Posts Tagged ‘USA’s domestic violence statewide coalitions vs “special” “national” issue resource centers system (all private nonprofits)’
Noticing GWUToday (5/29/20) Promoting Joan Meier, NFVLC as new ‘COVID-19 Global Response to DV Quotable Expert’ Led Me (2 Years Later) to OPDV.NY.gov’s Task Force Members List (Announced 5/20/2020). [Begun Apr. 5, 2022, Publ. April 18].
This post was prompted by an article put out nearly two years ago by George Washington University’s Communications Services, domain name “GWUToday.GW.edu,” that I only noticed nearly two years later.
I’ll show how I came across certain information and decided this might as well be an example to talk about how “task forces” are presented to the public. I thought this would be a “short and sweet” simple, straightforward post, until I looked at not only the task force members, but also the Chair of the task force, and her boss, the former Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo. That information has already resulted in at least two off-ramped posts.
Dog In the Manger (Phrases.Co.UK) explains that Aesop may not even have existed, but so what, now ….Img added 15April2022
Here, I set the larger context and express my personal opposition** to the established habits of GWU, NFVLC, and its newly installed Endowed Professor, Ms. Meier, found this time (May, 29, 2020) expounding upon things beyond her level of expertise without citing references (or even being required to), while having historically done a half-&ssed (that is, at least HALF the relevant information has been sat on, not divulged), “dog-in-the-manger”*** job of reporting and driving “family court reform” policy somewhere in the realm of fantasy, pretense, and extreme poetic license demanded at all points.
**(Why lose an opportunity when handed such a prime example?)
***dog-in-the-manger may not have been originally Aesop’s Fable, but its basic meaning is: “a person who selfishly withholds from others something useless to himself.” (or, herself…)
Why do I apply it here? Look behind the public relations pieces, understand the background:
You can’t see the level of “poetic license” demanded of the public without looking behind a few curtains. The background exists in things read seeking it — not just responding to the theatrics and scripts we are delivered routinely. People who don’t do much more than that type of response may have little grasp of what kinds of backgrounds can be looked up and looked at (for free, public-access, assuming an internet connection) by type. In this blog, I feature accounting-based, not cause-based literacy for dealing with the cause-based campaigns, including paid-for media and recruitment of others to add to it, free-referrals.
To perceive background information, including what is not but should be divulged for a balance of power with government operations, requires taking a closer look at and having an entity-focused vocabulary to describe the workings of governments, universities (i.e., creating “centers”) and contrasting information there with information is presented for public consumption, that is, when [for example] the public may be wondering where its (the public’s) tax dollars=the governments’ (plural) tax-receipts went and why the Violence Against Women Act grantees have been historically collaborating with federally funded fatherhood promotion grantees, USA.
What’s “Family Court Reform” (or true “VAW” prevention)
(or “empirical” or even “scientifically sound” — a.k.a. logical –)
About the “we STILL just don’t want to talk about it?” policy?
THIS POST IS:
Title and link will be repeated below in the post and at the bottom.
The points made here apply to other kinds of task forces. I emphasize developing and maintaining awareness of how information about who’s setting policy (and why) is presented….and what that likely represents.
Task force lists, like donor lists, partner/sponsor lists and (too often) even lists of “Our Team” (Board members of an organization) don’t really show the “relationships within relationships.”
This task force member lists doesn’t distinguish task force member affiliations by whether the affiliation is to a clearinghouse, resource center or ‘project’ (that are not entities — meaning, they cover for who is, in each case) or whether they do represent entities. This could easily be handled (shown up front) by including (where it’s a business entity) the suffix representing that entity: If an “Inc.,” “Inc.” or an LLC or LLP, “LLP,” and where it’s not, the name of the underlying entity running the program.
Often geographic information is missing and as is almost almost always information on how many and which (if not ALL) of said task force member’s listed affiliations — whether entities or not entities — are in effect public-funded projects run as private corporations or associations. For this New York State task force, isn’t it relevant to whether the state or the federal government sets policy which members, or their affiliations mentioned weren’t residents of New York State? For example, here, Washington, D.C. is obviously not New York State.
This information is ALWAYS relevant, so why is it SO OFTEN withheld?
