#How To Create A Nonprofit Organization

[fplglosangeles]

For Purpose Law Group (FPLG)

For Purpose Law Group (FPLG) 555 W 5th St. 35th Floor Los Angeles, CA 90013 323-364-0026 https://www.fplglaw.com

At FPLG Law, we are dedicated to providing exceptional legal services and support to our clients. Our team of experienced attorneys Focuses in nonprofit law and has a deep understanding of the legal requirements and regulations specific to California, especially when it comes to Starting A Nonprofit in Los Angeles, CA.

[spiritunwilling]

I hope they get to do fh senior year one day and its college applications

[falesten-iw]

To Those Who Still Hold Onto a Shred of Morality and Humanity - Stand with Us and Don’t Forget Us.

Over 40,000 lives have been lost, with 70% of them being children and women. Among these numbers are my own family members—many of whom I’ve already lost.

My family, my cousin, aunt, their children, and grandchildren were all directly targeted by Israeli airstrikes. I’m sharing a video of my aunt and cousin to reveal the harsh reality we are facing in Gaza. In this video, my aunt bravely shares her story about how the Israeli army airstruck them along with their children and grandchildren. Even if you don’t understand Arabic, just watching her speak will help you grasp the immense suffering we are enduring in Gaza. You can see the vedeo in this post.

The few family members who remain are in grave danger, and I’m terrified of losing them too. We have a chance to make a real difference and give my 24 surviving family members a chance to live.

In Gaza, jobs are non-existent, and nonprofit organizations like the UN have drastically reduced their work on the ground. Basic necessities such as milk, food, and medicine are almost as expensive as gold. My family is struggling to afford even the essentials, and my mother urgently needs medication that we simply cannot afford.

I’m also sharing another video that shows the daily struggle people face just to get clean water. The suffering here extends far beyond my family; it’s a genocide affecting every aspect of life in Gaza.

Thanks to the generosity of those who have already donated, we’ve raised $535 toward our goal of $190,363- august 17th. I’m deeply grateful to each of you, but we still have a long way to go, and I need your help more than ever. Imagine if it were your family—how would you feel if they were in this situation?

For those who have created special posts or reblogged to amplify my voice, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your support means everything to me and to my family. If you haven’t yet shared our story, please take just one minute to do so. Your voice could be the lifeline my family desperately needs.

You cannot continue to treat human lives as mere numbers. This is a genocide that demands immediate action. How many more should be killed before you all wake up? Will 40,000 lives be enough to stir us to action? 50,000? 100,000? 150,000?

Asking for donations and charity is something we never imagined having to do in Gaza before the war, and it’s heartbreaking that it has come to this. But if everyone who saw my last post donated just $10 or $20, we could reach our goal in no time. If you’re looking for a way to contribute, consider giving up your coffee, tea, or other “cup” for one day, one week, one month, or anything in between. Then, donate what you would have spent to help me. Please help us and donate now!

This is about more than just donations—it’s about preserving human lives and upholding our shared moral values. Your contribution can make a world of difference in our survival and ensure I don’t lose more of the people I love.

Demanding an end to this suffering is a matter of basic humanity. You cannot remain neutral in the face of such genocide. Please, let’s stand together. Enough is enough.

Every donation, no matter how small, brings us closer to hope and healing. Thank you again for your kindness and support. I will never forget it.

Vetted and shared by @90-ghost: Link.

Verified and shared by @el-shab-hussein: Link

Listed even as number 282 in "The Vetted Gaza Evacuation Fundraiser Spreadsheet" compiled by @el-shab-hussein and @nabulsi : Link

Additionally, Al Jazeera News has documented apart of my family's case: Link

Important note: ** 105 Swedish kr is just 10$ ** 1050 Swedish kr is just 100$ ** 10500 Swedish kr is just 1000$

Please share !

@humansofnewyork@intersectional-feminist @intersectional-feminists@intersectional-feminism @intersectional-feminist-killjoy

@thepeoplesrecord@socialjusticekitten-blog @socialgoodmoms @nowthisnews @socialgoofy

@theblogofawesome@fightforhumanity-rpg-blog @fightforhumanity-rp@queerandpresentdanger @progressive-pride

@radicalsocialworker @activistminds @mybelovedworld @hopeandresist @solidarityisimportant-blog

@solidarityissbliss @solidarityisnotaslogan-blog-blog @unified-multiversal-theory @feministacansada

@feministactionsupportnetwork @globalvoices @save-the-world-but-lose-her @save-the-world-one-day-at-a-time

@save-the-world-tonight @wip-wednesday @daily-writing-prompts @allthingswordy @writerscorner-blog

@fictionfood @wordsthat-speak @writerscunts-blog @storyshots-blog @wordsnstories-blog

@writeblr @thewritingcaddy @fictionwriting2 @inkstay @creativepromptsforwriting @interact-if

[reasonsforhope]

Although dam removals have been happening since 1912, the vast majority have occurred since the mid-2010s, and they have picked up steam since the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which provided funding for such projects. To date, 806 Northeastern dams have come down, with hundreds more in the pipeline. Across the country, 2023 was a watershed year, with a total of 80 dam removals. Says Andrew Fisk, Northeast regional director of the nonprofit American Rivers, “The increasing intensity and frequency of storm events, and the dramatically reduced sizes of our migratory fish populations, are accelerating our efforts.”

Dam removals in the Northeast don’t generate the same media attention as massive takedowns on West Coast rivers, like the Klamath or the Elwha. That’s because most of these structures are comparatively miniscule, built in the 19th century to form ponds and to power grist, textile, paper, saw, and other types of mills as the region developed into an industrial powerhouse.

But as mills became defunct, their dams remained. They may be small to humans, but to the fish that can’t get past them “they’re just as big as a Klamath River dam,” says Maddie Feaster, habitat restoration project manager for the environmental organization Riverkeeper, based in Ossining, New York. From Maryland and Pennsylvania up to Maine, there are 31,213 inventoried dams, more than 4,000 of which sit within the 13,400-square-mile Hudson River watershed alone. For generations they’ve degraded habitat and altered downstream hydrology and sediment flows, creating warm, stagnant, low-oxygen pools that trigger algal blooms and favor invasive species. The dams inhibit fish passage, too, which is why the biologists at the mouth of the Saw Kill transported their glass eels past the first of three Saw Kill dams after counting them...

