Closing USAID

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Your glee at the unemployment of 13,706 people is nauseating. I am laying off all my staff because of the USAID shutdowns. The single moms, the dads with kids with cancer, the fresh-faced kids with their first apartment leases. And since my programs are shut down we aren’t stopping that Ebola outbreak in Uganda or preventing babies from getting Malaria in Nigeria. That’s what we all did all day. And we got paid the kind of salaries that people on this board scoff at, and we live in neighborhoods most of you won’t enter. Because we aren’t rolling in dough based on some big USAID fraud, right? We are nurses and social workers who use our skills in other countries.

What the F is WRONG with you?

Why was USAID operating in Hungary?

https://rumble.com/v29a3te-usaid-in-hungary.html

Samantha Power didn't seem to think her mission was helping starving people in Africa, but rather building media operations to take out political opponents.

Fascism has taken hold in Hungary. USAID projects provide soft diplomacy to promote democracy (in this case through a free press) as part of overall global stability efforts. There a reason authoritarian leaders or cheering on this effort to dismantle USAID.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/06/authoritarian-usaid-elon-musk

Please think through who is supporting the destruction if USAID and what they have to gain from it.

Now you are agreeing that USAID has a primary mission of political interference.

Stopping fascism is kind of important, no?

DP. Not our job. I don’t want Russia buying Facebook ads interfering with our elections and I don’t want to interfere in the internal affairs of another country. Especially an EU member.

The more I learn about USAID from the people DEFENDING USAID the more I dislike it.

Aid in the form of medicine, food, infrastructure development? Awesome. Knock yourself out.

Empire building, journalism (propaganda) and meddling in the internal affairs of another country? No thank you. And frankly, I’m not going to get worked up over Elon and Co. putting a stop to that garbage.

If stopping Orban is so important to you, feel free to go over there and do it yourself. But not in my name.

It may not be "our job" but either we spend a few billion dollars on efforts such as USAID or else we spend trillions in ground wars, sacrificing American blood while destroying the business models of the US companies and the hundreds of thousands they employ around the country.

It is an investment in peace and stability.

You now, arming and training the mujahideen to resist the USSR was an “investment in peace” that whipsawed back on us a couple decades later and directly resulted in trillions of dollars of ground wars and resulted in tens of thousands of American casualties and hundreds of thousands of lost civilian lives.

Maybe, just maybe, it is rational for some of us to believe that well intended foreign interventions can actually raise risks for our country?

Is it perhaps rational that they decrease the risks for our country? Are you an international security expert?

Of course. Reasonable minds can disagree.

But the people who are defending USAID in this thread are the ones accusing the rest of us of not being patriotic; of being nazi-enablers; of being surrender monkeys who care nothing for the safety of our country. I mean, Karl Rove used the same exact talking points twenty years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Your glee at the unemployment of 13,706 people is nauseating. I am laying off all my staff because of the USAID shutdowns. The single moms, the dads with kids with cancer, the fresh-faced kids with their first apartment leases. And since my programs are shut down we aren’t stopping that Ebola outbreak in Uganda or preventing babies from getting Malaria in Nigeria. That’s what we all did all day. And we got paid the kind of salaries that people on this board scoff at, and we live in neighborhoods most of you won’t enter. Because we aren’t rolling in dough based on some big USAID fraud, right? We are nurses and social workers who use our skills in other countries.

What the F is WRONG with you?

Why was USAID operating in Hungary?

https://rumble.com/v29a3te-usaid-in-hungary.html

Samantha Power didn't seem to think her mission was helping starving people in Africa, but rather building media operations to take out political opponents.

Fascism has taken hold in Hungary. USAID projects provide soft diplomacy to promote democracy (in this case through a free press) as part of overall global stability efforts. There a reason authoritarian leaders or cheering on this effort to dismantle USAID.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/06/authoritarian-usaid-elon-musk

Please think through who is supporting the destruction if USAID and what they have to gain from it.

Now you are agreeing that USAID has a primary mission of political interference.

Stopping fascism is kind of important, no?

DP. Not our job. I don’t want Russia buying Facebook ads interfering with our elections and I don’t want to interfere in the internal affairs of another country. Especially an EU member.

The more I learn about USAID from the people DEFENDING USAID the more I dislike it.

Aid in the form of medicine, food, infrastructure development? Awesome. Knock yourself out.

Empire building, journalism (propaganda) and meddling in the internal affairs of another country? No thank you. And frankly, I’m not going to get worked up over Elon and Co. putting a stop to that garbage.

If stopping Orban is so important to you, feel free to go over there and do it yourself. But not in my name.

Just made me think of all the Americans, particularly during WWII, who were called up to fight against fascism and its spread. Their sacrifices, and the sacrifices made by others since, shouldn't be for nothing.

If a government doesn't like USAID programming in its country, it has a right to prevent it. USAID programming, such as training journalists, is clearly stated; it is not happening in a dark room under the cover of night.

I’m thinking of the tens of thousands of Americans that died in Korea and Vietnam because we needed to stop the spread of communism there. Or in Iraq because we needed to spread democracy there. I thought we’d learned to never make that kind of sacrifice of American lives (let alone local civilian lives).