Who determined, and since when (in the internet age) that the public just doesn’t need to know, and shouldn’t be told or even encouraged to even think about such basic categories of existence?
It’s a problem, and tells the public “Don’t bother trying to put together what’s actually taking place within and in the name of the purposes of government, whether the United States federal, or individual states or how and where they interact.”
HOW I FOUND THIS INFO:
I saw the information about a new task force only from my habitual curiosity about who, what, when, and where within a university news is posted; that’s how I learned (although nearly two years later) that a COVID-19 Task Force for Domestic Violence Response had been formed in New York State, and that a George Washington University Law Professor who’d barely — it seems only mid-2019 — persuaded the university to back her in supporting and naming another “National Center” to stop or prevent family violence.
This non-entity center** is conveniently named and organized to support Joan Meier’s approach to the problematic family court disgraces: scandalous minimization/denial of high-lethality risk, domestic violence, child abuse issues, leading to insanely criminal acts against women, children, AND men
That response, innately seeks to (further) enshrine and preserve the basic meat-grinder institution of the family courts (USA), insisting that with just some more trainings and tweaks it could be made “SAFE” for children.
That is what Kayden’s Law – VAWA (Reauthorization) campaign claimed for passing the federal, and now claims (present tense) as a reasonable cause for getting the federal standard ensconced* in state laws, state by state. (Now taken to another post, link only active when it’s published. This is a reminder, brief, and not meant to be in-depth, but to back up what I just said, above..)
Talk about a mis-nomer, and avoidance label:
The ‘Keeping Children Safe From Family Violence,’ VAWA Tweak [is] Yet Another Federal Fable ℅ NFVLC (2019, fka DVLEAP 2003f), NSPC (website 2022), and Dear Friends [April 15, 2022]. (short-link ends “-eg9”)
Subtitle: NFVLC (started 2019, Anonymously Endowed 2020?) seeks to Affix (Ensconce, Enshrine) to State Laws, So it’s Said, “for the Kids.” I review this and state my opposition.
Enough preview of the more immediate context….
GWUToday.GWU.edu (webpage footer; the top is news. See About/Mission” statement.
GWToday.GWU.edu is the university’s external/internal official communications channel: I understand it to be their public relations. Before starting this post I read and looked at all listed Staff bio blurbs to get a better sense who was running it. The website will have those links; I also saved it to pdf for future reference at: About | GW Today | The George Washington University (Staff, incl Exec Dir, Sr. Man[a]ging Editors, & others (See Also bio blurbs)~~2022.Apr. 05 (Pdf, a second clink to load may be required. The link is my filename, not the website’s).
George Washington Today serves as the primary source of news and information for George Washington University students, faculty, staff and alumni. Through original journalism and communications from the GW administration, George Washington Today offers a range of stories and information about university operations, campus events, higher education trends and articles that showcase members of the GW community.
Again, this post is:
Subtitle: In-bred (with the DV-orgs network) Task Forces Chaired by Governor’s Office Council Chairs
Sub-subtitle: Lists in this format are designed to impress — not inform. I’ll show in Table Format to illustrate WHY, and, whatever format the lists come in, how (we) should be mentally understanding them in columns with a few extra columns to check off “category.”
It’s also smack in the middle of the “relationships within relationships” section I wrote (quoting an earlier post), just another lesson in the same “Relationships — public/private etc. — within relationships” Level 101. ENTRY level…
Here are a few more titles I tried which reflect my concerns and astonishment:
- Window Frames on Websites Matter!
- Does appointment to a Task Force named at Domestic Violence COVID-19 Response make one an instant COVID-19 Global Expert with no need to cite sources on any data?
- No, but it makes another reportable for GWUToday.GW.Edu and another mention for Joan Meier. Anyhow, about that task force…
- May 29, 2020, GWUToday.GW.edu (University Public Relations): Joan Meier, Specialty, Family Law Appeals on DV Response, On New NY State Task Force Talks Global COVID-19 DV Expert,
- New York State’s COVID-19 DV Task Force (Announced 5/20/20), Chaired by Top Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Most Loyal ‘Enforcer’ Secretary to Governor Melissa DeRosa ~~>BEFORE She,Then He, finally Resigned (8/2021) Amid Sex Abuse and Other Significant Scandals. (Let’s Talk..)
