Musk on USAID: ‘Time for it to die’

[Chesterton]

No, it isn't. People would think that it was much, much higher. The percentage shows that it's a tiny drop in the ocean. Insignificant in the scheme of things.

From here:

Most people clueless on U.S. foreign aid spending

Secretary of State John Kerry aired an old complaint about the public and foreign aid. In a speech before the Chicago Co

www.politifact.com

'In January 2016, Kaiser found that only 3 percent of Americans correctly estimated spending at 1 percent or less of total spending. The average answer was that foreign aid accounts for 31 percent of the U.S. budget; 15 percent of the people thought it represented over half of all spending.'

If it's relevant to what I posted then explain how it's relevant.

 

[Bradskii]

If it's relevant to what I posted then explain how it's relevant.

C'mon, it couldn't be more obvious. People think it's a big deal. 30% of the budget! It's not. It's chump change.

If you earn a grand a week people think it's the equivalent of $300. It ain't. It's the equivalent of 2 bucks. That won't even get you a coffee.

 

[BCP1928]

C'mon, it couldn't be more obvious. People think it's a big deal. 30% of the budget! It's not. It's chump change.

If you earn a grand a week people think it's the equivalent of $300. It ain't. It's the equivalent of 2 bucks. That won't even get you a coffee.

The point isn't the money, nor is it that they are responsible for the economic exploitation of the developing world as Chesterton alleges. It's that they are trying to give back a little for that exploitation and many of the kind of people who work for USAID are actually opposed to it. Unacceptable in MAGAland.

 

[Bradskii]

The point isn't the money, nor is it that they are responsible for the economic exploitation of the developing world as Chesterton alleges. It's that they are trying to give back a little for that exploitation and many of the kind of people who work for USAID are actually opposed to it. Unacceptable in MAGAland.

It's the equivalent of complaining if your wife gave 2 bucks to a homeless guy.

 

[Chesterton]

C'mon, it couldn't be more obvious. People think it's a big deal. 30% of the budget! It's not. It's chump change.

If you earn a grand a week people think it's the equivalent of $300. It ain't. It's the equivalent of 2 bucks. That won't even get you a coffee.

Okay so you made an irrelevant point that you can't explain. Hypothetically let's say the budget is a hundred million billion trillion dollars. What difference would that make?

 

[Chesterton]

The point isn't the money, nor is it that they are responsible for the economic exploitation of the developing world as Chesterton alleges. It's that they are trying to give back a little for that exploitation and many of the kind of people who work for USAID are actually opposed to it. Unacceptable in MAGAland.

Trying to give back a little for our exploitation? Yeah well we once gave our slaves room and board and Sundays off.

 

[BCP1928]

It's the equivalent of complaining if your wife gave 2 bucks to a homeless guy.

Especially if you were the one who made him homeless to begin with. It would make you seem "deplorable."

 

[BCP1928]

Trying to give back a little for our exploitation? Yeah well we once gave our slaves room and board and Sundays off.

Sure we did. Then we freed them, and now we can hate the guys who shamed us into giving them room and board and Sundays off while they were slaves. We can even send Musk and his thugs around to drag them out of their offices. Oops. It looks like we could have done that without having freed them and it would have made the slaves cheaper to keep. I guess Trump is a smarter President than Jeff Davis was.

 

[Bradskii]

Okay so you made an irrelevant point that you can't explain. Hypothetically let's say the budget is a hundred million billion trillion dollars. What difference would that make?

It's the equivalent of your wife giving a thousand billion trillion dollars to the homeless guy.

It's kind of an amount worth worrying about. As opposed to the current budget. Which isn't.

Sorry, I can't be any clearer than that.

 

[Chesterton]

Sure we did. Then we freed them, and now we can hate the guys who shamed us into giving them room and board and Sundays off while they were slaves. We can even send Musk and his thugs around to drag them out of their offices. Oops. It looks like we could have done that without having freed them and it would have made the slaves cheaper to keep. I guess Trump is a smarter President than Jeff Davis was.

Your post makes no sense.

 

[Chesterton]

It's the equivalent of your wife giving a thousand billion trillion dollars to the homeless guy.

It's kind of an amount worth worrying about. As opposed to the current budget. Which isn't.

Sorry, I can't be any clearer than that.

You're under no obligation to watch the video I posted, but if you don't watch it, please don't comment on its content.

 

[Bradskii]

You're under no obligation to watch the video I posted, but if you don't watch it, please don't comment on its content.

OK. I promise I won't.

 

[stevil]

Trying to give back a little for our exploitation? Yeah well we once gave our slaves room and board and Sundays off.

What do you think should happen?
If you think it is bad to help out impoverished nations, do you think it is better not to help them? Would that be an improvement?
Improvement for them or for you?

 

[Pommer]

If you claim to care about the less fortunate in the world, what Trump/Musk are doing is the antithesis of that.


Turmoil inside USAID: DOGE reps take over offices, senior officials placed on leave

Amid ongoing turmoil inside the U.S. Agency for International Development, sources told ABC News that Department of Government Efficiency staffers have moved to take over offices, escalating tensions as more senior staff members are locked out of internal systems, additional employees are placed on administrative leave, and the agency’s newly appointed chief of staff resigned as the Elon Musk-led agency works to assert control over the USAID, which oversees foreign aid, disaster relief and international development programs.

