Welcome to the blog of the International Fathers and Children Coalition. We take pride in thoroughly researching our articles, checking our sources, and covering news that traditional media deliberately ignores or would not touch. For a full list of published articles see the "Table of Contents" page on the right, under "Pages."

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

CROUSE: Violence Against Women Act needs reform



"We have no evidence to date that VAWA has led to a decrease in the overall levels of violence against women."  Angela Moore Parmley, PhD, U.S . Department of Justice.  

Erin Pizzey, founder of the first abuse shelter in the world, was a pioneer with a peaceful vision of helping men, women, and children who have been victims of abuse. But according to Erin Pizzey, "that vision was hijacked by vengeful women who have ghettoized the refuge movement and used it to persecute men."


VAWA has turned a mere assertion (false or not) of "fear" into the trigger that instantaneously turns non-violent American fathers into homeless and childless outcasts from society. And is is doing things just as terrible to the children of these fathers who are being made fatherless. The American family unit, and the development of America's children, is doomed to regress further and further if the VAWA is renewed.
                                                           Letter to Congress by Marc Snider, New York Civil Rights Council, 2005.


"The [falsely accused] man may eventually go home only in the presence of a police officer, who will give the man about fifteen minutes to collect belongings. Except for obviously personal clothes, the wife has veto power over what the hubby is able to remove. This process essentialy gives the wife a license to legally steal her husband's assets...
        Often when a man is arrested, a man is stunned because he knows he was not violent. What he does not know is that the U.S. Department of justice defines "domestic violence" as being "any physical, sexual, emotional, economic, or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person. This includes any behaviors that intimidate, manipulate, humiliate, isolate, frighten, terrorize, coerce, threaten, blame, hurt, injure, or wound someone. " 
                                              Barbara C. Johnson, J.D., Chapter 7 "Restraining Orders. Gang-banged in court or in jail. It's the law" in the book "Behind the Black Robes," 2009 ISBN 1-4392-4115-5  


The text below is a reprint. Our graphics and captions seek to illustrate and maximize its impact.
_______________________________________________________

Pro-woman shouldn’t mean anti-man


Janice Shaw Crouse is senior fellow at
Beverly LaHaye Institute and
author of “Marriage Matters”
(Transaction Publishers, 2012).
By Janice Shaw Crouse, senior fellow at Beverly LaHaye Institute and author of “Marriage Matters”.

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is up for reauthorization again this year. This newest version of VAWA — loaded up with even more leftist provisions — has hit a snag. First signed into law in 1994 with bipartisan support and reauthorized in 2000 and 2006, the legislation has become both a failure and a boondoggle, lining the pockets of feminist groups, vastly expanding federal, state and local bureaucracies, and becoming riddled with fraud.

