Save this to your hard drive and read it later—there is all recent vintage.

 

• There was a big point/counter point on share parenting in today’s Albany Times. (A Rinaldo “must read”)

• Read the press release on the ban of Kevin Thompson’s book (A Rinaldo “must read”)

• Read Cathy Young’s Article on Roe v. Wade for Men (A Rinaldo “must read”)

• Read what the Children’s Rights Council has to say about virtual visitation in the Milwaukee Journal Sentential

• The Chattanoogan (Tennessee) urges getting shared parenting out of subcommittee. (A Rinaldo “must read”) (A Rinaldo “must read”)

• Read about how DSS in Massachusetts messed up

• Read “Extreme Abuses Fail to Fix System” (A Rinaldo “must read”)

• Political Front: Ben Downing enters race

• Read about shared parenting legislation in Australia

• AN INCREDIBLE article by Phyllis Schlafly (A Rinaldo “must read”)

• Read Detroit News Story about an ally for victims of paternity fraud

• VIEWER MAIL: Larry Holand: Why Parenting Time Motions Fail and Child Support Motions Succeed.

• Shackling Mom in Massachusetts

• Read How Weekly Standard Blast Child Support

• Voteonmarriage.org ask for your support

• Read about a report card bill that is doing very well to allow non-custodial fathers get their children’s report cards.

 

 

POINT/COUNTER POINT IN TODAY’S ALBANY TIMES

 

Supporting the child by order of the court
Albany Times Union - Albany,NY,USA
By MIKE McCORMICK and GLENN SACKS. In the wake of the New York Matrimonial Commission's recommendation that the state embrace no-fault ...

A “RINALDO MUST READ.”

 

 

Joint custody bill not in child's interest
Albany Times Union - Albany,NY,USA
The state Legislature is considering the worst joint custody bill that the National Organization for Women -- New York State has ever seen, presuming joint ...
See all stories on this topic

A “RINALDO MUST READ.”

 

Shared parenting better for kids
Albany Times Union - Albany,NY,USA
She says that it is a "bill to give divorced couples equal time with their kids," when it only requires shared parenting, not equal time. ...

 

 

 

KEVIN THOMPSON’S BANNED BOOK

 

Banned in Massachusetts: Family Court Judge Bars Tell-All Book ...
PR Newswire (press release) - New York,NY,USA
... BOSTON, March 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Fathers & Families reacted today to the ruling by Judge Mary Manzi of the Essex County Probate and Family Court that banned ...

A “RINALDO MUST READ.”

 

 

 

ROE V. WADE FOR MEN

 

Equal rights for unwed fathers
Boston Globe - United States
By Cathy Young | March 27, 2006. ... Cathy Young is a contributing editor at Reason magazine. Her column appears regularly in the Globe.

 

Cathy Young is probably the Globe’s best columnist.  THIS IS A “RINALDO MUST READ.”

 

Roe V Wade for men
Wizbang - Washington,DC,USA
There has been some recent talk about the "Roe v Wade for men" lawsuit. In essence it calls for the courts to recognize a right ...

  

"Roe v. Wade for Men"? A Men's Rights Group Makes A Farfetched ...
FindLaw - Mountain View,CA,USA
... Married mothers and fathers have essentially identical parental rights, and those rights, which include the right to the care, control, and custody of the child ...

 

 

FATHERS’ RIGHTS

 

Get Shared Parenting Out Of Committee
The Chattanoogan - Chattanooga,TN,USA
... Hmmm...what about "equally shared parenting"....where's her outrage for the kids who get an "unequal time allotment" with one of the parents when there are NO ...

 

Dalziel: Speech to Canterbury Law Society
Scoop.co.nz (press release) - New Zealand
... It has reinforced my belief that parents cannot wait until after their relationship breaks down before they start talking about shared parenting. ...

