Matt, you need to make the declarative statement “I am not suicidal” before you make this deep dive. It’s tradition, and it’s kinda necessary when you report on the crowd you’re about to get very familiar with.
02/08/25: I agree, take your time, Matt. The sheer size of the money being doled out to these whores is staggering, and guarantees a complex story of who/what/when/how/where.
And pray, cut the length of your sentences down (toss the chaff, keep the wheat!) and do remember to include the dates, if known when events occurred.
You're doing a superb job. Keep in mind that it is better to be disillusioned today so that tomorrow, you'll be able to see as clearly as possible what had occurred and what is likely to happen in the future.
1% of the $7 Trillion U.S. 2025 Budget is $70 Billion and was easily skimmed off the top until DOGE. What about 5% or 10%? Matt, Elon needs your help Bro.
02/08/25: For the benefit of lunkheads such as my deplorable self, unworthy of even serving as Hilary Clinton's bootblack, where do these quotes come from?
PS -- I'm interested in facts about this outfit, but not in the vacuous right-wing name-calling which many of your less acute fans seem to favor. Given the amounts in question, both sides of the ledger need to be filled out, and if possible, legal procedures instituted. This will require a higher level of factuality than is customary on social media.
Matt can only read, digest and write about something this complex so fast ... It takes time. We have had money going to international media operations since the Cold War. Matt needs to figure out how much may have been turned against us, Anerican citizens, or how biased this agency may be. This takes time.
I think that the damage is so bad, the thieves are now defenseless. They're now trapped in the Bismarck, power gone, British destroyers firing at point-blank range...
Do we know how WikiLeaks got the story? No. It may have been handed to them which would be why they broke the story. Matt has not shied from stories that make his profession (and him by relation) look bad. How much does he have to apologize for his own mistakes and trust? Who do you trust? Only WikiLeaks?
So if Democrats knew how to take advantage of USAID, wouldn't that mean the Republicans knew about it but did nothing about it?
Seems like a pretty big gorilla in the room. Sayin'
On the other hand, the Ds and media will effortlessly scream Trumps an authoritarian while saying he is "curtailing government power and reach" for the entire term, and it will never not be funny.
As far as the media, imagine calling yourself a journalist and reflexively jumping on the side of the federal government.
Which is why I said this: "Every person who has ever been a member of Congress over the past decade should be subpoenaed and made to testify whether they knew of, were ever part of, or benefited in any way from anything to do with the USAID or any of their offshoots so the dominoes can start falling."
...and (hopefully) promptly bounced from office. How do we keep hiring these guys when they readily admit and complain about spending 50% of their time raising money for their parties and allegedly for their campaigns?
Many of them go well beyond the limits imposed by law, but they are protected. Our system is broken and has been for decades. Money is the driving wheel. Everything else, including "we the people" fall by the wayside. One of my personal policies (quirks?) is to vote against all incumbents regardless of party. Congressional incumbency is around 90% so I seldom pick winners.
I'm kind of losing track of who I'm responding to where, but yes I fully expect that the Rs have their own scams, albeit through different channels. ActBlue was a huge fraud machine but so was WinRed.
"That $516 billion in illegal payments cover "1,264 authorizations of appropriations that expired before the beginning of fiscal year 2024 and 251 authorizations of appropriations that were set to expire by the end of fiscal year 2024." The legal authority for some of these payments expired 40 — that's not a typo — years ago."
Lmao. It's going to be MUCH, MUCH worse than even you and I can imagine.
All this time, massive technology and efficiency gains should have been allowing Americans to live better than they ever have. Instead, the government zapped up trillions of dollars and handed it out to their buddies while we're stuck paying the bill. (And the higher prices from debasement!)
For the last few days I have been living in s continuous state of shock and disbelief. Was I naive? I am ashamed to say yes. We stopped watching Netflix and read fiction because they pale in comparison. Nothing is what we thought it was. Of course, we were well aware of wokeness, govt inefficiency, unfairness, partisanship, censorship. But the scale of lies and corruption is staggering. I want to know the results of Matt’s investigation, but I am beginning to feel fatigue as more criminal stuff is coming to light LOL. The only thing I can compare it to is the XX Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR in 1956 when Stalin’s crimes were exposed for the first time. People knew but it was never openly admitted. I realize purging country of millions of innocent citizens was of more cosmic proportions than what we are learning, but still it’s pretty shocking.
I completely agree. I'm as happy as a clam about justice being served so often and quickly. And I AM a "Conspiracy Theorist(tm)", and I can't believe the depths of depravity to which the duplicitous Democratic dunces have descended.
Yes, in the Shellenbergs story USAID gave money to both dems and reps for their "legislative" training or 'strengthening. Funny how the question why an agency that is supposedly for INTERNATIONAL development and aid is giving money to any American entity is never brought up.
I went to the candidates campaign web page to make contributions. I get emails asking for money from people I did not donate to. So someone (or more) has shared or sold their list.
WinRed is definitely a scam! They burned me hard when my $20 donation somehow turned into $100 on my credit card statement. Some real motherfuckers there! That’s my last political donation.
Sidenote - SimCom, I often lose track, too. I've been trying to add the person's name in my response so that it makes sense to ME what I was responding to.
02/08/25: Quite right. Illiterate Substack stands to be improved, immensely, re-instituting the commonsense rules that were known and honored by even the lowliest writers some sixty or so years ago.
When the computer geeks took over, the essential rules and concerns about who / what / when / why / how were trashed. And the more money they made, the worse it got.
Exhibit A: "Windows 11," which I wish would follow the precedent set by Herman Goering and commit suicide.
Trying to find a recent snippet where Mike Benz is being interviewed about USAID (he's being interviewed everywhere right now on USAID; just Google "Mike Benz on USAID" and plenty will show up), and yes, in the piece I saw, he specifically mentioned that the R's were hardly guiltless in the decades-long USAID debacle.
This is where things are going to get very interesting, and perhaps, depressingly so. On this issue, the Rs apparently have plenty of skeletons of their own in the closet, and what Trump is doing threatens them as much as it does the Ds.
It's going to fascinating to watch how far Trump can advance in his crusade to Drain the Swamp, when plenty in his own party stand to lose if too much comes out. Yet, given the bi-partisan nature of this grift, cleaning it up is likely to be one of the very few issues that voters on both sides of the aisle can agree on.
The American Spectator has a story today naming certain Rs who are in on the deal. Good to know so we don't assume that Dems are the only ones to be shamed.
Well nobody does street theatre like Maxine, Spartacus, et al. That story did mention however that at least one person named is making the rounds in the media as the credentialed person of experience who can explain why it is so unfair to close USAID. Useful somethingorother.
Don't underestimate people's ability to NOT recognize, much less accept, realities they don't want or can't bring themselves to because of how destabilizing it is to their inner and outer constructs.
The (fake) duopoly keeps us peasants in the dark as to the agenda running them both—i.e., the promotion and enforcement of the U.S. global rules-based order. This Republican (neocon) initiative (see Iraq War etc.) was warmly embraced by the Dems to replace the old excuse for Western imperialism when the Soviet Union was dissolved in the late 1990s. The partnership between the likes of Hillary Clinton and Dick Cheney was a financial boon to everyone involved including corporate shareholders. In the near term, it benefited defense contractors and the Pentagon/CIA. Long term (as in Ukraine) the beneficiaries are a range of transnationals who covet other nations' resources, from Big Ag to Big OIl. Bankers, of course, always benefit.
And I just learned from watching Tucker Carlson interview Mike Benz, that it was the Republican arm of USAID, the International Republican Institute, that funded a trans dance festival in Bangladesh, in order to help destabilize the government. This is a bipartisan issue, and I can't wait to see MAGA Congress Critters defend their own involvement in, or profiting from, USAID programs.
Which is why many of the Republicans initially fought Trump being elected just like the Dems did. Many, not all, gave in. Either believing Trump would go no further than his first term OR having gotten some sort of concession from Trump? We shall see. ..if everything pretty much only pounts at Dems, we are not getting the full truth. That much we know.
