Anonymous wrote:Which is worse - USAID funding the Wuhan Lab gain-of-function research or USAID funding Smartmatic Election Systems cimputers?

Which is worst not knowing anything or posting when you know nothing?

In Indonesia before the Indian Ocean tsunami, the 5 newspapers poll approval ratings. The US polled at 24% and Osama bin Laden was at 57%.

A year after the US was polling in the 67% and Bin Laden was polling in the low 20’s. This was because of USAID’s response to the disaster.

Every dollar that is spent at USAID translates to 7 dollars that the US does not spend on military direct action.

Which is worse - USAID funding the Wuhan Lab gain-of-function research or USAID funding Smartmatic Election Systems cimputers?

6,000 journalists and 700 newsrooms received USAID money. Is Jeff getting any USAID money?

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Anonymous wrote:I'm just a regular person and the amount of dumb stuff this dept spends money on is pretty infuriating. Why is there also over 10k employees for a dept most Americans have never heard of. Good riddance and I hope they go back to the core mission under the state dept.

Again, WHY are there over TEN THOUSAND employees for a dept most Americans have NEVER heard of?

Because most of them are out doing the work in the field - different countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, mostly along with the support staff that goes with it.

This is not going to build support - especially when people learn of the ridiculous compensation and entitlements these employees get. Did you know we rent houses and apartments for these employees that happen to come with full time cleaners and personal chefs? The State Department only approves local landlords with robust personal service riders. So these “aid” workers are living in penthouse apartments in Bogota or gated mansions in Abuja with full household staffs - all at taxpayer expense. In Bogota that comes with a fleet of chauffeured SUVs that personally drive their kids to the $61,000 per year British International School that - again - US taxpayers pay for.

Trump places secret service agents in his own luxury resorts while he plays golf and yet here you are talking about people living overseas and helping humanitarian aid? How can you explain that?

We didn't buy the resort for Trump, though. Nor do we subsidize his mortgage. It's different to bill the taxpayers for the accommodations.

All this said, one thing I haven't seen mentioned is that a house staff is much cheaper overseas and is pretty standard for middle class and up. It would be weird to have diplomatic staff living below the normal lifestyle for their relative class in a host nation.

Right - so let them use their very high salary to pay for the staff instead of tying the staff into the state department paid for and approved lease.

Why are you so critical of working people but then you let the richest man in the world take government subsidies?

Huh - is this your comeback? USAID employees abroad compensation packages can near a million dollars. And this post is about USAID. As for Musk - I probably don't agree with many subsidies, but not the point of this discussion topic.

This is so stupid and obviously false. Not a single USAID employee’s compensation package is anywhere close to a million dollars.

https://www.commerce.gov/hr/practitioners/compensation-policies/general-pay/overseas-pay-for-civil-service-employees

There is nowhere in that link that makes ANY suggestion of a million dollar salary or benefit package.

Housing allowance in Bogota is 65k + a year. Education allowance is $18k per kid per year. Hardship pay is 15% of salary. Chauffeured vehicles for all transportation needs about 20k a year. Medical care and expenses can be very high. If a spouse is pregnant they get an all expense paid trip back to the states (full per diem for 4 months) to have the baby. They also get paid plane tickets and travel to take leave. Not saying that we do not need foreign service - but being a foreign assigned USAID employee is not a life of sacrifice and comes with significant cost/compensation.

The stuff gets really good when USAID couples who double dip, meaning a husband and wife couple work for the agency. They will serve their time and retire to start drawing on their retirement and then come back as contractors to the agency and still draw a salary and benefits as contractors, in addition to drawing on the retirement. It's quite a nice hustle, if you can manage it.

