at them. They are no way as imposing as they seem. They only do what they do for a paycheck.

Television would make us believe that people get arrested because of fingerprints, DNA, facial recognition, and instruments that can tell where a substance was made and here is the local distributors. It is Hollywood crap. Most of the people in prison are there for one key reason. They could not keep their mouths shut. They told someone. That someone told others. The cops hear it and start looking at them for a suspect. That how it works in real life.

This need to confess seems to be primeval. Just human nature. But if you cannot keep a secret, do not expect the one you tell to keep their mouth shut. There is only three people I know for certain they will keep their mouths shut. That would be Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

I only managed to get the main door of the Cheshire County Courthouse in Keene, NH. I would appreciate it if some of you boys would finish the job for me. They harmed my children. The place is evil. So take it out
Some where along the line I picked up the crazy notion that it is better to be dead as a free man than to live as a serf. The government needs to be a little more careful about what they teach in our schools.

And bring a can of spray paint to these fires. Paint the word COLLABORATORS ( two L's with an S on the end) on the building before you burn it. Maybe we can shame them back to the rule of law. And we do want the police to know exactly who burned the building. Then the police can start interviewing the usually suspects, all 36 million of us.

We have covered the do-bies. Now let us look at the bureaucrats that say-ers.
The Second Set of Books originated in Office of Violence Against Women (OVW) which is part of the United States Department of Justice. Some of these policies, procedures and protocol were developed locally. But the local results would be sent up to OVW and, if approved, would disperse it out to all 50 states. They are smart, clever, bigoted and able to lie as well as any politician that ever called Washington home. In other words, they have now become Washington insiders.

But what makes them so uniques is their anger towards men, any man. They are so twisted in their hatred of men that they are positively scary. And it is not what they are doing to men that makes them frightening. You would expect that. No, it is what they are doing to the women and children that makes them so twisted.
When the Pentagon drops a bomb on innocent civilians the military calls it Collateral Damage. It sounds better than, "Yeah, we killed a bunch of women and children." Those poor, innocent, stupid civilians have always been caught in the middle since the time we were fighting with rocks.. Your wife and kids are Collateral Damage in the war against you, the man in the family. For 25 years these feminists at OVAW have been willing to sacrifice the women and children to get you. And they cannot claim ignorance about what they are doing. Under the VAWA the federal government is funding at least 1,800 homeless shelters. As long as the Office for Violence Against Women exists in the U.S. Department Justice , no American man, women or child will be safe in their own home.

If you ask these feminists why are the shelters all full, they will not say because of all the arrests. The shelters are full because of men. But they knew from the beginning that this was not man bad-woman good thing. The year was 1976. Two things would happen that year.

First, someone at the U.S. Dept of Justice decided to count the dead bodies. In 1975 there were 1522 women killed in domestic violence. And for men killed in 1975? The dead for men was 1506. Statistically equal a friend tells me so.

If you had asked me before the study, I would have assumed that women were getting the worst of it. But I would be looking at it by genders. What I should have been looking at was species, homo-sapiens, human beings. Men are human-women are human. Being the same species you would expect the same results from both genders. And that is exactly what the dead bodies told us.

The second thing that happened in 1976 was the first domestic violence survey was released. It was so new the time that they called it family violence. Murray Straus of UNH and Richard Gellars from a school in RI were the researchers. They did not find two perpetrators of domestic violence, but three. Men initiated violence 25.7% of the time: women 25.2%, and the other 49.1% was the two going after each at the same time. These two people going after each other at the same time is well recognized in law. The law in NH calls that mutual combat. Men are human. Women are human. And once again we found both genders acting the same manner.

So how did we end up with the theory of man bad-woman good that the government at all levels is using? The feminist writer Susan Brownmiller wrote In Our Time that," the way you get funding and church donations is to talk about the pure victims. If you talk about the impurity of the victim, the sympathy vanishes." If women get to be good then men get what is left-bad. Man bad-woman good was originally a funding raising technique. After 35 years, it has turned into official government dogma at all levels, from the local cop on the beat to the White House. Men need to be punished, restrained and retrained. Your wives and children are, unfortunately, just collateral damage in this effort to punish men. So you were not dreaming it. There really is a government pogrom against men.

When a man batters or kills, there is no excuse. When a woman commits the same act, there is nothing but excuses. Simple though inaccurate. But there is one redeeming aspect to men being demonized. Now we men can act like devils. And we do not even need to apologize for it. Men are going to start acting just like they made us out to be. As an old high school semi-punk I can assure you boys of one thing. This is going to be fun. You guys are going to end up laughing like hyenas.

The money funded under the VAWA is split in two when it leaves the Treasury. Part goes the Health and Human Services for fund these domestic violence homeless shelters. If that 36 million number is correct, and it is all that we have, then the 1.44 million arrests a year will be made producing 2.88 million homeless Americans each year. Women and children constitute 60% of these homeless people, 1.7 million Americans a year. Shutting down these shelters would be cruel. What would these women and children do then? Go live under a bridge. No, we are stuck with these shelters for a while. But there is one thing that Congress needs to fix when they fund them again.

These shelters do not allow men on the property let alone inside the residences. Why is it against the law to use federal money on organizations that discriminate against black, Jews, gays or even women but it is okay to do so against men? Men contributed half that tax money. Eight years ago a man in California fled with his children after the police warned him to get out after they had arrested the wife and mother. None of the shelters would take him and the kids in because he was a man. I wonder if this would survive a legal gender discrimination challenge in a federal court?

A society without men is freakier than a world without blacks or Jews. That is not to say blacks or Jews are any less worthy. It just that there are more men in the world than blacks or Jews even if you combined them. If these feminist had to deal with men on a regular basis, then maybe the country would not be in the pickle we are in now.