Jeremy Dietrich, an aquatic ecologist at the New York State Water Resources Institute, monitors dam sites both pre- and post-removal. Environments upstream of an intact dam, he explains, “are dominated by midges, aquatic worms, small crustaceans, organisms you typically might find in a pond.” In 2017 and 2018 assessments of recent Hudson River dam removals, some of which also included riverbank restorations to further enhance habitat for native species, he found improved water quality and more populous communities of beetles, mayflies, and caddisflies, which are “more sensitive to environmental perturbation, and thus used as bioindicators,” he says. “You have this big polarity of ecological conditions, because the barrier has severed the natural connectivity of the system. [After removal], we generally see streams recover to a point where we didn’t even know there was a dam there.”

Pictured: Quassaick Creek flows freely after the removal of the Strooks Felt Dam, Newburgh, New York.

American Rivers estimates that 85 percent of U.S. dams are unnecessary at best and pose risks to public safety at worst, should they collapse and flood downstream communities. The nonprofit has been involved with roughly 1,000 removals across the country, 38 of them since 2018. This effort was boosted by $800 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. But states will likely need to contribute more of their own funding should the Trump administration claw back unspent money, and organizations involved in dam removal are now scrambling to assess the potential impact to their work.

Enthusiasm for such projects is on the upswing among some dam owners — whether states, municipalities, or private landholders. Pennsylvania alone has taken out more than 390 dams since 1912 — 107 of them between 2015 and 2023 — none higher than 16 feet high. “Individual property owners [say] I own a dam, and my insurance company is telling me I have a liability,” says Fisk. Dams in disrepair may release toxic sediments that potentially threaten both human health and wildlife, and low-head dams, over which water flows continuously, churn up recirculating currents that trap and drown 50 people a year in the U.S.

Numerous studies show that dam removals improve aquatic fish passage, water quality, watershed resilience, and habitat for organisms up the food chain, from insects to otters and eagles. But removals aren’t straightforward. Federal grants, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or the Fish and Wildlife Service, favor projects that benefit federally listed species and many river miles. But even the smallest, simplest projects range in cost from $100,000 to $3 million. To qualify for a grant, be it federal or state, an application “has to score well,” says Scott Cuppett, who leads the watershed team at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Hudson River Estuary Program, which collaborates with nonprofits like Riverkeeper to connect dam owners to technical assistance and money...

All this can be overwhelming for dam owners, which is why stakeholders hope additional research will help loosen up some of the requirements. In 2020, Yellen released a study in which he simulated the removal of the 1,702 dams in the lower Hudson watershed, attempting to determine how much sediment might be released if they came down. He found that “the vast majority of dams don’t really trap much sediment,” he says. That’s good news, since it means sediment released into the Hudson will neither permanently worsen water quality nor build up in places that would smother or otherwise harm underwater vegetation. And it shows that “you would not need to invest a huge amount of time or effort into a [costly] sediment management plan,” Yellen says. It’s “a day’s worth of excavator work to remove some concrete and rock, instead of months of trucking away sand and fill.” ...

On a sunny winter afternoon, Feaster, of Riverkeeper, stands in thick mud beside Quassaick Creek in Newburgh, New York. The Strooks Felt Dam, the first of seven municipally owned dams on the lower reaches of this 18-mile tributary, was demolished with state money in 2020. The second dam, called Holden, is slated to come down in late 2025. Feaster is showing a visitor the third, the Walsh Road Dam, whose removal has yet to be funded. “This was built into a floodplain,” she says, “and when it rains the dam overflows to flood a housing complex just around a bend in the creek.” ...

On the Quassaick, improvements are evident since the Strooks dam came out. American eel and juvenile blue crabs have already moved in. In fact, fish returns can sometimes be observed within minutes of opening a passageway. Says Schmidt, “We’ve had dammed rivers where you’ve been removing the project and when the last piece comes out a fish immediately storms past it.”

There is palpable impatience among environmentalists and dam owners to get even more removals going in the Northeast. To that end, collaborators are working to streamline the process. The Fish and Wildlife Service, for example, has formed an interagency fish passage task force with other federal agencies, including NOAA and FEMA, that have their own interests in dam removals. American Rivers is working with regional partners to develop priority lists of dams whose removals would provide the greatest environmental and safety benefits and open up the most river miles to the most important species. “We’re not going to remove all dams,” [Note: mostly for reasons dealing with invasive species management, etc.] says Schmidt. “But we can be really thoughtful and impactful with the ones that we do choose to remove.”

-via Yale Environment 360, February 4, 2025

[drdemonprince]

I see you post against the global blackout on insta and I understand the sentiment, that it doesn’t make a difference but actually we’ve got major Palestinian civilian advocacy groups saying This is what we’re doing and why, and it feels like the West goes “oh there’s no point let’s not bother”. But in actual fact it’s Something. Which is better than nothing. It’s so easy for us to say it’s not worth it. Because we don’t want to give up a day of paid work, social media and online shopping. But when people in Palestine and the major charities actually on the ground working with them want this, isn’t it actually a show of solidarity regardless of our views on it, the actual impact, and our own in inconvenience? Regardless of impact.

Not shopping for one day isn't all that inconvenient. I don't know about you but I have no buy days all the time. It's not much of a sacrifice, if a person wants to do it and feels that it's a good exercise or symbolic or what-have-you, they should do what they feel is right. But showing respect to a people and a cause means being willing to discuss tactics, express disagreement, identify whose political ideals are in alignment with yours, and convey what one personally thinks is right.

Just because a person is Palestinian doesn't mean that their political ideology or theory of how political change happens aligns with your own, or with any kind of leftist politics. There are a great many Palestinian public figures who are not in any way revolutionary or liberationist. The majority of the charities that exist in Gaza are created and controlled by people in imperial countries, and all these charities operate with harsh restrictions placed upon them that limit how challenging to the existing status quo they can be. Many of them have explicit policies of normalizing the apartheid regime.