The last thing I want is to see my children called or drafted into service over the internal affairs of some far off place and SOME OF the activities of USAID described here raise the risk of international confrontation. I also don’t want to see that happen over something ad stupid as cheap goods and services.

If you really believe that fascism poses an existential threat to us right now feel free to go fight it yourself or sign your children up for it.

I don’t think it is as simple as a country simply saying they don’t want USAID programming, particular on the “soft” diplomacy stuff. Sure, the tangible, material “aid” can be stopped. The intangible is much harder to control.

NP. You can literally research what has become of foreign governments that pushed back on USAID. If the propaganda war waged against you ("such and such country interfering with polio vaccines!!") doesn't work, then CIA will take off its gloves and come in with soldiers to forcibly remove the head of state and American media will not cover it. Go look at what they did to Aristide in Haiti, for instance. That's right in America's freaking backyard, yet a lot of these progressives who fancy themselves so savvy have no idea when I bring that up.

Jeffrey Sachs has been doing a wonderful job of talking about all this for decades and his reward has been that American media has blacklisted him when he was once a darling of the establishment. He was a shoo-in for the Nobel in Economics and now he will never sniff it.

That's because you sound like a conspiracy theorist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Your glee at the unemployment of 13,706 people is nauseating. I am laying off all my staff because of the USAID shutdowns. The single moms, the dads with kids with cancer, the fresh-faced kids with their first apartment leases. And since my programs are shut down we aren’t stopping that Ebola outbreak in Uganda or preventing babies from getting Malaria in Nigeria. That’s what we all did all day. And we got paid the kind of salaries that people on this board scoff at, and we live in neighborhoods most of you won’t enter. Because we aren’t rolling in dough based on some big USAID fraud, right? We are nurses and social workers who use our skills in other countries.

What the F is WRONG with you?

Why was USAID operating in Hungary?

https://rumble.com/v29a3te-usaid-in-hungary.html

Samantha Power didn't seem to think her mission was helping starving people in Africa, but rather building media operations to take out political opponents.

Fascism has taken hold in Hungary. USAID projects provide soft diplomacy to promote democracy (in this case through a free press) as part of overall global stability efforts. There a reason authoritarian leaders or cheering on this effort to dismantle USAID.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/06/authoritarian-usaid-elon-musk

Please think through who is supporting the destruction if USAID and what they have to gain from it.

Now you are agreeing that USAID has a primary mission of political interference.

Stopping fascism is kind of important, no?

DP. Not our job. I don’t want Russia buying Facebook ads interfering with our elections and I don’t want to interfere in the internal affairs of another country. Especially an EU member.

The more I learn about USAID from the people DEFENDING USAID the more I dislike it.

Aid in the form of medicine, food, infrastructure development? Awesome. Knock yourself out.

Empire building, journalism (propaganda) and meddling in the internal affairs of another country? No thank you. And frankly, I’m not going to get worked up over Elon and Co. putting a stop to that garbage.

If stopping Orban is so important to you, feel free to go over there and do it yourself. But not in my name.

Just made me think of all the Americans, particularly during WWII, who were called up to fight against fascism and its spread. Their sacrifices, and the sacrifices made by others since, shouldn't be for nothing.

If a government doesn't like USAID programming in its country, it has a right to prevent it. USAID programming, such as training journalists, is clearly stated; it is not happening in a dark room under the cover of night.

I’m thinking of the tens of thousands of Americans that died in Korea and Vietnam because we needed to stop the spread of communism there. Or in Iraq because we needed to spread democracy there. I thought we’d learned to never make that kind of sacrifice of American lives (let alone local civilian lives).

The last thing I want is to see my children called or drafted into service over the internal affairs of some far off place and SOME OF the activities of USAID described here raise the risk of international confrontation. I also don’t want to see that happen over something ad stupid as cheap goods and services.

If you really believe that fascism poses an existential threat to us right now feel free to go fight it yourself or sign your children up for it.

I don’t think it is as simple as a country simply saying they don’t want USAID programming, particular on the “soft” diplomacy stuff. Sure, the tangible, material “aid” can be stopped. The intangible is much harder to control.

NP. You can literally research what has become of foreign governments that pushed back on USAID. If the propaganda war waged against you ("such and such country interfering with polio vaccines!!") doesn't work, then CIA will take off its gloves and come in with soldiers to forcibly remove the head of state and American media will not cover it. Go look at what they did to Aristide in Haiti, for instance. That's right in America's freaking backyard, yet a lot of these progressives who fancy themselves so savvy have no idea when I bring that up.

Jeffrey Sachs has been doing a wonderful job of talking about all this for decades and his reward has been that American media has blacklisted him when he was once a darling of the establishment. He was a shoo-in for the Nobel in Economics and now he will never sniff it.

That's because you sound like a conspiracy theorist.

