Message proves unsettling — Page 1 — TimesUnion.com
First published: Monday, June 26, 2006
One of the Capitol’s best-known father’s rights advocates found himself under investigation after he circulated a news story about the shooting of a judge.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s office said it couldn’t discuss matters under investigation. State Police could not immediately provide details this weekend.
Randy Dickinson, vice president of the Coalition of Fathers and Families New York, said he sent an e-mail out to legislators earlier this month. It contained an Associated Press story about the June 12 shooting by a sniper of a Nevada family court judge.
According to published reports, Darren Mack, 45, allegedly stabbed and killed his estranged wife and shot Washoe County Family Court Judge Chuck Weller, who had been handling their divorce case. Mack surrendered to authorities Thursday in Mexico.
Dickinson also attached a quote from John F. Kennedy: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
According to Dickinson, someone apparently took the missive as a threat and Silver’s counsel, Dan Conviser, contacted State Police.
Police showed up at Dickinson’s house at 11:20 p.m. on June 16, “ringing the bell, pounding on the door, and calling my number via cellphone from outside the house.” He didn’t answer, he said, since he didn’t know who was there.
Another officer showed up at 10 a.m. the next day and interviewed him. The officer, Dickinson said, found no crime had been committed, and told him “it was a little absurd for him to have even been instructed to look into the matter.” Dickinson said he believes the case was closed.
Dickinson’s group has been pushing for what it claims would be more equitable divorce and custody laws in New York. One of its priorities this year was a shared-parenting bill opposed by the National Organization for Women’s New York chapter. It died in committee.
Dickinson said he was just trying to make a point the group has communicated in the past to legislative leaders, that “they cannot continue to ignore our issues and refuse to provide any relief or accommodation, without encouraging violence from those more inclined to express their frustration and anger in that manner.”
The quote, he said, “was meant to emphasize that one of their own heroes and an icon of the Democratic Party warned them that the lid cannot be kept on people’s passions forever, without expecting trouble.”
“You’d think they might appreciate being made aware of public sentiment and the consequences of ignoring it,” Dickinson said. “Maybe not.”
13 responses so far ↓
1 Robert Gartner // Jun 26, 2006 at 7:17 am
Funny how the government can act quickly at times and under certain circumstances. Now if the government could clean out the stinking s**t from its ears to hear how so many of have been abused and destroyed by its own same hand. We are out here, those of us still drawing breath, and we are remember ing those of us who have departed too. We are asking the government to cease its destruction of our children and ourselves! Do it now!
2 WarriorPoet // Jun 26, 2006 at 7:52 am
Sadly this appears o be an attempt by “Silver” to intimidate an activist that points out facts and truth. I guess the old adage ‘never trust someone with a precious metal for a name’ rings true in this case. I love how it he hides behind his counsel. What a baby old Sheldon is. Maybe he should tell us how little money it took from N.O.W for him to decide this information was worth twisting onto and disparging and activist for families and not gender feminists. Nice goig Sheldon! You make all honest men want to puke.
3 osbuck // Jun 26, 2006 at 8:13 am
The system is never going to change. The reason is money. Just think how many lawyers, judges, court officials, friend of the court clerks, etc. would be out of work if divorce and child custody issues were equitable. If custodial parents were not rewarded by these people when they came before them with lies, made up stories, etc. then they wouldn’t be filling up the dockets, and then there would be no need for most of these people listed above. Thus, I can never envision it ever changing. Life is not fair. It is what it is. Sad but true.
4 pueblonative // Jun 26, 2006 at 9:00 am
I’m sorry, but we’ve been out there doing the right thing, condemnig violent attacks, and what does it get us? Nothing. We don’t have to _condone_ the attacks, we just have to point out that if all peaceful options are shut down, what do they expect?
5 j70141 // Jun 26, 2006 at 9:05 am
Pounding on the door at 11:20pm is one of the tactics that police use, knowing that most people won’t have an attorney available at that time of night. It’s a literal form of harassment on their part, knowing that most people will end up sitting in jail for a night. They especially like doing this on a Friday evening, knowing that many will have to wait till Monday to get anything done.