There is a third reason to end this discrimination, something of a more practical nature. Apparently, some women like to have sex with men. But men are barred from the property. Suddenly, that 15 year boy two doors down starts looking real good. It might even be fun breaking in this new meat. So this woman driven into insolvency by the push for domestic violence arrests now finds herself charged as a pedophile because someone barred men from her world. With domestic violence advocates as friends, who needs enemies.
This shelters came up with a novel approach to fixing the pedophile problem. Male children over the age of thirteen are barred from staying there. Too troublesome. The family broke up when the father was thrown out of the house. Now a second break up is happening with the teenage boys. Perhaps a relative has one bed available. Maybe the family of a high school friend would take him in their home. If neither option works then that is okay. He can move in with his father. Then they will both be sleeping in the car down by the river.
Children of these parents also suffer. They used to have their own bedroom in a safe town with good schools. First they have a shelter, then Section 8 public housing. An urban school. Maybe good-maybe not. Kids learn how to be tough in an urban environment. The kids might go bad or they could come out just fine. But there will be no clunky car as a teenager. There will be no saving fund for college. There will be no monetary gift to use as a down payment for a starter home. This tradition of the older generation giving the younger generation a financial leg up has been ruin due to the older generation's lack of money. Financially, the older generation is merely treading water. It will take generations after these present two generations to repair the economic damage to these families.

So we are stuck with funding these shelters for a while. These women and children have no place left to go. Some of you guys may think that these feminist caused the problem and then created the solution. But homeless shelters are not a solution. They are just barely a band aid.

The remaining money under VAWA goes to the United States Department of Justice for the Office of Violence Against Women (OVW). As long as OVW exists then the government is at war with men. As long as there is a pogrom against men, then women and children are going to end up as collateral damage. So there is no need for discussion about OVW going. The only thing we need to figure out is which of the two ways we can use to get rid of them-the easy way or the hard way.

And boys, do not try to burn down Washington's Dept. of Justice Building in an effort to get rid of the Office of Violence Against Women. Their offices are over at N Street.

The easy way is using Congress. The VAWA comes up for funding every five to seven years. Next time it comes up, Congress votes no and everyone at the OVW gets a pink slip in late September. Nice and simple except nothing is simple in Washington. We, the people out here in the sticks, do not always know what the dynamics are in Washington. There might be one method of getting Congress on course. Have Congress demand that the Attorney General get, and release the arrests figures. Or have the President order it. He is usually fearless after he makes up his mind. And this is too large and too well known to continue the Washington plausible deniable routine. Then they will know how much trouble they are in because of these arrests.

There are 220 million adults 18 or older in this country of both sexes. If my figure of 36 million is correct, then that is 16.4% of the adults have been arrested. It could be as high as 55 million or 25%. It might be as low as 22 million or 10%. Whatever the number there are two things that Congress should know. First, is the fellow who discovered the arrests in Minneapolis back in 1992 said do not use it because it does not work. And second, the people arrested now constitute a Fifth Column here in the United States. Our loyalty to Washington is gone. But what did these genuises on the Potomac expect? They have harmed our children. If they think Al Qaeda is a pain in the ass, wait to they see what Americans can do once their fuse is lit.
I am certain the Attorney General will sit for months on the request for the number of domestic violence arrests. Then he will explain that they do not readily have the number and that some sort of Manhattan Project effort will be needed in time and money. Nonsense. When Washington started these arrests in 1984 over 6.3 personal computers were sold here in the U.S. That figure does not include all the mini's, midi's and mainframe computers sold that year. There is no way they can pretend that this data does not exist in electronic storage. A request to Ohio for the arrests 1984-2010 would tie up a state clerk for an hour, including their 15 minute coffee break. Time for the truth boys and girls. Because this is not going away.

The hard way is more time consuming, cost more money and is full of headaches. Because the only way of removing a department from the federal government without the consent of Congress is to take out the entire federal government.

The first time I heard that, I said that is ridiculous. We cannot run this country without a federal government. But we will replace the old government with something new and improved. The new government would honor the debts incurred by the old government. There are a lot of useful reasons for starting with a clean slate.
The bipartisan debt commission released their recommendation for cleaning up the $14 trillion we have borrowed over the years. Convention wisdom has it that Congress has no stomach for any of the recommendations.

But a new government could install those recommendation on day one. Three years later, most Americans will not remember that anything is different. The old government laid off its employees when it closed. The new government is hiring. But instead of 65,000 employees at the Dept. of Education, the new government is only hiring 45,000. Instead of an average federal wage of $70,000 a year, the new average will be $52,000. The new government will have to write a tax code. Everyone pays 15% with no deductions. How many IRS employees could you get rid of if there were no more deductions? Any thing is possible with a new government.

Normally over-throwing a elected government is considered treason. Treason is punishable by death here in the United States. But there is one way of over throwing the government. That is through the ballot box. Then it is not treason but democracy. Allegedly, Washington is in favor of democracy, particularly if their candidate wins.

There is no legal mechanism in the Constitution or the Federal code of the United States for dissolving the government of the United States. So that is what we need first. Congress would need to write it. We get them to do it through the ballot initiative.

A ballot initiative is when enough registered voters sign a petition to get a question on the ballot for the next election. The following would be a sample of what the question would look like in New Hampshire.

That all elected representatives from the state of New Hampshire to both houses of the United States Congress are to propose and advance a bill that would set up a legal mechanism to dissolve the United States government should the people decide to do so in a general election by a simple majority.