Yes, that's how you maintain your delusions even though typing Aristide into Google or Jeffrey Sachs into Youtube's search bar would be much faster than maligning me. Well, good news, I'm not here to convince you. Trump is doing good work, whether not he realizes it, and the rest of you can cry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Your glee at the unemployment of 13,706 people is nauseating. I am laying off all my staff because of the USAID shutdowns. The single moms, the dads with kids with cancer, the fresh-faced kids with their first apartment leases. And since my programs are shut down we aren’t stopping that Ebola outbreak in Uganda or preventing babies from getting Malaria in Nigeria. That’s what we all did all day. And we got paid the kind of salaries that people on this board scoff at, and we live in neighborhoods most of you won’t enter. Because we aren’t rolling in dough based on some big USAID fraud, right? We are nurses and social workers who use our skills in other countries.

What the F is WRONG with you?

Why was USAID operating in Hungary?

https://rumble.com/v29a3te-usaid-in-hungary.html

Samantha Power didn't seem to think her mission was helping starving people in Africa, but rather building media operations to take out political opponents.

Fascism has taken hold in Hungary. USAID projects provide soft diplomacy to promote democracy (in this case through a free press) as part of overall global stability efforts. There a reason authoritarian leaders or cheering on this effort to dismantle USAID.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/06/authoritarian-usaid-elon-musk

Please think through who is supporting the destruction if USAID and what they have to gain from it.

Now you are agreeing that USAID has a primary mission of political interference.

Stopping fascism is kind of important, no?

DP. Not our job. I don’t want Russia buying Facebook ads interfering with our elections and I don’t want to interfere in the internal affairs of another country. Especially an EU member.

The more I learn about USAID from the people DEFENDING USAID the more I dislike it.

Aid in the form of medicine, food, infrastructure development? Awesome. Knock yourself out.

Empire building, journalism (propaganda) and meddling in the internal affairs of another country? No thank you. And frankly, I’m not going to get worked up over Elon and Co. putting a stop to that garbage.

If stopping Orban is so important to you, feel free to go over there and do it yourself. But not in my name.

It may not be "our job" but either we spend a few billion dollars on efforts such as USAID or else we spend trillions in ground wars, sacrificing American blood while destroying the business models of the US companies and the hundreds of thousands they employ around the country.

It is an investment in peace and stability.

You now, arming and training the mujahideen to resist the USSR was an “investment in peace” that whipsawed back on us a couple decades later and directly resulted in trillions of dollars of ground wars and resulted in tens of thousands of American casualties and hundreds of thousands of lost civilian lives.

Maybe, just maybe, it is rational for some of us to believe that well intended foreign interventions can actually raise risks for our country?

Is it perhaps rational that they decrease the risks for our country? Are you an international security expert?

Of course. Reasonable minds can disagree.

But the people who are defending USAID in this thread are the ones accusing the rest of us of not being patriotic; of being nazi-enablers; of being surrender monkeys who care nothing for the safety of our country. I mean, Karl Rove used the same exact talking points twenty years ago.

And the US HAS been safe for the last 20 years where it hasn't directly intervened with the military. So what evidence is there that this strategy is not an effective tool?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Your glee at the unemployment of 13,706 people is nauseating. I am laying off all my staff because of the USAID shutdowns. The single moms, the dads with kids with cancer, the fresh-faced kids with their first apartment leases. And since my programs are shut down we aren’t stopping that Ebola outbreak in Uganda or preventing babies from getting Malaria in Nigeria. That’s what we all did all day. And we got paid the kind of salaries that people on this board scoff at, and we live in neighborhoods most of you won’t enter. Because we aren’t rolling in dough based on some big USAID fraud, right? We are nurses and social workers who use our skills in other countries.

What the F is WRONG with you?

Why was USAID operating in Hungary?

https://rumble.com/v29a3te-usaid-in-hungary.html

Samantha Power didn't seem to think her mission was helping starving people in Africa, but rather building media operations to take out political opponents.

Fascism has taken hold in Hungary. USAID projects provide soft diplomacy to promote democracy (in this case through a free press) as part of overall global stability efforts. There a reason authoritarian leaders or cheering on this effort to dismantle USAID.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/06/authoritarian-usaid-elon-musk

Please think through who is supporting the destruction if USAID and what they have to gain from it.

Now you are agreeing that USAID has a primary mission of political interference.

Stopping fascism is kind of important, no?

DP. Not our job. I don’t want Russia buying Facebook ads interfering with our elections and I don’t want to interfere in the internal affairs of another country. Especially an EU member.

The more I learn about USAID from the people DEFENDING USAID the more I dislike it.

Aid in the form of medicine, food, infrastructure development? Awesome. Knock yourself out.

Empire building, journalism (propaganda) and meddling in the internal affairs of another country? No thank you. And frankly, I’m not going to get worked up over Elon and Co. putting a stop to that garbage.

If stopping Orban is so important to you, feel free to go over there and do it yourself. But not in my name.

It may not be "our job" but either we spend a few billion dollars on efforts such as USAID or else we spend trillions in ground wars, sacrificing American blood while destroying the business models of the US companies and the hundreds of thousands they employ around the country.

It is an investment in peace and stability.