And just because a person is affected directly by the genocide doesn't mean they have expertise in tactics or economics -- in fact, it is outrageous that the entire Western world is relying upon a people who are actively being genocided, still, to give us our marching orders and plan our wing of resistance for us. Solidarity isn't just standing around waiting for a people in crisis to tell you what to do. It's organizing and tacting action, lending your support, your expertise, your money, your time, taking a stand for something, asking questions, suggesting alternatives, proposing new acts, participating actively in resistance on every level.

It's also important to keep in mind that the calls we see that come from Palestinians the most often are the ones who have been elevated to the status of Influencer or Head of a Nonprofit-- with all the competing motivations and financial and social incentives that involves. We are not hearing from a lot of Palestinian people on the ground who lack a sizeable platform, who do not have internet or phone access, and whose organizing and resistance take forms that are not social media friendly. The call to "listen to Palestinian voices" is a lot more complex than simply doing what a person on social media -- even a number of popular figures! -- has to say. No person or group can speak for a whole people, or a whole movement.

I believe that taking a single day off from shopping is appealing because it asks so little. It demands almost no organizational work or effort from Americans. It's inert and ineffectual, provably so, but something a person can pat themselves on the back for doing and then go back to their day. It's like almost every form of "activism" that has been promoted on social media for years now -- and it's telling that people won't learn, won't build the infrastructure necessary to make something more dramatic or longer-lasting happen, that members of the imperial core just keep sitting around on social media expecting other people to tell us what we should do to end the imperialism and genocide we are complicit in.

We need to do a whole lot more than not shopping for one day, and we need to do a lot of things that cannot be posted about on social media.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this Chicago Tribune story:

Thirty million acres of unprotected wetlands across the Upper Midwest, including 1 million acres in Illinois, are at risk of being destroyed largely by industrial agriculture — wetlands that provide nearly $23 billion in annual flood mitigation benefits, according to new research. In the long term, these wetlands could prevent hundreds of billions of dollars of flood damage in the region.

“Wetlands can help mitigate flooding and save our homes. They can help clean our water. They can capture and store carbon. They support hunting and recreation, and they support the commercial fishing industry by providing habitats for the majority of commercially harvested fish and shellfish,” said study author Stacy Woods, research director for the Food and Environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nationwide nonprofit science advocacy organization.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court stripped protections from freshwater and inland wetlands in its Sackett v. EPA ruling, allowing private property development in wetland areas that don’t have a “continuous surface connection” to permanent bodies of water.

But environmentalists say wetlands are rarely truly “isolated” from a watershed, no matter how inland they may be. Some experts worry that after President-elect Donald Trump takes office, he might roll back President Joe Biden’s effort to counter the Supreme Court ruling by expanding federal regulations of small bodies of water and wetlands under the Clean Water Act. Undoing those protections would leave control of wetlands up to the states, some of which — like Illinois — have no strong safeguards in place.

Half of the nation’s wetlands have disappeared since the 1780s, and urban development and agriculture in Illinois have destroyed as much as 90% of its original marshy, swampy land. Nowadays, its wetlands are vastly outnumbered by the 26.3 million acres of farmland that cover almost three-fourths of the state.

While urban and rural development and climate change disturbances contribute to the problem, the expansion of large-scale agriculture poses the biggest threat to wetlands, according to the study. Advocates see an opportunity in the next farm bill in Congress to support and encourage farmers to protect wetlands on their property.

A wetland is a natural sponge, said Paul Botts, president and executive director of The Wetlands Initiative, a Chicago-based nonprofit that designs, restores and creates wetlands.

By absorbing water from storms and flooding, wetlands can effectively reduce the risks and destructive effects of these disasters, which are intensifying and becoming more frequent because of a changing climate. Previous research estimated that 1 acre of lost wetland can cost $745 in annual flood damage to residential properties, an amount that taxpayers fund through local, state or federal assistance programs.

[mariacallous]

If anyone can rally up a base, it’s Taylor Swift.

When sexually explicit, likely AI-generated, fake images of Swift circulated on social media this week, it galvanized her fans. Swifties found phrases and hashtags related to the images and flooded them with videos and photos of Swift performing. “Protect Taylor Swift” went viral, trending as Swifties spoke out against not just the Swift deepfakes, but all nonconsensual, explicit images made of women.

Swift, arguably the most famous woman in the world right now, has become the high-profile victim of an all-too-frequent form of harassment. She has yet to comment on the photos publicly, but her status gives her power to wield in a situation where so many women have been left with little recourse. Deepfake porn is becoming more common as generative artificial intelligence gets better: 113,000 deepfake videos were uploaded to the most popular porn websites in the first nine months of 2023, a significant increase to the 73,000 videos uploaded throughout 2022. In 2019, research from a startup found that 96 percent of deepfakes on the internet were pornographic.

The content is easy to find on search engines and social media, and has affected other female celebrities and teenagers. Yet, many people don’t understand the full extent of the problem or its impact. Swift, and the media mania around her, has the potential to change that.

“It does feel like this could be one of those trigger events” that could lead to legal and societal changes around nonconsensual deepfakes, says Sam Gregory, executive director of Witness, a nonprofit organization focused on using images and videos for protecting human rights. But Gregory says people still don’t understand how common deepfake porn is, and how harmful and violating it can be to victims.

If anything, this deepfake disaster is reminiscent of the 2014 iCloud leak that led to nude photos of celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton spreading online, prompting calls for greater protections on people's digital identities. Apple ultimately ramped up security features.

A handful of states have laws around nonconsensual deepfakes, and there are moves to ban it on the federal level, too. Rep. Joseph Morelle (D-New York) has introduced a bill in Congress that would make it illegal to create and share deepfake porn without a person’s consent. Another House bill from Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-New York) seeks to give legal recourse to victims of deepfake porn. Rep. Tom Kean, Jr. (R-New Jersey), who in November introduced a bill that would require the labeling of AI content, used the viral Swift moment to draw attention to his efforts: “Whether the victim is Taylor Swift or any young person across our country—we need to establish safeguards to combat this alarming trend,” Kean said in a statement.

This isn’t the first time that Swift or Swifties have tried to hold platforms and people accountable. In 2017, Swift won a lawsuit she brought against a radio DJ who she claimed groped her during a meet-and-greet. She was awarded $1—the amount she sued for, and what her attorney Douglas Baldridge called a symbolic sum “the value of which is immeasurable to all women in this situation.”