This was going to be a “quick-and-easy” post until I, feeling responsible, looked up not only the task force members but also the chairperson, which led to a variety of headlines showing the context of a shakeup at the Governor’s level (where Chairperson of this task force was operating. I off-ramped that discussion to a new post** leaving my more innocent version and understanding of the task force here, to be published first…Some references to it remain here but I will discuss more fully on another post.
I also took a (quick!) look at New York State’s “OPDV” (Office for Prevention of Domestic Violence). It puts out reports in short, or long format. I included two reports as footnotes: (Dec. 2021) report from the Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Forensic Child Custody (only 16 pages) and “Report on Public Hearings for Accountability for Those Who Cause Harm” (Also Dec., 2021, much longer).
Both are interesting for current developments and (one of them) history of the “batterers’ intervention movement.” The main content (though it takes a while to get to it) is formatting a task force list as tables with (ideally), links to those affiliations which have known websites. Perhaps the footnotes will become their own separate (short) posts…
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NSPC — ‘Coalition’ Meaning What? Rebranding the Same Themes with, Generally, the Same Entities While Channeling (vs. Exposing) AFCC Lingo …? [Begun Feb. 6, 2022, Publ. Apr. 4].
[I’m moving post declarations further down the page since beginning to include “Display Content” on my “Most Recent (Ten) Posts” widget, April 27, 2022. Otherwise the only content it displays is another version of a very long title. I want the short-links near the top so will leave abbreviations of the full title in place. //LGH)
Short version:
NSPC — ‘Coalition’ Meaning What? Rebranding the Same Themes with, Generally, the Same Entities … … ? [Begun Feb. 6, 2022, Publ. April 4]. (case-sensitive short-link ends “-dxg”).
PRWeb.com Fri April 1, 2022 Promo by NSPC for NSPC and NFVLC re getting STATES to pass VAWA ALL 50 States to pass Kayden’s Law). NFVLC Quote (right sidebar press release) ref. Danielle Pollack.
Why I use “NSPC” but those behind it, don’t:
The theme being promoted through NSPC is “Safe Parents” in the family (private custody) courts. I don’t see that “NSPC” is the acronym used by its promoters or members, but it matches the website’s stated label: “National Safe Parents Coalition” and is shorter, so that’s what I’m going to use. It’s also often paired with “NFVLCgwu,” the other part of this dynamic-duo of non-entities^^ with shared messaging on a professional (PRWeb) press release which I just blogged the other day (see nearby image), asking whose money? was behind this:
^^Non-entity** ‘NATIONAL Safe Parents Coalition’ + non-entity ‘NATIONAL Family Violence Law Center’ (actually, GWU.edu) = WHOSE money behind attempt to (inter)NATIONALIZE DV, CA and the FamilyCourts? [From Feb. 6, 2022, Moved Here April 1]. (-e5D, posted April 1, 2022).
GW Law’s Joan Meier Is Installed in Newly Endowed Professorship Supporting Family Violence Survivors | A $2.75 million gift from an anonymous donor endowed the new GW Law National Family Violence Law Center Professorship…
April 01, 2022, By Greg Varner (Photos by David Scavone)In recognition of her groundbreaking work to support victims of domestic violence, the George Washington University installed GW Law Professor Joan S. Meier as the inaugural holder of the National Family Violence Law Center Professorship…
… After the ceremonial remarks from others, Meier spoke briefly, thanking the dean as well as the donor. “This moment feels like the culmination of a journey,” she said.
Briefly discussing the evolution of her work, Meier said she started out representing clients and helping them win civil protection orders, but then moved into the child custody arena, where she faced pushback from judges.
“We saw courts resisting the idea that children were at risk where women were at risk,” Meier said, “and the idea that fathers’ access might need to be limited to keep children safe.”
Meier’s research and litigation experience convinced her that systematic appellate advocacy was needed, so she launched DV LEAP, the first organization that would systematically take appeals in such cases
THIS POST IS: (full title):
NSPC — ‘Coalition’ Meaning What? Rebranding the Same Themes with, Generally, the Same Entities While Channeling (vs. Exposing) AFCC Lingo and Ignoring USA’s ‘We Both Love and Hate Women’ Federal Funds? [Begun Feb. 6, 2022, Publ. Apr. 4]. (case-sensitive short-link ends “-dxg”).