You now, arming and training the mujahideen to resist the USSR was an “investment in peace” that whipsawed back on us a couple decades later and directly resulted in trillions of dollars of ground wars and resulted in tens of thousands of American casualties and hundreds of thousands of lost civilian lives.

Maybe, just maybe, it is rational for some of us to believe that well intended foreign interventions can actually raise risks for our country?

Is it perhaps rational that they decrease the risks for our country? Are you an international security expert?

Of course. Reasonable minds can disagree.

But the people who are defending USAID in this thread are the ones accusing the rest of us of not being patriotic; of being nazi-enablers; of being surrender monkeys who care nothing for the safety of our country. I mean, Karl Rove used the same exact talking points twenty years ago.

And the US HAS been safe for the last 20 years where it hasn't directly intervened with the military. So what evidence is there that this strategy is not an effective tool?

We’re presently fighting a proxy war to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars in Eastern Europe with a nuclear-armed enemy on the other side; we are deeply entangled in the Gaza mess; we are drone striking people in Africa; we need to permanently fund a Syrian desert prison or terrorists will go free; we are in constant conflict with Iran (which at one time was the closest thing we had to a westernized ally in Middle East but American intervention did a bang up job there USA! USA! USA!); we have promised Taiwan that we would be ready to actively help the island against mainland aggression; and this is just the obvious stuff…. Eventually so many plates are spinning that they’ll all come crashing down. And, not for nothing, it took twenty years for us to see the unintended consequences of Afghanistan intervention.

If this is your definition of safe, okay. Please sign your sons and daughters up. But it is perfectly reasonable for some of us to want this to go in a different direction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Your glee at the unemployment of 13,706 people is nauseating. I am laying off all my staff because of the USAID shutdowns. The single moms, the dads with kids with cancer, the fresh-faced kids with their first apartment leases. And since my programs are shut down we aren’t stopping that Ebola outbreak in Uganda or preventing babies from getting Malaria in Nigeria. That’s what we all did all day. And we got paid the kind of salaries that people on this board scoff at, and we live in neighborhoods most of you won’t enter. Because we aren’t rolling in dough based on some big USAID fraud, right? We are nurses and social workers who use our skills in other countries.

What the F is WRONG with you?

Why was USAID operating in Hungary?

https://rumble.com/v29a3te-usaid-in-hungary.html

Samantha Power didn't seem to think her mission was helping starving people in Africa, but rather building media operations to take out political opponents.

Fascism has taken hold in Hungary. USAID projects provide soft diplomacy to promote democracy (in this case through a free press) as part of overall global stability efforts. There a reason authoritarian leaders or cheering on this effort to dismantle USAID.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/06/authoritarian-usaid-elon-musk

Please think through who is supporting the destruction if USAID and what they have to gain from it.

Now you are agreeing that USAID has a primary mission of political interference.

Stopping fascism is kind of important, no?

DP. Not our job. I don’t want Russia buying Facebook ads interfering with our elections and I don’t want to interfere in the internal affairs of another country. Especially an EU member.

The more I learn about USAID from the people DEFENDING USAID the more I dislike it.

Aid in the form of medicine, food, infrastructure development? Awesome. Knock yourself out.

Empire building, journalism (propaganda) and meddling in the internal affairs of another country? No thank you. And frankly, I’m not going to get worked up over Elon and Co. putting a stop to that garbage.

If stopping Orban is so important to you, feel free to go over there and do it yourself. But not in my name.

It may not be "our job" but either we spend a few billion dollars on efforts such as USAID or else we spend trillions in ground wars, sacrificing American blood while destroying the business models of the US companies and the hundreds of thousands they employ around the country.

It is an investment in peace and stability.

You now, arming and training the mujahideen to resist the USSR was an “investment in peace” that whipsawed back on us a couple decades later and directly resulted in trillions of dollars of ground wars and resulted in tens of thousands of American casualties and hundreds of thousands of lost civilian lives.

Maybe, just maybe, it is rational for some of us to believe that well intended foreign interventions can actually raise risks for our country?

Is it perhaps rational that they decrease the risks for our country? Are you an international security expert?

Of course. Reasonable minds can disagree.

But the people who are defending USAID in this thread are the ones accusing the rest of us of not being patriotic; of being nazi-enablers; of being surrender monkeys who care nothing for the safety of our country. I mean, Karl Rove used the same exact talking points twenty years ago.

You don’t find it questionable to be on the same side as anti-democracy leaders in Venezuela, Iran, Hungary, and Russia, who are all celebrating the closure of USAID?

https://www.newsweek.com/usaid-authoritarian-trump-iran-russia-venezuela-nicaragua-2027789

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Your glee at the unemployment of 13,706 people is nauseating. I am laying off all my staff because of the USAID shutdowns. The single moms, the dads with kids with cancer, the fresh-faced kids with their first apartment leases. And since my programs are shut down we aren’t stopping that Ebola outbreak in Uganda or preventing babies from getting Malaria in Nigeria. That’s what we all did all day. And we got paid the kind of salaries that people on this board scoff at, and we live in neighborhoods most of you won’t enter. Because we aren’t rolling in dough based on some big USAID fraud, right? We are nurses and social workers who use our skills in other countries.

