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PaperclipPerfector  29d ago (text post)   35301 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 3, 2025

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Do you have anything I can read that can explain what USAID has been accused of and what the evidence is? I never heard of it before now, and I'm very doubtful that googling is going to being up anything useful.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brian-mast-house-foreign-affairs-chairman-face-the-nation-transcript-02-02-2025/

Rep. Mast brings up what USAID is accused of doing over that interview. I'll isolate the main claims.

Half a million dollars to expand atheism in Nepal, $50,000 to do, let's see, a transgender opera in Colombia. $47,000 to do an LGBTQ trans comic book in Peru. $20,000 a pop to do drag shows in Ecuador.

and

Samantha Powers, she had a worthy goal, although it was a stupid goal, she said she was hoping to get the amount of foreign aid, U.S. aid dollars that go to actual aid, up to 30 cents on the dollar, from 10 cents on the dollar.

and

but there's probably more dollars that go towards state dinners around the DC beltway than what actually goes into rice and beans abroad.

and

And let's talk about the real facts on the ground. The Trump administration comes in, or representatives like myself that do oversight, the agencies will literally not tell us what they are writing grants for, literally. Or they will lie about it, or they will tell the new political appointees under the Trump administration, I'm just not going to tell you that. Those are real things that have happened.

As for evidence, I don't know what you expect; it's just people telling us what they see from looking at the organisation. For what it's worth I don't see anyone seriously disputing the claims of the Trump Administration and Republican Party that a lot of the money is mismanaged or sent to causes that don't figure in the mental image the average american has when they think "humanitarian aid", they mostly gesture at the portion that does go to real humanitarian efforts and complain that it's not necessary to cut the aid that is actually used for the intended purpose.

I would be very surprised if that was not because they're convinced that a review without a complete freeze would be ineffectual in stopping the grift.

Wow. Terrible efficiency. All that money, and we didn’t even topple one government?

Not one? Sorry bro, in this house we believe the Arabs didn't Spring themselves.

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