Elon is basically cutting all of the subscription services the USA forgot about for 60 years…. and all the Democrats screaming about it are just the customer service agents screaming:
“ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO CANCEL?!!!!It’s the sort of “US Government interference in foreign countries” that used to get the Left all hot and bothered, but that was from the 1960’s to the 1980’s when it was communist governments being targeted and US democratic capitalism being pushed. Now it’s their agendas so they’re cool with it.
Only $50 billion (2023 FY, the last for which full records are available) or so for the agency known as USAID, out of the American Federal Budget of some $6000 billion. Just 0.83% of the total. No big deal.
Yet it is now a big deal as Elon Musk and his DOGE team tear into the details of USAID spending and discover amounts that are both eye-watering from the perspective of an ordinary person and bile-inducing as to what they’re spent on, including even little old us way down here in the South Pacific:
WHY HAS AUCKLAND UNIVERSITY RECEIVED US$296 MILLION DOLLARS FROM USAID?
Good question. What was it buying? Over what time period? Perhaps a journalist will ask them?
Even for someone like me who has long followed stories and read histories about US governance and who was aware of USAID, all this has been mind-blowing to see. I just took it as read that USAID actually meant aid to foreign countries and even when stories did pop up about stupid wasteful USAID spending in some begotten corner of the world I just treated it as the usual bits of bureaucratic idiocy and waste that comes with the territory.
But this is far worse and it stems from the actual name of the outfit, the United States Agency for International Development. That can include “aid” for starving children but it actually means far more, as former State Department employee Mike Benz explained to The Times of India (who are naturally all over a story about neo-colonialism):
Benz describes USAID as the central entity within what he calls the “trifecta of foreign policy establishments,” alongside the State Department, the Department of Defense (DOD), and the intelligence community. In his view, these agencies manage the affairs of what he refers to as the “American empire,” with USAID playing a pivotal role in coordinating activities that span beyond humanitarian assistance. “USAID isn’t just about aid,” Benz claims. “It’s about capacity building and influencing the course of events in foreign nations, often aligned with U.S. strategic interests.”
He argues that USAID was established in the 1960s to streamline operations that had previously caused friction among the Pentagon, State Department, and CIA.
Lefty Michael Shellenberger backs this up:
USAID has the distinction of being both a “deep state” agency, involved in covert actions aimed at destabilizing foreign governments, and one of the main US government agencies that comprise the foreign policy establishment, which many on both the Left and Right refer to as “The Blob,” because it is comprised of amorphous shape-shifting and self-perpetuating imperialistic elite, like the famous gelatinous alien in the 1958 science fiction movie by the same name.
…
USAID is among other US government organizations that have promoted regime change abroad, including the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Even “To its proponents,” notes the Washington Post, “USAID is an indispensable arm of U.S. foreign policy” that spends $40 billion per year to influence politics in 130 nations.
The money is ostensibly used for things like helping refugees but, as Jacobin and Chomsky noted, that money is always highly strategic and aimed at influencing politics. It’s worth considering that many of the defenders of USAID operate as ostensibly normal charities. USAID is “a national security tool kit,” said Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International.
No surprise then that Nayib Bukele, the President of El Salvador and a current Right-Wing hero for taking on the massive drug gangs in his country and beating them, wrote this on X:
Most governments don’t want USAID funds flowing into their countries because they understand where much of that money actually ends up. While marketed as support for development, democracy, and human rights, the majority of these funds are funneled into opposition groups, NGOs with political agendas, and destabilizing movements. At best, maybe 10% of the money reaches real projects that help people in need (there are such cases), but the rest is used to fuel dissent, finance protests, and undermine administrations that refuse to align with the globalist agenda. Cutting this so-called aid isn’t just beneficial for the United States; it’s also a big win for the rest of the world.
It’s the sort of “US Government interference in foreign countries” that used to get the Left all hot and bothered, but that was from the 1960’s to the 1980’s when it was communist governments being targeted and US democratic capitalism being pushed. Now it’s their agendas so they’re cool with it – and Lefty heroes Jacobin and Chomsky can go jump!
For example, the US Left certainly has got all hot and bothered about this, but not about the spending but it being frozen prior to being completely cut.
When even a CNN panel is laughing at them I’d say they’re pushing shit uphill. It’s so bad that even the President’s Press Secretary is using the word “crap” (gasp):
Of course they’re also protecting their phony, baloney jobs being cut (H/T Blazing Saddles):
Completing the circle is this unsurprising bit of news:
97% of all political contributions from USAID employees went to Democrat candidates, according to the Daily Wire.
What follows are links to three extensive lists from Senator Joni Ernst, Congressman Chip Roy, and the Rapid Response47 group, from which I’ll list only a few.
- Joni Ernst’s list
- $2 million for Moroccan pottery classes and promotion – even though they’ve been making pottery for thousands of years.