If this initiative passes in all 50 states then Congress will be stuck. They will have to write the law to dissolve. If they do not I suspect within ten years they will be standing in a stairwell at the British or French embassy with a suitcase in hand waiting to get to a rooftop helicopter. I doubt if they will be thinking about the humiliation of being thrown out of the country. They will be far too busy worrying about what will happen if the mob gets their hands on them.

Washington has not got a friend in the world. Even the British and Israelis loath them now. Kind of a bad time to be losing domestic support. And what they done over the last 25 years? They have wiped out the middle class pandering to a special interest group of bigots. And in typical Washington fashion, they did not even know they did it.

This Ivy League inbreeding in Washington has produced an elite that knows what best. Everyone else-husbands, wives, police officers, prosecutors, judges, attorney generals and guardian ad litems-are to shut up and do what they are told. The rule of law is gone, replaced by the policies, procedures and protocols of The Second Set of Books. Which means the federal government will be going shortly. For the government being unable to deliver the rule of law is like an auto mechanic who claims he does not know how to change the engine oil. A certain minimum competency is required. So it looks like the parents of the Washington elite were right. One can be too smart for their own good.

Betty Friedan wrote that the feminist revolution, like any revolution, would have its excesses. Losing the rule of law is too great to call it a mere excess. It is a catastrophe. It is the heart, mind and soul between the people and their government. These feelings of betrayal by losing it may be permanent. I have 21 years of Army service going back to the Vietnam War. My loyalty to the government should be a given. It is gone. I am certain it will never return regardless of how long I might have lived.

It was another woman that lead us in to this decision to clean house inside the beltway. Something she taught us fifty years ago. You simply look at those folks in Washington and then ask yourself the old Ann Landers question, "Am I better off with them, or without them? Are my children better off with them, or without them?" They are sinking like stones.

Washington, DC was chose as the capital because it was the geographical center or the old Colonies. Today, the geographical center of the country is just west of St. Louis Missouri. The new government can set the capital anywhere in the United States it wants. Imagine how many rodents, insects and parasites they could lose by moving 1500 miles west.

Whether you replace the federal government or not, men are still going to need a legal defense center for men. Something like the NAACP used to get black people their rights. The only checks and balances in the Second Set of Books is the First Set of Books. Which means lawsuits. Now I know you guys are broke. Some of you have had your wives and kids thrown into homelessness. So I completely understand when you tell me that you are broke. But if everyone who has been arrested throws in $10.00 a year then the legal defense center will have a war chest of $360 million. You can buy a whole bunch of lawsuit with that kind of money.

The Ball family has been supplying sergeants to the Army since at least the Revolutionary War. Elijah served as a sergeant in Cushing's Regiment at the Battle of Bennington. His commanding officer was a general from NH with a name of John Stark. General Start was a clever warrior. He was responsible for the bulk of the heavy casualties the British suffer at their victory at Bunker Hill. His orderly, fighting withdrawal allowed the other units on the hill to not only retreat but collect their wounded on the way out.
General Stark would repeat this performance on three hill tops outside the village of Bennington VT one hot August day in 1777. At the end of the battle, the British lost over 900 men killed or captured. The Colonists suffered 30 dead. Two months later, the depleted British army would surrender at Saratoga. That victory at Saratoga would bring the French into the war. John Stark was the most competent general this country ever produced. For that reason alone his men loved him.

But as brilliant as he was on the battlefield, General Stark would become even more famous for something he said. In 1809 the veterans of Bennington decided to have one last reunion. A delegation called on the General with his invitation. But the General was old and frail. He could not attend. But he did send a message, "You tell the boys I said live free or die. That death is not the worst of evil." Since 1945 the State of New Hampshire has stamped Live Free or Die on every pen, coffee mug, license plate and highway sign that they have gotten their hands on.

I think the General and his sergeant would be please that his words have elevated from the novelties and bric-a-brac to something more dignified like a courthouse door. Neither of them would give a second thought to the mess left over after the fire was extinguished. War has always been a grim business. Civil wars are usually worse.

But they would be trouble by the new enemy. Oh, they understood when a government betrays it people. They took up arms against the super power of their day to get relief for their grievances. But the enemy we face now is the government that these men birthed at places like Bennington, Saratoga and Bunker Hill. Government is no different than the food in a refrigerator. Given enough time both will go bad.
The smartest person I knew in this life was my mother. Perhaps that is true of all of us. Maybe I just got lucky. She was a nurse by trade. She worked in a time when Western medicine made that final transition from butchery to science. But it would not be her nursing skills that made her extraordinary. No, it would be this one incredible knack she had that I had only modest success at mimicking in my life. If she had something important to say to you, she would say and then never mention it again. She would talk about it if you raised the issue. But she never mentioned it twice on her own. And, oddly, you always heard her.
But she did have one favorite saying. I must have heard in a thousand times in the eighteen years I lived under her roof. It always came at the end of the conversation as she peeled away to see if it was time for Perry Mason or Lawrence Welk. She would turn her head to the side, and over her shoulder she would say, "And the only thing you really have in this world is your family." Now, thanks to the United States Government, neither we nor our children have that.

. I have three things to say to my children. First, Daddy loves you. Second, you are my three most favorite people in the world. And last, that you are to stick together no matter how old you get or how far apart you live. Because it is like Grandma always said. The only thing you really have in this world is your family.

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Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Victim #176: 1970s Alimony Dispute Isn't Over


The judge awards you $20,000 spousal support in your divorce. Your ex stops paying, and you sue him for the money every 10 years.

How long can you keep after him?

That's the question before the Minnesota Supreme Court. The nine justices listened to oral arguments Tuesday in the case of Linda Dahlin v. Randall Kroening, a couple who divorced in Brown County in 1978.