 

NOTABLE QUOTE: “Allowing the media into the Family Court has created an environment of openness that wasn't there before, even though the media rarely attend. This was something called for by both the incoming and outgoing Principal Family Court Judge. It was something they both conceded, not because the media should be able to report details of people's private lives, but rather because the lack of access meant a climate of distrust, which affected confidence in the Court itself.”

Fathers have rights!
Jamaica Gleaner - Kingston,Jamaica
I THOUGHT about commencing this article by stating that "Fathers have rights, too". ... current law as set out in the Children (Guardianship and Custody) Act makes ...
See all stories on this topic

There's no room for Daddy
Buffalo News - NY, United States
By KATHLEEN PARKER. When New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd asked, "Are Men Necessary?" in the title of her funny book critiquing ...

Visitation Rights
NewsCentralAsia - Santa Monaica,CA,USA
... Just because they are ‘fathers’ doesn’t and shouldn’t entitle them to any rights. ... If the abuser is trying to get custody, what are his thoughts? ...

 

MASSACHUETTS REPORT CARD BILL DOING WELL.

 

FROM DAN HOGAN OF FATHERS AND FMAILES

The Massachusetts House today unanimously passed SB 2206, the “report card bill” pushed by Fathers & Families. Since SB 2206 passed the Senate in February, it now needs only the Governor’s signature to become law. Under this bill, the vast majority of non-custodial parents will receive report cards and other school records without the hassle that has existed up until now.

All non-custodial parents owe a debt of thanks to Representative Patricia Haddad of Somerset, Co- Chair of the Joint Education Committee, for her hard work and unswerving support.

RINALDO’S NOTES:  I have commented on how insanely difficult it is for non-custodial fathers to get access to school records.

 

 

SHARED PARENTING LEGISLATION IN AUSTRALIA

Reforms say children should be heard
Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney,New South Wales,Australia
... Fathers' groups have been successful in lobbying the Government on domestic violence ... had fabricated claims of violence in attempts to gain custody of their ...

Senator wants child custody changes
The Age - Melbourne,Victoria,Australia
... a starting point for custody arrangements. This would mean children would divide their time equally between two households. Lone Fathers Association president ...
See all stories on this topic

Family split warning
Melbourne Herald Sun - Australia
... The Bill calls for "shared parenting" with both parents encouraged to contribute to decisions regarding their children rather than mandating equal time for ...

CHILD SUPPORT/PATERNITY FRAUD

 Men who pay child support for others' kids secure an ally
DetNews.com - Detroit,MI,USA
... child support orders when DNA tests prove the men aren't the biological fathers. ... stop Doug Richardson from winning his own long-running child custody case last ...

Don't get involved in others' paternity issues
Charlotte Observer - Charlotte,NC,USA
Q. As a lawyer with experience in paternity-fraud cases, I was called by a man dating a divorced woman who told him her ex-husband is unaware that he is not ...

Court backs dad, ends kid support
DetNews.com - Detroit,MI,USA
... Fathers will need to lobby lawmakers because even though Thursday was a victory for Richardson, the issue of paternity fraud was not addressed, said Murray ...

Guard your DNA or pay the price
Fort Wayne News Sentinel - Fort Wayne,IN,USA
... of my beefs with this case is that it gives opponents of fathers' rights an ... Of course, in the rare instance where the father took custody, the mother could be ...

 

WEEKLY STANDARD COMMENTS ON CHILD SUPPORT

 

 

 

NOW I HAVE HEARD IT ALL

 

Mom Accused of Changing Gender to Kidnap Her Kids
ABC News - USA
... Ernest Karnes and his ex-wife, Shellie White, had joint custody of their two children when White left their home state of Arizona in 2003, taking Erica, then 5 ...
See all stories on this topic

AN INCREDIBLE ARTICLE by Phyllis Schlafly

Welfare reform meets the law of unintended consequences
Town Hall - Washington,DC,USA
... They hide their predetermined custody rulings under the subjective slogan "the best interest ... that are issued, the higher they are, and the more fathers

NOTABLE QUOTE: “Unfortunately, policy changes in the 1988 and 1996 welfare laws created similar financial incentives for state governments to exclude middle-class fathers from the home. The law incentivized the states to manufacture "noncustodial" (i.e., absent) fathers and to order money transfers (usually through wage garnishment) to mothers, thereby putting a large segment of the middle class under the welfare bureaucrats.”

