Bullies And Their Sycophants

There is a lot of anti-bulling talk in schools but what is bullying? My definition: Bullying is when a person uses power, physical or other, to intimidate, hurt or steal from another person.  In the past we did not call people bullies so much, we just called them evil. Same thing.

Bullies have a hierarchy. Usually there is a top dog in a group. That group may be in a neighborhood, a school, or even a country. Hitler was bully. So is Trump.

Bullies are supported by their sycophants. Cesar Sayoc who mailed pipe bombs to former government officials, including a President and Secretary of State along with other critics of Donald Trump, is a bully and sycophant.

There are degrees of bullying. Or degrees of evil if you will. In reality, no one is 100% good. We all have our moments. But still, there are lines you should not cross. As a society we try to define those lines with the criminal code.  To be clear you can still be evil and not be a criminal. Racism, sexism, and hate in general are not crimes. Only actions are crimes.

Which is why it is so disturbing when people commit crimes and get away with them.

Judge Mearly is a bully. He likes to intimidate people. But I am not sure whether or not he committed an actual crime.

Spring and Nelly Wince clearly committed crimes. Horrendous ones. They not only got away with their crimes but it pays every day for them.

When bullies are tolerated within a group bullying becomes institutionalized. That is what happened in Nazi Germany. That is what happened under Stalin in the USSR. That is what happened under Saddam Hussein in Iraq.  That is what is happening today in family court in Ramsey County Minnesota.

Cost of Alimony

I ran across some interesting statistics in an article on the changes in tax law for alimony. Basically the law no longer allows for alimony to be deducted by the payer. However, this change does not affect existing agreements or orders.

One of the reasons the law was passed is because people were cheating. in 2015 15 million people who pay alimony deducted it from their taxes. I am one of them. However, only 10 million alimony recipients declared alimony, which was taxable for them, on their taxes.

So 5 million people who received alimony paid no taxes on it. That is a  huge amount of money not paid to the government that law abiding taxpayers needed to make up for. Yet another reason why alimony is a cost for all taxpayers.

And let's keep in mind that for those 5 million people who are cheating the system, this is unlikely the only crime they are committing. Criminals rarely commit only one crime.

Even for the 10 million that dutifully declared the alimony they received on their taxes, there is a cost to taxpayers.  The alimony recipient has a strong incentive not to make more money as that would put their alimony at risk. So they become willfully underemployed thus also reducing tax revenue for the government. Furthermore, because normally the alimony recipient earns less money than the payer the amount of the tax deduction for the payer is greater than the taxes paid by the recipient so again the government receives less taxes.

When you add up the cost of the cheaters, willful underemployment, and the effect of alimony duductability it comes out to a massive amount of lost taxes. Taxes that must be made up by those who follow the rules and act with integrity.

The Tax Payer Cost of Divorce

One of the many tax payer costs of divorce is that divorced people can claim social security benefit based on an ex-spouse contribution history. How much this costs taxpayers is quite difficult to figure out. But let's take a stab anyway.

• Approximately 2,000,000 (roughly) women are divorced who are of social security age. See
• The increase in social security for a divorced woman receiving social security over a married one is $1860/year. See

Thus the cost to taxpayers is $3.72 billion/year. (2,000,000 x 1860) And that is a conservative estimate given that I have ignored men who receive social security based on their ex-wife's income. I did this because I could not find good statistics for men. Yet another subtle sign of sexism.

Taxpayers are not only subsiding people who divorce but are actually encouraging them to do so.

Even worse, to quote the social security administration in the second link above, "many divorced women will become eligible for the higher benefits if their ex-husbands die" Yikes! What a crazy world.

Tort Museum

I heard an interesting interview with Ralph Nader on Marketplace Morning Report about the The American Museum of Tort Law, which he founded. The museum is dedicated to educating the public about the benefits of tort litigation and trial by jury.

In the interview, Nader makes a strong case for the social benefit of litigation, both individual and class action. Even in cases where virtually all the money goes to the lawyers, Nader believes that the end result is a reduction in harm to society.

I do not actually disagree with Nader in general. Automobiles, medications, and consumer products are just a few of the areas where litigation has resulted in consumer benefit. But let's not be naive. There are also many, many cases of litigation where the point is not to benefit society but to essentially extort money for the lawyers. Litigation is expensive. Often it is much cheaper to pay a settlement even if you are in the right than it is to defend yourself.

Kavanaugh

I have tried to be non-partisan and non-political with this site because corruption is not a political matter or at least not a partisan Democratic or Republican issue. There are just as many corrupt people who are Democrats as Republicans in my experience. In fact, I detest partisanism as it by definition means putting the party above what is right.