What the F is WRONG with you?

Why was USAID operating in Hungary?

https://rumble.com/v29a3te-usaid-in-hungary.html

Samantha Power didn't seem to think her mission was helping starving people in Africa, but rather building media operations to take out political opponents.

Fascism has taken hold in Hungary. USAID projects provide soft diplomacy to promote democracy (in this case through a free press) as part of overall global stability efforts. There a reason authoritarian leaders or cheering on this effort to dismantle USAID.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/06/authoritarian-usaid-elon-musk

Please think through who is supporting the destruction if USAID and what they have to gain from it.

Now you are agreeing that USAID has a primary mission of political interference.

Stopping fascism is kind of important, no?

DP. Not our job. I don’t want Russia buying Facebook ads interfering with our elections and I don’t want to interfere in the internal affairs of another country. Especially an EU member.

The more I learn about USAID from the people DEFENDING USAID the more I dislike it.

Aid in the form of medicine, food, infrastructure development? Awesome. Knock yourself out.

Empire building, journalism (propaganda) and meddling in the internal affairs of another country? No thank you. And frankly, I’m not going to get worked up over Elon and Co. putting a stop to that garbage.

If stopping Orban is so important to you, feel free to go over there and do it yourself. But not in my name.

It may not be "our job" but either we spend a few billion dollars on efforts such as USAID or else we spend trillions in ground wars, sacrificing American blood while destroying the business models of the US companies and the hundreds of thousands they employ around the country.

It is an investment in peace and stability.

You now, arming and training the mujahideen to resist the USSR was an “investment in peace” that whipsawed back on us a couple decades later and directly resulted in trillions of dollars of ground wars and resulted in tens of thousands of American casualties and hundreds of thousands of lost civilian lives.

Maybe, just maybe, it is rational for some of us to believe that well intended foreign interventions can actually raise risks for our country?

Is it perhaps rational that they decrease the risks for our country? Are you an international security expert?

Of course. Reasonable minds can disagree.

But the people who are defending USAID in this thread are the ones accusing the rest of us of not being patriotic; of being nazi-enablers; of being surrender monkeys who care nothing for the safety of our country. I mean, Karl Rove used the same exact talking points twenty years ago.

And the US HAS been safe for the last 20 years where it hasn't directly intervened with the military. So what evidence is there that this strategy is not an effective tool?

We’re presently fighting a proxy war to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars in Eastern Europe with a nuclear-armed enemy on the other side; we are deeply entangled in the Gaza mess; we are drone striking people in Africa; we need to permanently fund a Syrian desert prison or terrorists will go free; we are in constant conflict with Iran (which at one time was the closest thing we had to a westernized ally in Middle East but American intervention did a bang up job there USA! USA! USA!); we have promised Taiwan that we would be ready to actively help the island against mainland aggression; and this is just the obvious stuff…. Eventually so many plates are spinning that they’ll all come crashing down. And, not for nothing, it took twenty years for us to see the unintended consequences of Afghanistan intervention.

If this is your definition of safe, okay. Please sign your sons and daughters up. But it is perfectly reasonable for some of us to want this to go in a different direction.

You're proving the point. How has the US homeland been impacted?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is bananas. As I wrote in a different thread, I'm an immigrant from subsaharan Africa and every single freaking person in the third world nations USAID controlled with its money knows that they are (were?) the "nice" face of the CIA. I am so glad Americans are finally waking up to this. We all told you for decades and there were news reports, but we were too poor and black and brown and foreign for you guys to care. Now that your fellow white men are telling you USAID is a shambolic front, you should finally listen.

The "Third World" or "global south" or whatever you want to call us poor black and brown people of the world need the U.S. to stop all of its evil, exploitative policies that keep our countries in the position of needing aid. Charity is no substitute for justice.

Whether he is doing it for the right reasons or the wrong reasons, Trump is pulling back America's predatory hand and the rest of the world is breathing a sigh of relief. USAID gives with one hand, and takes much more with the other. Just go and let us sort ourselves out without the CIA constantly in the mix engineering regime change and using monetary policy to bind our nations financially so we have to prioritize what America wants.

I'm not from Africa, but another developing country and agree with ALL OF THIS. It's time for some changes.

[Anonymous]

LA Times 2015:

Elon Musk’s growing empire is fueled by $4.9 billion in government subsidies

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is bananas. As I wrote in a different thread, I'm an immigrant from subsaharan Africa and every single freaking person in the third world nations USAID controlled with its money knows that they are (were?) the "nice" face of the CIA. I am so glad Americans are finally waking up to this. We all told you for decades and there were news reports, but we were too poor and black and brown and foreign for you guys to care. Now that your fellow white men are telling you USAID is a shambolic front, you should finally listen.

The "Third World" or "global south" or whatever you want to call us poor black and brown people of the world need the U.S. to stop all of its evil, exploitative policies that keep our countries in the position of needing aid. Charity is no substitute for justice.

