Madonna Divorce Settlement - It'll Be A Big "Payout" to Guy Ritchie

News was just released of the Madonna divorce settlement, under which Guy Ritchie will take around $76 Million as his part of the couple's marital assets division. For more, see the Guardian's report, Madonna divorce deal 'worth £50m' to husband Guy Ritchie | guardian.co.uk, and look at People Magazine's web story, Rep: Madonna to Pay Guy Ritchie $76 Million in Divorce Settlement - People.com.

This will be one of the biggest "payouts" in celebrity cases, and will probably be the biggest one going from a high-earning female star to her husband. Also, according to some reports, it is believed the two parents will share residence of their children. Apparently, there had been hope the divorce would be settled amicably, but that was not really the case, as John Bolch points out on his blog here: Family Lore: Not So Amicable.

For information about Massachusetts divorce and family law, see the divorce and family law page of my law firm website.

Cathy Young on Gender Gaps, Gender Differences and Competition

Cathy Young is back! For quite some time, I have patiently followed The Y Files, the blog by former Boston Globe columnist Cathy Young, one of the most fair minded, intelligent, reasonable, and important commentators on gender issues today, and author of what is in my humble view the best book of the last ten years on gender issues, hands down. (If it doesn't sound as if my view is very "humble" that's probably because I have read a lot of books and other writings on gender issues, by radical feminists and radical men, left and right and everything in between.)


The book, Ceasefire!: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve True Equality, which I have discussed here previously, is a book which is as relevant today as it was when written in 1999, and still way under-appreciated.

Unfortunately, Cathy Young had recently gone on some sort of writing hiatus.

But now she is back, with two very insightful posts during the last few days. If you don't already have her on your blog roll, or haven't already subscribed to her feed, go to her blog and do it now. Here are the recent posts:

The Y Files: The paradoxes of gender gaps

The Y Files: More about gender differences and competition


For information about Massachusetts divorce and family law, see the divorce and family law page of my law firm website.

Men As Caregivers

There was an interesting blog post by Leanna Hamill at the Massachusetts Estate Planning and Elder Law Blog yesterday commenting on a recent report that more men have in recent years taken on caregiving roles for aging parents or other relatives: Massachusetts Estate Planning and Elder Law: More Men Taking Over the Caregiving Role. It's interesting to see that just as men have become more active in recent years in caring for children, they are also becoming more active in caring for aging parents as well.

EXCERPT, MASSACHUSETTS ESTATE PLANNING & ELDER LAW BLOG:

The image of a caregiver for an aging parent or relative is usually a woman in her 40's or 50's who is raising her own children, probably working outside the home, and then trying to care for her aging loved one at the same time. But according to a recent article in the New York Times, more men are serving as caregivers than ever before.

[Quoting the New York Times - link directly above:] "The Alzheimer’s Association and the National Alliance for Care- giving estimate that men make up nearly 40 percent of family care providers now, up from 19 percent in a 1996 study by the Alzheimer’s Association. About 17 million men are caring for an adult.

Often they are overshadowed by their female counterparts and faced with employers, friends, support organizations and sometimes even parents who view care-giving as an essentially female role. Male caregivers are more likely to say they feel unprepared for the role and become socially isolated, and less likely to ask for help."
....

For information about Massachusetts divorce and family law, see the divorce and family law page of my law firm website.

Florida Trial Judge Rules That State's Ban on Gay Adoptions Is Unconstitutional

Today in the news there was yet another interesting development in the world of gay rights, this one in Florida: Florida ban on gay adoptions ruled unconstitutional - MiamiHerald.com.

EXCERPT FROM MIAMI HERALD ARTICLE OF TODAY:
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER (cmarbin@MiamiHerald.com)

A Miami-Dade circuit judge Tuesday declared Florida's 30-year-old ban on gay adoption unconstitutional, allowing a North Miami man to adopt two foster kids he has raised since 2004.

In a 53-page order that sets the stage for what could become a constitutional showdown, Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman permitted 47-year-old Frank Gill to adopt the 4- and 8-year-old boys he and his partner have raised since just before Christmas four years ago. A child abuse investigator had asked Gill to care for the boys temporarily; they were never able to return to their birth parents.

''This is the forum where we try to heal children, find permanent families for them so they can get another chance at what every child should know and feel from birth, and go on to lead productive lives,'' Lederman said in court before releasing the order. ``We pray for them to thrive, but that is a word we rarely hear in dependency court.''

''These children are thriving; it is uncontroverted,'' the judge added.

Moments after Lederman released the ruling, attorneys for Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum announced they would appeal the decision to the Third District Court of Appeal in Miami.

.....

For information about Massachusetts divorce and family law, see the divorce and family law page of my law firm website.