Of course the Republicans were in on it. They’re in on almost everything. The corruptive road is very wide & they’ll all go down it eventually. That’s why we elected Donald Trump. We are sick of it.
Rubio said numerous times they’ve been trying to address usaid since before he went to the senate. Rand Paul has been after it his whole career too.
The true problem is so very very few people with virtually all power in their hands. The McConnells and McCarthys and Ryans and Harry Reids and Schumers & Pelosis very carefully wreck every chance of looking into it. It goes back a long way, on both sides but the key turning point, or one of them certainly, is when pelosi ended debates in the House during obama administration.
Make no mistake Brian this has every politician from the last 60 years guilty. None of them bothered to lift up the plank of wood because they were told if they lifted up the plank of wood, that picture of them with a skanky whore would be sent back to his family. It’s all a blackmail grift.
Hopefully the presence of former Dems RFK Jr & Tulsi Gabbard signals that Trump will be less partisan than usual in this matter. And Musk does not communicate sympathy for the Republican guard in the Ancien Regime.
The answer to your question about the Republicans is UNIPARTY. All creatures of the same swamp. Every time they complain about DOGE, there's a data dump that makes them look like idiots. Total transparency trumps (pun intended) narrative every time.
That's why they call it the uniparty 'round these parts. All of the people whinging about DOGE not being confirmed are doing so precisely so the RINOs can unite with democrats to save whatever they can.
None of that weird, flavored crap, please. Just a light coating of salt & butter.
But I will take a double-large soda, half-filled with ice, please. I'll meet you at our seats once the endless advertisements for the movie and concessions I just paid for end.
The Dollar Store generally has them. Recently discovered. I try to avoid going there now. Movie vendor size boxes of Raisinettes are bad for my hips. LOL.
Look at all the assholes who want to talk about treats at the movies. These are the people who get exercised over Pepsi versus Coke. Not impressed with Matt's fan base.
Look at the asshole (no,I,don't,wanna,look,at,you) writing a stupid comment about a frivolous, but fun, excursion from an otherwise serious discussion.
Hate to speak on behalf of Matt's entire readership, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say none of us are impressed with you either.
(And not that I care, since I don't really like either very much -- I'm a Dr. Pepper man if given the choice -- but gotta go with Coke over Pepsi every time.)
As the warm-up feature film, how about The Untouchables? Remember the scene with Sean Connery, the tough cop, and Eliot Ness? "I am Treasury Officer" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣https://youtu.be/1WFRUQTWowU?si=gkHuOTYQt5OuxBVy
Grant writing has become a specialty upon itself, must be magical to get $2 million for this one. Get a grant, publish or perish is part of staying in the club… someone must of wanted him to stay in the club.
If you keep up with academia, it's all grants or book writing all of the time. It's the coin of the realm and if you want to make a sustainable living at being a professor, grants come with the territory. A total grift, this and exposes the academic world for what it is, a money making scheme whereby institutions tout their granted professors to entice parents to send their kids at $50-90K per year. So you get studies on MMA corruption on refereeing. And parents are so wowed by the dream of a diploma they'll keep feeding the til and profs will continue putting out garbage like this. Ugh.
Noam Deplume, Jr. is going to tell you that it's "till", not "til", then Running Burning Man will call you an edumacated idiot. It pays to be careful around here.
Why a grant? I thought that all the sport analyses one can watch on TV were suppose to be analyzing referee bias as part of their very lucrative job. Who needs a grant for that?
I'm curious - what's with the dates? The date and time of a comment can be seen by moving the cursor over the timestamp at the end of the comment's heading (at least for me, using a laptop).
1) I research historical events and constantly note / write down when things happened. In drifting back and forth between past, present and future, it is necessary to be constantly aware of what the current relevant dates are.
This avoids becoming disorientated ("schedulers' disease").
An aside: Last summer, someone prompted by our vile legacy media --- that we now know has been buried up to their necks in USAID cash --- called Italy's prime minister Giorgia Meloni a "fascist."
The person who said this would be presumed to be reasonably well educated.
I asked him five simple questions about Fascism ("What year did Mussolini seize power in Italy?," etc.). He went 0-5.
These are the people who snidely bark, "Google it!" Of course they have to Google it. They've been systematically trained to farm out their brains to keyboards.
2) The far more important reason is that billions of people have sacrificed their brains (and their souls) to their cell phones and computers.
I despise such people, and have no intention of following these shiftless sheep who think that someone out there in Zuckerberg Heaven is always going to take care of such "details."
I hope this answers your question. Have a good week.
P.S. What are the odds that Columbia University was bribed with USAID $$$ to rig the "Trump" Pulitzer prizes for the NY Times/WaPo?
Use explicit timestamps all you want; I have no objection, but the interface for the comments section here isn't controlled by Google or Mark Zuckerberg. In any case, virtually all online comments are fleeting, so I don't personally see a need to treat them as permanent record of one's thoughts.
By the way, despising billions of people isn't healthy for one's mind and soul. I don't mean that sarcastically.
02/09/25: Thanks! I dispassionately have gone with the Chiefs, but would not be at all riled if the Eagles upset, if only to see the Giants front office and management be exposed at the USAID-level of incompetence (Barkley kissed off & millions for Dan Jones, QB. Where is he today?).
Institutional capture evidenced everywhere, nonsensical research legitimized by illegitimate government operatives who have lost their way - these United States are a joke - do you hear the world laughing- the emperor has no clothes. We have lost our way by letting our lust for power blind us to all reality. Power requires great responsibility but we have organizations exerting huge influence that work at odds with each other- see the sham government.So governments within government forces working against each other see DJT desire to limit fentanyl imports and reducing money laundering operations - a game , he must know that drug money is what keeps the American engine running but he engages in theater using Canada and Mexico to partner with him in keeping out drug
cartels at all borders- theater
of the absurd. The cartel is the DEA, CIA, banks - what were the wars in Vietnam, Laos and Afghanistan really about- drugs run our world the powers that be ar complicit - just look at the two tier system - underclass in jail, upper class travel in uninspired Ted jets in and out of countries with no accountability. Mmm seeing things more clearly now - they have captured us roll over and play nice.
The beauty of Trump and Elons plan is SHUTTING off the spigot. Then you find out who screams the loudest. After that it makes it much easier to follow the money.
It is interesting to me how blind the various folks cos-playing as US Representatives are to this obvious truth. Maxine Waters and her pals have lots of recourse to investigate what is happening. But in their panic, they try bum rushing the front door to prevent pandora's box being opened at the DOE. My guess, you will find connections between the DOE grants and some of Rep. Waters shady dealings.
I think that's pretty naïve, like a lot of this stuff. If someone had control of a spigot, and someone else shuts it off, their next most likely move is to the next spigot.
That's what I find interesting. It seems to me that if these programs and agencies were really so important and were doing so much good, the Dems would want to find and eliminate waste, corruption, and the misallocation of funds because that would mean that there would be more money available to do more good. At USAID for example, how many crop seeds or farm animals or micro-loans for businesses in third-world countries could have been funded for a year with the money they squandered on a DEI musical in Ireland?
02/08/25: The Dems are now paying dearly for having prosecuted DJT in NY on felony charges about his NDA accounting, the cost of which adds up to about one/billionth of the bribes that have been gayly handed out each year by USAID since the 1960s.
I'm going to refrain from throwing rocks at Democrats for now. I just listened to an interview with Mike Benz. There are a lot of Republican footprints around that pig feeder also.
This is likely what Hillary was talking about when she said that if Donald won back in 2016 they'd all be in prison. It really starts to make sense now why they went for impeachment for simply asking for an investigation in Ukraine.
Those of us that aren't stupid... oops.. sorry.. Woke, have LONG known that the Ukraine is the international hub for corruption and money laundering.
Early today Fox On-line had an interview of a former Dem fundraiser. She is claiming that after Debate Disaster, Hunter was The Guy in charge, not Dr. Jill. He sat in on meetings in The Oval.
Did Hunter have a security clearance to be there? Asking for a nation.