However, I will make a few comments on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court:

• In his testimony Kavanaugh demonstrated a remarkable disrespect for the Senate.  The clearest example was when Senator Klobuchar from Minnesota questioned him about blackout drinking. She explained that she understood alcohol abuse because her father was an alcoholic. Have you ever blacked out? she asked. He sneered in response, “Have you?” He went on and on in this vein. 
• Kavanaugh's testimony clearly showed that he is a conspiracy theorist. Watch here. He directly implicates a former president, former presidential nominee and vast swaths of the public in a conspiracy against him. Wow. 
• Many media reports either imply or state outright that all, or at least most men, act the way Kavanaugh was alleged to have acted. That would be like me stating that all women commit perjury in family court. Let's leave prejudice out of it on both sides. The truth is that most men do not act the way Kavanaugh was alleged to have acted and most women do not commit perjury like Spring did in family court. I certainly have never acted any way like Kavanaugh was alleged to have acted. 
• I heard a media report that only 2-3% of sexual assault accusations are false. That could well be true but it is also true that the vast majority of abuse allegations made in family court are false. Unfortunately, many women who would not report a false rape to the police will falsely accuse the man they are divorcing of abuse. Is there a difference? Sure. But it doesn't feel that way to the victims. 
• Many media reports seem to think that women are infantile and cannot possibly take care of themselves. If that allegations made against Kavanaugh are true that is certainly sexual assault but everything is not sexual assault.  I have been at parties where I drank too much and was sexual fondled by a woman. Was that sexual assault? Would it be if I was a woman.? Assault should not be defined by the genders of the perpetrator and victim. And let's get rid of this crazy notion that women because they are on average physically less strong than men are always the victim. In our society most people are so out of shape genetic physical fitness doesn't even matter. And raw strength is only only part of it. Keep in mind that studies show that men and women are equally physically abusive in relationships. During my relationship with Spring she hit me numerous time; I have a permanently shifted septum as a reminder. I never so much as touched her aggressively. Viewing women as the weaker sex is just sexism. 
• I do, however, think that if a woman had testified with the tone Kavanaugh did she would have been ridiculed far more than Kavanaugh was. This too is due to sexism.  

I  do not know if the allegations against Kavanaugh are true or false. I tend to believe them but there is little hard evidence. However, I do know that Kavanaugh's testimony demonstrated that he is completely unable to handle being a justice on the Supreme Court. He is far too partisan, believes in vast conspiracies against him, and handles pressure poorly. 

Holding Family Law Judges Accountable

Holding Family Law Judges Accountable, an article on ParentAdvocates.org, discusses the fact that judges often fail to uphold the law, reward criminals, and financially devastate the innocent.

Family law courts in the United States are a disgusting and abusive mess. While we can’t blame it all on the judges as many problems are caused by lying litigants, the judges are ultimately responsible for most of the problems. They should be upholding the law, ensuring that people’s rights are not violated, and requiring reasonable proof of allegations before they are acted upon. But in the United States today, that’s not the function of family law judges.

... 

their failure to punish perjury results in massive increases in court hearings. It also results in far more complicated cases in which innocent parties who are being truthful are abused by lying litigants with the assistance of incompetent judges. And all of this adds up to spiraling legal costs which often don’t end until after all of the marital assets are depleted.

Indeed. The failure of judges to do their job is the main reason corruption is so prevalent in the courtroom. In my case it was pretty clear that Spring was making perjurous statements which the judge could have easily determined  just by talking to them - something I asked the judge to do several times but Spring always objected. And in the case of fraud committed by Spring and her lawyer Nelly Wince, the evidence is simply unquestionable.

Yes, litigants often lie. Yes, lawyers often lie. Yes, fraud is common in family court. But the reason this happens is that it works. It is an effective strategy and one that carried little risk of being punished.

Lying Through Others

A recent study found that it is easier to lie through others for monetary advantage than to do so yourself.

I suspect lying through writing is the same as lying through others. I know in my case when I asked Spring about her false statements make in affidavits she stated that, "I just didn't understand how the system worked." Also, I doubt Spring would have made the often outlandish fabrications her lawyer, Nelly Wince, make in the courtroom. Indeed, Spring never made any false allegations when I was in the room, either in mediation or the courtroom. She relied on written affidavits, which were probably crafted by Wince, and statements made by Wince. 

To be clear, during our marriage Spring often lied to me but it was more passive aggressive lying. For example, if I asked about the kids homework she would state it was done. This she would clarify after a teacher contacted me because of a missing assignment that she had told the kids to do their homework.

Or if I stated we needed to cut down on spending, she would say okay and then increase her spending. To make her point clear, the increase would all be on frivolous luxuries for herself.

Nelly Wince, on the other hand, has no reluctance in lying. Unfortunately she is the type of lawyer that believes lying is just a tool to "win" the case. And wining for her is about how much money she can obtain for her and her client. Not how happy her client ends up. And any harm done to children along they way is completely irrelevant to her.