Musk on USAID: ‘Time for it to die’

[Nithavela]

The law is the boundary of what is allowable.

The boundary know is what Trump likes. Nothing more, nothing less. It will take a while for all uppity judges and other members of government to get purged.

And everyone cheers until they start coming for them.

 

[wing2000]

The law is the boundary of what is allowable.

We shall see....

 

[DaisyDay]

IG #18 has been fired.

The White House fired the independent inspector general for the U.S. Agency for International Development on Tuesday evening, a day after his office issued a blistering report assessing the impact of the Trump administration’s efforts to significantly curtail the agency’s mission.

“Look what happens when you write a report critical of this administration: They fire you the next day,” said Michael Missal, former inspector general at the Department of Veterans Affairs, who was among those fired by Trump last month. “This chills independent oversight, and that’s exactly what we need right now.”

The termination of Martin follows his office’s publication of a widely read report warning that more than $489 million in food assistance was at risk of spoilage or potential diversion after the Trump administration implemented its aid freeze and stop-work order.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/11/trump-fires-usaid-inspector-general/

Seems to have been done as illegally (extra-legally?) as the other recent IG firings.

 

[Aryeh Jay]

Why bother. The people seen the bad things, that Trump did. And they still elected him. They don't care.

The people who don't care are the liberals who stayed home and didn't vote.

 

[essentialsaltes]

In a court filing Monday night, Justice Department lawyers acknowledged making two significant errors last week during a court hearing about the dismantling of the foreign aid agency USAID. While DOJ attorneys last week claimed that 500 employees at USAID had been put on leave and that only future contracts had been put on pause, more than 2,100 employees had actually been placed on leave while both future and existing contracts were frozen, according to the filing.

Whoops!

 

[Vambram]

At USAID, Waste and Abuse Runs Deep

For decades, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been unaccountable to taxpayers as it funnels massive sums of money to the

www.whitehouse.gov

• $1.5 million to “advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities”
• $70,000 for production of a “DEI musical” in Ireland
• $2.5 million for electric vehicles for Vietnam
• $47,000 for a “transgender opera” in Colombia
• $32,000 for a “transgender comic book” in Peru
• $2 million for sex changes and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala
• $6 million to fund tourism in Egypt
• Hundreds of thousands of dollars for a non-profit linked to designated terrorist organizations — even AFTER an inspector general launched an investigation
• Millions to EcoHealth Alliance — which was involved in research at the Wuhan lab
• “Hundreds of thousands of meals that went to al Qaeda-affiliated fighters in Syria”
• Funding to print “personalized” contraceptives birth control devices in developing countries
• Hundreds of millions of dollars to fund “irrigation canals, farming equipment, and even fertilizer used to support the unprecedented poppy cultivation and heroin production in Afghanistan,” benefiting the Taliban

 

[essentialsaltes]

• $70,000 for production

still almost entirely inaccurate

 

[Bradskii]

At USAID, Waste and Abuse Runs Deep

For decades, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been unaccountable to taxpayers as it funnels massive sums of money to the

www.whitehouse.gov

Well gee, the WH is using Daily Mail and Breibart articles to try to justify their actions? Is that meant to be funny? When did they embrace this gish gallop concept I wonder.

Farcical.

 

[public hermit]

USAID oversees projects such as food aid, disaster relief and health programs in over 100 countries with a staff of more than 10,000 and a budget of around $40 billion. Billions of those dollars flowed back into the American economy until President Donald Trump ordered a 90-day freeze on foreign-aid spending last month.

Now U.S. businesses that sold goods and services to USAID are in limbo. That includes American farms, which supply about 41 percent of the food aid that the agency, working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, sends around the world each year, according to a 2021 report by the Congressional Research Service. In 2020, the U.S. government bought $2.1 billion in food aid from American farmers.

Purchases and shipments of U.S. food aid worth over $340 million — including rice, wheat and soybeans — have been paused during Trump’s foreign-aid freeze, according to officials and an email obtained by The Post. That has left hundreds of tons of American-grown wheat stranded in Houston alone, Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota, the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, said Tuesday.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/06/trump-usaid-money-american-farms/

Let's save money by letting $340 million sit and rot. Even if one argues that all these cuts are good, this is a ham-fisted way to do it and will do more damage than is needed.

 

[Bradskii]

From here: Trump ordered to temporarily lift USAid freeze and allow foreign aid funding

'A federal judge has ordered Donald Trump’s administration to temporarily lift a funding freeze that has shut down US humanitarian aid and development work around the world, and he has set a five-day deadline for the administration to prove it is complying.

The judge’s ruling late on Thursday cited the financial devastation that the near-overnight cutoff of payments has caused suppliers and non-profits that carry out much of US aid overseas.'

He's certainly keeping the courts busy...

 

[Vambram]

Well gee, the WH is using Daily Mail and Breibart articles to try to justify their actions? Is that meant to be funny? When did they embrace this gish gallop concept I wonder.

Farcical.