- Trade assistance to Ukraine paid for models and designers to take trips to New York City, London Fashion Week, Paris Fashion Week, and South by Southwest in Austin.
- $2 million promoting tourism to Lebanon, a nation the State Department warns against traveling to “due to crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping, unexploded landmines, and the risk of armed conflict.”
- $20 million to create an Iraqi version of Sesame Street.
- Chip Roy’s list (especially read this one
- $2 million to strengthen trans-led groups in Guatemala
- $45 million for DEI scholarships in Burma.
- $1.5 million to promote the “economic empowerment” of LGBTQI+ people in Serbia.
- Rapid Response 47 list
- $7.9 million to teach Sri Lankan journalists how to avoid “binary-gendered language”
- $4.5+ million to “combat disinformation” in Kazakhstan
Incredibly they’ve also been funding the BBC with £2,613,000. I thought the Beeb got all the money they needed from British taxpayers and the 20th century mechanism of TV licences?
Amidst all this little stuff was perhaps the biggest story of all, USAID was supporting Fauci’s NIAID in sending money to the Wuhan lab that was working on “bat coronavirus emergence’ research, specifically the very scientist who was patient zero for C-19. The diagram below of how this was done is how much of this insanity has been funded. USAID doesn’t give money directly to outfits that might be problematic, it gives it to a clean outfit like the University of California, who then gave it to the more problematic outfit run by Fauci’s mate, EcoHealth Alliance, who then gave it to the Wuhan folks. But it was only $5 million.
This is what the CIA and the Mafia do to hide their shit – and Hillary Clinton of course.
But it is not, as former Obama political guru David Axelrod said, simply because foreign aid is never very popular with the American people. No, there’s a lot of domestic aid here as well, at least for those groups and causes favoured by the Left inside the USA:
- $969,821 to one Stephen Leonelli of Washington D.C. to support “development hub programs” protecting LGBTQI+ people.
- Censorship advocate and former DHS employee Nina Jankowicz (covered here in Really Quite Atrocious), was partly funded by USAID.
- It also turns out that USAID was contributing more money (USAID was Funding the Tides Center then layers of NGO’s) to getting Far Left DA’s elected than was Soros.
- “Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project” (OCCRP), which investigated Rudy Giuliani, and whose work was cited by a CIA agent, resulting in the impeachment of Donald Trump. In a documentary, OCCRP admitted that USAID must approve of its senior employees.
- Thomson Reuters Special Services LLC (TRSS, a division of Reuters News Agency), was awarded over $9 million for a secretive program labeled “Active Social Engineering Defense (ASED) Large Scale Social Deception (LSD).”
- $28 million to Associated Press.
- $8 million a year to Politico
By the way, just one of the many downstream shitstorms blowing up out of this concerns that $8 million to Politico:
A breakdown of some of the expenditures shows USAID paid $443,998 for just 37 subscriptions to Politico for FDA officials.
…
Having been in the media business, I would wonder how many of these outlets are staying in business. Now it makes perfect sense. USAID funds to Politico
…
The Politico scandal is worse than you think. It’s not $8M that Politico received from USAID. It’s $34.3M that Politico has received from various swampy federal govt agencies. Politico is, without a doubt, a totally corrupt propaganda arm of the swamp.
Haha, Rasmussen Reports:
Good Politico Morning!
Your Federal tax dollars used as revenue to underwrite hit pieces on OUR revenue.
BTW, USAID to Politico got shut down in late January, and then….
Staff at Politico did not get paid for the latest pay period. The company just sent several emails to employees saying it believes there was a technical error, and is looking into how to fix the issue.
🤣🤡🤣🤡🤣🤡🤣🤡🤣🤡🤣🤡
So now we know how some of these left-wing news outlets have stayed afloat even as both the MSM and Alt News industry were sucking chest wounds. The Democrat Party operative used federal agencies to funnel money for the express purpose of influencing elections and pushing left-wing ideology. As far as the likes of NPR and PBS that’s out in the open, but the level of corruption with private outfits shown here is just the tip of the iceberg.
The Chef’s Kiss on all this was that when USAID employees fought back by denying DOGE access, they got fired. Not only that but none other than Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, took over as acting director of USAID and went FULL TRUMP:
They are supposed to take direction from the State Department, policy direction. They do not. Not only do they not take policy direction, they’re completely uncooperative. When you ask questions, when you try to go in and find out, okay, what does this program do, who’s getting the money, why was this funded? Why are you doing this? Why aren’t you coordinating with the embassy or the State Department?
Their attitude is, we don’t have to answer to you, because we’re independent. We answer to no one. Well that is not true. We will no longer allow it.
On Friday, February 7, 2025, at 11:59 pm (EST) all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs.
As with many other things at present in America I don’t think the Democrat Party is getting this.
No Minister 
How to clear the US national debt in one term. Make Argentine look slow.