6 kramse // Jun 26, 2006 at 10:18 am
I am sure most reasonable people do not want to resort to violence and will seek peaceful means until all other avenues have been exhausted. But what happens then? Again, most will shrug their shoulders and continue on as best they can. Some will not. Some will take matters into their own hands. It is an unfortunate but true fact of life. The system has made so many men desperate beyond control and this type of outcome is inevitable. Shame on the man who comitted the violence. Double shame on those involved in, and even profit by, a corrupt system and refuse to try and change it.
7 anothervoice // Jun 26, 2006 at 10:53 am
Not any ol’ judge was shot, um… no, it was a corrupt one that feeds the power hungry evil monster that destroys families.
And not any ol’ corruption, but the one that benefits mothers 85% of the time. Humm..Now what would happen if this weren’t such a lucrative buniess for those abusing the authority granted them?
If I ever meet Darren Mack not only will I thank him, but will provide him whatever aide and comfort he needs to continue on his journey and all those in power be DAMNED they get nothing of his whereabouts from me.
8 Kevin Merck // Jun 26, 2006 at 11:33 am
This is good news. I think these criminals are beginning to realize their fate. It may not be too long before the pounding at the door will be for criminals like Sheldon Silver. Except, when they come for Sheldon it will be in broad daylight and the door will open or be kicked in by officers executing a “lawful warrant†for his arrest.
This is “unadulterated proof†that these criminals are in fact a “domestic enemyâ€, guilty of some of the most heinous crimes imaginable, and will try desperately to avoid their ultimate fate. They are directly responsible for tens of thousands of deaths and untold pain and suffering; making the egregious claim of acting in the “best interests of childrenâ€, while clearly in pursuit of nothing more than the almighty dollar.
In my opinion, no expense should be spared in rounding up, prosecuting and punishing these criminals to the fullest extent of the law. We must set an example that the last thing anyone in government will ever try again, is to pretend to know what is best for our children, or to violate our constitutional rights as United States Citizens.
Kevin Merck
“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
Patrick Henry
9 mikevac // Jun 26, 2006 at 1:00 pm
When the law and the people who administer it become corrupt, who is to say that violence is unjustified - we now live is a lawless society created by a mindless power hungry legislature and imposed by the very court system set up to administer the law. At this time it is now only a matter of point of view as to who is acting in an unjustified mannor. The thin veneer of respected authority is all that stands now before the complete collapse of the law. I suspect there will be more needless violence followed by heavy handed repression followed by more violence and more repression. More judges will be hurt or killed and some politicians like Sheldon Silver may also find themselves in the mob’s path. And to think this is all very unnecessary.
10 rohalejr // Jun 26, 2006 at 2:48 pm
Sounds typical of some of the third world countries that I have been to, but in my own great land of freedom, I would have never thought. If the statement was blasphemous I could see some problem, but the statement was a true and accurate a statement, that if taken seriously, may prevent a great deal of violence. Good Bye freedom, hello tyranny. What does the constitution say about tyranny? What does it matter? To these people it may as well be an infomercial that you simply click past to get to what suits individual needs. I’m sick my brethren. I have been for a long time. I pray for more henous treatment, so that my voice will be amplified. I want the sounds of my chains to pierce the ear drums of my oppressors. I want my blood spilled on the steps of the Capitol of our great nation. And with that red liquid I wish that some one spell out the one word that brings a close to this ridiculous existence and dark chapter of American history. “EQUALITY”
11 untershine // Jun 26, 2006 at 6:37 pm
The Family Law Uncertainty Principal in California
What kind of Tijuana is this?
http://www.gndzerosrv.com/Web%20Pages/fl_uncertainty.htm
Jim Untershine, GZS of LB, 04-15-06
“In the sharp formulation of the law of causality - ‘if we know the present exactly, we can calculate the future’ – it is not the conclusion that is wrong but the premise.†(Heisenberg, in uncertainty principle paper, 1927)
There is a distinction between a guideline and a rule, a process and a racket, or a system and a railroad. When it comes to social policy, there must be a thorough understanding of the dynamics of a problem before a solution can be intelligently proposed. Social policy that is implemented based on an erroneous premise may not only result in ineffectiveness – it may just start a revolution.