Previous administrations used CNN and MSNBC, as well as other progressive liberal sources, to justify their actions.

 

[Bradskii]

Previous administrations used CNN and MSNBC, as well as other progressive liberal sources, to justify their actions.

I'm sure you'll have some examples to indicate what you mean.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Do you know how much money Congress allocates to USAID? From here: USAspending.gov

'How much funding is available to this agency?
$22.58 Billion in budgetary resources
0.2% of the FY 2025 U.S. federal budget'

See that percentage? It's 0.2% of the Fed budget. So even if these morons cut the spending by half they'd only save one tenth of one percent of the budget. But gee, it's a big number! Look! Over $22 billion!

Do you know what you guys spend on their pets each year? https://capitaloneshopping.com/research/pet-spending-statistics/

'Americans will spend a total of $150.6 billion on their pets by the end of 2024.'

This is just a shot in the dark but I'd bet that you, and very few people beside, had no idea of those figures.

To play devil's advocate, a small amount doesn't = "no ill effects when it's misused"

In another USAID thread (or maybe it was this one, who knows, there dozens floating around now), I outlined some of the "projects" that were undertaken by that entity.

One was to build a fake social media app to try to influence Cuban youths to unwittingly rebel against their government (lookup project ZunZeneo)

Another was to fund foreign journalism outlets to publish bogus reporting to accuse US journalists of being "Russian agents" with no proof. (if they dared to question US involvement in the Ukraine/Russia conflict)

They gave money to EcoHealth Alliance (which is its own box of worms given the Wuhan lab links)


It doesn't have to be a huge dollar amount to have serious impacts.


Point of context, that Russian disinformation and misinformation we all heard about that they say swung the 2016 election, wanna take a guess at how much was spent on that?

The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report in 2019 found that the Internet Research Agency (IRA)—a Russian troll farm—spent approximately $1.25 million per month on disinformation efforts targeting the 2016 U.S. election.

So if $1 million a month ($12M per year) is enough to have serious geopolitical implications, then we can't pretend that a couple billion is a "nothingburger" by those rules.

Hell, people are suggesting that Elon "bought the election" by giving Trump $200 million dollars. If $200M can buy a US election, then certainly a couple of billion can do some damage, correct?

 

[SarahsKnight]

USAID oversees projects such as food aid, disaster relief and health programs in over 100 countries with a staff of more than 10,000 and a budget of around $40 billion. Billions of those dollars flowed back into the American economy until President Donald Trump ordered a 90-day freeze on foreign-aid spending last month.

Now U.S. businesses that sold goods and services to USAID are in limbo. That includes American farms, which supply about 41 percent of the food aid that the agency, working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, sends around the world each year, according to a 2021 report by the Congressional Research Service. In 2020, the U.S. government bought $2.1 billion in food aid from American farmers.

Purchases and shipments of U.S. food aid worth over $340 million — including rice, wheat and soybeans — have been paused during Trump’s foreign-aid freeze, according to officials and an email obtained by The Post. That has left hundreds of tons of American-grown wheat stranded in Houston alone, Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota, the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, said Tuesday.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/06/trump-usaid-money-american-farms/

Let's save money by letting $340 million sit and rot. Even if one argues that all these cuts are good, this is a ham-fisted way to do it and will do more damage than is needed.

You know, this thought came to me: after unfortunately letting those accursed Left Behind books get into my head and sour the lens through which I viewed our planet (something I am slowly detoxing from, thank the Lord) the last couple of years, it dawned on me how many people I have seen over my years as a believer fretting and worrying over when "the Antichrist" is finally going to come into the world and begin the modern End Times period view that is the literal Rapture/Tribulation.

And all the while I can't help but think that: if there even is a specific future person called the Antichrist who is going to start a seven-year countdown to the end of the physical world, I would tell those folk who believe that futurist view that they should probably start looking at Trump* or Elon Musk with more wariness, because I can't really think of anything more anti-Christlike than calling a halt to obviously benevolent actions such as feeding undernourished and impoverished folk in foreign lands when we have the ability and means to, outside of straight up denying Christ Himself according to the words of 1 John 4:1-3.


* NOTE: No, I do not actually think that Trump might be The Antichrist who is going to damn so many of my Christian brothers and sisters to eternal torment by fooling them into worshipping him and taking "the mark". I'm not that paranoid, because I just don't think that Christians are meant to live their lives seeing Evil around every corner. I just think said brethren are sorely mistaken in excusing nearly everything he says and does just because they have been conditioned by our ridiculous political divide in this country to believe that no matter what, the other side is a hive mind 100% opposed to Jesus Christ.

FURTHER NOTE: I did not vote for Biden either.

 

[public hermit]

You know, this thought came to me: after unfortunately letting those accursed Left Behind books get into my head and sour the lens through which I viewed our planet (something I am slowly detoxing from, thank the Lord) the last couple of years, it dawned on me how many people I have seen over my years as a believer fretting and worrying over when "the Antichrist" is finally going to come into the world and begin the modern End Times period view that is the literal Rapture/Tribulation.