We know without a doubt Hunter and Jill were both in on everything. We at this point know that Joe's schedule was a few hours per day at best. I don't think Hunter or Jill were the main showrunners however. I think that was a team that included both Obama and Hillary.
Don't at all doubt that. The "Biden" administration was full of Obamites.
I just think it is so funny for Dems to scream about the lack of "security clearance" for the Doges. When we had a crackhead tax cheat sitting in The Oval.
This. So transparent that Americans cannot be allowed access, according to the Dems. Why shouldn't we know where every effing $ is going, with certain, understandable (from a citizen's POV) limitations?
From my POV, Team Donkey was at least sinning boldly (to borrow from Martin Luther). Team Elephant seems to have been a bit more circumspect. But the only way to right our ship is to relentless ferret out ANYONE who has participated.
I never could see or hear their facade. But I never bought into the social engineering of the Left's, which was just pointing at others and saying it them - it's their fault. What that fault was never struck a cord with me, as I did not need a politician protecting me from those others.
The RFK Jr no votes and the treatment of him has really unzipped all their flies. Especially considering the previous person to hold the post RFK is being given.
If that's so (and I have no doubt that it is), it's just more evidence of GOP incompetence. The Dems at least got mainstream media dominance out of it. OTOH, maybe the Republicans just liked being dominated.
I too. Trump knows soft power is important. Rubio said the intent was reform and AID leadership said “no.” Rubio/Trump said “you’re fired.” As they should have. Swamp.
The left has corrupted most public institutions with suicidal empathy, victim worship, and America hatred. That what he’s after, not our ability to project power.
The right had/has different problems but at least those were pointed offshore and weren’t based on self hatred.
I’ve listened to the Benz thing twice. And I’m still processing.
Likewise. Benz kept emphasizing the need for "soft power", but when describing the groups that were getting funded, invariably they were the fringe and possibly terroristic factions of the target country. Maybe I'm dense, but I fail to see how these actions are in the interest of any long term, peaceful solution. Sure it might cause a government to change and support our short term goals, but the animosity of the people remains and will eventually need to be dealt with.
Well, I don’t like what I’m about to say. Sometimes the goal in statecraft is to destabilize the regime by playing both sides against the middle. Assumed to be required, not sure I could do it.
Sadly, our demoralized western society appears to have been victimized by our enemies in that way. Enough of us had to be turned through what I described above.
I pray enough of us can bring us back from the edge. I think Trump has changed. I agreed with most of his first term policies but detested his style and questioned his motives. No longer. I think he sees clearly our state and what must be done; he’s still flawed (who isn’t) but has chosen the right mission and team.
Yeah. Sweden doesn't need a bunch of soft power to get petroleum. We can -- and should -- expand our nuclear energy sector and bring more manufacturing on-shore.
We can't assume the rest of the world is going to toil for us forever.
As one example of their failure, Republicans could have easily corralled the Biden crime family years ago. They chose not to. The reason why will become apparent to everyone soon, but was to some already.
They've definitely found money going to WEF and Open Borders type "foundations." So yes, we are funding the destruction of ourselves by those that have longed to remove us from the stage so they can do to us what they've done to Europe.
I always suspected as much SC & now that I am learning of the extent of it (somewhat), the idea that Bue State Judges are trying to protect this racket & Dems are chanting about "fighting in the street" is making me physically ill. How can anyone defend this theft? But look at the rest of their platform & how they mock & disabuse any attempt at course correction. Are they all "in on it" or will some on the Left be chastined when the extent is revealed? 🤔😢
Most of the ones who are don't admit it now. "Woke," they tell me, is a (noble) black word that "the right" misappropriated to smear the (morally superior) social justice warriors.
They are in on it even if they aren't smart enough to be aware they are in on it. Some of these people are "young leaders of the World" graduates, and some are just followers that are now addicted to the cashflow.
Exactly and one can see it just by watching how loud the Dems are screaming about Musk/DOGE yet none of them are screaming about $ going around the world to advance LGBT rights or gender ideology to just name a few.
My experience with InterNews. I worked in the defense, diplomacy and development industry for most of my career. Both working directly for the government and for “implementers”. I worked on 3 projects for USAID. An NDI political party building program in Pakistan, Local Government and Community Development in Afghanistan (DAI) and Local government capacity building in Yemen (Creative Associates). But my InterNews experience came in Pakistan in 2016-17 when I worked directly for The Department of State Bureau of Democracy Human Rights and Labor-Global Programs. DRL-GP, for those that don’t know, is entirely redundant to USAID, in some cases we were doing exactly the same activities with the same implementers in different countries. I had a desk in the political section of the Embassy in Islamabad. USAID had a whole wing on the other side of the new embassy building.
Of the 23 million dollar portfolio I managed in Pakistan, Internews had more than 1 project for a few million bucks. Basically, they did media training and provided expensive equipment to niche lefty media that wouldn’t exist without our funding. I remember that they had peacocks in the garden of their office.
When it came time to decide how to spend the next multi-million dollar appropriation, the job fell to me and a 3rd party contractor. She got to call the shots and insisted interNews get a big chunk. I was pitching a program to reform the ship breaking industry (which is a true horror show of brutal child labor exploitation). That was shot down in favor of LGBT radio programs that few would ever listen to. This was early 2017, and I remember saying; can’t we have at least 1 program the new administration won’t hate? The answer was no. This actually was my downfall. Because I was a direct hire, I could perform ‘inherently government functions’, like decide how the government’s money is spent. Clearly, the DRL bosses back in DC wanted a 3rd party contractor to make these decisions, even though that was a clear violation of law. Short version, I reported it, and got fired for reporting it. It takes a special kind of arrogance and ignorance to actually put in writing you are firing someone for reporting violation of the law. The OIG found I had ‘suffered retaliation prohibited by law’ I got a small pile of taxpayer money, but was told my job didn’t exist anymore, so I wasn’t getting that back. Nothing happened to the people who did this and they remained decision makers at DoS. I was blackballed from ever working in the development industry again.
How do you think I felt last weekend when the whole industry got nuked?
Meanwhile fucking federal swamp judges, one even a Trump appointee, are passing ruling after ruling to deny the chief executive of the federal government the authority to actually deal with all this graft and corruption.
Machine and start over? It won’t be possible with the level of oligarchic capture in the US it will need to self implode before change comes and then it will be too late - end of empire.
The chief executive is subject to checks and balances under the constitution - this is not a monarchy or a dictatorship yet even though DJT and former presidents have garnered overwhelming executive privilege. With privilege comes responsibility none of which these former leaders exhibited during their terms and now SCOTUS allows presidents to kill at their discretion under the law which they are already doing with the counter measure, bio-weapon, kill and maim shot called the Covid vaccine. Wake up we already live under martial law due to covid with no end in sight - we have been captured sll rls is still theater.
Dismissal of a head of an agency may stand but dismissal of all employees is another matter and one that courts will adjudicate. Question - can an entire agency be closed via an executive order? The impact will need to be assessed by the federal court.
USAID- now identified as a rogue agency by Trump administration due to alleged interference with other countries governance- however remember federal policy enabled this agencies existence. Like it or not review of this federal policy. will need to be assessed in the federal court - there is a reason we have a court system that reviews decisions. Check the constitution - DJT was voted president not dictator.
If he has this much power he should be able to end Covid vaccine poisoning - but you do not see him act on this to protect the American people cause only congress can repeal the Constitutional laws that enabled a bio weapon deployed against UScitizens by the DoD and HHS.
It's okay that it's in the courts. If the Trump administration is making changes lawfully, it will be easy for them to prove that. If not, they need to follow the law. For example, did Trump notify Congress of his intention to defer (or rescind) funding allocated by Congress? (1) The public hasn't gotten much information about such questions. The lawsuits might bring some clarity.
Yes, take the time needed. Thanks for bringing to light these wriggly, loathsome things which do best living in the dark, dank places where sunlight never reaches. Thank you for doing this for us, Matt.