"Do we really want parties to be able to litigate cases for 30 years?" asked Kroening's attorney, Jared Peterson of New Ulm.

Matthew Berger of New Ulm, lawyer for Dahlin, said it wasn't as if the parties were constantly in court. Rather, the judgment was renewed after 10 years, then Dahlin tried to renew it again.

But more fundamental, he said, is "that judgment debtors, and debtors in general, should pay their debts."

[READ MORE...]

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Sunday, December 19, 2010

Your Alimony Horror Story is Wanted


There is a new site that is putting together a book of all your Alimony Nightmare Stories. If you are reading this blog, you probably have a horrible story that needs to be told.

Would you please write out your Alimony Story? The more stories they have that exemplify the consequences of our current laws, the better chance there is of changing these laws. These books are going to be sent to the media: Television, Newspapers, Radio, Magazines, National Programs...every place they think people may listen, and then act.

You may know of other stories that need to be told. The doctor who committed suicide, the stabbing or other violent acts, bankruptcy, etc. They need ALL of the stories to get their point across.

The book won't get published until there are enough stories. Please check out the site www.AlimonyNightmares.com to see the stories they already have. The site is still under construction.

Send your stories to Stories@AlimonyNightmares.com

Thanks!

Blogmaster


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Sunday, July 18, 2010

Alimony Victim #175: Years and marriages later, they still pay


Steve Niro got married in 1981 at age 23 and divorced less than five years later. At the time of the divorce, he and his wife were in their late 20s, and both were working. Niro remarried nearly 15 years ago, but he’s still paying his alimony.
 
Two years ago, Niro’s youngest son graduated from college, ending child support payments and leaving his former wife with alimony of $65 a week. “The next thing I know, I get summonsed to court for alimony adjustment,’’ he says. A probate court judge increased the alimony to $700 a week even though the couple had divorced nearly a quarter of a century ago — five times longer than they were married.

[READ MORE...]

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Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Alimony Victim #174: Another Letter to Bill O'Reilly


Bill,

I have been watching you since 2001. Without blowing too much sunshine up your butt, let me say I appreciate what you have done for children and especially your efforts to get Jessica's Law passed in many states and putting pressure on the rest.

At 36 years old, I did my part as a father and husband. My wife of 18 years asked for a divorce. In the divorce, I was faced with lifetime alimony. I also had to quit claim the house to my ex-wife and agreed to pay it off.

I was to pay $1100 a month child support. In all, I was paying $5,300 a month. I knew at the time I would not be able to afford this, but i was told by my attorney it would be $50,000 up front to fight this in court.

I have lost everything, Bill. I had to sell what little I had and move to Georgia. I now work at my mechanic shop during the day and for the airlines at night. I send her 80% of what I make but it doesn't cover the whole amount. I am in contempt of court.

Please address lifetime alimony in one of your segments. You just had a debate between two attorneys about a man that was paying alimony to his ex-wife who is now a domestic partner with another woman. One attorney said he should still pay. Why? Why should he be paying in the first place?

We are the new slaves in America. It is legal although unconstitutional. Take a stand Bill. Skip one "body language" segment and help us out. We are men and women who suffer this indentured servitude.

We are not asking you to side with us. Just put out the facts and let your viewers start the ball rolling.

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Alimony Victime #173: Letter to Bill O'Reilly


Mr. O'Reilly:

You are getting a goodly amount of emails concerning alimony reform, I assume.

I would like to offer a couple sub-sets of the alimony scheme disaster.

I was placed in servitude by the state of Florida, for life, hers not mine, and since she is litigious to a fault I fear for anyone whom she may perceive will benefit from my estate.  Her alimony is to be paid from my estate after I die.

I have a significant other but don't dare marry for fear of lawsuit for my S.O. from the "X".  The family law mafia have made it illegal to marry with out a license and based on past experience with licensing myself to the state I won't do that again.  So I am living a life of sin. 

My younger son was so appalled by the state authorized treatment his mother gave me in the divorce that he did not marry.  As a result my only namesake is a bastard.

I think these situations were anticipated by our founding fathers and that is why we have a Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Alimony and the family law Mafiosi is running contrary to the Constitution and is a travesty.  Expose it!

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Sunday, July 4, 2010

Alimony Victim #171: This is Today's Slavery


I have given my ex approx. a quarter of a million dollars in the last 2 and 1/2 years, and still I pay alimony, monthly, for life.

I gave her already half my IRA, she will get 1/2 my retirement when I retire, and I bought her a house which she has sold and made 160,000 dollars on.

In the last 2 years she has been living with her boyfriend working under-employed as a part time secretary at a hospital so as to only get minimum wage and health care benefits.  Prior to divorce she had worked for approx. 20 years a full time medical transcriptionist making almost as much as me.

So, why does a country that demands equality for men and women and now transsexuals as well still hold the archaic principles of expecting the male to carry the female due to her inability to care for herself and threatens them with jail if this is not followed to the letter of the law?

Why do we as a country discourage women from rehabilitating themselves and allowing them to care equitably for themselves?

Why do the dis-service of encouraging them to not work and penalize them (like soc. sec. does) if they do work.

Isn't the goal of the human rights activist to insure fairness and equality for all?  Not just gender bias?

These permanent alimony awards after and equitable division of assets is given is nothing more than making the strong man take care of the poor weak women even after shared equities are made.

THIS IS TODAY'S SLAVERY

If you do the research you will quickly see that you have a huge audience out there that is under this yoke and you would do well to address it as well as make our congressional leaders (and judges) aware of this gender disparity.