California, Arizona and Florida Join Long List of States Banning Gay Marriage

Two more states besides California - namely, Arizona and Florida - have joined the list of nearly 30 U.S. states banning gay marriage, as the result of last week's elections. Although California still has civil unions for gay and lesbian couples, most of the states with bans, including Arizona and Florida, do not have civil unions, domestic partnerships, or any kind of recognition of these relationships. For a basic overview, see this New York Times article about the three state bans, and also read this from the New Hampshire Family Law Blog.

It seems the Northeast, and particularly New England, is exceptional. Massachusetts and Connecticut are now the only states sanctioning gay marriage. Vermont and New Hampshire have civil unions and Maine also has a degree of recognition of same-sex relationships through domestic partnerships. New York recognizes same-sex marriages formed in other states, and New Jersey also has civil unions. Outside this, our very tolerant area of the country, only the West Coast states have some formal, legal recognition of gay and lesbian couples: California still has civil unions, while Oregon and Washington have domestic partnerships.

For information about Massachusetts divorce and family law, see the divorce and family law page of my law firm website.

California Electorate Voted to Ban Gay Marriage; Legislators Try Hail Mary Pass to California Supreme Court

California voters approved the gay marriage ban in that state, by voting for Proposition 8, during their election last week. Meanwhile, Democratic legislators are asking the California Supreme Court to void Proposition 8, in what the manager of the Proposition 8 campaign derides as a "Hail Mary" pass: Democratic legislators ask state Supreme Court to void Prop. 8 - Los Angeles Times. Some gay and lesbian couples have already gotten married in California, between the time the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage and the time when the gay marriage ban was approved last week. Their future is unclear.

Meanwhile, it is likely this development will improve the tourism prospects for Massachusetts and Connecticut, as these New England states, now the only states currently sanctioning gay marriage, should have a monopoly on the gay destination wedding market in the U.S.

EXCERPT FROM LA TIMES ARTICLE, BY DAN MORAIN, 11/11/08:

Reporting from Sacramento -- Forty-three Democratic legislators, including leaders of the California Senate and Assembly, filed a brief Monday urging the California Supreme Court to void Proposition 8.

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata and incoming President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg signed the friend of the court brief, filed with the state Supreme Court.

No Republican legislator signed the petition, though Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, denounced the anti-gay marriage measure over the weekend.

With almost 11 million ballots tallied, Proposition 8 had 52.3% of the vote to 47.7%. Although many ballots remain to be counted, the 500,000-vote spread is viewed as insurmountable.

"The citizens of California rely on the Legislature and the courts to safeguard against unlawful discrimination by temporary, and often short-lived, majorities," the legislators said in the document, written by attorneys at the firm Gibson, Dunn &Crutcher.

"This is a Hail Mary, no question about it," said Frank Schubert, manager of the Proposition 8 campaign.

....

For information about Massachusetts divorce and family law, see the divorce and family law page of my law firm website.

New & Improved Child Support Guidelines To Go Into Effect on January 1

New child support guidelines have just been promulgated, and they will go into effect in Massachusetts on January 1, 2009. See the Massachusetts Court System Press Release - November 5, 2008. I am one of the many attorneys, litigants, and other concerned citizens, who have long complained before that our current guidelines are not appropriate for our times, particularly as they are not precise and comprehensive enough to cover enough of our families.

The new guidelines, for the first time, will address some of the longstanding concerns many of us have had. For one, I see the task force has for the first time made it clear how to determine child support when there is joint physical custody. It is good to see that the task force this time included Fathers and Families founder Ned Holstein, as well as many of the usual participants (attorneys and judges and other family law establishment people). After I have time to give it a complete review, I will post my analysis. But right away, after a quick scan, I can already say it is a wonderful improvement over the guidelines that are currently in effect. Have a read for yourself and tell me what you think: http://www.mass.gov/courts/childsupport/guidelines.pdf.

Excerpt from Press Release of Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court:

Chief Justice for Administration & Management Robert A. Mulligan today announced the promulgation of revised Child Support Guidelines to be effective on January 1, 2009, based on a comprehensive review of the guidelines by the Child Support Guidelines Task Force he appointed in 2006. The 12-member Task Force was chaired by Probate and Family Court Chief Justice Paula M. Carey.

The report recommended significant, broad-based changes intended to make the guidelines more simple, clear, comprehensive and consistent with economic and societal changes of the last two decades. The report of the Task Force, available at www.mass.gov/courts/childsupport, explains the rationale behind the guidelines to assist attorneys and litigants in understanding and using them.

The recommendations include provisions that place greater value and emphasis on the involvement of both parents in the lives of children; consider the increase in health insurance costs and the requirement of mandatory health insurance in Massachusetts; provide greater guidance relative to when a child support order should be modified; and set forth specific deviation factors for deviation from the guidelines. These guidelines will apply to the circumstances of many more families in the Commonwealth.