MATT: check into the Humboldt Area Community Foundation in Bayside, next door to Arcata. I worked for a CA community foundation in the early 2000’s, and I’m seeing the names of all the “big influential” foundations in the news daily it seems (ex: Tides…). I was naive then, while searching for grants to help small communities in the valley, and HACF had quite an advanced search system up there. Following the dot com boom, I couldn’t find a single education grant for Americans in Bill Gates’ lists, his all went to Africa. We now know what he was doing. Check Guidestar for financials. Good luck. Be careful.
Can’t say President Kennedy didn’t warn us in 1961…
From the speech given by John F. Kennedy, president of the United States, at the dinner of the bureau of advertising, American Newspaper Publishers Association, Waldorf-Astoria hotel, New York, New York, April 27, 1961.
The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society. And we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in ensuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That, I do not intend to permit, to the extent that it's in my control. [...] But I do ask every publisher, every editor, and every news man in the nation to re-examine his own standards and to recognize the nature of our country's peril. [...] Today, no war has been declared, and however fierce the struggle may be, it may never be declared in the traditional fashion. Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe. The survival of our friends is in danger. And yet no war has been declared. No borders have been crossed by marching troops. No missiles have been fired. [...] no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. [...] the danger has never been more clear, and its presence has never been more imminent. It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions, by the government, by the people, by every businessman or labor leader, and by every newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on cove(r)t means for expanding its sphere of influence. On infiltration instead of invasion. On subversion instead of elections. On intimidation instead of free choice. On guerillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly-knit, highly-efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.
Oh please, take your time. I want to be good and informed about this. Best $5 a month I’ve ever spent.
Matt, you need to make the declarative statement “I am not suicidal” before you make this deep dive. It’s tradition, and it’s kinda necessary when you report on the crowd you’re about to get very familiar with.
02/08/25: And if you don't believe The Biz, ask Mr Epstein...
“Is it safe?”
One of my favorite lines
Such a scary story
Let's hope no one tortures Matt physically at least. Too late for mentally!
02/10/25: True, after his witnessing Rolling Stone turning into Pravda! (and being renamed, "Rolling Stalin").
02/08/25: I agree, take your time, Matt. The sheer size of the money being doled out to these whores is staggering, and guarantees a complex story of who/what/when/how/where.
And pray, cut the length of your sentences down (toss the chaff, keep the wheat!) and do remember to include the dates, if known when events occurred.
You're doing a superb job. Keep in mind that it is better to be disillusioned today so that tomorrow, you'll be able to see as clearly as possible what had occurred and what is likely to happen in the future.
Matt, No need to include the dates. Don Reed already knows when things happened.
02/08/25: Thanks, but that's even beyond my fanaticism about chronology!
P.S. CNN has had a corporate name change, to the "Big Balls Channel" (The "BBC"):
https://x.com/Shawn_Farash/status/1887834444586955015
Patience?! Whaaaaat?
"We've been patient, but our patience is wearing thin, and the refusal has cost all of us. so please do the right thing."
1% of the $7 Trillion U.S. 2025 Budget is $70 Billion and was easily skimmed off the top until DOGE. What about 5% or 10%? Matt, Elon needs your help Bro.
02/08/25: It's incredible (amazing) that our inflation rate in the past four years hasn't been 100-125%!
If we're going by per dosage covid booster prices, inflation was 600% in the last 3 years.
Seems more accurate for many people.
02/09/25: Very good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXktgEKrN8A
With some Federal agencies it has...
02/09/25: Well worth your time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXktgEKrN8A
Ok, Joe!
Feed them a winter of death and disease!...;)
02/08/25: For the benefit of lunkheads such as my deplorable self, unworthy of even serving as Hilary Clinton's bootblack, where do these quotes come from?
Biden the boob scolding people who refuse to take an experimental drug.
My body...my choice
02/10/25: What are the odds that Columbia University was bribed with USAID $$$ to rig the "Trump" Pulitzer prizes for the NY Times/WaPo?
Eagles 40, Chiefs 22: Hey, look at the bright side. No one's going to get killed at the Chiefs victory parade this week.
So where's the text? It's not visible on my desktop or my other electrojunk.
PS -- I'm interested in facts about this outfit, but not in the vacuous right-wing name-calling which many of your less acute fans seem to favor. Given the amounts in question, both sides of the ledger need to be filled out, and if possible, legal procedures instituted. This will require a higher level of factuality than is customary on social media.
Matt can only read, digest and write about something this complex so fast ... It takes time. We have had money going to international media operations since the Cold War. Matt needs to figure out how much may have been turned against us, Anerican citizens, or how biased this agency may be. This takes time.
02/08/25: And if he's doing it all by himself, even more patience will be required.
Exactly. We have fools spreading misinfo (which hurts our cause) rather than digging into the story to see what is really there.
I think that the damage is so bad, the thieves are now defenseless. They're now trapped in the Bismarck, power gone, British destroyers firing at point-blank range...
Well worth the time to look at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXktgEKrN8A
Do we know how WikiLeaks got the story? No. It may have been handed to them which would be why they broke the story. Matt has not shied from stories that make his profession (and him by relation) look bad. How much does he have to apologize for his own mistakes and trust? Who do you trust? Only WikiLeaks?
Thanks for the heads-up, gonna make ALL the popcorn for this one......
So if Democrats knew how to take advantage of USAID, wouldn't that mean the Republicans knew about it but did nothing about it?
Seems like a pretty big gorilla in the room. Sayin'
On the other hand, the Ds and media will effortlessly scream Trumps an authoritarian while saying he is "curtailing government power and reach" for the entire term, and it will never not be funny.
As far as the media, imagine calling yourself a journalist and reflexively jumping on the side of the federal government.
Which is why I said this: "Every person who has ever been a member of Congress over the past decade should be subpoenaed and made to testify whether they knew of, were ever part of, or benefited in any way from anything to do with the USAID or any of their offshoots so the dominoes can start falling."
Reparations for taxes!
I love that idea but they will lie, of course. The old joke, "How can you tell a politician is lying? His/her lips are moving."
That's not really a joke.
Most would just take the 5th.
...and (hopefully) promptly bounced from office. How do we keep hiring these guys when they readily admit and complain about spending 50% of their time raising money for their parties and allegedly for their campaigns?
Many of them go well beyond the limits imposed by law, but they are protected. Our system is broken and has been for decades. Money is the driving wheel. Everything else, including "we the people" fall by the wayside. One of my personal policies (quirks?) is to vote against all incumbents regardless of party. Congressional incumbency is around 90% so I seldom pick winners.
Not if they've been granted one of Brandon's pardons.
I think you mean decades
I'm kind of losing track of who I'm responding to where, but yes I fully expect that the Rs have their own scams, albeit through different channels. ActBlue was a huge fraud machine but so was WinRed.
You seen this yet?
https://redstate.com/streiff/2025/02/08/the-us-treasury-spent-how-much-illegally-now-you-know-why-the-left-wants-to-stop-doge-n2185365
"That $516 billion in illegal payments cover "1,264 authorizations of appropriations that expired before the beginning of fiscal year 2024 and 251 authorizations of appropriations that were set to expire by the end of fiscal year 2024." The legal authority for some of these payments expired 40 — that's not a typo — years ago."
Lmao. It's going to be MUCH, MUCH worse than even you and I can imagine.
All this time, massive technology and efficiency gains should have been allowing Americans to live better than they ever have. Instead, the government zapped up trillions of dollars and handed it out to their buddies while we're stuck paying the bill. (And the higher prices from debasement!)
By 'we' I assume you mean most of the planet, seeing as how the dollar is a reserve currency.
Yup. And they aren't too happy with the deal right now, either.
Can't disagree with that.
I'm in favor of shipping all these clowns to Haiti. That way we raise the IQ of both countries.
That's shabby.
I got a lot of ActBlue requests last election.
For the last few days I have been living in s continuous state of shock and disbelief. Was I naive? I am ashamed to say yes. We stopped watching Netflix and read fiction because they pale in comparison. Nothing is what we thought it was. Of course, we were well aware of wokeness, govt inefficiency, unfairness, partisanship, censorship. But the scale of lies and corruption is staggering. I want to know the results of Matt’s investigation, but I am beginning to feel fatigue as more criminal stuff is coming to light LOL. The only thing I can compare it to is the XX Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR in 1956 when Stalin’s crimes were exposed for the first time. People knew but it was never openly admitted. I realize purging country of millions of innocent citizens was of more cosmic proportions than what we are learning, but still it’s pretty shocking.
