The NCP Revue

Mother falsely accused husband of rape because ’she wanted him out of her life’ | Mail Online

Lodge pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice and the judge told her it was ‘a wicked allegation that was pre-planned to hasten his departure from your life’.

He added: ‘Every false allegation of rape increases the plight of women who have been genuine victims of rape in that it makes a genuine allegation harder to prove because juries know that false allegations are made from time to time.’

Or not. The next time I hear a judge slam a false rape allegor for the fact that they potentially or actually sent an innocent man to prison for a rape he did not commit AND potentially labeled him a sex offender rather than concern over what this would do to real rape victims will be the first.

At least this article does note that false rape claims do devastate men’s lives.

Commentary: Let’s end disposable marriage – CNN.com

But no-fault divorce’s broad acceptance as an unquestioned social good helped usher in an era that fundamentally altered the seriousness with which marriage is viewed. It effectively ended marriage as a legal contract since either party can terminate it, with or without cause. This leaves many people struggling to remake their lives after painful divorces that they do not want. It also left many parents cut off from, or sidelined in, the lives of the children they love.

When Tommy divorced, as in so many cases, a bitter struggle over resources and the children ensued. My brother came to believe that the legal system turned him into a mere visitor of his children.

Keep in mind who this article is from. This is not just the grieving surviving sister of a man who committed suicide; this is a former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice. While she may not have seen as many cases of divorce as would say a family court judge what she has seen has convinced her that families are all too often broken up and tossed aside like garbage when it doesn’t fit one of the participants.

I am not a fan of the “return to the traditional family values crowd.” For one thing, I believe it is all too often a mask for some men (not all mind) to become the unquestioned ruler of the household. That should not be what any marriage is about. And divorce sometimes is necessary. But you have to wonder where our parents and grandparents would be if they could have divorced at the drop of a hat like we did. Sometimes maybe it’s better to force people to endure certain situations. This is a legal contract, not a hastily scrawled note. It should be treated as such.

I’m also not mitigating the death of Ms. Sears brother in any way, but what do you think people’s self-worth of themselves is when they are merely viewed as “visitors” or “pocketbook parents” by the courts. Want more parenting time (or the parenting time that you have enforced)? Go into mediation and maybe if you ask nicely we will grand it. Can’t pay your child support? We’ll start making your life a living hell yesterday.

WBNS 10TV : Teen Learns He Was Swapped As Baby – WBNS-10TV, Central Ohio’s News Leader

The two women, who have remained friends, maintain that the baby swap 16 years ago was for Cheyenne’s benefit and deny they intended to defraud anyone.

“We never conspired to do nothing,” Ilse told 10TV News. “We was mixed-up kids that tried to do the right thing. We did it the wrong way, and I’m sorry about that.”

Okay, you collected welfare payments off a kid that wasn’t yours AND you tried to go after child support from a guy who wasn’t the dad. Tell me again how that doesn’t show you “intended to defraud anyone”.

Let me clue you in as to what the right thing is:  the right thing to do is to go through the adoption process.  The right thing to do is to even go to one of the Safe Haven drop off points. Now let’s go over the wrong thing: the wrong thing is to lie about paternity to get welfare benefits.  And the wrong thing is to lie about the father to collect child support, which these two attempted to do.  You only wonder whether or not the fraud would have been prosecuted if the dad had been ripped off as opposed to the state.  Actually, you don’t.

Pantagraph.com | Viewpoint | Give non-custodial fathers more time with kids

It is a cookie-cutter presumption that states, in effect, “fathers need not put their children to bed, help them with their homework, nor help get them ready for school” — the very activities associated with being a responsible father.

Unfortunately I think it’s going to also be an attitude that is hard to change, particularly in light of the fact that the state benefits from these long distance relationships (the less time one parent spends with the child the more the financial child support amount is–and the more the state collects in matching funds).

In addition, any Illinois group that tries to fight the status quo is going to find the same litany of excuses–that every situation is different, that there are kids that will be left with dangerous and abusive parents. Of course, every situation is different, but that does not mean that the majority of parents on both sides are fit. It does not mean that judges will not have latitude in those situations; it just means that there will have to be proof first.

Hill Country Times News, Bulverde, Spring Branch, Canyon Lake

Greer’s last known address is Nacogdoches, and he may be working for cash to avoid garnishment of wages to pay child support.

Or a lawyer, or an executive? Those types of jobs typically don’t pay out in “straight cash, homie,” to borrow a phrase. And of course this is assuming that the debt is accurate and assuming that Greer really is the father. Given the Texas OAG’s record on those I think we all know what we do when we assu (cause what you assume never makes an ass out of me).

Police catch child support delinquents|Fox10tv.com

BAY MINETTE, Ala. (AP) – Baldwin County authorities will roundup child support delinquents for Father’s Day.