 

 VIRTUAL VISITATION

Divorced parents gain virtual visitation rights
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (subscription) - Milwaukee,WI,USA
... Welker had granted electronic visitation in a recent custody case when the ... and children's rights groups - especially those representing fathers - have raised ...

NOTABLE QUOTE: “David L. Levy, chief executive officer of the Children's Rights Council, a Hyattsville, Md.-based advocacy group for children, is supportive of such legislation as long as electronic communications are in addition to, and not in lieu of, in-person time.”

"We have real kids, with real parents, and real kids need parents who can be with them," Levy said.

Weekends with dad, courtesy of DSL
Naples Daily News (subscription) - Naples,FL,USA
... of the toll divorce can take on children and fathers’ increased involvement ... jobs, have made for increasingly creative and sometimes complex custody agreements ...

POLITICAL FRONT

Ben Downing to run for Senate seat
Capital News 9 - Albany,NY,USA
... seat. Ben Downing, 24, has taken out his nomination papers and plans to build a campaign for Andrea Nuciforo's seat on Beacon Hill. ...

 After more than 20 years on the bench, Napa Judge Richard Bennett ...
Napa Valley Register - Napa,CA,USA

NOTABLE QUOTES: “The role offered a few challenges. One, the office had to be reorganized to meet new federal laws regarding child custody rules. Bennett oversaw changes to the way the government approached non-custodial fathers, shifting from criminal to civil court. The change increased the amount of child support the county collected. One main reason: Civil judgments last seven years longer than criminal ones, allowing time for the county to collect money on home sales or other windfalls to parents who owe back child support.”

“"It was something I hadn't done yet," he said. "... To just focus on that one area to make sure kids got support form parents was brand new. It was just completely brand new. It was a blank piece of paper."

Bennett ended up writing job descriptions for positions he created to deal with the new way of gathering child support. Labels like defendant and plaintiff were changed to labels like mom and dad. It was a kinder, gentler way of dealing with the issue.”

DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES

Panel: Western Mass. sees more kid deaths
Boston Herald, United States - Mar 27, 2006
By Marie Szaniszlo. Of all the questions Gov. Mitt Romney’s panel on the Haleigh Poutre child abuse case raises, among the most ...

Tragic errors spark reform
Boston Herald - United States
... in Westfield in September, her teeth broken, her bones fractured, her brain stem sheared, the paper trail at the Department of Social Services had grown long ...
See all stories on this topic

Extreme abuses fail to fix system

Sunday, March 26, 2006

By PATRICIA NORRIS

SPRINGFIELD REPUBLICAN 

A Rinaldo Must Read

Police expertise to protect kids
Boston Herald - United States
... In Massachusetts, three separate panels are studying how the Department of Social Services could have missed nearly every warning sign that Haleigh was being ...
See all stories on this topic

Hospital that treated Haleigh defends care unit
Boston Globe - United States
By Patricia Wen, Globe Staff | March 25, 2006. A top official at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield defended his hospital yesterday ...

SCHACKLING MOM

Chain mom: ‘I did it out of love’
Boston Herald - United States
... hair out.”. The state Department of Social Services, along with Blackstone police, is now investigating the shackling. This mom ...
See all stories on this topic

Mother shackles defiant daughter
WLNE-TV (ABC6) - Providence,RI,USA
... options. The state Department of Social Services is investigating, and so are Blackstone police. But so far, no one has been charged. ...

GAY ADOPTION

Church and gays clash over adoption
Tallahassee Democrat - Tallahassee,FL,USA
By Kathleen Parker. We live in interesting times when the Catholic Church has to defend its doctrinal beliefs regarding the adoption ...
See all stories on this topic

VOTE ON MARRIAGE.ORG

(The Berkshire Fatherhood Coalition is neutral on gay marriage.)