I have a few friends who are you heavy into conspiracy theories. You know....they don't seem so crazy after all.
I completely agree. I'm as happy as a clam about justice being served so often and quickly. And I AM a "Conspiracy Theorist(tm)", and I can't believe the depths of depravity to which the duplicitous Democratic dunces have descended.
Yes, in the Shellenbergs story USAID gave money to both dems and reps for their "legislative" training or 'strengthening. Funny how the question why an agency that is supposedly for INTERNATIONAL development and aid is giving money to any American entity is never brought up.
Whoo boy you nailed that one! I made a WR 'contribution' early in the campaign, I'll say never again!
I'm still getting spam messaging asking for money, my phone number must have been sold a thousand and one times.
I went to the candidates campaign web page to make contributions. I get emails asking for money from people I did not donate to. So someone (or more) has shared or sold their list.
Did you check the database to see if they used your info for other donations?
WinRed is definitely a scam! They burned me hard when my $20 donation somehow turned into $100 on my credit card statement. Some real motherfuckers there! That’s my last political donation.
dems trade money for power and repubes trade power for money.
Sidenote - SimCom, I often lose track, too. I've been trying to add the person's name in my response so that it makes sense to ME what I was responding to.
02/08/25: Quite right. Illiterate Substack stands to be improved, immensely, re-instituting the commonsense rules that were known and honored by even the lowliest writers some sixty or so years ago.
When the computer geeks took over, the essential rules and concerns about who / what / when / why / how were trashed. And the more money they made, the worse it got.
Exhibit A: "Windows 11," which I wish would follow the precedent set by Herman Goering and commit suicide.
Trying to find a recent snippet where Mike Benz is being interviewed about USAID (he's being interviewed everywhere right now on USAID; just Google "Mike Benz on USAID" and plenty will show up), and yes, in the piece I saw, he specifically mentioned that the R's were hardly guiltless in the decades-long USAID debacle.
This is where things are going to get very interesting, and perhaps, depressingly so. On this issue, the Rs apparently have plenty of skeletons of their own in the closet, and what Trump is doing threatens them as much as it does the Ds.
It's going to fascinating to watch how far Trump can advance in his crusade to Drain the Swamp, when plenty in his own party stand to lose if too much comes out. Yet, given the bi-partisan nature of this grift, cleaning it up is likely to be one of the very few issues that voters on both sides of the aisle can agree on.
The American Spectator has a story today naming certain Rs who are in on the deal. Good to know so we don't assume that Dems are the only ones to be shamed.
Don't worry about which ones they are. None of them have any shame about anything.
At least the R's aren't out making fools of themselves outside the agencies, on the street.
Well nobody does street theatre like Maxine, Spartacus, et al. That story did mention however that at least one person named is making the rounds in the media as the credentialed person of experience who can explain why it is so unfair to close USAID. Useful somethingorother.
Don't underestimate people's ability to NOT recognize, much less accept, realities they don't want or can't bring themselves to because of how destabilizing it is to their inner and outer constructs.
Paul Simon, "Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."
The Boxer
Bingo.
The greatest trick ever played has been to change the meaning of transparency into traitor.
The American public loves the government so much now The Truth would be one part shocking and one part unsettling ....so much so; it will be ignored.
I'm around them every day 😐
Oh I've seen it. Every person should watch it.
We've been living in the Truman Show our whole lives.
Was it Greenwald?
https://rumble.com/v6gwvvp-trumpmusk-attack-cia-fronts-usaid-and-ned-with-mike-benz.html
Now we can see which Republicans are hypocrites on the issue.
The (fake) duopoly keeps us peasants in the dark as to the agenda running them both—i.e., the promotion and enforcement of the U.S. global rules-based order. This Republican (neocon) initiative (see Iraq War etc.) was warmly embraced by the Dems to replace the old excuse for Western imperialism when the Soviet Union was dissolved in the late 1990s. The partnership between the likes of Hillary Clinton and Dick Cheney was a financial boon to everyone involved including corporate shareholders. In the near term, it benefited defense contractors and the Pentagon/CIA. Long term (as in Ukraine) the beneficiaries are a range of transnationals who covet other nations' resources, from Big Ag to Big OIl. Bankers, of course, always benefit.
Absolutely!
And I just learned from watching Tucker Carlson interview Mike Benz, that it was the Republican arm of USAID, the International Republican Institute, that funded a trans dance festival in Bangladesh, in order to help destabilize the government. This is a bipartisan issue, and I can't wait to see MAGA Congress Critters defend their own involvement in, or profiting from, USAID programs.
Which is why many of the Republicans initially fought Trump being elected just like the Dems did. Many, not all, gave in. Either believing Trump would go no further than his first term OR having gotten some sort of concession from Trump? We shall see. ..if everything pretty much only pounts at Dems, we are not getting the full truth. That much we know.
When there's such a free-flowing money spigot, expect everybody that can to take advantage of it.
I hope every single one, D and R alike, gets primaried.
Of course the Republicans were in on it. They’re in on almost everything. The corruptive road is very wide & they’ll all go down it eventually. That’s why we elected Donald Trump. We are sick of it.
I saw that Lindsey Graham had received big bucks from a USAID source.
I think that's why he suddenly came out in favor of Tulsi, RFK Jr., & Kash Patel.
Thank you for sharing that! So funny.
Because every time Congress asked for anything from them they gave congress the finger.
Rubio said numerous times they’ve been trying to address usaid since before he went to the senate. Rand Paul has been after it his whole career too.
The true problem is so very very few people with virtually all power in their hands. The McConnells and McCarthys and Ryans and Harry Reids and Schumers & Pelosis very carefully wreck every chance of looking into it. It goes back a long way, on both sides but the key turning point, or one of them certainly, is when pelosi ended debates in the House during obama administration.
Yes , and the Gorilla’s name is Lindsay Graham… sadly, I’m not shocked…
They all knew about it at least as far back as "Dr. No" Coburn brought it up in 2005. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/2-decades-ago-senators-probe-usaid-funding-led-government-transparency-reform
Make no mistake Brian this has every politician from the last 60 years guilty. None of them bothered to lift up the plank of wood because they were told if they lifted up the plank of wood, that picture of them with a skanky whore would be sent back to his family. It’s all a blackmail grift.
They also have a slush fund for skanky hoes in case they get busted. Serious
Rat fuckers
Chuckling at "skanky hoes."
Imagine that in the books: The Skanky Hoe Fund.
Bwahahahahahahaha!
Wasn't that from "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll?
"Twas brillig, and the skanky hoes did gyre and gimble in the wabe..."
Nice!
Skanky Hoes??? More like little children..Chester the molester.
Hopefully the presence of former Dems RFK Jr & Tulsi Gabbard signals that Trump will be less partisan than usual in this matter. And Musk does not communicate sympathy for the Republican guard in the Ancien Regime.
The problem is Trump needs Republican votes to pass legislation.
Oh, I can think of more than a few RINOs who have not only been complicit but who've also profited from this gargantuan scam.
I can imagine Liz Cheney being neck deep in the mire - maybe that’s the real reason for her preemptive pardon.
Honestly i despise RINO'S more than progressives.
Lyndsay Graham on the board of an NGO funded by USAID.
The answer to your question about the Republicans is UNIPARTY. All creatures of the same swamp. Every time they complain about DOGE, there's a data dump that makes them look like idiots. Total transparency trumps (pun intended) narrative every time.
Dick Minnis removingthecataract.substack.com
Joni Ernst was asking for documentation for quite some time and was stonewalled at every turn. Only a change in POTUS opened the Pandora's box.
That's why they call it the uniparty 'round these parts. All of the people whinging about DOGE not being confirmed are doing so precisely so the RINOs can unite with democrats to save whatever they can.
None of that weird, flavored crap, please. Just a light coating of salt & butter.