The same day of the installation, I’d just asked “WHOSE money?” This appears to be yet another level of the “None Of Your Business” answer, the first levels involving having a center at a university which is itself not quite transparent (as to its financing) and the other, the NSPC.
The “safe parents” label (within “National Safe Parents Coalition”) is weak and vague and the intended “in the family courts” application for it’s (and NFVLC’s) Kayden’s Law/VAWA campaign is ridiculous and off-target (IF safety for children is indeed the real goal), so I won’t be using that phrase any more than I have to in my ongoing posts this year about this campaign and about those behind both websites and that campaign. Until some better solution comes to mind, I’ll use NSPC instead.
Passage of #VAWA Kayden’s was planned to be applied to individual states as quickly as possible based on recent passage of the federal version, to which I object even more, as a survivor, a witness over time of these systems, an investigative blogger and a person not afraid to ask “why” and point out where proof and logic aren’t even on the table; just more pressure, persuasion are and now, even more money for more of the same.
Now you know what the acronym “NSPC” (Twitter, “#NSPC”) stands for when I use it. What it represents is a different matter; I talk about it below the post title here, and (eventually) get down to documenting the member logos shown on an early version of the National Safe Parents Coalition website. We are going to see the Archive.org (“Wayback Machine”) version showing the probable start date.
This post has been in draft so long, I’ve already published parts of its content in the process of discussing the two acronyms NSPC and the associated NFVLC. I’m counting nine posts since February 6, most related to this topic and developments then and since. See my right sidebar, “Last Ten Posts” widget. Not all mobile phones show the sidebar, so for convenience, here are the last nine. (The tenth covers the use of the word “National” (Feb. 1, 2022) and is related, but started before this one). Dates posted follow the titles. Click on any title to go to that post.
- Non-entity** ‘NATIONAL Safe Parents Coalition’ + non-entity ‘NATIONAL Family Violence Law Center’ (actually, GWU.edu) = WHOSE money behind attempt to (inter)NATIONALIZE DV, CA and the FamilyCourts? [From Feb. 6, 2022, post moved here April. 1]. April 2, 2022
- Is the USA Bipolar, Schizo, ADHD, Or Just Playing Us? |How Federal Gov’t both LOVEs and HATES Women [2,000 words evicted Mar.30, 2022 from Draft Post Feb. 6] March 30, 2022
- (1) Four Reasons Why I Wrote “High-Conflict on Steroids,” my March 1 post, Now and (2) Intro to my March 26 Revisions of the Same [Publ. Mar. 28, 2022]. March 28, 2022
- Journals, Their Editors, Sponsors + Publishers | #FamilyCourtRvw: The Voice of AFCC w Help from Hofstra — Editorial Board and Access-Visitation Grants as I re-explained/posted May 21, 2018. [Repost with my March 21, 2022 Update**]. March 21, 2022
- Moms New To and Seeing Through #FamilyCourtReformists Rhetoric 2002-2022 Have Other Options.. [March 20, 2022]. March 20, 2022
- Moms New to #FamilyCourtReformists’ Lobby (Safe Child, Safe Parent, Broken Family Courts, Flawed Practices — and Please Welcome Our Nice, Empathetic, DV-Expert Men) Should Consider Their Script Carefully. [Mar. 19, 2022]. March 19, 2022
- @LetUsGetHonest Pinned Tweet (thread) with IRS Form 990 explanation and more, Moved Here [Mar. 7, 2022]. March 8, 2022
- “NPEIV envisions a world free of all forms of interpersonal violence.” Hmm… Let’s Look Into That… [March 3, 2022]. March 4, 2022
- ‘High-Conflict’ Court-Ordered Parenting Classes and Certified High-Conflict Divorce Coaching USA is Now on Steroids. Yet USA FamilyCourtReform Collaborators Using This Jargon still expect to be taken seriously (and are, for example, by at least one UK/Europe-focused journal.) [Begun Feb. 16, 2022, Published March 1.] March 2, 2022
This post focuses on NSPC, but as both websites and their related social media accounts (of these, I only use Twitter) continue promoting what each individually and each other, and others who share their perspectives and paradigms, have been accomplishing, I now understand that the NSPC (website and campaign) was intended from the start to be the more temporary and to help promote NFVLC. The NFVLC needed the passage of “Kayden’s Law – VAWA” for its director’s credibility, a victory to point to, on agenda of further nationalizing, first, United States’ family courts and eventually, the world’s. I will deal more with NFVLC and that claim separately, however read nearby pre-launch announcement carefully: it includes a statement of purpose.