Whether he is doing it for the right reasons or the wrong reasons, Trump is pulling back America's predatory hand and the rest of the world is breathing a sigh of relief. USAID gives with one hand, and takes much more with the other. Just go and let us sort ourselves out without the CIA constantly in the mix engineering regime change and using monetary policy to bind our nations financially so we have to prioritize what America wants.

It's like politicians day about Central American countries. Um, like who created that mess that makes migrants flee to US if A? Yep you guessed it...the great US of A.

Exactly right. And Democrats want to keep things exactly as they are.

Who said anything about keeping things exactly as they are? If you want to reform, reform, it you want to adjust, adjust, but shutting it all down with no plans for what fills the vacuum is destructive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really do not care that this agency is gone.

Get over it.

And 85% of Americans agree. Out of the 15% that disagree, 95% live in the beltway.

Cite for this? Or is this just more imaginary BS?

Last I saw, the polling for Projext 2025 was around 10% support, so I will go with those polling numbers rather than your made up BS.

I was being hyperbolic to highlight the DMV echo chamber on this (and many many other things). Not even 6.5% of the DC vote was for Trump.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Your glee at the unemployment of 13,706 people is nauseating. I am laying off all my staff because of the USAID shutdowns. The single moms, the dads with kids with cancer, the fresh-faced kids with their first apartment leases. And since my programs are shut down we aren’t stopping that Ebola outbreak in Uganda or preventing babies from getting Malaria in Nigeria. That’s what we all did all day. And we got paid the kind of salaries that people on this board scoff at, and we live in neighborhoods most of you won’t enter. Because we aren’t rolling in dough based on some big USAID fraud, right? We are nurses and social workers who use our skills in other countries.

What the F is WRONG with you?

Why was USAID operating in Hungary?

https://rumble.com/v29a3te-usaid-in-hungary.html

Samantha Power didn't seem to think her mission was helping starving people in Africa, but rather building media operations to take out political opponents.

Fascism has taken hold in Hungary. USAID projects provide soft diplomacy to promote democracy (in this case through a free press) as part of overall global stability efforts. There a reason authoritarian leaders or cheering on this effort to dismantle USAID.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/06/authoritarian-usaid-elon-musk

Please think through who is supporting the destruction if USAID and what they have to gain from it.

Now you are agreeing that USAID has a primary mission of political interference.

Stopping fascism is kind of important, no?

DP. Not our job. I don’t want Russia buying Facebook ads interfering with our elections and I don’t want to interfere in the internal affairs of another country. Especially an EU member.

The more I learn about USAID from the people DEFENDING USAID the more I dislike it.

Aid in the form of medicine, food, infrastructure development? Awesome. Knock yourself out.

Empire building, journalism (propaganda) and meddling in the internal affairs of another country? No thank you. And frankly, I’m not going to get worked up over Elon and Co. putting a stop to that garbage.

If stopping Orban is so important to you, feel free to go over there and do it yourself. But not in my name.

It may not be "our job" but either we spend a few billion dollars on efforts such as USAID or else we spend trillions in ground wars, sacrificing American blood while destroying the business models of the US companies and the hundreds of thousands they employ around the country.

It is an investment in peace and stability.

You now, arming and training the mujahideen to resist the USSR was an “investment in peace” that whipsawed back on us a couple decades later and directly resulted in trillions of dollars of ground wars and resulted in tens of thousands of American casualties and hundreds of thousands of lost civilian lives.

Maybe, just maybe, it is rational for some of us to believe that well intended foreign interventions can actually raise risks for our country?

Is it perhaps rational that they decrease the risks for our country? Are you an international security expert?

Of course. Reasonable minds can disagree.

But the people who are defending USAID in this thread are the ones accusing the rest of us of not being patriotic; of being nazi-enablers; of being surrender monkeys who care nothing for the safety of our country. I mean, Karl Rove used the same exact talking points twenty years ago.

You don’t find it questionable to be on the same side as anti-democracy leaders in Venezuela, Iran, Hungary, and Russia, who are all celebrating the closure of USAID?

https://www.newsweek.com/usaid-authoritarian-trump-iran-russia-venezuela-nicaragua-2027789

“Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

-George W. Bush, September 20, 2001

I am old enough to remember what a sh!t storm this statement caused. Never thought I would see this mentality embraced from the left side of the aisle. Good lord. The neoconservatives actually won.

Something about patriotism and dissent.

-Barack Obama.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Your glee at the unemployment of 13,706 people is nauseating. I am laying off all my staff because of the USAID shutdowns. The single moms, the dads with kids with cancer, the fresh-faced kids with their first apartment leases. And since my programs are shut down we aren’t stopping that Ebola outbreak in Uganda or preventing babies from getting Malaria in Nigeria. That’s what we all did all day. And we got paid the kind of salaries that people on this board scoff at, and we live in neighborhoods most of you won’t enter. Because we aren’t rolling in dough based on some big USAID fraud, right? We are nurses and social workers who use our skills in other countries.

What the F is WRONG with you?

Why was USAID operating in Hungary?

https://rumble.com/v29a3te-usaid-in-hungary.html

Samantha Power didn't seem to think her mission was helping starving people in Africa, but rather building media operations to take out political opponents.