Last fall, tens of thousands of people registered to vote after the superstar posted a link to Vote.org on Instagram. And in 2022, her fan base, so enraged after waiting hours to buy tickets to the Eras Tour only to be beaten out by bots, reignited conversation around antitrust issues with Ticketmaster and Live Nation’s mega-merger. A cringy Senate hearing followed, and an investigation into Live Nation’s agreements with venues and artists is ongoing.

Swift and her fans could advocate for legal changes at the federal level to pass. But their outrage could do something else: lead platforms to take notice. “When you have a really massive group of users saying this content is unacceptable in this very high-profile way, the power there is about what it says to the platform about what users will and won’t tolerate,” says Cailin O’Connor, a professor of philosophy at University of California, Irvine and coauthor of The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread. X did not respond to a request for comment on the images and its moderation efforts regarding deepfake porn. Elon Musk bought the site in 2022 and quickly gutted its moderation teams. Advertisers have also dropped off recently after Musk’s apparent endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

It’s not clear whether Swift will take on this issue. A representative for Swift did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Harassment of female celebrities is frequent and often brushed aside, but deepfakes are harming them and others without the same power. This could be a moment for Swift to use her powerful platform—or at least for her fans to push the issue before the public.

[nanowrimo]

4 Ways To Cure Writer’s Block

Every year, we’re lucky to have great sponsors for our nonprofit events. NovelPad, a 2023 NaNoWriMo sponsor, is a novel drafting software designed to make it easy for writers to write. Today, they're sharing a few tips to help you beat writer's block:

NovelPad loves NaNoWriMo because we have the same goal: Helping authors get the thing done!

Starting a book is usually fun and easy—your fingers dance across the keyboard as you explore an exciting world, meet your characters, and stir up intrigue for the coming plot. But once you get into the weeds of how that all works, and how you and your characters get from Point A to Point B, you might find yourself losing momentum. You might find yourself so encumbered with obstacles that you might get a case of the dreaded writer’s block.

The very good news is that writer’s block isn’t terminal, and I certainly don’t think writer’s block is as enigmatic as some people seem to think. I believe it’s actually quite a simple problem, and usually due to one of a few common factors. Let’s look at four ways you can push yourself through your case of ye olde block.

1. Check in with yourself.

Step one is always to check in with yourself. 

Start by reviewing your basic self-care needs:

Are you staying hydrated?

Do you feel hungry?

Would a shower or a nap be beneficial?

Is it time for a walk or some stretching exercises?

Consider your environment as well. Maybe you need:

Noise-canceling headphones

A change of scenery

A babysitter or someone to help around the house

To open or close some windows

Next, evaluate your level of focus. Is your mind wandering elsewhere? It can be useful to create a "dump list" to jot down anything that's causing you stress, such as work-related issues, pending tasks, or upcoming events. Setting that list aside can give you the tangible feeling of pushing those things off your desk to worry about later.

Once your body, mind, and environment are sorted out, you'll likely discover that writing becomes a bit easier!

2. Look back at where you’ve been.

Even if the first tip did or did not do the trick, let’s take a look at the project itself.

Sometimes writer’s block is a blessing in disguise! Your creative gut might be telling you that something went awry. Try reading your project back and pinpointing where it became difficult to keep going. Consider alternate plots or paths to get your writing flowing again.

If you're managing multiple plots and subplots, identifying the moment you deviated from the main path can be quite challenging. To pinpoint which plot line is causing issues, you can take advantage of NovelPad's handy feature: Plot tracking.

On the Plot Board, you can review every scene of a particular plot in order, making spotting those errors in your plotlines much easier.

3. Rewrite a problem scene.

Once you've identified the scene causing issues, it's time to make improvements! This can be challenging because there are countless ways to approach a scene.

However, don't hesitate to embrace revisions. Often, a scene benefits from a thorough rewrite. With NovelPad Revisions, you can save limitless scene revisions, compare them side by side, and effortlessly switch to the one they want in the live manuscript. This keeps your different versions safe, well-organized, and readily accessible.

4. Freewrite to free yourself.

Freewriting is a great way to get your creativity flowing again. Write some poetry, compose a letter to a friend, or simply let your thoughts flow without judgment. Freewriting without judgment can help turn on your writer mode and even help you solve some problems! It's especially beneficial when you're stuck on something specific, because we often find brilliant solutions when we stop being so critical of our ideas.

Kick writer’s block off your desk with NovelPad! It's free to use throughout NaNoWriMo, and we offer discounts to participants and winners afterward. If you find that NovelPad isn't your cup of tea by the end of November, don't worry—you can still access and download your project at any time. Just write!

Our team at NovelPad believes in making it easy for writers to complete their books. That’s why we built an uncomplicated, intuitive system that stays out of the way until you need it! We want writers like you to #JustWrite without burdening you with excessive features. Speaking of features, software updates at NovelPad are based entirely on user feedback from authors to keep our features sharp, relevant, and minimalist.

All NaNoWriMo participants have access to a 15% discount on NovelPad with code WRIMO2023 — use the code during checkout to redeem your discount. Offer expires April 1, 2024.

Top photo by Richard Dykes on Unsplash.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Curt Devine, Casey Tolan, Audrey Ash, and Kyung Lah at CNN:

Last month, Russell Vought sat in a five-star Washington, DC, hotel suite, bowing his head in prayer with two men he thought were relatives of a wealthy conservative donor.

Vought, one of the key authors of Project 2025, a right-wing blueprint for a second Trump term, expected the meeting would help his think tank secure a substantial contribution. For nearly two hours, he talked candidly about his behind-the-scenes work to prepare policy for former President Donald Trump, his expansive views on presidential power, his plans to restrict pornography and immigration, and his complaints that the GOP was too focused on “religious liberty” instead of “Christian nation-ism.” But the men Vought was talking to actually worked for a British journalism nonprofit and were secretly recording him the entire time. The nonprofit, the Centre for Climate Reporting, published a video of the meeting on Thursday – offering a window into the thinking of one of the top policy minds of the MAGA movement, who’s been floated as a possible White House chief of staff. Trump has publicly rejected Project 2025 as Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has sought to tie him to some of the plan’s most extreme proposals. But in private, Vought said that those disavowals were merely “graduate-level politics.”