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Friday, July 2, 2010

Alimony Victim #170: MA Wife No. 2 Paying for Wife No. 1? Join the Club


ABC News (USA)

Wife No. 2 Paying for Wife No. 1? Join the Club
Massachusetts' 2nd Wives Club Lobbies to Change Rules on Alimony Payments
By Alice Gomstyn, ABC NEWS Business Unit

Forget "wife." If Deborah Scanlan knew years agowhat she knows now, she might still hold the title of "girlfriend." Scanlansays her 2005 marriage to Daniel Gingras ultimately allowed a Massachusetts judge to factor in her income when recalculating Gingras' alimony paymentsto his first wife. The judge's ruling, she said, is costing the coupleabout $16,000 more a year than it would have if the alimony decision had been based on Gingras' income alone.

Stress over alimony payments to her husband's ex-wife nearly drove Deborah Scanlan to divorce. Helping her husband make alimony payments to his ex forced Jeanie Hitner to take on a second job. Both Massachusetts women now say they wish they'd never gotten married.

Welcome to the 2nd Wives Club.

The club, which claims 70 members and counting, consists mostly of married women who say that Massachusetts judges' rulings forced them to contribute to alimony payments for their partners' ex-wives. Together with its parent group, Mass Alimony Reform, a branch of theAlliance For Freedom From Alimony, Inc. of Florida, the club is lobbying the state legislature to stop that practice and institute several reforms to alimony law.

Scanlan, the club's chairwoman, says she is paying the price for her husband's divorce. She said that because a judge took into account her $58,000 income as an executive assistant, her husband Daniel Gingras'
alimony payments total $26,000 a year -- about $16,000 more than they would otherwise.

"I was absolutely horrified that I was now responsible for a portion of the support of his first wife," she said. On the day of the judge's alimony ruling in her husband's case, Scanlan said, "I left the court house and
just couldn't believe that such a thing was possible."

Gingras' ex-wife did not return calls from ABCNews.com seeking comment.

How often a second wife's (or second husband's) income is factored into alimony payments nationwide is unclear, though Massachusetts doesn't appear to be unique. In Louisiana, for instance, an appellate court ruled in 1994 that a lower court had improperly reduced an alimony award to a first wife because it hadn't considered a second wife's income.

Unlike child support statutes, state laws on alimony are often vague, said Andrea Carroll, a law professor at Louisiana State University. This means, she said, that courts in other states could very well make rulings similar to the one in Louisiana.

How widespread the practice is in Massachusetts, meanwhile, is up for debate.

Denise Squillante, the president-elect of the Massachusetts Bar Association said that, in her experience, judges look to a second spouse's income as a source of alimony only when the alimony payer has been found to be in contempt of a court order to pay up.

"Judges don't say, 'OK, former husband, your income is x and your new wife's income is y, so we're going to add those incomes together and enter an alimony order.' That doesn't happen," she said.
Founders of the 2nd Wives Club and Mass. Alimony Reform disagree. It's requests for payment modifications by either side that can ultimately ensnare a second spouse into a court's alimony decisions, they said.

Jeanie Hitner, vice president for the 2nd Wives Club and the wife of Mass Alimony Reform President Steve Hitner, said that her husband asked a state court for a reduction in his payments after his printing business began to struggle. It was rejected.

"The reason for the denial was all about ME…and what I should be doing to help my husband," Jeanie Hitner wrote in a message to ABCNews.com. "The judge in her findings said that 'Your current wife needs to supplement your income so that you can continue to make the alimony payments.'"

Hitner, who works at her husband's business, said she took on tutoring jobs to help make ends meet.

Both the 2nd Wives Club and Mass Alimony Reform are pushing for a bill that would include a number of reforms to state alimony laws, including preventing a judge from considering a second spouse's income and assets when making changes to alimony.

Squillante said the Massachusetts bar opposes the bill, saying it would hamper judges' discretion and could create unintended consequences. State Sen. Cynthia Creem, a family lawyer who has called for a commission to study alimony reform, questions what should happen to alimony recipients if their ex-husbands decide to quit working entirely and rely on their new spouses instead. (Steve Hitner said the bill backed by his group would allow such situations to be judged on a case-by-case basis.)

In the meantime, some women say they're doing what Scanlan and Hitner only wish they had done -- they're not getting married in Massachusetts and avoiding the alimony issue altogether. The 2nd Wives Club said its
membership increasingly includes such women, too.

Elizabeth Benedict is a New Yorker who has dated a divorced Massachusetts man since 1999. A supporter of the 2nd Wives Club, Benedict said she decided against marriage years ago, on the advice of several lawyers.

"I decided that if I was going to get married," she said. "I was not going to then invite a lawsuit as a wedding present."

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Thursday, July 1, 2010

Alimony Victim #169: Needs help in Louisiana


If you know of a Louisiana based organization that can help me I would greatly appreciate it.

I just received an order for child support and alimony or spousal support in the total amount of $1,392.00 a month.  I make gross $69,000 a year and take home $54,000.

My ex-spouse makes take home $40,000 a year.  She clears $3,300 a month and now with my $1,392 will be at $4,692 a month.  That will leave me at $1,400 unless I have overtime.

How is this possible?

I can't even support myself with that, and to top it off the alimony is permanent.  Please help or guide me to a person that can help.  I have to start payments immediately so I can't even afford a lawyer to contest the decision.

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Monday, June 28, 2010

Victim #168: Retirement Expectations Dashed

.... All of us has our own horror story, and I guess it's all relative. Personally, I turned over $425K in assets, plus half of my retirement to the Ex at the time of the divorce, and have paid her initally $3,500/mo. for the first 5-1/2 years, reduced to $3,200/mo. as per by our mediated settlement for the next five+ years.