Without passage of Kayden’s Law – VAWA, the credibility behind NFVLC as stated in its pre-launch announcement ‘Joan Meier and GW Law Announce New National Family Violence Law Center~~2022.Mar.29 Tues, pdf; a more recent post shows more of this) is basically: (1) A 2019 NIJ-funded study focused on mis-use of parental alienation, published by GWU.edu itself, and (2) Prior work at DVLEAP.org (“Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appellate Project”) based at George Washington University Law School. Not much of a basis! Please read my May 19, 2019 Page (“-8um”) documenting DVLEAP’s: leaky logic; laughable claim of thought-leadership and negligent/irresponsible shortlist of “DV National Resources>” with several long-expired (as of 2018) links. In a list of ten, three broken, one entity name had changed, the fellow-thought-leader at another had been (since 2012) working out of a different nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. (one that is now listed under NSPC).
See also nearby screenshot from it, where I’d noticed that both the UDSOJ/OVW and “The Leadership Council” had given their blessing to DVLEAP’s practices; I said “If this is leadership, then we need a new type which better understands why domestic violence law, unenforced OR even enforced, doesn’t counteract $150M a year and deliberate saturation of the system with PRWORA-plus marriage and fatherhood promotion”, and identifying myself as someone whose experience (exposure) to the DV and family court gauntlet pre-dates the formation of DVLEAP…
Screenshot from my May 19, 2019 Page (not post) on DVLEAP.org, DVLEAP New Website Still Derails OPEN Discussion… (see text on image, or that page)..
I wrote the that page January 2018, thought I’d published it but needing to quote or link to it in May, 2019, discovered it was still in draft and so published it the next day. At the bottom of the page I also showed proof (screenshots from blogger’s dashboard) it was written January, 2018. under 6,000 words with many annotated or captioned images: DV LEAP’s New Website Still Derails OPEN (Uncensored) Discussion of The PROBLEM, Digging A Deeper Hole for Survivors of Abuse and Their Children (Started Jan. 27, 2018 | Publ. May 19, 2019). (shortlink to this PAGE ends “-8um”). I stand by that title: this applies to the developments since.
Basically, I called DVLEAP out (as published) three years ago, but as I also must have been talking about (and for the same reasons), four or more years ago. Meanwhile NFVLC was started about the same time, sometime in 2019.
While I am no “influencer,” my page identified many weaknesses (more than flaws) within DVLEAP’s self-presentation, its statement of “The Problem” and proposed “Solution” as well as for sending readers who happened by on some wild goose chases with its list of references. At least one of the references is now (under a different entity name) at NSPC…. The same fallacies in logic (making leaps without connection), even more arrogance in claims, and (on closer look) constant self-promotions, characterize the NFVLC, under the same individual leader (Joan Meier), with decreased visibility in following the money behind it, which I just blogged April 1.
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“NATIONAL” Nonprofits? (Centers, Initiatives, etc.) in the USA? No Such Thing. US Treasury’s CAFR explains ‘ENTITY’… [Yesterday’s (Jan. 30, 2022) post, second half]
(Revised/minor updates in early February, tags added Feb. 4).
This post is, literally, the second (bottom) half of the one I published yesterday, which was about 10,600 words, mostly text not images. Let’s call this half — well, I just did:
“NATIONAL” Nonprofits? (Centers, Initiatives, etc.) in the USA? No Such Thing. US Treasury’s CAFR explains ‘ENTITY’… [Yesterday’s (Jan. 30, 2022) post, second half]. case-sensitive short-link ends “-dvu”
The one I published yesterday:
“National Nonprofit: True or False? Wishful Thinking or Flat-Out Deception for USA-Legal domiciled Entities? […publ.Jan.30, 2022] case-sensitive short-link ends “-dgS”
PREVIEW (about 3,000 words). I have some points to make!