But I will take a double-large soda, half-filled with ice, please. I'll meet you at our seats once the endless advertisements for the movie and concessions I just paid for end.
Milk duds?
Junior Mints
Hot tamales ain't too bad. But you have to be in the mood
Tamales?
Trust me, taste nothing like tamales
Yes. That's what i meant! Thank you
Not a fan. Can live without candy, but if so, raisinets at the movies.
Raisinettes are my favorite. But I can hardly find them anymore.
My kids always laugh at me cuz I'll get them for dessert at home.
Absolutely. If they’re like my kid, they’ll also laugh at you if you bust out tv jingles. Give em this one:
Goo-bers, raisinettes, chocolate-covered treats/raisinettes and goo-bers, mighty good to eat.
The Dollar Store generally has them. Recently discovered. I try to avoid going there now. Movie vendor size boxes of Raisinettes are bad for my hips. LOL.
Try Cracker Barrel. Laughing emoji
Jujubes!
I'm not sure life without candy is really worth living, brother. : )
Malted milk balls
Whoppers!!!!!
Damn good too
Yes! I forgot about them
Can one eat popcorn without Milk Duds? Of course I’ll need Milk Duds!
Yes!
Funny story. My brother is a dentist. So a couple years ago i pulled a prank on him and ate a bunch of popcorn and milk duds before my appointment.
He gave me a toothbrush and told me I had to clean my teeth before he would have his tech start the cleaning.
I don't know why but this is so funny and something only a boy would do. I hope you were 12 or so.
It was 3 years ago when I was 50!
The 17 year old in me is forever lodged in my medulla oblongata.
Mike & Ikes
Almond Roca. I'd also like to be able to smoke cigarettes in my seat (which was legal in the 1950s, I believe
Look at all the assholes who want to talk about treats at the movies. These are the people who get exercised over Pepsi versus Coke. Not impressed with Matt's fan base.
Look at the asshole (no,I,don't,wanna,look,at,you) writing a stupid comment about a frivolous, but fun, excursion from an otherwise serious discussion.
Hate to speak on behalf of Matt's entire readership, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say none of us are impressed with you either.
(And not that I care, since I don't really like either very much -- I'm a Dr. Pepper man if given the choice -- but gotta go with Coke over Pepsi every time.)
Have a nice evening.
Yup, you couldn't resist being an opinionated asshole about Coke and Dr. Pepper. What you think matters to no one. No one.
As the warm-up feature film, how about The Untouchables? Remember the scene with Sean Connery, the tough cop, and Eliot Ness? "I am Treasury Officer" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣https://youtu.be/1WFRUQTWowU?si=gkHuOTYQt5OuxBVy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjOPLTTjnwc
Sorry but this requires so much more than popcorn. Break out the chips and queso, too!
And alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol.
Yes! And none of that microwave shit! Make the real thing, or you're a loser! Put Tabasco Sauce on it!
👏🏻👏🏻🍿🥤
Coconut oil when cooking stovetop is crucial. Couldn’t figure out why Mom’s was so much better… coconut oil.
02/08/25: CNN has just changed their name to the "Big Balls Channel" (The "BBC"):
https://x.com/Shawn_Farash/status/1887834444586955015
02/08/25: I'll need a 50-bushel bag, just for starters!
Speaking with an acquaintance today who is an assoc professor of sociology at a tiny college who is afraid Musk will cancel his research grant.
His research: referee bias in MMA (mixed martial arts fighting). If that isn't bad enough, his grant is TWO MILLION DOLLARS!
Grant writing has become a specialty upon itself, must be magical to get $2 million for this one. Get a grant, publish or perish is part of staying in the club… someone must of wanted him to stay in the club.
Must "have" wanted. Writing is a specialty thanks to this sort of thing.
Great beat down. There are edumacated idiots destroying language. Of course, the commenter's name is Billy Bob so we shouldn't expect much from him.
02/08/25: This stuff goes WAY back. See Florence King's "Confessions of A Failed Southern Lady."
Method: we pulled data out of our rear end.
Results: just as we expected!
Conclusion: racism!
Please forward my $2 million to my PO Box please.
02/08/25: CNN has just changed their name to the "Big Balls Channel" (The "BBC"):
https://x.com/Shawn_Farash/status/1887834444586955015
He should be hiring a lawyer, that's criminal!
Oh my gosh!
He should be ashamed of himself.
If you keep up with academia, it's all grants or book writing all of the time. It's the coin of the realm and if you want to make a sustainable living at being a professor, grants come with the territory. A total grift, this and exposes the academic world for what it is, a money making scheme whereby institutions tout their granted professors to entice parents to send their kids at $50-90K per year. So you get studies on MMA corruption on refereeing. And parents are so wowed by the dream of a diploma they'll keep feeding the til and profs will continue putting out garbage like this. Ugh.
Noam Deplume, Jr. is going to tell you that it's "till", not "til", then Running Burning Man will call you an edumacated idiot. It pays to be careful around here.
Why a grant? I thought that all the sport analyses one can watch on TV were suppose to be analyzing referee bias as part of their very lucrative job. Who needs a grant for that?
02/08/25: I would authorize a $2M study on referee bias in the NFL!
I'm curious - what's with the dates? The date and time of a comment can be seen by moving the cursor over the timestamp at the end of the comment's heading (at least for me, using a laptop).
02/10/25: Simple. Two reasons.
1) I research historical events and constantly note / write down when things happened. In drifting back and forth between past, present and future, it is necessary to be constantly aware of what the current relevant dates are.
This avoids becoming disorientated ("schedulers' disease").
An aside: Last summer, someone prompted by our vile legacy media --- that we now know has been buried up to their necks in USAID cash --- called Italy's prime minister Giorgia Meloni a "fascist."
The person who said this would be presumed to be reasonably well educated.
I asked him five simple questions about Fascism ("What year did Mussolini seize power in Italy?," etc.). He went 0-5.
These are the people who snidely bark, "Google it!" Of course they have to Google it. They've been systematically trained to farm out their brains to keyboards.
2) The far more important reason is that billions of people have sacrificed their brains (and their souls) to their cell phones and computers.
I despise such people, and have no intention of following these shiftless sheep who think that someone out there in Zuckerberg Heaven is always going to take care of such "details."
I hope this answers your question. Have a good week.
P.S. What are the odds that Columbia University was bribed with USAID $$$ to rig the "Trump" Pulitzer prizes for the NY Times/WaPo?
Use explicit timestamps all you want; I have no objection, but the interface for the comments section here isn't controlled by Google or Mark Zuckerberg. In any case, virtually all online comments are fleeting, so I don't personally see a need to treat them as permanent record of one's thoughts.
By the way, despising billions of people isn't healthy for one's mind and soul. I don't mean that sarcastically.
Spoken like an Eagles fan. Good luck today!
02/09/25: Thanks! I dispassionately have gone with the Chiefs, but would not be at all riled if the Eagles upset, if only to see the Giants front office and management be exposed at the USAID-level of incompetence (Barkley kissed off & millions for Dan Jones, QB. Where is he today?).
Saquon forever! Go Eagles!!!
Don could be a Texan fan or a Bills fan. I'm a lean to KC, and was disgusted with the refs in both games.
02/10/25: What are the odds that Columbia University was bribed with USAID $$$ to rig the "Trump" Pulitzer prizes for the NY Times/WaPo?
Eagles 40, Chiefs 22: Hey, look at the bright side. No one's going to get killed at the Chiefs victory parade this week.
Institutional capture evidenced everywhere, nonsensical research legitimized by illegitimate government operatives who have lost their way - these United States are a joke - do you hear the world laughing- the emperor has no clothes. We have lost our way by letting our lust for power blind us to all reality. Power requires great responsibility but we have organizations exerting huge influence that work at odds with each other- see the sham government.So governments within government forces working against each other see DJT desire to limit fentanyl imports and reducing money laundering operations - a game , he must know that drug money is what keeps the American engine running but he engages in theater using Canada and Mexico to partner with him in keeping out drug
cartels at all borders- theater
of the absurd. The cartel is the DEA, CIA, banks - what were the wars in Vietnam, Laos and Afghanistan really about- drugs run our world the powers that be ar complicit - just look at the two tier system - underclass in jail, upper class travel in uninspired Ted jets in and out of countries with no accountability. Mmm seeing things more clearly now - they have captured us roll over and play nice.