Vought said his group, the Center for Renewing America, was secretly drafting hundreds of executive orders, regulations, and memos that would lay the groundwork for rapid action on Trump’s plans if he wins, describing his work as creating “shadow” agencies. He claimed that Trump has “blessed” his organization and “he’s very supportive of what we do.” “Eighty percent of my time is working on the plans of what’s necessary to take control of these bureaucracies,” Vought said. “And we are working doggedly on that, whether it’s destroying their agencies’ notion of independence … whether that is thinking through how the deportation would work.” In discussing Trump’s plan to carry out the largest deportation in US history – which the former president has called for publicly – Vought said the expulsion of millions of undocumented immigrants could help “save the country.” Once deportations begin, “you’re really going to be winning a debate along the way about what that looks like,” Vought said. “And so that’s going to cause us to get us off of multiculturalism, just to be able to sustain and defend the deportation, right?”

The video is the latest example of secret recordings exposing political figures’ private comments. The tactics used by the Centre – which created fake websites and a fake LinkedIn profile to deceive Vought – are typically rejected by mainstream American news outlets. But using hidden cameras and deceptive practices in reporting is more common in the UK, where the Centre is based, and it’s been on the rise on the fringe of the US media as well. The conservative group Project Veritas has long conducted sting operations and published selectively edited videos, and earlier this year, a liberal activist released audio recordings of conversations she had with Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and his wife, as well as Chief Justice John Roberts.

[...]

An elaborate ruse

Vought served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump, where he made a name for himself as a policy wonk committed to the MAGA movement. In public, Trump repeatedly praised Vought for doing an “incredible” and “fantastic” job at OMB. After Trump left office, Vought started the Center for Renewing America, a nonprofit that describes itself as the “tip of the America First spear.” CRA was one of many right-leaning groups that partnered on Project 2025, a more than 900-page blueprint for Trump’s second term that was led by the Heritage Foundation. Vought personally authored the project’s chapter on the executive office of the president, and his group contributed to several other chapters of the plan as well. Vought also served as the policy director of the Republican National Convention committee that rewrote the GOP’s official platform this year – a sign of how central he is to Republicans’ policy goals. 

Last month, Vought’s team was approached by employees with the Centre for Climate Reporting, which has previously published investigations into climate negotiations and Saudi Arabia’s energy policy. The Centre spun an elaborate fiction, with a journalist and a paid actor posing as the brother and son-in-law of a reclusive New Mexico investor. The nonexistent patriarch had watched Vought’s appearances on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” show while recuperating from an illness – and wanted to make a seven-figure contribution to CRA after previously focusing his philanthropy on classical music, they claimed. The meeting took place on July 24, the week after the Republican convention, at the presidential suite of the Rosewood hotel in DC, where the Centre had placed several hidden cameras and microphones, Carter said. After the Centre’s employees suggested starting the meeting with a prayer, they peppered Vought with questions about his work and views, the video shows.

CNN reports a secretly recorded video by Centre For Climate Reporting featuring Project 2025 co-author Russ Vought discussing his secret work preparing for a second Trump term that includes drafts for executive orders numbering in the hundreds.

See Also:

MMFA: In undercover interview, Project 2025 architect gets candid on the initiative’s radical goals and connections to Trump

[dostoyevsky-official]

A Year of Empty Threats and a “Smokescreen” Policy: How the State Department Let Israel Get Away With Horrors in Gaza

Current and former diplomats told me that U.S. leaders are fundamentally unwilling to follow through on the Leahy law and cut off units from American-funded weapons. Instead, they have created multiple processes that give the appearance of accountability while simultaneously undermining any potential results, the experts said. In another case considered by the Israel Leahy Vetting Forum, a 15-year-old boy from the West Bank said he was tortured and raped in the Israeli detention facility Al-Mascobiyya, or Russian Compound. For years, the State Department had been told about widespread abuses in that facility and others like it. Military Court Watch, a local nonprofit organization of attorneys, collected testimony from more than 1,100 minors who had been detained between 2013 and 2023. Most said they were strip searched and many said they were beaten. Some teens tried to kill themselves in solitary confinement. IDF soldiers recalled children so scared that they peed themselves during arrests. At the Russian Compound, a 14-year-old said his interrogator shocked and beat him in the legs with sticks to elicit information about a car fire. A 15-year-old said he was handcuffed with another boy. “An Israeli policeman then walked into the room and beat the hell out of me and the other boy,” he said. A 12-year-old girl said she was put into a small cell with cockroaches. Military Court Watch routinely shared its information with the State Department, according to Gerard Horton, one of the group’s co-founders. But nothing ever came of it. “They receive all our reports and we name the facilities,” he told me. “It goes up the food chain and it gets political. Everyone knows what’s going on and obviously no action is taken.” Even the State Department’s own public human rights reports acknowledge widespread allegations of abuse in Israeli prisons. Citing nonprofits, prisoner testimony and media reports, the agency wrote last year that “detainees held by Israel were subjected to physical and sexual violence, threats, intimidation, severely restricted access to food and water.” In the summer of 2021, the State Department reached out to the Israeli government and asked about the 15-year-old who said he was raped at the Russian Compound. The next day, the Israeli government raided the nonprofit that had originally documented the allegation, Defense for Children International — Palestine, and then designated the group a terrorist organization. As a result, U.S. human rights officials said they were prohibited from speaking to DCIP. “A large part of the frustration was that we were unable to access Palestinian civil society because most NGOs” — nongovernmental organizations — “were considered terrorist organizations,” said Mike Casey, a former U.S. diplomat in Jerusalem who resigned last year. “All these groups were essentially the premier human rights organizations, and we were not able to meet with them.” [...] “As you can imagine, it’s been a bit touchy here,” the official said on the call, explaining the months without correspondence. “The Israeli government’s not going to dictate to me who I can talk to, but my superiors can.” The IDF eventually told the State Department it did not find evidence of a sexual assault but reprimanded the guard for kicking a chair during the teenager’s interrogation. To date, the U.S. has not cut off the Russian Compound on Leahy grounds.