....

For information about Massachusetts divorce and family law, see the divorce and family law page of my law firm website.

More On The Big Heist

Beat the Press Archive The American Prospect: "The Post Misleads Readers on the Bailout, Yet Again" :

Many school teachers, autoworkers, and plumbers do not like the idea of paying higher taxes so that the incompetent executives at major financial institutions can continue to collect their multi-million dollar paychecks. But, that is exactly what is happening as Congress voted to "spread the wealth around" by redistributing tax dollars from ordinary workers to some of the very richest people in the county.

Yeah, we know about the limits on executive compensation. But these limits are a joke, that's what all the experts said. People who read the Washington Post know that the limits on executive compensation are a joke because the Post ran a very good article (after the passage of the bailout) telling readers that the limits on compensation are a joke.

Since everyone knows that the limits on executive compensation are a joke, why did the Post tell readers in an article on the potential bailout of insurers that the banks who received government money "also must accept limits on executive compensation."

The reality is that these bailouts are being structured to be a massive transfer of wealth to the very richest people in the country. It is not supposed to be the media's job to conceal this fact from the public.

--Dean Baker
Posted by Dean Baker on October 25, 2008 9:22 AM

The Presidential Election and the Latest on Vote Suppression Efforts

The Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays just played a great series, and last night, in the seventh game, the Rays won the right to go to the World Series. The series was a close, but fair, contest. Let's hope our own Presidential election, which looks like it may be close as well, will also be fair.

On that issue, here's a must-read article by Robert Kennedy, Jr. and Greg Palast, in Rolling Stone Magazine: Block the Vote: Rolling Stone. It's good to see we don't always have to go to the UK to get decent investigative news reports on our own Presidential election. We just have to look harder.

EXCERPT FROM ROLLING STONE ARTICLE:
....In state after state, Republican operatives — the party's elite commandos of bare-knuckle politics — are wielding new federal legislation to systematically disenfranchise Democrats. If this year's race is as close as the past two elections, the GOP's nationwide campaign could be large enough to determine the presidency in November. "I don't think the Democrats get it," says John Boyd, a voting-rights attorney in Albuquerque who has taken on the Republican Party for impeding access to the ballot. "All these new rules and games are turning voting into an obstacle course that could flip the vote to the GOP in half a dozen states."

.....

ACORN Voter Fraud Hoax: A Case of Projection?

Now here's more on the Presidential election, from the Guardian in England (as I've said here, it seems we have to go to the other side of the Atlantic to get the best reports on our own election): Brad Friedman: The Republican voter fraud hoax guardian.co.uk. Well, some of the real story is also being reported right here in the USA, though not as widely as the ACORN hoax story. The important story, for example, does indeed appear in the current edition of Rolling Stone, Block the Vote: Rolling Stone, an article by Greg Palast and Bobby Kennedy, Jr. To their credit, the New York Times and CBS News(see links in the excerpt below) have actually also reported a bit of the real story.

The Republicans/FOX News have been disseminating their ACORN voter fraud story to distract attention from the main story, in what is sort of the political and journalistic version of "projection."

EXCERPT FROM BRAD FRIEDMAN'S GUARDIAN ARTICLE:
[The Acorn fraud story] is all a hoax. All of it.But it's been an effective one, as it's served to distract from very real concerns about tens of thousands of voters who have been illegally purged from the voting rolls in dozens of states, as the New York Times reported in a remarkable front page investigative story. That story followed a report the week before from CBS News detailing still more wholesale purges of voting rolls in some 20 states.That will be the November surprise, when thousands, if not millions show up to vote only to find they are no longer welcome to do so and are forced to vote on a "provisional ballot" which may or may not be counted.These real concerns of election fraud, such as voting roll purges, electronic voting machines that don't work and so much more that actually matters, have been obscured by the smoke and mirrors and sleight of hand of the Republican party's phoney Acorn voter fraud charade.And where they can, they'll parlay it all into new photo ID restrictions at the polls (knowing full well that some 20m, largely Democratic-leaning voters don't own the type of ID they'd need to jump over that next Republican hurdle.)Yet, with all of the unsubstantiated, wholly bogus claims of voter fraud being carried out by Democrats, there remains at least one case of absolutely ironclad, documented, yet still-unprosecuted case of voter fraud that, for some reason, Republicans don't much like to talk about.We can only wonder why.

www.gregpalast.com
www.stealbackyourvote.org

More on Connecticut's Same-Sex Marriage Decision

Here's another good article by Hofstra Law Professor Joanna Grossman, this one on the recent Connecticut Supreme Court's same-sex marriage decision: FindLaw's Writ - Grossman: And Connecticut Makes Three: The State's Highest Court Declares Same-Sex Marriage Ban Unconstitutional.