I'd be happier to learn that the grant was a front for CIA work than to learn that it really was a grant for studying referee bias in MMA.
It would be nice if they did away with sociology altogether. Almost as dismal a science as economics.
Poor any-
Gosh, seems legit to me…
Seriously? Wow. We rest our case.
Go get em Matt. We look forward to reading about all the corruption, graft and fraud you uncover!
"Follow the money" blows the lid off of 95% of criminal rackets.
For sure.
The beauty of Trump and Elons plan is SHUTTING off the spigot. Then you find out who screams the loudest. After that it makes it much easier to follow the money.
Inverted RICO strategy. More efficient.
It is interesting to me how blind the various folks cos-playing as US Representatives are to this obvious truth. Maxine Waters and her pals have lots of recourse to investigate what is happening. But in their panic, they try bum rushing the front door to prevent pandora's box being opened at the DOE. My guess, you will find connections between the DOE grants and some of Rep. Waters shady dealings.
I spent a couple hours last night trying to track down visitor logs for the DoE to see when the last time these people showed up....no luck :(
Do they have visitor logs at the DOE?
They do but they aren't public and I don't know anybody.
God, grant me THAT wish…
I think that's pretty naïve, like a lot of this stuff. If someone had control of a spigot, and someone else shuts it off, their next most likely move is to the next spigot.
That's what I find interesting. It seems to me that if these programs and agencies were really so important and were doing so much good, the Dems would want to find and eliminate waste, corruption, and the misallocation of funds because that would mean that there would be more money available to do more good. At USAID for example, how many crop seeds or farm animals or micro-loans for businesses in third-world countries could have been funded for a year with the money they squandered on a DEI musical in Ireland?
"Finnegan's Woke"?
<snort> love it! 🤣😂
02/08/25: The Dems are now paying dearly for having prosecuted DJT in NY on felony charges about his NDA accounting, the cost of which adds up to about one/billionth of the bribes that have been gayly handed out each year by USAID since the 1960s.
Your going to find that it was run by Democrat operatives from within the DC swamp. They have been using taxpayers money to destroy our country.
I'm going to refrain from throwing rocks at Democrats for now. I just listened to an interview with Mike Benz. There are a lot of Republican footprints around that pig feeder also.
On second thought, I'll just get extra rocks for both.
Extra pointy rocks for the R's in my view. I hate cancer, but I'm inclined to be extra aggressive against cancer in my own body.
That's a great metaphor actually
Careful about throwing the first stone.
Agreed it's got to be happening on both sides but the Dems are screaming the loudest.
This is likely what Hillary was talking about when she said that if Donald won back in 2016 they'd all be in prison. It really starts to make sense now why they went for impeachment for simply asking for an investigation in Ukraine.
Those of us that aren't stupid... oops.. sorry.. Woke, have LONG known that the Ukraine is the international hub for corruption and money laundering.
Early today Fox On-line had an interview of a former Dem fundraiser. She is claiming that after Debate Disaster, Hunter was The Guy in charge, not Dr. Jill. He sat in on meetings in The Oval.
Did Hunter have a security clearance to be there? Asking for a nation.
We know without a doubt Hunter and Jill were both in on everything. We at this point know that Joe's schedule was a few hours per day at best. I don't think Hunter or Jill were the main showrunners however. I think that was a team that included both Obama and Hillary.
Don't at all doubt that. The "Biden" administration was full of Obamites.
I just think it is so funny for Dems to scream about the lack of "security clearance" for the Doges. When we had a crackhead tax cheat sitting in The Oval.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2025/02/08/dem-donor-after-disastrous-cnn-debate-hunter-commandeered-the-white-house-n2651894
Yup.
And they squawk about Elon being unelected, while we had a vegetable behind the resolute desk and cabal of bureaucrats running the country.
You can listen to more of her (Lindy Li’s) story on Shawn Ryan’s podcast. It was interesting and confirmed what many of us suspected.
This. So transparent that Americans cannot be allowed access, according to the Dems. Why shouldn't we know where every effing $ is going, with certain, understandable (from a citizen's POV) limitations?
Hit dog howls.
This is VERY bipartisan. One of the few things that are. The only people at this point not in on this are the Paul's and maybe Lurch Fettermans....
The saddest part is.. Bernie Sanders and Liz Warren are DEEP in this, and I always held them a bit higher back when I cared about D politicians.
From my POV, Team Donkey was at least sinning boldly (to borrow from Martin Luther). Team Elephant seems to have been a bit more circumspect. But the only way to right our ship is to relentless ferret out ANYONE who has participated.
Steak is the best use for sacred cows.
I never could see or hear their facade. But I never bought into the social engineering of the Left's, which was just pointing at others and saying it them - it's their fault. What that fault was never struck a cord with me, as I did not need a politician protecting me from those others.
No, Fetterman has folded. He voted to confirm Bondi, but has since announced "no" votes for RFK Jr and Tulsi.
The RFK Jr no votes and the treatment of him has really unzipped all their flies. Especially considering the previous person to hold the post RFK is being given.
If that's so (and I have no doubt that it is), it's just more evidence of GOP incompetence. The Dems at least got mainstream media dominance out of it. OTOH, maybe the Republicans just liked being dominated.
Not no more.
02/08/25: CNN has just changed their name to the "Big Balls Channel" (The "BBC"):
https://x.com/Shawn_Farash/status/1887834444586955015
I too. Trump knows soft power is important. Rubio said the intent was reform and AID leadership said “no.” Rubio/Trump said “you’re fired.” As they should have. Swamp.
The left has corrupted most public institutions with suicidal empathy, victim worship, and America hatred. That what he’s after, not our ability to project power.
The right had/has different problems but at least those were pointed offshore and weren’t based on self hatred.
I’ve listened to the Benz thing twice. And I’m still processing.
Likewise. Benz kept emphasizing the need for "soft power", but when describing the groups that were getting funded, invariably they were the fringe and possibly terroristic factions of the target country. Maybe I'm dense, but I fail to see how these actions are in the interest of any long term, peaceful solution. Sure it might cause a government to change and support our short term goals, but the animosity of the people remains and will eventually need to be dealt with.
Well, I don’t like what I’m about to say. Sometimes the goal in statecraft is to destabilize the regime by playing both sides against the middle. Assumed to be required, not sure I could do it.
Sadly, our demoralized western society appears to have been victimized by our enemies in that way. Enough of us had to be turned through what I described above.
I pray enough of us can bring us back from the edge. I think Trump has changed. I agreed with most of his first term policies but detested his style and questioned his motives. No longer. I think he sees clearly our state and what must be done; he’s still flawed (who isn’t) but has chosen the right mission and team.
My feelings exactly of DJT.
Yeah. Sweden doesn't need a bunch of soft power to get petroleum. We can -- and should -- expand our nuclear energy sector and bring more manufacturing on-shore.
We can't assume the rest of the world is going to toil for us forever.
As one example of their failure, Republicans could have easily corralled the Biden crime family years ago. They chose not to. The reason why will become apparent to everyone soon, but was to some already.
02/08/25: You're going to need a Uniparty Arsenal (apply to USAID for a tar-and-feathers grant).
We're funding war against ourselves on behalf of the globalists.
They've definitely found money going to WEF and Open Borders type "foundations." So yes, we are funding the destruction of ourselves by those that have longed to remove us from the stage so they can do to us what they've done to Europe.
I always suspected as much SC & now that I am learning of the extent of it (somewhat), the idea that Bue State Judges are trying to protect this racket & Dems are chanting about "fighting in the street" is making me physically ill. How can anyone defend this theft? But look at the rest of their platform & how they mock & disabuse any attempt at course correction. Are they all "in on it" or will some on the Left be chastined when the extent is revealed? 🤔😢
If you believe you can hack off parts of your body and make yourself the opposite sex, you'll believe anything.