Fascism has taken hold in Hungary. USAID projects provide soft diplomacy to promote democracy (in this case through a free press) as part of overall global stability efforts. There a reason authoritarian leaders or cheering on this effort to dismantle USAID.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/06/authoritarian-usaid-elon-musk

Please think through who is supporting the destruction if USAID and what they have to gain from it.

Now you are agreeing that USAID has a primary mission of political interference.

Stopping fascism is kind of important, no?

DP. Not our job. I don’t want Russia buying Facebook ads interfering with our elections and I don’t want to interfere in the internal affairs of another country. Especially an EU member.

The more I learn about USAID from the people DEFENDING USAID the more I dislike it.

Aid in the form of medicine, food, infrastructure development? Awesome. Knock yourself out.

Empire building, journalism (propaganda) and meddling in the internal affairs of another country? No thank you. And frankly, I’m not going to get worked up over Elon and Co. putting a stop to that garbage.

If stopping Orban is so important to you, feel free to go over there and do it yourself. But not in my name.

It may not be "our job" but either we spend a few billion dollars on efforts such as USAID or else we spend trillions in ground wars, sacrificing American blood while destroying the business models of the US companies and the hundreds of thousands they employ around the country.

It is an investment in peace and stability.

You now, arming and training the mujahideen to resist the USSR was an “investment in peace” that whipsawed back on us a couple decades later and directly resulted in trillions of dollars of ground wars and resulted in tens of thousands of American casualties and hundreds of thousands of lost civilian lives.

Maybe, just maybe, it is rational for some of us to believe that well intended foreign interventions can actually raise risks for our country?

Is it perhaps rational that they decrease the risks for our country? Are you an international security expert?

Of course. Reasonable minds can disagree.

But the people who are defending USAID in this thread are the ones accusing the rest of us of not being patriotic; of being nazi-enablers; of being surrender monkeys who care nothing for the safety of our country. I mean, Karl Rove used the same exact talking points twenty years ago.

I don’t think you are a nazi enabler or unpatriotic for questioning the under pinning of USAID. I think you are wrong that it is largely a front for CIA, but we could discuss that. Indeed, I think we need a new relationship with the countries we have historically both robbed and assisted, sometimes both at the same time. I am the OP of the comment you all are responding to.

My problem is the malice, misinformation, and cruelty with which this was done. The fact that maybe the US shouldn’t be the ones providing life saving medication and care doesn’t change the fact that last week we were, and today no one is. People are DYING. Because so many Americans think what USAID does is put on trans musicals in Ireland or something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Your glee at the unemployment of 13,706 people is nauseating. I am laying off all my staff because of the USAID shutdowns. The single moms, the dads with kids with cancer, the fresh-faced kids with their first apartment leases. And since my programs are shut down we aren’t stopping that Ebola outbreak in Uganda or preventing babies from getting Malaria in Nigeria. That’s what we all did all day. And we got paid the kind of salaries that people on this board scoff at, and we live in neighborhoods most of you won’t enter. Because we aren’t rolling in dough based on some big USAID fraud, right? We are nurses and social workers who use our skills in other countries.

What the F is WRONG with you?

Why was USAID operating in Hungary?

https://rumble.com/v29a3te-usaid-in-hungary.html

Samantha Power didn't seem to think her mission was helping starving people in Africa, but rather building media operations to take out political opponents.

Fascism has taken hold in Hungary. USAID projects provide soft diplomacy to promote democracy (in this case through a free press) as part of overall global stability efforts. There a reason authoritarian leaders or cheering on this effort to dismantle USAID.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/06/authoritarian-usaid-elon-musk

Please think through who is supporting the destruction if USAID and what they have to gain from it.

Now you are agreeing that USAID has a primary mission of political interference.

Stopping fascism is kind of important, no?

DP. Not our job. I don’t want Russia buying Facebook ads interfering with our elections and I don’t want to interfere in the internal affairs of another country. Especially an EU member.

The more I learn about USAID from the people DEFENDING USAID the more I dislike it.

Aid in the form of medicine, food, infrastructure development? Awesome. Knock yourself out.

Empire building, journalism (propaganda) and meddling in the internal affairs of another country? No thank you. And frankly, I’m not going to get worked up over Elon and Co. putting a stop to that garbage.

If stopping Orban is so important to you, feel free to go over there and do it yourself. But not in my name.

Just made me think of all the Americans, particularly during WWII, who were called up to fight against fascism and its spread. Their sacrifices, and the sacrifices made by others since, shouldn't be for nothing.

If a government doesn't like USAID programming in its country, it has a right to prevent it. USAID programming, such as training journalists, is clearly stated; it is not happening in a dark room under the cover of night.

I’m thinking of the tens of thousands of Americans that died in Korea and Vietnam because we needed to stop the spread of communism there. Or in Iraq because we needed to spread democracy there. I thought we’d learned to never make that kind of sacrifice of American lives (let alone local civilian lives).