Reading CAFRs (Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports, compiled by governments) at any level help a person comprehend the concept of what is and is not an “entity” and governments’ usage of the word “entity.”
Many nonprofit entities use the word “national” as part of their business name. That name doesn’t make it magically “national” in any sense of the word. So many things called “National” are intended to mislead domestic and foreign (i.e., not USA) populations, when such things are even “entities.”
The label “national” is also applied across a number of websites or campaigns masquerading (by implication if not direct claim) as “entities” but which aren’t. These will also have the word “national” in their names– that is, there will be initial caps followed by a few more adjectives and, if you’re lucky, a noun of some indefinite sort: center, initiative, coalition, campaign, or almost anything else.
There’s a difference between categories of existence as some entity (government or non-government, i.e., private) and assigned or registered names of entities.
(Quick post-publication update from the world of Twitter:)
Within just two days of publishing this post (and the one before it) on this topic, I saw another website featuring “protective mothers” groups claiming an international coalition along with this one: “NationalSafeParents.org” At least two of the sponsors, judging by the logos, I know as organizations (for many years now); another promoting it is (so far as I can tell) another NONentity at a university center, another is a survivor Mom selling High-Conflict and (in general) AFCC policies, so is a second one (which I’d previously looked at, seeing its activity onTwitter).
Others seem to represent the names (and some, a nonprofit or campaign associated with) murdered young children — great for curb appeal (a little late for the children…) — but that doesn’t make the “*.org” national, any of the associated nonprofits or for-profit businesses associated national, or representative of all mothers in this condition. It’s a sales pitch, typical for that particular group of individuals (some organizations have been around longer than others), and I noticed the website is also TELLING us what to do — sample Tweets, what laws to promote — after all, it’s about dire situations, the words “National” “Coalition” have implications, and who could be against “safe parents” although, in the context, it seems that safe CHILDREN is more the focus.
Not posted here, but I did click on every logo listed (some, not for the first time) for the overview…IF you make a practice of looking up entities and finding (USA) what legal domicile (subsidiary to this country) each one IS or as it may be (and was for one of these) WAS registered in, per the IRS, this gives a point of comparison with the surface claims to be national, a true coalition, representing as many parents as it says it is, and, possibly why such an agenda. NationalSafeParents.org was being promoted (on Twitter), which doesn’t surprise me at all, by the non-entity (so far as I can tell), “National Family Violence Law Center,” which (click Donate to follow through) is in fact, George Washington University in Washington, D.C., ℅ Joan Meier. For now, it’s a non-entity.
This new (2022) website and the collection (“coalition”) of logos on it so far (two more were just added) deserves a separate post. I already Tweeted out a quick Buyer Beware, however.
Though I’ve been saying these things for years, it seems my posts are timely, and I’m glad to have them to point to, and classic examples of exactly what I’m protesting. How timely! (“More later…”) I tweeted out an alert. //LGH Feb. 2, 2022.
Unfortunately, many government websites facing the consumers (i.e., us) within the USA don’t mention that our country doesn’t do “national” nonprofits or corporations. Many government websites also inconsistently “mix-and-match” terminology discouraging public identification of what types of organizations (or non-entities, i.e., projects perhaps of some other organization) are meant.
This post leads you to and guides through** how a recent U.S. Treasury CAFR report defines “entity.” (and, much more…). That section is in the bottom part of this post (below a clear separator):
**by specifying which parts, linking and quoting or summarizing the U.S. Treasury’s explanation of, at this point, the difference in usage between “entity” and “agency” in context (“entity” is a broader term) and listing so many of them by example as to get the concept. There are “entities” within “entities” in this case.
Something similar (but not identical) can happen within the nonprofit sphere; for example one Schedule attached to some IRS Forms 990 (for tax-exempt organizations which must file), is Schedule R — Related Organizations and Unrelated Businesses” and asking for these to be identified by categories:”Disregarded, Tax-exempt, Taxable as a partnership, or Taxable as a corporation or trust (Click and scroll down (or go straight to the bottom and scroll up, probably faster) through after Parts I-XII of any tax return (except abbreviated Forms 990EZ), through its “Schedules” to Schedule R and read the sub-headings given. This example came up (BiPartisan Policy Center, Inc, FY2019 Tax Return; it’s mentioned below the section on CAFRs on this post).