[democracyunderground]

Medicaid is a federal program that provides health care to roughly 72 million Americans, including some 14.8 million Californians. Among other kinds of care, Medicaid — which turns 65 years old this year — includes coverage for lower-income and disabled people. Among other things, it covers substance abuse programs, nursing home care, and nearly half of all births nationwide.

Now, Republicans in Congress are proposing huge cuts — at least $880 billion — to this government health insurance program as part of a budget package that would extend and expand tax cuts for the wealthy, as well as finance President Donald Trump’s border security agenda.

Republicans have claimed that Medicaid doesn’t improve health outcomes, states inappropriately juice their federal Medicaid dollars and that shrinking Medicaid funding would improve it. But what would such deep cuts to Medicaid actually look like, and how likely are they to happen?

KQED Forum spoke to the following experts about what to know about Medicaid right now — what it does, who it serves and who would be most affected by the proposed cuts:

Larry Levitt, executive vice president, Kaiser Family Foundation

Joanne Kenen, journalist in-residence, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health

Kristof Stremikis, director of market analysis and insight, California Health Care Foundation, independent nonprofit focused on improving healthcare for Californians

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, former administrator, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services; served as administrator during the Biden administration from 2021–25

This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

How is Medicaid different from Medicare?

Larry Levitt: Medicare is the program that covers seniors and people with disabilities. Medicaid was actually created at the same time as Medicare [in 1965.] Originally, it was connected to welfare — so it covered low-income children, single parents.

It’s been expanded dramatically over time to cover seniors because seniors on Medicare actually have a lot of costs. Big deductibles, things Medicare doesn’t cover, like nursing homes. Medicaid fills in those gaps.

Medicaid was expanded to cover [people with] disabilities and, most recently, under the Affordable Care Act, was expanded to cover all low-income people — at least in those states that choose to do that.

We think of Medicare and Social Security as kind of third rails in American politics: That if you touch them, you get burned. Medicaid has generally not been thought of in that same category, but it actually covers more people now than Medicare or Social Security.

The liberals view Medicaid as a stepping stone, as a part of our complex system, to get as close to universal coverage as we can. Conservatives view it as welfare, only for the deserving poor.

What — and who — does Medicaid cover?

Levitt: Medicaid offers very comprehensive services, [including] home care: Assistance in the home for someone who has a disability, or a senior. It covers nursing home care — institutional care for people who need that. These are people who would otherwise not be covered [by] private insurance — would not have the benefits they need to stay healthy, stay in their home [with] private insurance.

We think of it as covering these low-income people: low-income kids, low-income parents, low-income adults. In fact, over half the spending in Medicaid — [called] Medi-Cal in California — goes [to] people with disabilities and seniors.

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure: If you have a child with high needs, who’s born needing an organ transplant, most of the people who are covered in children’s hospitals in this country depend on Medicaid for their surgeries, for their drugs.

I think it’s really important that as we talk about making changes to the Medicaid program, which has long been a target and has been in the past really described as a welfare program, it is now a [lifeblood] of our health care as a country.

Kristof Stremikis: This really is a program that supports many, many people here, and people in different circumstances. And by the way, those life circumstances, as they do for everyone, they change. This isn’t one static group of people. It really is there for all sorts of Californians. It’s really important to a lot of different people.

Levitt: Certainly, if you have a job, a good job that provides health benefits, that’s how you’re going to get your health insurance. But people lose their jobs, people get their hours cut and lose their health benefits. People have an illness and can’t work anymore. And that’s what this safety net is there for.

What does Medicaid look like in California?

Levitt: Medicaid is implemented differently in every state. In some states, it’s called different things: in California, it’s called Medi-Cal. And the financing is shared between the federal government and states. So if the federal government pays — for example, in California — about half the cost, the state pays the other half of the cost. So it’s not the same thing everywhere [in the way that] Medicare is.

And that’s kind of a point of contention around Medicaid: That if a state is willing to increase its spending, then the federal government will have to increase its match. … So there’s no cap. It’s not required to be appropriated every year in the federal budget. It’s essentially automatic spending.

What would deep cuts to Medicaid look like?

Joanne Kenen: [Cutting $880 billion from Medicaid] would require a fundamental restructuring. It would not look like Medicaid looks today. It would not be an entitlement anymore: It would be what they call a ‘per capita cap.’ [Read more about this proposal for the federal government to pay states based on their number of Medicaid enrollees instead of matching a certain percentage of yearly state spending with no cap. .]

Stremikis: Reductions of the sort that [we] are talking about can only really lead to three sorts of outcomes and probably some combination of all three of these.

Number one is: Fewer people will be covered by Medicaid programs, including Medi-Cal here in California.

The benefits that states are offering that are included in Medicaid health insurance, including Medi-Cal here in California, will [also] be reduced. And so, fewer things will be covered.

And then … the payments that are going into the system to providers, to hospitals, to skilled nursing facilities, to nursing homes will be reduced.

Brooks-LaSure: I think it’s really important for us to all understand how much Medicaid supports the underlying health care system: hospitals, community health centers. Medicaid is the primary payer for mental health services. … And educational services are often supplemented when you need help with your child with autism, who [has] special needs.

It also certainly would affect the states that are trying to do the right thing. So states like California, which have had a strong commitment to the Medicaid program. If there are changes made in [federal] payments, that will either put burdens on states to use their funds — state-only dollars to try to supplement coverage — or have to cut services.

How did we go from President Trump vowing to ‘love and cherish’ Medicaid to backing these cuts — and what are the chances they’ll actually happen?

Kenen: There’s been a realignment in the Republican Party, and more working-class, lower-middle-class people who are on Medicare [and] Medicaid are Trump voters. So you’ve changed the political dynamic here. Who relies on Medicaid is different than historically, as Medicaid has gotten bigger.

The Republicans have gone deep, deep, deep toward cuts. We don’t know [if] they can achieve them. We’re at the very, very, very beginning of what is a very long budget process. They passed it [in] committee. They’re having trouble getting it through the floor. It’s a very tight majority in the House. Then Trump, who’s all ‘loving and cherishing’ his Medicaid, just flipped and said he’s backing the House bill. It’s dizzy[ing].