And all the while I can't help but think that: if there even is a specific future person called the Antichrist who is going to start a seven-year countdown to the end of the physical world, I would tell those folk who believe that futurist view that they should probably start looking at Trump* or Elon Musk with more wariness, because I can't really think of anything more anti-Christlike than calling a halt to obviously benevolent actions such as feeding undernourished and impoverished folk in foreign lands when we have the ability and means to, outside of straight up denying Christ Himself according to the words of 1 John 4:1-3.


* NOTE: No, I do not actually think that Trump might be The Antichrist who is going to damn so many of my Christian brothers and sisters to eternal torment by fooling them into worshipping him and taking "the mark". I'm not that paranoid, because I just don't think that Christians are meant to live their lives seeing Evil around every corner. I just think said brethren are sorely mistaken in excusing nearly everything he says just because they have been conditioned by our ridiculous political divide in this country to believe that no matter what, the other side is a hive mind 100% opposed to Jesus Christ.

FURTHER NOTE: I did not vote for Biden either.

Oh listen, I know exactly what you mean. If this were any other situation, the eschatological stars would all point to Trump as the anti-Christ. Personally, I have little patience for most eschatological speculation because folks take their positions way too seriously, but it is odd there is not a general consensus among eschatology folks that this dude is a likely candidate. It's so odd, that it seriously makes me wonder if that's not the biggest sign of them all! Just imagine a scenario where the ones who are obsessively focused on the coming of the anti-Christ actually end up embracing the one they feared most! That would be devilish, for sure.

 

[Trogdor the Burninator]

And now, at least for Trump-voting farmers, we reach the "Leopards Ate My Face" portion of the story.

The Trump administration's dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development has halted work at a network of farm research laboratories at land grant universities in 13 states, according to six lab directors.

The lab closures are another hit to U.S. agriculture from President Donald Trump's overhaul of the federal government, by blocking research work designed to advance seed and equipment technology and develop markets abroad for U.S. commodities.

The U.S. has stopped purchases for foreign food aid programs since the Trump administration began a sweeping review of federal aid spending, despite a waiver issued nearly two weeks ago for food assistance, according to nine sources.
The freeze in purchases of wheat, soybeans and other commodities produced by U.S. farmers could hinder or halt the operations of organizations that provide millions of tons of food each year to help alleviate poverty in countries such as Madagascar, Tanzania and Honduras, the sources said.

It also means added pain for U.S. farmers, already facing low commodity prices and uncertainty from potential tariffs in an emerging trade war, and who see foreign aid programs as opportunities to promote their farm products abroad, four of the sources said.

 

[Bradskii]

To play devil's advocate, a small amount doesn't = "no ill effects when it's misused"

I don't think that anyone would disagree. But the point being made is that Joe Schmo will gladly complain about something without having any idea of that which he is complaining.

If you asked the guy on the street how much USAid costs, as has been pointed out, he's probably suggest something like 20% of GDP and sometimes north of that. And he'll whinge about it. So if you promised to change that amount to 1% he'd vote for you in a heartbeat. And hey, you just increased their budget by 400%.

These sort of arguments are rife in this forum. People show themselves to be absolutely clueless about subjects they think they should complain about. That's exactly what has happened in this thread. And when you point out that it's a drop in the government's vast bucket of money and that they are wrong when they think it's a huge financial drain they'll swivel and start talking about the individual cost of some obscure payment to a small group of doctors in some god forsaken corner of the planet that they heard about on Fox.

And do you know what I will absolutely guarantee? Point out that the doctors were approved the money by a Republican committee during the last Trump administration and they'll do a 180 so fast they'd probably black out.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Another was to fund foreign journalism outlets to publish bogus reporting to accuse US journalists of being "Russian agents" with no proof. (if they dared to question US involvement in the Ukraine/Russia conflict)

Which Russian agents, err, US jounalists?

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Which Russian agents, err, US jounalists?

In Ukraine, USAID, through its contractor Internews, supports a network of social media-focused news outlets, including New Voice of Ukraine, VoxUkraine, Detector Media, and the Institute of Mass Information. These news outlets have produced a series of videos and reports targeting economist Jeffrey Sachs, journalist Glenn Greenwald, and Professor John Mearsheimer as figures within a controlled “network of Russian propaganda.”

USAID also funded a pesticide industry public relations effort known as v-Fluence, which focused on digging up dirt about American food journalists Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman.

Courtesy of Journalist Lee Fang



While they certainly also do legitimate humanitarian work, they also do their fair share of "narrative propagation", meddling, and CIA-style initiatives.

 

[Chesterton]

Gotta say, the derangement is entertaining if nothing else. Trump's a white supremacist, a fascist, a Nazi, a dictator...and now...drumroll please...he's the Antichrist.

For the record, every time I've seen the Antichrist in movies he's eloquent, charming and has a decent haircut. Trump doesn't qualify.