I wonder what other brilliant ideas they had? Maybe

• An anti-drug crackdown for MLK’s birthday or Juneteenth?
• A prostitution sting for Mother’s Day
• Immigration sweeps for Cinco De Mayo
• Mafia stings for Columbus’ birthday

Nah, of course not. Those are reprehensible, bigoted, and stereotypical. A crackdown on "deadbeat dads" on Fathers’ Day though? AOK with Baldwin County.

Kids to meet gay dad’s partner on Father’s Day – Yahoo! News

The arguments helped sway Fayette County Superior Court Judge Christopher Edwards to award Sandy Kay Ehlers Mongerson custody of the children. The judge also issued a blanket order banning Eric Mongerson from “exposing the children to his homosexual partners and friends.” A fourth child is an adult over 18 and had no restrictions on contact with Mongerson or his gay friends.

Edwards said in his ruling that the decision was meant to reflect “the trauma inflicted upon the children” during the Arkansas trip.

Mongerson, though, said it only made him feel like he was being targeted for coming out of the closet. For almost two years, Mongerson said he feared losing more time with his kids and walked on egg shells during their weekly four-hour visits.

He didn’t hide the fact he was gay from the kids, but they couldn’t be around his partner, Sanchez. He was afraid to invite straight friends who might be accused of being gay. And he wouldn’t dare bring his children to his place in downtown Atlanta, even though his wife once brought a boyfriend to his daughter’s concert.

Here’s some happy news for a father trying to bond and make a normal life for his kids. I have to wonder, however, how much of this is anti-gay bias (which I think is considerable) and how much is anti-male. There seems to be an assumption that males will engage in predatory behavior with underage children who are not related to them. Anyway kudos for the guy finally being able to establish a normal life for his children, though if there were real justice in the world the woman would have to pay him back for the massive amount of debt that he had to rack up paying his lawyers (wonder if that’s why she isn’t fighting).

How to avoid the CSA | (CSA) Child Support Agency

However, there is a way you can avoid the DEO from the CSA, and that’s to be contracted. If your employer will allow you to go self employed, so you submit your own self assessment tax return, the CSA cannot issue a DEO. You deal with your own tax, therefore they have to go through you.

Nobody likes dealing with the CSA. We all know it’s about as pleasant as going to the Dentist and being told that they were running low on novocane so we should just meditate and grit our teeth. Having said that, actively going on a contractual basis to avoid the CS(E)A has quite a few downsides:

• Going contractual does not relieve you of the burden of child support. In fact it puts you at somewhat of a disadvantage becausse you have no third-party recceipts of child support (namely your pay stubs).
• As far as I know, child support is based upon the gross (pre-tax) as opposed to net (post tax & costs). Voluntarily lowering your income without a good reason (sometimes even with) may cause the courts to impute you income, which puts you in a worse spot than before.
• The same remedies courts have against employed parents can also be used against contracted parents.
• In addition, the courts may require you to put up a bond in addition to your child support. This may be the case if you have been frequently behind in payments. So now you have the cost of that and your current child support payments.

There are several good reasons to become a contractual employee and several valid ones (I had to take up a contract position because of being let go by my company). But if you go into court thinking that you can use this to dodge the Child support people, you are going to be in for a rude shock.

Kelis to Nas: Pay Up for Our Poor Baby – Yahoo! News

"[Her] survival is based on Nas’s will," her lawyers say in court documents.

Child support is not for the spouse’s survival. It’s for the child’s. And I’m thinking a lot of us could survive for ourselves AND the kid on half that amount monthly. Nobody said children are cheap but they aren’t checkbooks either.  If you need money to support yourself, it’s called spousal support., not child support.  That’s temporary (and taxable).  I guess we now have our golddigger of the month.

But I am also wondering how many other women think that way on smaller amounts.  I’m not saying all of them are, but there has to be some who think that children=ka-ching.  That sort of behavior is on the level of child abuse.

State holds Cape Coral mother’s child support payments | news-press.com | The News-Press

Of that $50 million, Revenue is holding $22.2 million in cases such as Collier’s, where the money is from taxes and there’s a six-month hold on the money or it’s in a legal dispute. But $26.1 million of the collections are categorized as "unresolved," most because of missing information. And nearly $5 million has been in limbo for more than three years.

While that money is just sitting around. Here’s a hint: even in these cash-strapped times I don’t think the state is hiding it in its mattress. That money, the interest, is definitely not going to the children. It’s going to line the state’s budget.

Update: Guess the state isn’t just interested in that.  Kinda

To the state’s credit, the Department of Revenue is not content to simply collect interest on the money. It has set up a searchable Web page. And recently contracted with Affiliated Computer Services Inc., a payment processor of child support payments with a collections division, to track down about 20,000 parents – 14,737 owed child support and 4,627 who overpaid and are due money back.

A "searchable web page".  Folks, if you can navigate the menu of a major browser any web page is searchable, so the effort of that is laughable.  And–this is just my guess–many of the people who are either owed child support or owed overpaid child support probably don’t have active Internet connections.

And is it just me, or was that an admission that the state was collecting interest on that money rather than passing that money on to the children who are allegedly owed the money?  Might be getting paranoid in my old age, but that’s just my own particular guess.