On the other hand, they’ve been trying to [make cuts to Medicaid] since the Reagan years. Literally, this has been a priority in certain circles on the right for 45 years now, and they haven’t gotten it. And I think there’s a lot of reasons, including who is the base of the Republican Party.

It’s not going to be easy to do this. I think the odds are against [Republicans]. I mean, you can’t rule out anything anymore because things that you thought could never possibly happen are happening by the dozen, right? But it’s really, really an uphill struggle.

And you’re going to hear from the providers. If they’re going to lose $880 billion of revenue or anything close to that, they’re going to lobby, they’re going to be out there, and it’ll be their voices you hear a lot on the Hill.

What else could Republicans do to Medicaid even if this full proposal doesn’t succeed?

Kenen: There are lots and lots of other things that [Republicans] could [also] do that are less dramatic and less deep that would still mean fewer people are covered or [would] affect the expansion part of the [Affordable Care Act]. There’s lots of little things: Work requirements, even just making the enrollment process more cumbersome. You end up covering fewer people.

Stremikis: We don’t precisely know what is being considered. What we do know, though, is the federal government right now pays for between 60% and 70% of the $150 billion that’s flowing into [California’s] health care system from the Medi-Cal program. I think even under some of these small changes, we are talking about billions and billions of reduced federal dollars. … I don’t really think there’s a lot of scenarios in which California can step in and replace billions upon billions in lost federal revenue.

And so I think the question really is now for folks to decide, is this something we want, that we support? And take action.

This story contains reporting by KQED’s Grace Won.

[naryrising]

Fandom Trumps Hate 2025

As I have in the past few years, I'll be participating again in Fandom Trumps Hate, a fanworks auction to support progressive nonprofit organizations. It's a great event that helps raise funds for groups working on a variety of issues, from environmental causes to LGBTQ rights to defending democracy. Bidders get to choose which organization(s) to donate to (see the list of 2025's supported orgs here), and in return receive a fic from me as a thank-you gift.

I'm offering three auctions this year:

A fic of under 5k in Ace Attorney, Haikyuu, or any fandom I've written for previously (other than HP or ASOIAF), up to E rating, minimum bid $5.

A fic of 5-10k in MXTX fandoms (SVSSS, MDZS, or TGCF), Mysterious Lotus Casebook, or Thai BL (Kinnporsche, MYATB, 4 Minutes, Pit Babe, 3 Will Be Free), up to E rating, minimum bid $10.

A fic of under 5k in Dungeon Meshi, Buddy Daddies, or Dr. Stone, up to E rating, minimum bid $5.

Here are some reviews from high bidders I've worked with in the past:

"You did such a beautiful job of bring the emotional and psychological side together with the hotness. I feel like you really saw the vision I was dreaming of."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you! This was sweet and sexy; funny and heartfelt, such a joy to read!"

"This is probably the best fic I've ever received, I love it so much!!! Above all else. it's really great to see smut that is not only hot as hell but also does double-duty as character development and furthering the story, I don't know how you do it Nary! This is definitely getting downloaded to my e-reader so I can have it with me everywhere I go."

If what you're looking for is a fic in one of the above fandoms (or any other that I've written previously other than ASOIAF or HP, see list here) and you have questions about whether I could do what you're interested in, please feel free to message me here on Tumblr and ask! I would love to work with you to create the smut fic of your dreams!

You can view my listings here. Bidding opens on Feb. 25th at 8am ET and closes on March 1st at 8pm ET!

Please check @fandomtrumpshate out, and see if something catches your eye that you would like to bid on. There are over 1200 creators offering over 1600 fanworks this year - not just fics but things like art, podfic, remixes, meta/essays, fan labour like betaing, and even physical items like fibrecrafts, jewelry, and fanbinding in the adjacent fan crafts bazaar. It's a really fun and exciting event, and helps support important causes! I hope you'll take a look even if my auctions aren't to your taste, and I'm sure you can find something that interests you!

[marveltrumpshate]

Talking about Marvel Trumps Hate on AO3

We love it when folks spread the word about Marvel Trumps Hate—the more people take part, the more money we raise, all of which goes to amazing charities!

We encourage all creators to shout from the rooftops (and their social media platforms) that they're participating in the auction, so people can check out what's on offer. We also really appreciate when creators acknowledge that their work was made for MTH to create awareness after the auction ends.

However, if you want to talk about MTH on AO3 specifically, there are a few things to keep in mind about how you're talking about the auction and your involvement so that you don't break any rules. We don't want you to get into trouble!

You can:

Say that your work was created for Marvel Trumps Hate

Provide a link to the MTH Tumblr, Twitter, or website to explain why a fanwork was created (we also encourage you to post to the appropriate annual MTH collection and use the gifting function to gift a work to the person who won your fanwork)

Refer to your fanwork as a gift (NOT commission or charity/gift commission) for your winner

You can't:

Say that you're participating in a current or upcoming charity auction and link to your auction listing (or anyone else's) in your author's notes, footnotes, or elsewhere on AO3

Call an MTH work a commission anywhere on AO3—instead, say that it's a gift for your winner for the Marvel Trumps Hate event

Solicit money by asking people to bid on you, encouraging donations to a charity and/or including a link to the charity or your auction listing, or mentioning that you take commissions (including charity commissions) on AO3

On platforms other than AO3, you're welcome to talk up your offerings, link to the specific charities that you're supporting through your auction offers, and share your (or others') auctions by reblogging your mthofferings.tumblr.com auction post or linking to your auction listings on the MTH website.

Why shouldn't you advertise charity auctions or use the word "commission" on AO3?

Using the right words matters.

MTH is proud to be inspired by other fandom charity auctions and positions itself within the long tradition of fans gifting fanworks and fan labor to each other. The auction event team members gift their time and talents to organize MTH, and fandom creators agree to gift their creative efforts in recognition of the donation that bidders make to the nonprofit organizations that are listed on our Supported Organizations page.

We want to make sure that people thinking about participating as creators and/or as bidders are 100% clear about what the auction involves and are confident about the integrity of the auction. One way of doing this is making sure that everyone knows how the money travels—directly from bidders to the nonprofit they're supporting, without ever being touched by MTH creators or the event team.