On Friday night, a dramatic scene played out when a group of individuals who identified themselves as State Department employees and DOGE representatives arrived at the USAID offices in the Ronald Reagan Building and demanded immediate access to every office, according to sources familiar with the incident.

After initially being denied entry, the group told security guards that if they were not granted entry, they would call the U.S. Marshals Service, sources said. The guards ultimately complied, the source said.

As reports emerged over clashes inside USAID, Musk unloaded a barrage of attacks against the agency across his social media platform, X.

"USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die," Musk wrote in one post.

When shown Musk’s posts on X targeting USAID, a senior official for the agency told ABC News, “The warp-speed of this mafia-like takeover has shaken USAID staff to the core.”

The group gained access to USAID’s internal systems on Friday, including the agency’s website and several critical databases, according to sources familiar with the matter. Among the systems was the Development Evaluation Clearinghouse, which houses reports on past and ongoing USAID programs, as well as the Development Information Solution (DIS) -- a system used to track congressionally mandated and performance-related data for all USAID programs worldwide.

Sources also said that the group also seized control of a software system called Phoenix, a program for USAID's financial management system used to track and manage the agency’s budgeting, accounting and financial transactions. The system was down over the weekend, sources said, which has sent shockwaves across contractors for USAID who are fearful they won't be paid for their work. Major firms that manage global supply chains, including those for initiatives like antiretroviral (ARV) drugs and other essential medicines to combat HIV/AIDS, rely on Phoenix.

Sources told ABC News the Trump administration’s foreign aid cuts are being overseen by Peter Marocco, a campaign ally in the Office of Foreign Assistance who was reportedly caught on camera inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

​

The Website Vanished

It's been a tumultuous weekend for USAID — the U.S. Agency for International Development. On Saturday sometime after 3 a.m., its website went down, according to the Internet Archive, a nonprofit group that tracks web pages.

The deletion of the website and social media accounts alongside significant layoffs and the near-total suspension of work is an effort to dismantle USAID entirely, Jeremy Konyndyk told NPR. Konyndyk led disaster relief under Obama and the COVID and mpox responses under Biden at USAID. He's currently president of the aid group Refugees International.

"They're trying to eliminate the agency," Konyndyk said.

"They have announced no plan and given no rationale — they're just taking everything down," Konyndyk said. "They're trying to do it behind the scenes rather than openly," he said, so they don't have to "defend what they're doing" in announcements to the public.

The consequences of a diminished or erased USAID would be dire, Konyndyk said, noting that one key component of its programs is keeping outbreaks and epidemics from reaching U.S. shores.

USAID is "enduring an unlawful shutdown, purge, and dismantling," wrote Dr. Atul Gawande, former assistant administrator for global health at USAID, in a post on Bluesky on Sunday.

The dissolution would extend beyond "the unlawful destruction of USAID's life-saving work," Gawande told NPR. "USAID has become the place where the administration is demonstrating and developing its playbook for eviscerating other targeted agencies."

The web shutdown comes in the wake of both the stop work order and the furloughing or laying off of hundreds of USAID employees. In his first two weeks in office, the Trump administration placed senior leadership at USAID on leave and laid off or furloughed more than 400 contractors in the agency's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance and also laid off hundreds more in its Global Health Bureau.

The Federal Government is doing “lockouts” now?

 

[Pommer]

Nothing is illegal for the President. If anything is illegal for those that do his bidding, he just needs to pardon them, then it's all legal for them too.

“It’s ‘good’ to be the King!”—Mel Brooks as King Louis XVI, (History of the World, Part one, 1981)

 

[Aryeh Jay]

“It’s ‘good’ to be the King!”—Mel Brooks as King Louis XVI, (History of the World, Part one, 1981)

Count the money.

 

[stevil]

You're under no obligation to watch the video I posted, but if you don't watch it, please don't comment on its content.

I've watched your video. But I still don't get your issue with USAID.

The guy was saying that 2 Trillion dollars goes from the "global North" to the "global South" some of that being Aid.
And he talked about 5 Trillion dollars flowing back from the GS to the GN. That seems like an obvious problem.

But....
Taking away the aid doesn't make things better for the GS. It makes it worse.
So please explain what your problem is with giving the GS aid money?

 

[BCP1928]

OK. I promise I won't.

It doesn't matter; the video doesn't support Chesterton's claim, anyway.

 

[Bradskii]

It doesn't matter; the video doesn't support Chesterton's claim, anyway.

I guess that saves me the time it would take to watch it. Thanks.

 

[Pommer]

The eligible voters who didn't vote, they are getting exactly what they empowered by not voting.

Maybe we’ll do like your neighbors do and require all citizens to vote.
And (to make it “simple”, there’d only be one party. That you have to join, to vote…but the days of “free party-membership”, yeah, they’d be over.
But it’s only like a one time fee of $20. And a sawbuck/yr after that!

That way the Party can “contribute“ money to the government to run the elections, which would get outside “interested parties” from interfering in our elections, and we could back to the days when we have statesmen and stateswomen of high ethical principles (instead of just having “politicians”).*

*This, of course, skips the “one party rules with impunity” until such time as they deem necessary to dissolve their own single party and allow democracy to flourish. Say, the day after NEVER!? 2040, at the earliest.

But our great great-grandkids…as well as the mediocre, will have one heck of a country, again!

This might probably will not happen, but it’s as likely as anything right now.