(“What’s a CAFR?” Still unsure what that refers to?) Investopedia summarizes, but I disagree (extremely) based on having read enough CAFRs, with one of its summary statements — governments aren’t into hoarding assets. Oh, really? I certainly agree with this (second paragraph) — “shouldn’t we be making sure they’re making good use of our money?” and other parts explaining who files CAFRs, and that their MD&A section (and notes) are “important analysis tools.”
“Navigating Government and Nonprofit Financials,” by Jonas Elmerajji, Updated July 27, 2021, Reviewed by Andy Smith).
Governments and nonprofits take our tax and contribution money to provide valuable services—shouldn’t we be making sure that they’re making good use of our money?
…Governmental Reporting
Each year, every governmental organization in the U.S. and Canada puts out a Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR). While the formats and contents can vary, these reports present the financial statements of the governmental entity, as well as important analysis tools like the management’s discussion and analysis (MD&A) and the notes to the financial statements. CAFRs are done according to GAAP and Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) regulations. (See also: What You Need To Know About Financial Statements and Footnotes: Start Reading The Fine Print.)
Too bad one sentence refers to governmental “organizations” and the next, “governmental entity.” I think the phrase should be “government entity.” It’s either government, or it’s not. If it’s “government” that’s not “governmental” — “sort of” government. Investopedia articles are intended for a general understanding..
CAFRs often present financial information for individual funds (or at least significant funds) as well as governmentwide financial statements that show the position of the government as a whole…. The MD&A is a very useful portion of the CAFR that gives quite a bit of insight into the decisions made by your government’s decision makers. Typically, the MD&A has quite a bit more content than the managerial discussions found in the annual reports of business organizations.
Besides entities called “National” , there are also many “Centers, Initiatives, (etc.)” within registered entities (within governments and, often, universities, or at times, within some other non-profit entity) which aren’t “entities” (‘things,” or distinctly separate from where they are “housed”) at all, but those behind them and involved want the rest of us to think they are. Many times I’ll find out simply looking for the entity and finding there was (or is) none — the name or label refers instead to some project of another organization (or, government unit).
In the United States, such labeling — “National [ABC] for/on [Cause XYZ]” isn’t illegal, just mis-leading and deceptive. It ought to be a ‘red flag’ every single time you see it, unless referring to the federal government itself. It’s a ruse… It’s mimicry — it’s evidence of (someone’s) posing like something it is not. This word “National” serves to help undeserving entities or non-entities (small or large, powerfully connected or not at all powerfully connected) encroach on other turf, like an invasive species, until the original ones are crowded out, or suppressed JUST enough to keep feeding the parasites. The “turf” it’s encroaching on is representative government as designated by not just local state constitutions (as to the USA), but under the national one also. It’s an attempt at nationalizing things which belong under state, NOT national, control.
Because it’s so easy and now commonplace to replicate, ‘clone” or just set up nonprofits, it’s become logistically impossible to track all of them without extreme specialization. However, they do tend to organize around the “host” functions of governments and can be seen mimicking and feeding off such government sources.
This post begins listing some of my prior published posts naming a series of non-profit entities (mostly) which call themselves National and how they collaborate to form the background, kind of “shadow” government while maintaining private tax-exempt status making their (collective) influence/s harder to discern, and the money much harder to follow.
Some of these are so confident about themselves they self-selected into “The Big Seven“: Wikipedia lists them but says little about them.
I blogged them in July, 2017, (a major deep-dive drill-down on several). That post is a good background for this one; background information includes display of many images — both the entities’ self-descriptions, and annotated/captioned screenshots of tax returns. That my blog was so close to top of the Google search results on this phrase might tell you it’s not discussed often enough.