Her alimony was exactly twice what I later found out was the maximum of any of my working contempories.

Now that I just retired, she is petitioning the court to have the alimony "RAISED", at the same time as the failure of my former employers pension fund, and subsequent takeover by the federal government.(PBGC). I'll be luck to get 25 cents on the dollar of what I expected my retirement pension to be.

My only bright spot is that I stashed a fair amount away by keeping my lifestyle conservative.... Yeah, she describes me as "Cheap".

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Victim #168: Sell Your Clothes to Pay for Alimony


In short, my story was a child support order for 100% of my income due to fraud by the ex, her attorney, and a crooked accountant.

When the wife told the court that I hid income (kinda impossible, I'm a computer consultant for businesses only then, who only paid by check) so the court froze all my business bank accounts to "flush" out the hidden money.  Because there wasn't any, I got to starve and survived only on borrowing from family and taking handouts from a charitable organization.

After losing my attorney, and doing it myself for about 3 years, I fought back hard, figuring if I was going to keep getting beat up, I'd at least give a few people bloody noses.  It worked and they eventually left me alone.

In the process, I was found indigent for 18 appeals, yet no orders of incarceration were ever overturned in the 4DCA, which is why I was reviewing Bowen v. Bowen.  I have a transcript excerpt where, not being able to find any assets for a contempt finding, the judge ruled I could have sold the clothes I was wearing for at least a penny, and therefore was in contempt for not doing so.

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Monday, June 21, 2010

Victim #167: Even Lawyers Aren't Immune From Attack


Updated: In a new incident among a spate of case-related violent attacks on lawyers in recent weeks, a Minnesota man has been charged with attempted murder after allegedly stabbing his ex-wife's attorney a dozen times in her law office Friday.

Terri Ann Melcher, 54, was alone in her Fridley, Minn., office at the time and called 911 after the suspect, Sheikh Nyane, departed, KARE 11 reports. She is in critical but stable condition and is expected to survive.

[READ MORE...]

[SOME OTHERS...]

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Friday, June 18, 2010

Toronto woman to get $110,000 a month in spousal support



The following is a quote from the lawyer representing a woman who just made history by taking her hubby to the cleaners with not only millions in assets but the biggest alimony settlement in Canada ever of $110,000.00 per month. Yes that is per month. Oh to be a kept woman and have to deal with expenses of over $88,000 per month.

Can you imagine a person who is not generating any economic activity to support herself has expenses of over $1,000,000.00 per year. It is this kind of decision by judicial activist social engineers that causes women's privileged rights to come under such severe scrutiny and criticism. It is nothing more than judicially imposed welfare and she becomes a judicial welfare bum.

This is gold digging on a massive scale. It is not something a judge is required to do because of legislation. The social engineering activist judge did it because she could. I hope he appeals because these judgments of the uber-rich have a habit of becoming precedents impacting those of us at the low end of the income scale on a proportionate basis.

The trickle down approach to males keeping females from their own victimhood all through choices they made themselves. Take note of the comment the woman was not employable. Her choice and no one elses.


[READ MORE...]

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How Marriage Today Is Slavery For Men



In “On The Subjugation of Women”, John Stewart Mill compared the institution of marriage to the institution of slavery. Mill argued that wives were like slaves because the laws at that time made them subject to the whims of their husbands. According to Mill, the laws at the time forced women to obey. In fact, Mill argued that women were worse off than slaves because women weren’t even free from their servitude even when they went to bed at night.

One hundred and forty years have passed since Mill wrote his essay, and many things have changed in this country around marriage laws. Most of these changes have been indisputably positive. If the pendulum was too far to the “men’s” side during Mill’s time, many of these laws have moved the pendulum towards the middle, where it should be. However, while it is politically incorrect to say so, I would argue that the the pendulum has swung over to the “woman’s” side so much so that the institution of marriage today is a form of slavery for men.

[READ MORE...]

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Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Victim #166: Ex is paid $46,000 to sit on her ass


My former husband was also a victim of Florida's unfair alimony practices.  I found him hanging in the garage six years ago.  Once again, our District Courts handed out a lifetime sentence of alimony.  He wasn't even the one that wanted the divorce.  His ex did.

At the time of his death his children were 16 and 14.  They have been fatherless for six years now all because of the unfair alimony practices that are affecting thousands of families in this State.

I am now remarried to a wonderful man.  He is also in this same predicament.  Paying permanent lifetime alimony, plus child support.  His credit was destroyed, while his ex's credit became increasingly better because of her "new" yearly salary.  She receives over $46,000.00 a year for sitting on her ass. 

Our Courts are giving incentives to these receivers of alimony not to work, not to financially support their children, and become non-productive entities in our society.  Our Family Court system is broken and is destroying lives, literally.  The Court System is extremely bias toward men, and this has to change.

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Victim #165: Media Attention Needed


I think one of the most important things for us to stress if we get some media attention is the fact that this is not just a problem for "rich" people.  I think there is a misconception by most people that alimony is only paid to rich women by their rich ex-husbands.  NOT TRUE!  My boyfriend's salary is in the mid 60's (BEFORE taxes) and he pays $25K per year in alimony - plus child support (which is, of course, A LOT LESS than what he pays in alimony). 

I also think we should reiterate the fact that our financial obligations end when our kids are 18 or out of high school, but alimony is given to GROWN adults who should be able to take of themselves!!

Finally, even though the legislators in Florida passed the "cohabitation" clause, it is almost impossible to meet the standards/criteria set to prove that a supportive relationship exists with another person, and the judges are not enforcing it even after positive proof is presented!  (Judge Gary Farmer wrote an excellent dissent on this subject - See Linstroth v. Dorgan, Fourth District Court of Appeal)

I could go on and on - this whole subject just infuriates me more and more every day.  I see the anguish on my boyfriend's face every time we discuss our future. 

