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The Other "Non-Profit" giving Project 2025 a run for The Money [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-01-26

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ICYMI …

There’s another well-funded ideological “think-tank” — working hard to tell the new strongman straw-man what he should do. What issues he should tackle. What personnel he should hire. What resources he should harvest.

Complete with Executive Orders, talking points, and everything.

No thinking required, by their compliant figurehead. Because afterall, every attention-grabbing puppet, usually needs some competent, off-stage “puppeteers” ...

Founded by three wealthy Texans in late 2020, the group, known as A.F.P.I. [America First Policy Institute], has quickly inserted itself into nearly every corner of Mr. Trump’s political machine, and is closer than any other outside player in his planning for a second term. Mr. Trump chose one of its leaders, Linda McMahon, a former member of Mr. Trump’s cabinet and a longtime friend, as co-chair of his official transition team. Brooke Rollins, who also worked in the Trump administration and is currently the nonprofit’s chief executive, has been discussed as a candidate to be Mr. Trump’s chief of staff. The institute’s ranks are stocked with other former Trump administration officials who have spent the past several years planning for a return, and in recent weeks several have quietly moved over to work full time for the campaign’s transition team.

[...] Like Project 2025, the institute developed a plan for staffing and setting the policy agenda for every federal agency, one that prioritizes loyalty to Mr. Trump and aggressive flexing of executive power from Day 1. Ms. Rollins declined an interview but has said that A.F.P.I. has already drafted nearly 300 executive orders ready for Mr. Trump’s signature should he win the election .

[...] “It [America First Policy Institute] understood what Heritage [Foundation] didn’t: Transition work is always best kept very quiet,” said Heath Brown, a professor of public policy at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who studies presidential transitions.

[...] www.nytimes.com — 10/24/2024



Well, Trump-loyalist Brooke Rollins didn’t make the final-cut as Chief of Staff — but she is now on the fast-track to run the USDA. Lack-of-qualifications be damned.

Trump’s New Head of Agriculture to Reverse Biden’s Timber Plans?

woodcentral.com.au — Nov 25, 2024

One of Donald Trump’s closest aides is poised to head the powerful United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), with Brooke Rollins, Trump’s former head of domestic policy, set to be confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate. Rollins, 52, is the President and CEO of the America First Policy Institute – the conservative think tank that laid much of the groundwork for Trump’s second administration – and will succeed Tom Vilsack, who oversees the sprawling agency that controls policies, regulations and aid programmes related to farming, ranching, food quality, nutrition and…forestry.

[...] Will Rollins wind-back plans to phase out Old-Growth logging? [...] In recent months, Republicans and Democrats have clashed over logging. In June, President Biden promised to “halt all logging in old-growth forests” after publishing a plan that will apply to more than 32 million acres of forests managed by the US Forest Service and the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management from early next year. However, those plans are now in doubt , with President Trump—under his previous term of presidency—opening vast areas of West Coast forests to logging —a policy reversed after federal wildlife officials determined that Trump appointees used faulty science to justify shrinking areas of forest that are considered crucial habitats for endangered species.

[...]

Every attention-grabbing puppet, needs some semi-competent, highly-motivated “puppeteers” ...

Qualified or not — no matter. Because you see, Brooke Rollins has the main criteria that matters to MAGA-cowering Senate-enablers: she has a “close relationship with Trump. ”

And to establish their version of the Deep State, they’re going to need to install all the “deep loyalists” they can cobble together ...

Ideological operatives ready and able to reap those “untapped rewards,” no questions asked.

The new face of public service … Meet the former Chief Executive for the AFPI. Trump’s agriculture secretary nominee lays out ‘day one’ priorities for USDA Brooke Rollins presented her vision to “modernize” the department and sided with the president on controversial issues like immigration and tariffs. www.agriculturedive.com/… — Jan. 24, 2025 [...] her close relationship with Trump as a potential pathway to make serious headway on farm discussions around trade and labor.

[...] Rollins has faced criticism for her lack of agriculture experience , which food system advocates say is needed to address nutrition, climate change and other major issues facing the sector. Even with limited industry experience, however, senators during the hearing presentedas a potential pathway to make serious headway on farm discussions around trade and labor. — Because what are “natural resources” afterall, but yet another “American bounty” primed and ready for the exploiting ...

In 1907, Teddy Roosevelt declared: “The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919): The Conservation President

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Despite what most of the Oligarch class plots, schemes and says ...

Some special places … … are simply worth protecting.

Science? Schmience. Where’s the quarterly profit margin in that balance sheet? U.S. Forest Service pulls plug on controversial plan to protect old growth

<i>The Biden administration had aimed to create a nationwide approach to protecting the most mature forests from fire, disease, and logging</i>

Jan 10, 2025 — www.science.org/... Don't it always seem to go

That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone

They paved paradise, put up a parking lot — Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi Resist. Like the giant sequoias facing down their wildfires.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/1/26/2299208/-These-special-places-are-Worth-Protecting?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

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