The U.S. Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) reported child support arrearages of $84 billion across all states in 2000. The State of California leads the nation reporting arrearages of $15.8 billion, with Texas ($7.9 billion) and Michigan ($6.3 billion) trailing the national leader in ineffectiveness by less than half. The ineptitude of the CSE agency operating in California has been the focus of much consternation by those attempting to balance the State’s budget every year.
· 2000 - Federal law (USC 42 658a) is enacted by Congress, which specifies the state incentive calculations (USC 42 658 repealed). The new method allows States to double the collections that must be distributed last, which includes TANF, Foster Care, and ‘support obligations not required to be assigned’.
· 2000 - Policy Studies Inc (PSI) is paid by California taxpayers to conduct the “California Child Support Guideline Review 2001â€. PSI recommends no changes to the State’s child support awards and recommends: “the results from the Urban Institute’s study on child support debt be considered when released. It may provide further insights on the ability to pay in these presumed income cases.â€
· 2001 - Policy Studies Inc is paid by California taxpayers to investigate the State’s CSE accounting with the outcome reported by the LA Times: “Glowing report comes on the two-year anniversary of the state agency that collects court-ordered payments, whose amounts doubled on average per case”.
· 2003 - The Urban Institute (UI) is paid by California taxpayers to conduct the “Collectability Study†entitled “Examining Child Support Arrears in Californiaâ€. UI recommends: ‘California should consider the interest charges on unpaid child support. We estimate that 27% of California’s child support arrears, or $3.9 billion, was interest in 2000’ and ‘as far as we know, there is no priori reason for charging interest before principal. We estimate that if California reversed this order, it would reduce its arrears balance by 6% over a 10 year period’.
· 2005 - Policy Studies Inc is paid by California taxpayers to conduct the “California Child Support Guideline Review 2005″. PSI acknowledged the UI perspective: ‘The Collectibility Study identified the following three reasons for arrears growth during the 1990s: (1) support order amounts that were too high for low-income obligors, (2) incomplete enforcement, and (3) assessment of interest on arrears.’ PSI recommends, however: ‘No abundance of compelling evidence suggests that the basic guideline formula needs to be changed.’
Federal law specifies how collections by state CSE agencies must be distributed (USC 42 657) and demands that child support principal that accrued while not receiving TANF must be paid to the custodial parent first. The ‘priori reason for charging interest before principal’ (that seemed to allude UI) is the same reason that compelled Gray Davis to veto paternity fraud legislation – California seeks to maximize Federal funding regardless of the collateral damage incurred on the parents and the children who are forced to be victimized by the State’s lawless ‘money machine’.
“I believe that the existence of the classical ‘path’ can be pregnantly formulated as follows: The ‘path’ comes into existence only when we observe it.“ (Heisenberg, in uncertainty principle paper, 1927)
California has chosen to use ‘the path less traveled’ (compared to the law abiding States) by driving parents attempting to support their children to unemployment, which forces the custodial parent and their children to TANF, which allows CSE to keep the debt growing by discouraging payment, which will allow ‘welfare to work’ to help leave the children home alone, which will allow Foster Care to herd the children to same-sex households, which will allow the financially stable Foster parents to take a $10,000 per year tax deduction for each child (or even more if they request siblings). Although the parent who is originally targeted for collection will be forced to foot the bill for all aspects of their family’s destruction - the practice of distributing interest first, results in the taxpayers rarely seeing a penny of reimbursement, and the targeted parent from slowing the growth of the debt.
As a control system designer, who became a victim of employer discrimination due to Family Law proceedings and judgments (USC 42 666 b6Di), I immediately recognized a broken control system that needed my help. It took 3,448 days to baseline the Family Law process from unemployment to final hostage release. I am currently supporting all the children involved, my driver’s license has been suspended for the last 1,560 days, there is a wage withholding order filed against my self-employment ($2,718 per month), there is a wage withholding order filed against my brother’s business ($1,479 per month), and I have a warrant for my arrest for failing to seek employment which may force me to serve the remaining 3 months of a 6 month sentence for ‘Failure to Provide’.
I am currently billed for almost $230,000, which includes $1,200 per month interest, which is due to an alleged $144,000 back child support principal. Using the interest first disbursement system contrived in California - if I paid $1,200 every month to CSE for the rest of my life, my bill would never change, my children’s mother would receive $14,400 per year tax-free, CSE would somehow be allowed to claim a $28,800 child support collection every year to entitle them to Federal incentives, and my children and the taxpayers would never be entitled to a dime.