Because of his financial obligation to his EX-wife, we will never be able to buy a home together (he had to file bankruptcy because of his alimony obligation).  And, get this - the judge ordered his ex to put their home up for sale, but to continue to make the house payment until such time that the home sold.  That was last October.  She has not put the home on the market and she has not made a house payment since October 2008.  She still lives in the house and it hasn't been foreclosed on because of the backlog of foreclosures in Florida right now!!!!

So, she is getting all this alimony for her supposed "living expenses", but she has only been paying for utilities for the past year. We can't take her to court for contempt on this because even though she agreed in writing to keep their child under her insurance plan at work - which is cheaper and better insurance - the judge still ordered him to pay for health insurance for the minor child - this on top of alimony and child support! 

He feels that if he pushes her on the house payment issue, she will say that he isn't paying for the health insurance, which he was ordered to do and the judge would not grant a rehearing re: the insurance issue!!!

He even has to make HER car payment even though she now brings home twice as much money each month as he does!  I have never witnessed something so unfair.  I feel for everyone who has to live with this burden. 

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The New Art of Alimony



Boston

Paul and Theresa Taylor were married for 17 years. He was an engineer for Boston's public-works department, while she worked in accounting at a publishing company. They had three children, a weekend cottage on the bay and a house in the suburbs, on a leafy street called Cranberry Lane. In 1982, when they got divorced, the split was amicable. She got the family home; he got the second home. Both agreed "to waive any right to past, present or future alimony."

But recently, more than two decades after the divorce, Ms. Taylor, 64, told a Massachusetts judge she had no job, retirement savings or health insurance. Earlier this year, the judge ordered Mr. Taylor, now 68 and remarried, to pay $400 per week to support his ex-wife.

[READ MORE...]

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Victim #164: CBS sportscaster Jim Nantz to pay his ex-wife $916,000 a year in alimony and child support.


BRIDGEPORT, Conn.

A Connecticut judge has ordered CBS sportscaster Jim Nantz to pay his ex-wife $916,000 a year in alimony and child support.

Monday's ruling comes after Nantz and his ex-wife, Lorrie, testified about the breakdown of their 26-year marriage. Bridgeport Superior Court Judge Howard Owens concluded neither was at fault.

Nantz must pay $72,000 monthly in alimony until he dies or his ex-wife remarries, and another $1,000 weekly in child support for their 15-year-old daughter, Caroline, for the next two years. Lorrie Nantz will get their six-bedroom home in Westport.

Court documents cited Jim Nantz's $3.2 million salary from CBS and other yearly assets.

[READ MORE...]



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Victim #163: Army docks soldier's pay for alimony with no warning


by Stuart Watson / NewsChannel 36
NewsChannel 36
Posted on November 13, 2009 at 9:24 AM
Updated Friday, Nov 13 at 5:02 PM

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Soldiers in the U.S. Army fight to uphold the Constitution.But do they get those same Constitutional rights when they get divorced in a foreign court? The I-team follows the story of a soldier who lost his son and half his pay with no chance to fight.

September 11th compelled Patrick Riley to join the U.S. Army.

"I was 27 - in decent shape - figured I'd go do something for my country," he says.

Between two tours in Iraq, he was stationed in Germany where he met Daniela. Riley and the German woman had a baby boy. Before he left again for Iraq, he married her. "I wouldn't have got married if it hadn't been for my son. I wanted to make sure he was going to be taken care of if anything should happen to me my second tour," he says

But shortly after the family moved stateside - to Shelby, North Carolina - where he was stationed as a recruiter, Riley says, "She left and my whole world turned upside down."

His wife took their son and flew out of Charlotte Douglas Airport back to Germany.  "I can't even explain to you some thoughts - it's just so hard - cause you know two years of not having your son. It's hard," Riley says.

Then - with no notice - no court hearing - no way to contest it, the Army docked more than half of Sergeant Riley's pay. He says it leaves him with about 13-hundred dollars a month. Most of the garnishment was not child support - but alimony.

[READ MORE....]

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Victim #162: At a loss in TX



The short version is... that at the time of my recent divorce, I was a resident and working in a permanent full-time position in Texas. My ex continued to live in Nebraska. We jointly signed a contract to build a home in Texas, but subsequently both filed for divorce. She filed in Nebraska and I filed in Texas. She filed first (I did not know it and had not been served) and I filed a few days later with the intention of serving her.

I was counseled to move forward in Nebraska due to property settlement issues there, but leave the action pending in Texas. The decree in Nebraska now requires that I pay $60K per year for 12 years... which is well past my normal retirement age and a significant hardship for me. The judge in Nebraska also ordered that the action in Texas be terminated.

I appealed in Nebraska, to no avail, and was ordered to pay additional legal fees to her. My legal expense now totals approximately $60K (for her and me). 

This is keeping me awake at night, I don't understand how this could happen. I willingly agreed to a property settlement that left her with over 50% of our estate (she received approx $700K in property, cash, and retirement accounts).

Please help me find a way to deal with the unfair court system in Nebraska. I am at a complete loss. Thank you for any direction that you may be able to provide.

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Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Victime #161: A Woman's Point of View


Guys I am right there with you. I know I'm a woman but I am absolutely against alimony in this day and age. It's barbaric and there is no reason for it.

I myself am a divorced mother of 2 kids. I get no childsupport (my choice) and no alimony . Matter of fact I was origanilly ordered to pay childsupport and alimony because I educated myself and made more money. So I kinda understand what it is to get screwed.