....Connecticut's ruling is similar to the ones in Massachusetts and California, though in subtle ways it is also stronger. Connecticut's civil union law did grant same-sex couples identical rights and benefits to married couples, unlike California's domestic partnership law, which had one tangible difference. And Connecticut's ruling on constitutional sufficiency is marginally stronger than that of Massachusetts, since it came as part of a fully-litigated controversy rather than as an advisory opinion. But these distinctions are minor; it's fair to treat all three of these cases as standing for the same principle: When it comes to marriage, separate is not equal.

The civil union operates as a pragmatic step toward marriage equality - one that secures tangible benefits for same-sex couples despite the present political climate. Polls often show majority support for civil unions, but not for same-sex marriage. Despite the practical benefits, however, the stigma and second-class nature inherent in an alternative status is inescapable. That is a reality that Massachusetts, California and, now, Connecticut have rightly faced up to - and acknowledged with rulings ensuring the name of marriage is accessible to all.

It's hard to know how many states must recognize same-sex marriage before we have a critical mass, but three is a good place to start.

For information about Massachusetts divorce and family law, see the divorce and family law page of my law firm website.

We Must Watch The BBC To Learn About Our Own Presidential Election

Our American corporate media is still busy spewing Wall Street's propaganda, which is responsible for helping to sell the Great Heist (a/k/a "the bailout") which the Wall Street banking community and its friends in the White House have succeeded in forcing upon a reluctant Congress.

Now it is clear that Congress, in almost complete unanimity, has struck out on three of the most important issues during the Bush Years: 1) Patriot Act, 2) Iraq War authorization, and 3) the bailout for banks. It must be depressing and lonely to be one of the handful in Congress, such as Vermont's Representative Bernie Sanders or Wisconsin's Senator Russ Feingold, who were smart and decent enough to take the lonely, principled position in opposition to each of these wrong moves. It is no coincidence that those few who turned out to have been right on those previously wrongly decided issues are the same ones who have correctly opposed the corporate/bank welfare legislation now.

And it will hardly be any consolation once these few courageous politicians who were right on those other issues are eventually judged by history to have been right again on this latest issue. It is hard to make good judgments and look ahead when the media is so caught up in the government and Wall Street propaganda of the present.

Naturally, this same American corporate media, whose normal modus operandi is to pass off as actual news the many warmed-over press releases from the government, whether on the economy or on war or on almost anything else, despite the huge credibility problems of this government, is now completely ignoring one of the most important news stories of our time. That important news is the greatest unreported story about the current Presidential campaign - the fact that Obama may lose the election due to Republican efforts to reduce, block, or eliminate vast numbers of poor voters in many states, in order to throw the election to the Republicans. Of course, our Republican administration would not be sending out press releases to ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and FOX on all of that.

So once again, just like in 2000 and 2004, we have to go overseas, to the BBC, to get this important news, even though the news comes from an American, Greg Palast, the greatest living investigative reporter in this country. Here are the reports as recently broadcast by the BBC:


BBC Report, by Greg Palast, Part One


BBC Report, by Greg Palast, Part Two

Connecticut Finds Right to Same-Sex Marriage - Joins Massachusetts and California

In a long-awaited decision, the Connecticut Supreme Court yesterday joined the highest courts of California and Massachusetts in creating, or recognizing, a right of same-sex marriage on state constitutional grounds. As in those other courts, the decision was a close 4-3. See the news here: Connecticut Supreme Court legalizes same-sex marriage - The Boston Globe. The majority opinion of the court is here, and the three separate dissenting opinions are here, here and here.

EXCERPT FROM OCTOBER 10, 2008 BOSTON GLOBE ARTICLE:
(By Michael Levenson and Andrew Ryan)

Connecticut became the third state to legalize same-sex marriage today in a 4-3 decision by the state Supreme Court.

In an 85-page decision issued at 11:30 a.m., the court struck down a law barring same-sex marriage, ruling that the state had "failed to establish adequate reason to justify the statutory ban."

The justices noted in the majority opinion that they recognized "as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court did in Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health … that 'our decision marks a change in the history of our marriage law.' "

The case, Kerrigan v. the state Commissioner of Public Health, was brought by eight same-sex couples who were denied marriage licenses by the Madison town clerk. They argued that the state's civil union law was discriminatory and unconstitutional because it established a separate and therefore inherently unequal institution for a
minority group. Citing equal protection under the law, the state Supreme Court
agreed.

"In accordance with these state constitutional requirements, same sex couples cannot be denied the freedom to marry," said the majority opinion, which was written by Justice Richard N. Palmer.

....

For information about Massachusetts divorce and family law, see the divorce and family law page of my law firm website.