That being said, AO3 is not an advertising space and has Terms of Service around commercialization of fanworks (Section I. D5) that forbids any form of commercial promotion on AO3, even if it's for charity. This is not because exchanging money for fanworks is explicitly illegal but because the OTW legal team believes that one of the ways the archive can be protected legally, as both a collection of transformative works and as a nonprofit organization, is to have a firm "no commercial promotion" policy.

On charity events specifically, the TOS FAQ clarifies:

"The Archive will host fanworks of any origin, including fanworks created in response to charity drives or other challenges. A link to a charity drive to explain the origin of a fanwork is appropriate. Solicitation itself, however, should take place outside the Archive. We concluded that this policy was the easiest to apply fairly to everyone, given the wide range of possible solicitation activities." (AO3 TOS Content FAQ).

If you're reported by someone for soliciting on AO3 and found to be in breach of the TOS, you'll be emailed by their team, asking you to remove all the "commercial promotion" material (i.e., all the money-related words like "bid," "donation," or "commission") from the work, comment, bookmark, or profile in question. This includes tags, descriptions in author's notes, and comments on works. The Policy and Abuse committee doesn't screen fanworks; instead, all reports are made by users of the archive. That means that even though there may be places you violated these rules, the committee may not be immediately aware of it; however, as a violation can be found by a user and reported at any time, even from long, long ago, we encourage people to review the wording they used in reference to MTH—or any fandom charity events, for that matter—and make edits if necessary to be on the safe side.

Note: if this does happen to you, you can always appeal or ask for more time to rectify the issue so don't be alarmed. All Policy and Abuse reports are handled by real people who are volunteers for the organization.

We ask that you follow these guidelines so that if you spread the word about Marvel Trumps Hate on AO3, you do so in a way that won't cause you stress or trouble in the future.

If you ever lose track of this explanation and need to refer to it, we also have this information up on our website.

[beardedmrbean]

The Environmental Protection Agency recently discovered that the Biden administration awarded $2 billion to a climate group with ties to former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams – a fierce supporter of former President Joe Biden. 

The money was earmarked for Power Forward Communities – a nonprofit partnered with multiple left-wing groups founded by Abrams and which the Georgia Democrat has stated she was “thrilled” to be part of, the Washington Free Beacon reported on Wednesday. 

The funds were set aside at an outside financial institution – Citibank – before Biden left office and part of a larger, $20 billion pot of money the former president’s EPA received through the Inflation Reduction Act to dole out to climate groups. 

“It’s extremely concerning that an organization that reported just $100 in revenue in 2023 was chosen to receive $2 billion,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin told the outlet, referring to Power Forward Communities latest tax filings. “That’s 20 million times the organization’s reported revenue.”

Last week, Zeldin revealed that he located the $20 billion his EPA predecessors squirreled away in an apparent attempt to prevent the Trump administration from clawing back the money and to obscure the various groups that Power Forward Communities, and seven other entities, decide to distribute the funds to.

Zeldin, at the time, expressed concern that the $20 billion would be doled out “far-left activist groups” without any federal oversight, and perhaps even to groups with close ties to the Biden administration. 

“I made a commitment to members of Congress and to the American people to be a good steward of tax dollars and I’ve wasted no time in keeping my word,” Zeldin told the Washington Free Beacon. “When we learned about the Biden Administration’s scheme to quickly park $20 billion outside the agency, we suspected that some organizations were created out of thin air just to take advantage of this.”

“As we continue to learn more about where some of this money went, it is even more apparent how far-reaching and widely accepted this waste and abuse has been.”

Abrams was a vocal advocate of the Biden administration’s green energy push, and last July, as calls grew for Biden to drop out of the presidential race, she penned an op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution declaring that Democrats’ “path to victory lies in standing by Biden.” 

“It’s time to stop the Joe Biden doom loop,” she tweeted that same month.

Power Forward Communities was awarded the grant the following month. 

“With funds expected to start flowing into homes in early 2025, the grant will make possible the affordable decarbonization of homes and apartments throughout the country, with a particular focus on low-income and disadvantaged communities,” the group said of the $2 billion grant in August of 2024.

Zeldin, who has pledged to look into ways to recover the money from Citibank, described “Stacey Abrams’ Power Forward Communities” as a “a pass through entity for Biden EPA’s $20 billion ‘gold bar’ scheme, in an X post Wednesday night. 

Power Forward Communities did not respond to The Post’s request for comment. 

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

The two tracts of land at the edge of the ancient forest in Borneo were relatively small: One was just 74 acres, the other 195. They had also been heavily degraded by human activity. One site consisted of abandoned rice paddies, leaving barren spaces largely devoid of wildlife. The other was deforested grassland that caught fire every year.

But starting in 2009, people from neighboring communities were hired by a local environmental group to help restore the land. They planted native seedlings, yanked out weeds, dug firebreaks and watered the area during droughts. Aided by the region’s heat and abundant rain, the young plants, which included native hardwoods and fruit trees, grew swiftly, and soon created a canopy.

Late in 2020, cameras were set up on the replanted tracts. The land bordered Gunung Palung National Park, home to endangered orangutans, pangolins, white-bearded gibbons and macaques, and researchers wanted to see if wildlife was coming back.

Their findings were heartening. The cameras documented 47 species of mammals, birds and reptiles, 18 of them at risk for extinction, including an endangered Sunda pangolin and two endangered Bornean orangutans.

The study, recently published in the journal Tropical Natural History, shows that community involvement can play a vital role in restoring wildlife habitat and forest ecosystems, according to researchers.

“When we do community-run reforestation, things really grow back faster,” said Nina Finley, the research manager at Health in Harmony, an American nonprofit organization that conducted the study along with an affiliated organization in Indonesia, Alam Sehat Lestari, and staffers from the national park.

Earlier reforestation efforts with less community involvement resulted in young plants that were vulnerable to weeds and wildfires, Ms. Finley said. But after villagers were hired to regularly weed and water the land, the survival rate of saplings rose substantially, and is now above 70 percent.

Ms. Finley said that addressing the needs of the people living nearby first was key to the project’s success.