Newspapers across Massachusetts regularly publish 
"Letters to the Editor" denouncing your right to vote on marriage. 
It's time they heard from you!  

 

These letters to the editor from same sex marriage advocates spread lies and misinformation about the marriage amendment. They are divisive and routinely engage in name calling...making any citizen who simply and fairly wants the right to vote on marriage sound like a homophobe.  This just isn't true.  Take 60 seconds and write to your local newspaper NOW.  Click for talking points and easy online access to your local paper!

 

Click the link below to log in and send your message:
http://votervoice.net/target.asp?id=voteonmarriage:8699509

 

VIEWER MAIL

FROM ERIC BLEICEN

Rinaldo,

 

    Five or six years ago a woman was charged with the manslaughter of her husband in the Barnstable MA court. She had brutally stabbed her husband to death while he was sleeping. Careful investigation determined that there was no history of abuse on his part. She was not charged with 1st or even 2nd degree murder. In the end, I believe that either the case was dismissed or she was found not guilty. Nonetheless, there was no penalty. Imagine a situation where a husband stabbs his wife to death while she is asleeping.

 

Eric

FROM LARRY HOLLAND

This is a letter from one reader who read the “Roe v. Wade for Men” article in the New York times.

I wanted to suggest this as the reason that Judges are opposed to shared parenting. They lose federal funding when there is not the appearance of an absent parent.

 

TO EDITOR/STAFF WRITER:

RE: Why Parenting Time Motions Fail and Child Support Motions Succeed.

After a Friend of the Court Citizen Advisory Committee meeting an
attorney indicated that it seemed that their parenting time motions seem to fail more frequently than child support motions succeed. This was a brilliant observation and I wanted to take a quick moment and tell you why.

For every three dollars ($3.00) that your local court spends on Child
Support Enforcement the court receives two dollars ($2.00) by way of
federal block grant money. Additionally to make up the difference of the remaining one dollar balance the local courts have been able to use what is known as federal incentive grants from the federal government, which has made it possible to “profit” from operating a “successful” child support enforcement program.  An immense gain by the state is to be had by operating a "successful" child support enforcement program which means that a child cannot have substantially equal time with both parents. In order to maximize federal money the states create the appearance of an absentee parent for purposes of the Child Support Enforcement welfare program. Successful also means maximizing the number of participants the state has in its Child Support Enforcement welfare program by including the middle-class at the sole expense of the U.S. Tax Payer.

See 42 USC 655; “Payment to States”;
See 42 USC 658a; “Incentive payments to States”;

In a parenting time conflict, there is disincentive to allow children
to have substantially equal time with their parents because then the
parents do not fit wholly into the above welfare program model as being absent. The more parenting time provided, typically, child support is reduced or abated. A reduction in participants is a reduction in the justification of federal monies to the state. Normally the reduction of expenditures is encouraged by government but in this case the oppositeholds true because there is a profit derived from the excess influx of funds. Because of lack of eligibility requirements there is immense waste in the new Child Support Enforcement Beuracracy. In 2006 alone, 4.2 BILLION of our Social Security Fund, nationally, is being invested into this program which is a huge disincentive for the states to allow substantially equal parenting time with both parents.

The huge mass of money out of your social security also is the reason
that the State is so eager to incorporate all the middle-class into
their Child Support Enforcement welfare programs; that means higher support awards and an appearance of more need for federal money now that there is widespread expanded group participation.

The new welfare abuser is not the people, but the states who have
shaped their participant numbers to create the appearance of need for a program that lacks eligibility requirements. The reality is that there are many fit, willing, and competent parents that are trapped in a welfare system against their will and they are being prevented from parenting their children because the state wants to maximize their federal funding and make them look absent.

Very Truly Yours,
/s/ /s/
Lary Holland
5180 Cedar Lake Rd.
Oscoda, MI 48750
(989) 747-0079 (v)
(989) 764-5920 (f)