This year there are competing bills in the House (H.R. 4970) and Senate(S. 1925). In a climate of debt, deficit and government waste, the legitimate bone of contention is how best to reform the law, which has spawned dozens of failed programs. VAWA created a bureaucratic nightmare that targets the wrong women, those claiming nebulous “psychological harm,” instead of actually helping battered women. In addition to not helping the women it is supposed to serve, VAWA has morphed into a rigid, inhumane law enforcement tool that hurts and denigrates men.
A national survey of registered voters introduced on July 17 by SAVE (Stop Abusive and Violent Environments), a nonprofit victim-advocacy organization, shows that the majority of people surveyed agree it is time to reform VAWA. According to the results, domestic violence victims, younger people, Republicans and women are most likely to support VAWA reform. It found that 69.5 percent of those surveyed support reform to end waste and fraud, 65.9 percent support reform to stop discrimination, and 63.5 percent support reform to stop false allegations.
Victims of domestic violence or those who know a victim support reform even more, with 73 percent supporting reform to end waste and fraud and more than 68 percent supporting reform to stop discrimination and halt false allegations.
The left has made much of the “war on women” Republicans supposedly are waging, in part by introducing and passing a VAWA bill in the GOP-dominated House instead of accepting the Senate version. However, more women surveyed seem to realize VAWA needs reform than men surveyed. More than 73 percent of women support reform to end waste and fraud compared to 70.6 percent of men; 71 percent of women support reform to stop discrimination compared to 66.6 percent of men; and 68.3 percent of women support reform to stop false allegations compared to 67.8 percent of men.
One of the key differences between the House and Senate bills is that the House bill is gender-neutral, protecting all Americans from domestic violence, while the Senate bill contains language that aims to protect specific groups, including homosexual and transgender Americans. TheHouse language takes an important step toward reforming a law that has created a climate of suspicion against men and a situation in which men are arrested on flimsy excuses, while women have their legal fees paid, enabling them to get a divorce and keep a man out of his house and away from his children. An accused man is often fired from his job, alienated from his friends and community, and assumed guilty until somehow he is able to prove he is innocent.
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)
was drafted by then Sen. Joe Biden and signed
into law by Pres. Bill Clinton in 2004. VAWA
also inspired the passage of over 1,500 state
laws and numerous "Guidelines" and "Handbooks"
followed by Police and courts. As Barbara C.
Johnson, J.D. cited a legal expert in Behind
the Black Robes, "With child abuse and spouse
abuse you don't have to prove anything. You just
have to accuse." Once the s.c. "temporary order"
is in place, it becomes a nightmare to remove.
False allegations of DV are made in the course of
55% of the Divorce proceedings, of which 59%
cannot be substantiated as true, according
to RADAR "A Culture of False Allegations:
How VAWA Harms Families and Children p. 9-10.  
Statistics show there is not much difference between the rates of violence for men against women (6.4 percent ) and women against men (6.3 percent). Robert Franklin, a Texas lawyer who is on the board ofFathers and Families, listed some enlightening statistics in a recent article that point to the need for the law to cover all victims of domestic violence because men are victims, too:
35 percent of victims of severe domestic violence are men but only 1 percent of federal funds goes to assist them.
A study of students at two universities showed that 29 percent of women and 22 percent of men admitted to physically assaulting a date.
A University of New Hampshire study on dating violence in 32 countries showed women were the aggressors more often than men.
The Liz Claiborne Institute found in its Teen Relationship Abuse Survey that 17 percent of boys and 13 percent of girls had been hit, slapped or pushed by a dating partner.
A 2009 Centers for Disease Control study showed that when there was reciprocal violence in a domestic relationship, it was women who hit first 70 percent of the time and then men responded with violence.
The original VAWA was based on good intentions, but as with most things that originate in Washington, the result over the years has been to create an enormous bureaucracy that runs amok with fraud, lacks appropriate oversight, contains no means of accountability and consists of many duplicate programs providing the same assistance to the same groups of people. President Obama has said he would veto H.R. 4970 but supports S. 1925. Unless this law is reformed (and H.R. 4970 takes steps to do so) it will continue to discriminate against men, underserve actual victims of violence and provide millions of taxpayer dollars to build radical feminist power structures instead of ending intimate partner violence.

Janice Shaw Crouse is senior fellow at Concerned Women for America’s Beverly LaHaye Institute and author of “Marriage Matters” (Transaction Publishers, 2012).





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Thursday, July 19, 2012

Military Expenditure, by Country



The latest figure available in a published report (the US census for 2004, not newspaper and other reports) shows that the US military expenditure in 2003 was close to $400 billion. See: http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/04statab/defense.pdf    but much more than that, currently.

The US certainly has the dubious distinction of being #1, but we cannot show the US military spending here on a bar chart. It would be quite literally off-the-chart.


US Spends more on the military than the next 19 countries combined, among the largest spenders. Source: The Telegraph, UK. "Defense Spending: The World's Biggest Armies in Stats." 