The last thing I want is to see my children called or drafted into service over the internal affairs of some far off place and SOME OF the activities of USAID described here raise the risk of international confrontation. I also don’t want to see that happen over something ad stupid as cheap goods and services.

If you really believe that fascism poses an existential threat to us right now feel free to go fight it yourself or sign your children up for it.

I don’t think it is as simple as a country simply saying they don’t want USAID programming, particular on the “soft” diplomacy stuff. Sure, the tangible, material “aid” can be stopped. The intangible is much harder to control.

NP. You can literally research what has become of foreign governments that pushed back on USAID. If the propaganda war waged against you ("such and such country interfering with polio vaccines!!") doesn't work, then CIA will take off its gloves and come in with soldiers to forcibly remove the head of state and American media will not cover it. Go look at what they did to Aristide in Haiti, for instance. That's right in America's freaking backyard, yet a lot of these progressives who fancy themselves so savvy have no idea when I bring that up.

Jeffrey Sachs has been doing a wonderful job of talking about all this for decades and his reward has been that American media has blacklisted him when he was once a darling of the establishment. He was a shoo-in for the Nobel in Economics and now he will never sniff it.

That's because you sound like a conspiracy theorist.

Yes, that's how you maintain your delusions even though typing Aristide into Google or Jeffrey Sachs into Youtube's search bar would be much faster than maligning me. Well, good news, I'm not here to convince you. Trump is doing good work, whether not he realizes it, and the rest of you can cry.

I appreciate Google for what it is. For historical and political issues you mention, I prefer to use sources that have some vetting done. Sources that have sources. Anyone can stand up a website and share interpretations of events.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Your glee at the unemployment of 13,706 people is nauseating. I am laying off all my staff because of the USAID shutdowns. The single moms, the dads with kids with cancer, the fresh-faced kids with their first apartment leases. And since my programs are shut down we aren’t stopping that Ebola outbreak in Uganda or preventing babies from getting Malaria in Nigeria. That’s what we all did all day. And we got paid the kind of salaries that people on this board scoff at, and we live in neighborhoods most of you won’t enter. Because we aren’t rolling in dough based on some big USAID fraud, right? We are nurses and social workers who use our skills in other countries.

What the F is WRONG with you?

Why was USAID operating in Hungary?

https://rumble.com/v29a3te-usaid-in-hungary.html

Samantha Power didn't seem to think her mission was helping starving people in Africa, but rather building media operations to take out political opponents.

Fascism has taken hold in Hungary. USAID projects provide soft diplomacy to promote democracy (in this case through a free press) as part of overall global stability efforts. There a reason authoritarian leaders or cheering on this effort to dismantle USAID.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/06/authoritarian-usaid-elon-musk

Please think through who is supporting the destruction if USAID and what they have to gain from it.

Now you are agreeing that USAID has a primary mission of political interference.

Stopping fascism is kind of important, no?

DP. Not our job. I don’t want Russia buying Facebook ads interfering with our elections and I don’t want to interfere in the internal affairs of another country. Especially an EU member.

The more I learn about USAID from the people DEFENDING USAID the more I dislike it.

Aid in the form of medicine, food, infrastructure development? Awesome. Knock yourself out.

Empire building, journalism (propaganda) and meddling in the internal affairs of another country? No thank you. And frankly, I’m not going to get worked up over Elon and Co. putting a stop to that garbage.

If stopping Orban is so important to you, feel free to go over there and do it yourself. But not in my name.

It may not be "our job" but either we spend a few billion dollars on efforts such as USAID or else we spend trillions in ground wars, sacrificing American blood while destroying the business models of the US companies and the hundreds of thousands they employ around the country.

It is an investment in peace and stability.

You now, arming and training the mujahideen to resist the USSR was an “investment in peace” that whipsawed back on us a couple decades later and directly resulted in trillions of dollars of ground wars and resulted in tens of thousands of American casualties and hundreds of thousands of lost civilian lives.

Maybe, just maybe, it is rational for some of us to believe that well intended foreign interventions can actually raise risks for our country?

Is it perhaps rational that they decrease the risks for our country? Are you an international security expert?

Of course. Reasonable minds can disagree.

But the people who are defending USAID in this thread are the ones accusing the rest of us of not being patriotic; of being nazi-enablers; of being surrender monkeys who care nothing for the safety of our country. I mean, Karl Rove used the same exact talking points twenty years ago.

I don’t think you are a nazi enabler or unpatriotic for questioning the under pinning of USAID. I think you are wrong that it is largely a front for CIA, but we could discuss that. Indeed, I think we need a new relationship with the countries we have historically both robbed and assisted, sometimes both at the same time. I am the OP of the comment you all are responding to.

My problem is the malice, misinformation, and cruelty with which this was done. The fact that maybe the US shouldn’t be the ones providing life saving medication and care doesn’t change the fact that last week we were, and today no one is. People are DYING. Because so many Americans think what USAID does is put on trans musicals in Ireland or something.

DP.

This, exactly.

A serious evaluation/recalibration of USAID was long overdue.

Simply destroying it without consideration is idiotic and inhumane.

USAID deserves plenty of blame. So do the Trumpers.