Yes, I’m sure if they had to do it again, they’d pay better attention to the optics. But in monetary value, that’s a drop in the ocean.

cut it off

Look, there is waste in almost every private and public enterprise. But these guys are not looking for waste or fraud. They're shutting the entire structure down--no, not moving it to State. Here is what the ramifications are RIGHT NOW from Musk and his henchmen, according to Senator Andy Kim of New Jersey:

As Trump and Musk gut USAID today, I think back to my first day ever working for the US gov, showing up at the Reagan Building to start at USAID. Shame on them for demonizing Americans who are serving our nation, often in difficult and dangerous places.
We can have a policy debate about how much to spend internationally or what programs to fund, but their hate and paranoia towards other Americans go much deeper. I’m proud I worked at USAID.
I worked in USAID/Africa bureau where we helped rehabilitate former child soldiers in Uganda, helped with an emerging famine in Malawi. Trump admin complains about China’s growing influence in Africa but then shuts down one of our best tools to fight this.
USAID helps strengthen our nation’s reputation, showcasing our power and our values. Trump admin is now doing extraordinary damage to our reputation not just in trying to stop USAID’s work but by denigrating the mission of humanitarian and development assistance as a whole.
Their vindictive way of trying to shut down USAID sends signals all over the world that we are a nation at war with itself. It tells authoritarian adversaries that America is distracted and divided. It tells other nations we don’t care about them as China and others try to woo them to their side.
To the workers at USAID, I’m sorry you have been treated the way you have, disrespected in your work, maliciously had your patriotism questioned. You serve your nation and should never be attacked, especially by our own. As someone who once worked at USAID, I stand with you.
These actions by Trump/Musk show America as a nation trampling the rule of law. Trump/Musk cannot unilaterally close USAID or transfer under State. USAID is codified by the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, 22 U.S.C. 6501 et seq.
Any action to shut USAID down would need to go through Congress, and we will fight this. This is all self-inflicted damage. We face real national security threats, and right now our adversaries/competitors are loving what they see — America at war with itself.

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Anonymous wrote:Catholic Relief Services shutting down programs and laying off staff.

https://www.ncronline.org/news/exclusive-catholic-relief-services-lays-staff-cuts-programs-after-usaid-shakeup?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR29YnvTmwIbdDJ1GnW_UZJRVMSGfLgcdQRcFFLjHK2eXKvK-nA1_SI1lRc_aem_2xEm_kI3fOOt-hdMbf4JPQ

This raises an interesting question: how much of these aid dollars result in material benefits to marginalized people and how much is to pay for staffing and other costs?

From the link:

CRS reaches more than 200 million people in 121 countries on five continents, according to its website

Among the programs and services provided by CRS: water and sanitation, education, agriculture, health, microfinancing, climate change resilience, as well as justice and peace-building programs in addition to emergency and disaster assistance.

CRS had 7,000 employees worldwide as of 2018 when it marked its 75th anniversary.

USAID math is always fuzzy and made up when you really dig in to what is going on.

Then why didn’t Congress hold hearings and investigate the agency, as they have authority to do? Why only now is USAID suddenly a target?

They do hold hearings, and issue reports, and have IG inspections. These things drag months and months and years and nothing fundamentally changes. It's almost like everyone is in on the game or simply does not care enough. Some of the claims of success that these programs make are highly dubious and USAID has had some really, truly wasteful whoppers out there.

One fundamental problem with USAID is that all of its claims to service U.S. interests and too nebulous and hard to measure. They're been getting away with making these claims for decades.

Again- the price is being paid by poor, black women.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/health/usaid-clinical-trials-funding-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.u04.tr3f.gVZD5qWZEZZt&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Not Serbian drag queens, you idiots.

USAID also bought billions and billions and billions of dollars worth of merchandise from those terrorists in the middle. Yes. They bough agricultural products from US farmers.

Yep. Trump and Elmo have combined to cost the US farmer billions. Congratulations.