Military Statistics > Expenditures > Dollar figure (2003-04) by country


VIEW DATA: Totals






Showing latest available data. Select another time period: 
Rank  Countries  Amount  Date  
# 1    China:$67,490,000,000.00 2004 Time series
# 2    Japan:$45,841,000,000.00 2004 Time series
# 3    France:$45,238,100,000.00 2003 Time series
# 4    United Kingdom:$42,836,500,000.00 2003 Time series
# 5    Germany:$35,063,000,000.00 2003 Time series
# 6    Italy:$28,182,800,000.00 2003 Time series
# 7    Saudi Arabia:$18,000,000,000.00 2002 Time series
# 8    Australia:$16,650,000,000.00 2004 Time series
# 9    Korea, South:$14,522,000,000.00 2003 Time series
# 10    India:$14,018,800,000.00 2003 Time series
# 11    Turkey:$12,155,000,000.00 2003 Time series
# 12    Brazil:$11,000,000,000.00 2004 Time series
# 13    Spain:$9,906,500,000.00 2003 Time series
# 14    Canada:$9,801,700,000.00 2003 Time series
# 15    Netherlands:$9,408,000,000.00 2004 Time series
# 16    Israel:$9,110,000,000.00 2003 Time series
# 17    Taiwan:$7,574,000,000.00 2003 Time series
# 18    Mexico:$6,043,000,000.00 2004 Time series
# 19    Greece:$5,890,000,000.00 2004 Time series
# 20    Sweden:$5,729,000,000.00 2004 Time series
# 21    Korea, North:$5,217,400,000.00 2002 Time series
= 22    Argentina:$4,300,000,000.00 1999 Time series
= 22    Iran:$4,300,000,000.00 2003 Time series
# 24    Norway:$4,033,500,000.00 2003 Time series
# 25    Belgium:$3,999,000,000.00 2003 Time series
# 26    Pakistan:$3,848,000,000.00 2004 Time series
# 27    Poland:$3,500,000,000.00 2002 Time series
# 28    Portugal:$3,497,800,000.00 2003 Time series
# 29    Chile:$3,420,000,000.00 2004 Time series
# 30    Colombia:$3,300,000,000.00 2001 Time series
# 31    Denmark:$3,271,600,000.00 2003 Time series
# 32    South Africa:$3,172,000,000.00 2004 Time series
# 33    Kuwait:$2,584,500,000.00 2004 Time series
# 34    Switzerland:$2,548,000,000.00 2001 Time series
# 35    Algeria:$2,480,000,000.00 2004 Time series
# 36    Egypt:$2,440,000,000.00 2003 Time series
# 37    Morocco:$2,305,600,000.00 2003 Time series
# 38    Czech Republic:$2,170,000,000.00 2004 Time series
# 39    Finland:$1,800,000,000.00 1998 Time series
# 40    Malaysia:$1,690,000,000.00 2000 Time series
# 41    Venezuela:$1,687,000,000.00 2004 Time series
# 42    United Arab Emirates:$1,600,000,000.00 2000 Time series
# 43    Austria:$1,497,000,000.00 2001 Time series
# 44    Jordan:$1,460,000,000.00 2004 Time series
= 45    Libya:$1,300,000,000.00 1999 Time series
= 45    Indonesia:$1,300,000,000.00 2004 Time series
= 45    Iraq:$1,300,000,000.00 2000 Time series
# 48    Hungary:$1,080,000,000.00 2002 Time series
# 49    Bangladesh:$995,300,000.00 2004 Time series
# 50    Romania:$985,000,000.00 2002 Time series
# 51    Yemen:$885,500,000.00 2003 Time series
# 52    Syria:$858,000,000.00 2000 Time series
# 53    Peru:$829,300,000.00 2003 Time series
# 54    Philippines:$805,500,000.00 2004 Time series
# 55    Ireland:$700,000,000.00 2000 Time series
# 56    Ecuador:$655,000,000.00 2004 Time series
# 57    Serbia and Montenegro:$654,000,000.00 2002 Time series
# 58    Vietnam:$650,000,000.00 1998 Time series
# 59    Bahrain:$628,900,000.00 2004 Time series
# 60    Croatia:$620,000,000.00 2004 Time series
# 61    Ukraine:$617,900,000.00 2002 Time series
# 62    Sudan:$587,000,000.00 2001 Time series
# 63    Cuba:$572,300,000.00 2003 Time series
# 64    Nigeria:$544,600,000.00 2004 Time series
# 65    Lebanon:$540,600,000.00 2002 Time series
# 66    Sri Lanka:$514,800,000.00 2004 Time series
# 67    Slovakia:$406,000,000.00 2002 Time series
# 68    Cyprus:$384,000,000.00 2002 Time series
# 69    Slovenia:$370,000,000.00 2000 Time series
= 70    Bulgaria:$356,000,000.00 2002 Time series
= 70    Tunisia:$356,000,000.00 1999 Time series