To be fair, these days you don't even need to do that.
Word.
In 10 years you probably won't be able to find anybody who admits to being woke.
The vax will have probably thinned out the herd by then.
all of it will be relics of shame. just like the fucking mask, one way arrows, plexiglass and 6 ft circles.
Most of the ones who are don't admit it now. "Woke," they tell me, is a (noble) black word that "the right" misappropriated to smear the (morally superior) social justice warriors.
They are in on it even if they aren't smart enough to be aware they are in on it. Some of these people are "young leaders of the World" graduates, and some are just followers that are now addicted to the cashflow.
Bingo. Couldn't have put it better.
Exactly and one can see it just by watching how loud the Dems are screaming about Musk/DOGE yet none of them are screaming about $ going around the world to advance LGBT rights or gender ideology to just name a few.
You're.
02/08/25: CNN has just changed their name to the "Big Balls Channel" (The "BBC"):
https://x.com/Shawn_Farash/status/1887834444586955015
My experience with InterNews. I worked in the defense, diplomacy and development industry for most of my career. Both working directly for the government and for “implementers”. I worked on 3 projects for USAID. An NDI political party building program in Pakistan, Local Government and Community Development in Afghanistan (DAI) and Local government capacity building in Yemen (Creative Associates). But my InterNews experience came in Pakistan in 2016-17 when I worked directly for The Department of State Bureau of Democracy Human Rights and Labor-Global Programs. DRL-GP, for those that don’t know, is entirely redundant to USAID, in some cases we were doing exactly the same activities with the same implementers in different countries. I had a desk in the political section of the Embassy in Islamabad. USAID had a whole wing on the other side of the new embassy building.
Of the 23 million dollar portfolio I managed in Pakistan, Internews had more than 1 project for a few million bucks. Basically, they did media training and provided expensive equipment to niche lefty media that wouldn’t exist without our funding. I remember that they had peacocks in the garden of their office.
When it came time to decide how to spend the next multi-million dollar appropriation, the job fell to me and a 3rd party contractor. She got to call the shots and insisted interNews get a big chunk. I was pitching a program to reform the ship breaking industry (which is a true horror show of brutal child labor exploitation). That was shot down in favor of LGBT radio programs that few would ever listen to. This was early 2017, and I remember saying; can’t we have at least 1 program the new administration won’t hate? The answer was no. This actually was my downfall. Because I was a direct hire, I could perform ‘inherently government functions’, like decide how the government’s money is spent. Clearly, the DRL bosses back in DC wanted a 3rd party contractor to make these decisions, even though that was a clear violation of law. Short version, I reported it, and got fired for reporting it. It takes a special kind of arrogance and ignorance to actually put in writing you are firing someone for reporting violation of the law. The OIG found I had ‘suffered retaliation prohibited by law’ I got a small pile of taxpayer money, but was told my job didn’t exist anymore, so I wasn’t getting that back. Nothing happened to the people who did this and they remained decision makers at DoS. I was blackballed from ever working in the development industry again.
How do you think I felt last weekend when the whole industry got nuked?
How sweet it is.
When the founders envisioned the enumerated powers of government, I wonder how many of them were thinking of LGBT media......
Well, they powdered their hair and some of them wore wigs.
But the Constitution did not compel taxpayers to pay for wigs or cosmetics, or propaganda promoting them. I've checked, it isn't enumerated.
Meanwhile fucking federal swamp judges, one even a Trump appointee, are passing ruling after ruling to deny the chief executive of the federal government the authority to actually deal with all this graft and corruption.
Never doubt many judges are just as dirty, perhaps more, than politicians.
Remember, they started out as lawyers.
and in grade school they weaseled their mates out their lunch money, yes?
Institutional capture at every
Level. Dismantle the whole
Machine and start over? It won’t be possible with the level of oligarchic capture in the US it will need to self implode before change comes and then it will be too late - end of empire.
The chief executive is subject to checks and balances under the constitution - this is not a monarchy or a dictatorship yet even though DJT and former presidents have garnered overwhelming executive privilege. With privilege comes responsibility none of which these former leaders exhibited during their terms and now SCOTUS allows presidents to kill at their discretion under the law which they are already doing with the counter measure, bio-weapon, kill and maim shot called the Covid vaccine. Wake up we already live under martial law due to covid with no end in sight - we have been captured sll rls is still theater.
That is why it is called "chief executive". The federal workforce is his management responsibility, not that of judges.
Dismissal of a head of an agency may stand but dismissal of all employees is another matter and one that courts will adjudicate. Question - can an entire agency be closed via an executive order? The impact will need to be assessed by the federal court.
USAID- now identified as a rogue agency by Trump administration due to alleged interference with other countries governance- however remember federal policy enabled this agencies existence. Like it or not review of this federal policy. will need to be assessed in the federal court - there is a reason we have a court system that reviews decisions. Check the constitution - DJT was voted president not dictator.
If he has this much power he should be able to end Covid vaccine poisoning - but you do not see him act on this to protect the American people cause only congress can repeal the Constitutional laws that enabled a bio weapon deployed against UScitizens by the DoD and HHS.
It's okay that it's in the courts. If the Trump administration is making changes lawfully, it will be easy for them to prove that. If not, they need to follow the law. For example, did Trump notify Congress of his intention to defer (or rescind) funding allocated by Congress? (1) The public hasn't gotten much information about such questions. The lawsuits might bring some clarity.
[1] https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title2/chapter17B&edition=prelim
Forget popcorn, I'm bringing an airsick bag.
Be sure to bring along a venom extractor pump and tourniquet.
02/08/25: Is the subject above about a blind date with Samantha Power?
Yes, take the time needed. Thanks for bringing to light these wriggly, loathsome things which do best living in the dark, dank places where sunlight never reaches. Thank you for doing this for us, Matt.
It’s a pretty big freaking deal
MATT: check into the Humboldt Area Community Foundation in Bayside, next door to Arcata. I worked for a CA community foundation in the early 2000’s, and I’m seeing the names of all the “big influential” foundations in the news daily it seems (ex: Tides…). I was naive then, while searching for grants to help small communities in the valley, and HACF had quite an advanced search system up there. Following the dot com boom, I couldn’t find a single education grant for Americans in Bill Gates’ lists, his all went to Africa. We now know what he was doing. Check Guidestar for financials. Good luck. Be careful.
Wow, okay. Will do…
Just curious, did you ever come across anything involving Southern Humboldt Community Credit Union? Hoping not.
Not that I remember. I was working within the California Community Foundation’s sphere, an E.D. of a smaller community foundation.
Can’t say President Kennedy didn’t warn us in 1961…
From the speech given by John F. Kennedy, president of the United States, at the dinner of the bureau of advertising, American Newspaper Publishers Association, Waldorf-Astoria hotel, New York, New York, April 27, 1961.
The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society. And we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in ensuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That, I do not intend to permit, to the extent that it's in my control. [...] But I do ask every publisher, every editor, and every news man in the nation to re-examine his own standards and to recognize the nature of our country's peril. [...] Today, no war has been declared, and however fierce the struggle may be, it may never be declared in the traditional fashion. Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe. The survival of our friends is in danger. And yet no war has been declared. No borders have been crossed by marching troops. No missiles have been fired. [...] no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. [...] the danger has never been more clear, and its presence has never been more imminent. It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions, by the government, by the people, by every businessman or labor leader, and by every newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on cove(r)t means for expanding its sphere of influence. On infiltration instead of invasion. On subversion instead of elections. On intimidation instead of free choice. On guerillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly-knit, highly-efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.
Oh my gosh, Humboldt Co has shifted from cannabis to NGO dirty work.
Gotta diversify.
Remember, Matt, Russia bought the 2016 election for Trump for only $100K. So what did the U.S. buy for nearly $473 million?
Those Russians--amazing how much they did with so little.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/facebook-says-likely-russian-operation-spent-100k-issues-ads-during-n799381
02/08/25: CNN has just changed their name to the "Big Balls Channel" (The "BBC"):
https://x.com/Shawn_Farash/status/1887834444586955015