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If Dog-Fighting, Cock-Fighting, and Exploiting Prisoners as Gladiators (resulting in shooting deaths for some, and “hundreds of shootings,” not to mention fight-related injuries for others) is “BAD,” then why isn’t also Federal (PRWORA-based) and State (Family Courts) Policy with similarly staged, high-stakes conflicts — rigged for intended outcomes, and obviously potentially lethal for the combatants and, periodically, bystanders — on a far larger stage (national, and in some high-profile cases, international), also involving known criminally violent** fathers and their children’s mothers, AND young children of all ages? [Published Dec. 17, 2017]
The “parent post” also dealt in part with guns and groups seeking to reduce death by gun violence. I guess they just weren’t thinking in terms of, “of prisoners, by prison guards…” Its title:
This is a short (ca. 6,700 words or so) aside to that post, and a link to return to the parent post above is provided again at the bottom. There may be some repetition as I added documentation and examples to the text before publishing.
It originates in making references of these topics as analogies for the situation I am most deeply concerned about, the macro-economic, system-wide practice of the same power blocs setting up artificial, high-stakes and sometimes life-and-death conflicts especially between men and women overall, and between individual men and women who are mothers and fathers of children in common, while demanding the public fund both sides (the public as taxpayers and through other service consumption of governmental business enterprises, including accessing the courts, registering vehicles yearly, marriage licenses even, continues to pay “up front”)
Many men and women can handle themselves without hurting or destroying each other economically or physically, and not all men and women, on divorcing, use their children as pawns or take them as hostages. But WHEN some do, it seems to be “game time” for others. It’s “show time.” All can be manipulated, and the longer the conflict goes on, the higher the bills, the more civil and legal rights concessions are demanded of them (and the larger public), the higher the stakes and the greater the risks of those personally involved — yet these concessions are often described as the intended methodologies to change the outcome.
But doing so directly is contrary to our self-impressions of the country and view that we have a possibly functional system of laws and courts. The influences are from the sidelines, from outside specific jurisdiction of family courts involved, and these influences come from Congress and the White House (which expends funding allocated to it by Congress, i.e., that budget) and are applied through, as the title above says, a real “money maze” — sometimes direct to the states, sometimes direct to nonprofits within the state but involved in the courts, and sometimes otherwise.
That’s why I say the game is “rigged.” It’s not a level playing field, and its rules can be altered year to year, and situation to situation — and that’s the way some people like it. Rather than SETTLING the standards by the law, with a preference throughout of NOT prioritizing privilege for violators of penal codes when there are two parents and one is a violator and the other, not.
Rather than just having fair laws and enforcing them fairly.
We (so to speak) also already exploit at least federal prisoners for slave labor, through FPI (Federal Prison Industries) a.k.a. Unicor (and have since the 1930s), which is also referenced here near the bottom, but not in this post’s title, which reads:
QUESTION: What’s bad when found to have occurred in secret, in confined and closed quarters from which combatants cannot escape, and involving animals (whether dogs or roosters with spurs) or when it happens in prisons with caged men, and in ALL of the above resulting in serious injury and sometimes death, not to mention being “exploitation, defined,” ….
LA times 4/24/2000, by Staff writer Max Arax, “Guards on Trial in Corcoran Shootings blame Prisoners
…Pointing the finger at a vast group of prisoners with no faces or voices in the federal courtroom, the defense is using the government’s own witnesses to put Corcoran’s violent culture on trial. Sounding at times like prosecutors themselves, attorneys for the eight guards are also blaming official state policy handed down from Sacramento for the thousands of fights between inmates and the hundreds of shootings by guards during a six-year reign of terror at the San Joaquin Valley prison.
Beginning in 1989, defense attorneys contend, the state’s integrated yard and shooting policies required guards to mix rival inmates from different street gangs and then to fire at them with deadly force if they refused to stop fighting.
…why is the same basic routine under “family-friendly policy,” and when the forced interaction with known dangerous persons frequently happens WITHOUT armed guards or trained personnel nearby but WITH women and children, boys or girls nearby — in fact sometimes without even any authority supervising the exchange, but the exchange is still court-ordered, forced after reasons for separation or requested protection are on record as domestic violence or child abuse — somehow justified as moral, ethical, and as “American” as (well, what should we say, truthfully — as American as slavery? or as indentured servitude based, this season, meaning, this past half-century minimum, on parent gender?)?
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