Anonymous wrote:Here’s an actual consequence of shuttering USAID. So when Trump points his finger at DEI when the next terrorism attack happens, remember how you thought getting rid of USAID and our domestic and foreign intelligence services was a great idea.


https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/world/europe/trump-usaid-funding-syria-isis.html

President Trump’s funding freeze has thrown into confusion the future of a Syrian desert camp holding thousands of Islamic State members and their families, the camp’s director and people familiar with it said, describing it as a potential security threat in the region.

The camp, Al Hol, which houses some 39,000 people, has been whipsawed by a halt to U.S.-funded programs then short reprieves, and is still struggling to understand its status. Even as some programs critical to securing the camp received temporary extensions, another organization essential to managing the camp said it might have to halt its work there as soon as Monday.

The confusion stems from Mr. Trump’s executive order last month that froze foreign aid and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s announcement on Monday that he was folding the United States Agency for International Development into the State Department. Elon Musk, who runs a task force in the administration, said the aim was to shut down U.S.A.I.D., which supports operations in the camp.

USAID ran prisons?

Seems kind of out of scope for them.

Here’s an actual consequence of shuttering USAID. So when Trump points his finger at DEI when the next terrorism attack happens, remember how you thought getting rid of USAID and our domestic and foreign intelligence services was a great idea.


https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/world/europe/trump-usaid-funding-syria-isis.html

President Trump’s funding freeze has thrown into confusion the future of a Syrian desert camp holding thousands of Islamic State members and their families, the camp’s director and people familiar with it said, describing it as a potential security threat in the region.

The camp, Al Hol, which houses some 39,000 people, has been whipsawed by a halt to U.S.-funded programs then short reprieves, and is still struggling to understand its status. Even as some programs critical to securing the camp received temporary extensions, another organization essential to managing the camp said it might have to halt its work there as soon as Monday.

The confusion stems from Mr. Trump’s executive order last month that froze foreign aid and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s announcement on Monday that he was folding the United States Agency for International Development into the State Department. Elon Musk, who runs a task force in the administration, said the aim was to shut down U.S.A.I.D., which supports operations in the camp.

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These posts are so ridiculous that I can't imagine even the people making them believe them. Do you genuinely think the Jeffrey Epstein who died in 2019 was a director at Kaiser Permanente in 2023?

It's a different guy with the same name. https://www.bvp.com/team/jeff-epstein

MAGA only reads headlines so it’s easy to dupe them.

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Anonymous wrote:I'm just a regular person and the amount of dumb stuff this dept spends money on is pretty infuriating. Why is there also over 10k employees for a dept most Americans have never heard of. Good riddance and I hope they go back to the core mission under the state dept.

Again, WHY are there over TEN THOUSAND employees for a dept most Americans have NEVER heard of?

Because most of them are out doing the work in the field - different countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, mostly along with the support staff that goes with it.

This is not going to build support - especially when people learn of the ridiculous compensation and entitlements these employees get. Did you know we rent houses and apartments for these employees that happen to come with full time cleaners and personal chefs? The State Department only approves local landlords with robust personal service riders. So these “aid” workers are living in penthouse apartments in Bogota or gated mansions in Abuja with full household staffs - all at taxpayer expense. In Bogota that comes with a fleet of chauffeured SUVs that personally drive their kids to the $61,000 per year British International School that - again - US taxpayers pay for.

Do you have any idea what it is like to work in the conditions these government employees work in? Yes, having a place to rotate back to while in country is critically important. Having a safe place for your family is critically important. You are way overblowing how these people and their families are living.

I am not - I have first hand knowledge. If these places are so unsafe - they should be unaccompanied assignments. If they are so unsafe, maybe we should not have a US citizen (accompanied by their children) overseeing US taxpayer funded projects to put on drag shows in these countries.

If you believe the bolded then you brainwashed and a lost cause.

It is true. Also, it is absolutely true these people are living in luxury housing with full time staff sending their kids to elite private schools - all taxpayer funded.

https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/press-release/icymi-u-s-taxpayer-funded-drag-show-exposed/

DRAG SHOWS funded with OUR tax dollars!!!!!