On the other hand, I am remarried to a wonderful man who is in the same boat as all of you. He pays his ex close to $2000.00 a month to sit on her ass and do nothing. They were married 9 years and he has permanent alimony.

We have a 2 year old together that he barely sees because he has to work an offshore job inorder to pay his alimony and help out with our family that we have created.

You're right it isnt fair. It needs to stop. There is no reason for it.

And as a woman I can say, for all the lasy ass women out there who need to get off their ass and get a job,  Piss off and go back to work. There is plenty of help out there for education, daycare and such because I have used it.

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Monday, April 5, 2010

Victim #160: Screwed, Blued and Tattooed


I have been waiting since Oct.2008 to get back into court for modification of alimony and child support.

I have been found disabled  by a Federal judge since June of 2008 and yet I was told by a magistrate in court that I quit my second job at that time on purpose ,despite all the medical proof  I presented at the hearing.

I was forced to pay alimony and child support at a higher rate and made to pay arrears. All of this and with all the medical proof my attorney and I presented, it all fell on deft ears. I have lost my drivers license ,vehicle registration, passport-hold  and they said they would turn in my arrears on alimony and any child support  arrears to the credit reporting agencies.

Not only did I get screwed, blued and tattooed but they took 1/2 of my 401k and are trying to suck the rest of me dry.

Isn't there any justice in this world, all I ever wanted was a divorce and be rid of a blood sucking woman, non-caring,non-loving Bitch. All I ever did was work two and sometimes three jobs to make life a lot easier for my children and my former wife, then when you are tired and fed up with being treated like a piece of the furniture with less compassion and love, who you think should be grateful for all the things that have been provided for her well being and the children not having to want for anything.

I do not understand, she has turned my daughter against me from what was a loving relationship since birth to a once in awhile phone call with little so say,not even a card on my birthday. I am hurting and sad beyond words could ever say, and the ex stills wants more! It is no wonder why so many people snap! I can see it and I can understand it now.

The courts have allowed this to happen and this should be a eye opening to all, even those planning to get married!! The state makes it so very easy to get married without ever preventing the pitfalls that can go along with marriage. Why else would they ever want to take the bread and butter off of their table? Is that what we as a nation have come too, if this is the case we are all it a bit of trouble, we are allowing this to occur.

There has to be reform, other wise they transform us into whatever they want and will continue to do so.You know , you can knock me down all you want, but I will always get back up and in your face.

Remember this saying, If you don't stand  for something, you"ll fall for anything.

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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Victim #159: Former Wife Cyberstalking Ex's Significant Other


I am currently dealing with my fiance's ex wife who has just gone overboard. She is cyberstalking me, stalking me at my work, and socially scarring my name.

Just to answer some questions before I go on. They divorced because he caught her cheating on him five different times in thier own bed! There are no children involved. However because she is so money hungry and he was just mentally tired he allowed her to receive alimony (also its the state of Indiana's law). She makes weekly claims that she is due more money.

She has taken to contacting his company and sending emails posing as a (he does real estate) buyer to send him emails demanding money. She has all the information on contacting him but yet continues to try to tarnish his name. I know for a fact he is up to date on payments due to her.

Did I mention that she uses her big sister to email him and try to mentally shame him? My group I started is to help people voice their frustration about their ex's in a safe way. Also to discuss the injustice that is placed upon them by just loving whom they love.

I realized that I can not discuss this to my friends because they just don't understand. It gets frustrating and yes I could opt out and just break up with him. However I am very much in love with him and will not back down.

I needed a support group and I have found one and made another. I have dealt with her cyberbulling me on myspace and via emails. Everything I do to stop it is rejected by the courts because of my relationship with him. I am tired of the lying, selfish woman.

The worse part is seeing her post pictures of her and her new boyfriend in Rome and various European places and hearing that she is demanding more money. What can I do to stop her!

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Victim #158: Dislikes Having to Work Extra 13 Hour Weekend Shift For Rest of His LIfe


And just how many ex spouses can we be ordered to support?

I would still like to see a list of how much money everyone pays to support an ex spouse.  What is an, "ex spouse," really worth?  Might there be some injustice in the differing dollar amounts we pay?

Was it illegal for the female judge to order me to liquidate my 401(k) retirement account to pay for my ex's attorney bills?  When her attorney found I didn't have enough money to cover his bill, he was kind enough to let me make additional payments over two years, interest free!  What a guy!

Maybe the female judge figured that since I was a Registered Nurse, I might enjoy helping strangers going through a period of illness in their lives, so I wouldn't mind working an extra 13 hour weekend shift every week for the rest of my life, to support an abusive, and at times, mentally ill ex, that set a fire in the house, and frequently threatened to kill me, for stupid things like making eye contact with someone, or walking into a neighbors home.

The judge, most likely thought I enjoyed it when my ex accused me of having affairs with her friends, her daughter's friends, my sister, my Mother, and, what brought me to the breaking point, our two Long coat Chihuahua's.

God help me Bill.  I pay $1395.00 a month.  I know Doctors and Attorneys that pay less, or nothing at all!  How much to Judges pay in alimony cases to their exs?

Have we come out with new bumper stickers yet?  A bumper sticker that can be read from more than two car lengths away?  We need bigger, more legible, more aggressive bumper stickers.  How about one that shows, Permanent Alimony Equals Prison, Paid Or NOT !!!   Or, in place of the "Paid Or NOT", have a picture of a person behind Prison Bars.  And make it large enough to be read by the average persons eye sight at five car lengths away.  How much would we have to pay in dues to get our message on billboards!  We have to put an end to Alimony!

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