At least when a Tijuana cop pulls you over while driving in Mexico, he will only take your drivers license, or your car, or put you in jail if you refuse to give him all your money. In California they will also take your kids, your house, and your business, to allow them to rip off their Country’s taxpayers.
Jim Untershine, 3321 E 7th St. #1, Long Beach, CA 90804, (562) 856-4616, gndzerosrv@pavenet.net, http://www.gndzerosrv.com
12 Kevin Merck // Jul 2, 2006 at 8:56 am
on September 7th, 2005 at 9:20 pm— In legendsfounder@yahoogroups.com, “Indiana Civil Rights
Council†wrote:
Greetings:
In a nutshell, EVERY parental rights agenda, whether (A) legal
challenges, (B) communication
campaigns to members of legislatures, (C) public rallies, or (D)
etc., needs **many** more
interested people to join and support those causes, and as fast as
can be humanly done!
Problem = how to find and contact all of those other millions of
noncustodial parents?
Solution = use the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) to force the
states - themselves - to tell us
the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of every noncustodial
parent under a Title IV-D
child support order. Since every divorce/custody/paternity/etc case
is, by definition of law, a
matter of public record, that “party information†for all of those
other millions of noncustodial
parents is, also therefore, information obtainable under the FOIA -
because Title IV-D
information is… **federal** information!
Each FOIA request is filed with the agent in charge of Title IV-D
child support for a given
county. This is typically either the actual/named/official county
clerk herself/himself, or some
other officially-named person. Once your FOIA is filed, they only
have 20 working days to
provide the information, and in 95% of the counties in this country,
that information will be
provided in an easy-to-use electronic format -> on floppy disks, cd-
rom, or by email.
Even better, in almost every case, federal law requires that the
information shall be provided at
**no cost** - all you need is a printer, 2 sheets of paper, and an
envelope. However, it is highly
recommended that the FOIA request be sent by certified mail, return
receipt requested, so as to
have a formal record of proof of filing the request, and of the date
it was filed.
GO HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE “NCP†FOIA REQUEST, AND TO GET MORE INFO:
http://www.indianacrc.org/FOIA.html
Please distribute this information as widely as possible…TODAY…
Ideally, there should be one
person per each of the approx 3142 counties in the United States
filing their FOIA request with
that particular county, or maybe one person for each 2-3 counties,
just to get it going faster.
———————————————————————
13 angelc20 // Jul 2, 2006 at 6:24 pm
Posting our disgust in this web site is fine and maybe it allievates some of the anger and despair all divorced men feel. They feel ashamed, helpless, unmanly, broke and just want t give up. Many will wind up homeless and on skid row or by substance abuse.
I am offering another option and that is to bombard our legislatures with e-mails, faxes, phones and personal visits and demand they change these laws. We have to organize and demand changes like eliminate all alimony, pass shared parenting (50/50) and financial child support by both parents(50/50). Women have equal rights to work and support our children just as much as men do. So lets stick it to them guys. Get on the bandwagon and direct your emotions and complaints to the proper channels, our state and federal legislatures.
Why were not all men pressuring the New York committee members to enact the shared parenting laws, a few months ago? Don’t get too lazy guys. If you want your manhood back then you need to fight and direct our energies to the place where it is effective. We all should be sending our letters to the legislatures to change the laws, so, no more judges or wives will have to killed. All we need to do is change the laws. We need a leader to organize us into a powerful army that is more powerful than the women’s lobby “NOW”. There is money to be made by this organization guys. Now is funded with your tax dollars. We are paying our taxes to screw us with our own money. We can do same by using the system to make changes. Would you rather spend your money on legal bills or paying off legislatures to change the laws.,
One would think that teh OJ trial and Robert Blake’s trial would get some government officials to re-think the divorce laws. Are any of our religious institutions even aware of these men’s issues? It is up to us to make the changes not only for us but for our children also. Do you wanty them to go through this when they grow up? Not I. Let’s do something positive and change the laws. United we must stand.
angelc2y@yahoo.com
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