# 72    Botswana:$338,500,000.00 2004 Time series
# 73    Ethiopia:$337,100,000.00 2004 Time series
# 74    Brunei:$290,700,000.00 2004 Time series
# 75    Uruguay:$257,500,000.00 2004 Time series
# 76    Oman:$252,990,000.00 2004 Time series
# 77    Bosnia and Herzegovina:$234,300,000.00 2002 Time series
# 78    Luxembourg:$231,600,000.00 2003 Time series
# 79    Lithuania:$230,800,000.00 2001 Time series
# 80    Kazakhstan:$221,800,000.00 2002 Time series
# 81    Cameroon:$221,100,000.00 2004 Time series
# 82    Zimbabwe:$217,000,000.00 2004 Time series
# 83    Guatemala:$201,900,000.00 2004 Time series
# 84    Macedonia, Republic of:$200,000,000.00 2001 Time series
# 85    Afghanistan:$188,400,000.00 2004 Time series
# 86    Gabon:$184,800,000.00 2004 Time series
# 87    Angola:$183,580,000.00 2004 Time series
# 88    Côte d'Ivoire:$180,200,000.00 2004 Time series
# 89    Dominican Republic:$180,000,000.00 1998 Time series
# 90    Kenya:$177,100,000.00 2004 Time series
# 91    Belarus:$176,100,000.00 2002 Time series
# 92    Uganda:$170,300,000.00 2004 Time series
# 93    Namibia:$168,400,000.00 2004 Time series
# 94    El Salvador:$157,000,000.00 2003 Time series
# 95    Estonia:$155,000,000.00 2002 Time series
# 96    Eritrea:$151,000,000.00 2004 Time series
# 97    Panama:$147,000,000.00 2004 Time series
# 98    Armenia:$135,000,000.00 2001 Time series
# 99    Bolivia:$132,200,000.00 2004 Time series
# 100    Congo, Republic of the:$126,500,000.00 2004 Time series
# 101    Equatorial Guinea:$126,200,000.00 2004 Time series
# 102    Azerbaijan:$121,000,000.00 1999 Time series
# 103    Mozambique:$117,300,000.00 2004 Time series
# 104    Cambodia:$112,000,000.00 2001 Time series
# 105    Senegal:$107,300,000.00 2004 Time series
# 106    Zambia:$106,800,000.00 2004 Time series
# 107    Chad:$101,300,000.00 2004 Time series
# 108    Honduras:$100,600,000.00 2004 Time series
# 109    Nepal:$99,200,000.00 2004 Time series
# 110    Benin:$96,500,000.00 2004 Time series
# 111    Congo, Democratic Republic of the:$93,500,000.00 2004 Time series
# 112    Turkmenistan:$90,000,000.00 1999 Time series
# 113    Latvia:$87,000,000.00 2001 Time series
# 114    Trinidad and Tobago:$66,700,000.00 2003 Time series
= 115    Costa Rica:$64,200,000.00 2004 Time series
= 115    Burkina Faso:$64,200,000.00 2004 Time series
# 117    Guinea:$56,700,000.00 2004 Time series
# 118    Albania:$56,500,000.00 2002 Time series
# 119    Paraguay:$53,100,000.00 2004 Time series
# 120    Rwanda:$50,100,000.00 2004 Time series
# 121    Ghana:$49,200,000.00 2004 Time series
# 122    Madagascar:$44,600,000.00 2004 Time series
# 123    Maldives:$41,100,000.00 2004 Time series
# 124    Swaziland:$40,500,000.00 2004 Time series
# 125    Burundi:$38,700,000.00 2004 Time series
# 126    Fiji:$36,000,000.00 2004 Time series
# 127    Togo:$35,500,000.00 2004 Time series
# 128    Tajikistan:$35,400,000.00 2001 Time series
# 129    Niger:$33,300,000.00 2004 Time series
# 130    Nicaragua:$32,800,000.00 2004 Time series
# 131    Lesotho:$32,300,000.00 2004 Time series
# 132    Jamaica:$31,200,000.00 2003 Time series
# 133    Malta:$31,100,000.00 2004 Time series
# 134    Djibouti:$28,600,000.00 2004 Time series
# 135    Haiti:$26,000,000.00 2003 Time series
# 136    Mongolia:$23,100,000.00 2002 Time series
# 137    Georgia:$23,000,000.00 2000 Time series
# 138    Mali:$22,400,000.00 2004 Time series
# 139    Mauritania:$20,800,000.00 2004 Time series
# 140    Tanzania:$20,600,000.00 2004 Time series
# 141    Kyrgyzstan:$19,200,000.00 2001 Time series
# 142    Somalia:$18,900,000.00 2003 Time series
# 143    Belize:$18,000,000.00 2003 Time series
# 144    Papua New Guinea:$16,900,000.00 2003 Time series
# 145    Central African Republic:$15,500,000.00 2004 Time series
# 146    Cape Verde:$14,100,000.00 2004 Time series
# 147    Bhutan:$13,700,000.00 2004 Time series
# 148    Sierra Leone:$13,200,000.00 2004 Time series
# 149    Mauritius:$12,500,000.00 2004 Time series
# 150    Seychelles:$12,300,000.00 2004 Time series
# 151    Comoros:$11,600,000.00 2004 Time series
# 152    Malawi:$11,100,000.00 2004 Time series
# 153    Laos:$10,700,000.00 2004 Time series
# 154    Guinea-Bissau:$8,900,000.00 2004 Time series
# 155    Moldova:$8,700,000.00 2004 Time series
# 156    Suriname:$7,500,000.00 2003 Time series
# 157    Guyana:$6,500,000.00 2003 Time series
# 158    Bermuda:$4,028,000.00 2002 Time series





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