ALL USAID posts combined

I'm wondering if Vegas isn't older than I imagined him.

 

The Senate offices are fielding 1,600 calls a minute, and they aren't congratulating Trump on all his "winning." (Usual phone traffic is 40 calls a minute.)

 

Maybe you should read the article

 

So, like, 12? 13?

 

Some excerpts from an interview with Andrew Natsios the Administrator of USAID under President George W. Bush and a self-described conservative Republican. Following is a link to the interview in its entirety:
A former Republican USAID administrator doesn’t like what he’s seeing
Tom Temin And you have been speaking out, I think, and writing about what is going on at U.S. aid. And even as a Republican former administrator, this doesn’t look too good to you, does it?
Andrew Natsios Well, I’m outraged by it. What Musk has said is boldfaced lie. There is an obsession with accountability at USAID. What he does is he brings these young kids in in their early 20s who are techies. I don’t even know if some of them have been outside the country. They certainly don’t know anything about development. And the aid procurement system is very complex; unless you’ve been trained in it, you don’t even know what you’re reading. Okay. When he says it’s a ball of worms, it is not a ball of worms. It’s a complex system to get thousands of [non-governmental organizations], women’s groups, farmers groups, businesses around the world and in the U.S. Last year, through a thing called the Global Development Alliance, which I developed in 2001 — been around now for 24 years through Democrat and Republican administrations — and it takes money from corporations and matches it with USAID money. We don’t give them any money. They don’t give us any money. We jointly fund aid programs in the developing world. I’ll give you an example. We had a coffee program that’s very famous in Rwanda. Coffee, before we started, it was the worst coffee in Africa, was Rwandan coffee. $3 a pound. It’s $12 a pound now, the last time I looked. And who are we doing this with? Starbucks and Green Mountain Coffee. Okay. They’re funding 75% of it. They’re not doing this for charity. They’re doing this because they want high quality of coffee. It increased coffee farmers’ income by 450%, 50,000 farmers, and their incomes dramatically rose. Kagame, the president of Rwanda, talks about it all the time, doesn’t mention it as an aid project. Those kinds of public private alliances amount now to $6 billion a year from corporate America. Corporations aren’t running around saying USAID is a can of worms and all this rhetoric from Musk. He’s doing that and the [Office of Management and Budget] is doing it because they want to save money in the budget. Now, I happen to think the federal budget deficit is catastrophic for our economy. Both Trump and Biden are responsible for it. It’s not just Biden. Trump had $1 trillion budget deficit before COVID in his first term.

Tom Temin And a small piece of the overall spend anyway, if you really look at the numbers. But getting back to USAID, is there any evidence at all, is there any germ of truth in that it might have strayed from its mission in some of the grants that it’s made for parades and cultural affairs and this kind of thing?
Andrew Natsios Sure. We transfer our cultural wars in the U.S. to our aid program. And USAID does it because both parties do it. I’m a conservative Republican. I’m not a moderate. They’ll tell you I was the most conservative administrator in the history of the agency. But the career people helped me do what I need to do because I was strengthening the agency, not weakening it. Okay. When the conservatives take over and the Republicans take over, they move USAID right of center. When the Democrats take over, they move it to the left of center. And the career people, if you trust them and treat them respectfully, which this administration is most definitely not doing, they will help you do it as long as they think — and they’ll tell you, “if you do this, you’re going to get into a lot of trouble. This is illegal. This is legal. Don’t do this here. Do this here.” I followed their advice and it avoided me getting into trouble everywhere. So I have great respect for the career people. I might add, I’ve run seven institutions in the last 45 years. The career staff at USAID, Foreign Service, are the most competent managers and the smartest people I worked with. And again, I’m not a liberal. Okay. These insults are outrageous. And how does he know what’s going on? He was there for two weeks and he’s an expert in USAID? Give me a break. It’s not the hugest federal agency, but it’s the most complex.

Tom Temin I’m guessing you’re going to mention the health programs of USAID.
Andrew Natsios The second biggest program in aid is our health programs. We’ve saved 25 million people’s lives who had HIV/AIDS. Because we have a huge program, massive; President Bush started it, actually, and President Obama continued, and so did President Trump under the first term. Those programs are all at risk now. Our whole apparatus is collapsing around the world for these health clinics that we run. Now, those health clinics have a highly sophisticated system of disease reporting in 90 countries. If we see a new disease we’ve never seen before or a thing like Ebola, the new strain of Ebola that’s popping up in Uganda. We have a global supply chain, a very complex, huge system. We can order vaccines to go in and vaccinate everybody in Uganda, so this will not turn into a pandemic. Do you want Ebola across our border? The notion that you can stop diseases at our border is delusional. It’s a fantasy. Did we stop COVID at our border? No, we did not. And you know why? We didn’t know what was going on in China? Because there’s no USAID mission there. Now, I’m not, I would never suggest we have a USAID mission — the Chinese would arrest all our people. The Chinese, by the way, and Russians have been trying to undermine our programs in the developing world, particularly Africa, for a very long time now. The Russians have a disinformation campaign attacking us. You know that Medvedev, who is the prime minister in Russia. He issued a tweet last Sunday complimenting Musk for destroying USAID. “We’ve been trying to do it for years. We’re so glad you did it.” So we are now helping our enemies. Does that make any sense? And I have to tell you, anybody who thinks Vladimir Putin is a friend of the United States doesn’t know what’s going on. I just edited a book of essays called Russia Under Putin: Fragile State and Revisionist Power. And Vladimir Putin will not like the book.

 

Can’t tell but looks like more than four paragraphs?

 

I combined the questions and answers into single paragraphs. The responses from Natsios were very long and detailed. Each answer was formatted in the source as a single paragraph.

 

it just keeps getting worse

https://www.theblaze.com/shows/blaze-news-tonight/usaid-taxpayer-dollars

 

hmmm

Justice Department opens inquiry into people who threatened DOGE employees

 

A 50 min youtube video of "The Blaze" opinion pundit Jill Savage? No thanks.

Part of Jill Savage's "report"? "Chelsea Clinton reportedly got $84 million from USAID,”



Fact Check: Did Chelsea Clinton Take Home $84 Million From USAID?

 

If you didn't read post #218, get this one key point "What Musk has said is a boldfaced lie."

 

So, the story casually mentions that Chelsea Clinton received $84 million from USAID and then doesn't mention a thing more about it. And, seriously Bill, you thought that was believable?

 

Ah, the NAZI card. Sadly, The racist supremacist fascist homophobe xenophobic cards have been used so much they’ve lost their value. See results of 2024 election.

 

I don’t know the details. Likely neither does any of the press. Hearing people prattle on over this issue or that - when it’s not even been identified or confirmed- is a waste of time.

I want UF football players to be upstanding citizens and realize that not all will be. Do we terminate the relationship because a player used a slur? This board seems to major in minors.

 

Huh? Musk did a poll on twitter asking if should rehire the guy, now it is widely report that he did? Where is your confusion coming from? This is who you are now. And yeah, we do "terminate the relationship" because a player used an offensive slur. That literally happened exactly as you described with Marcus Stokes. Imagine our football team holding teenagers to higher standards than your political party...

 

my ignorance on this issue has to do more with the primacy of other things in my life rather than reading all the details about this.

Apparently, five or six years ago, this 25-year-old posted some racist, stupid things. So, I guess the question is he should never be employed by anyone ever?

The question is not what stupid things did he do in the past, but rather what is he like now and can he fulfill the obligations of the job?

if he’s working for Musk then this is musk‘s decision. I’m giving up worrying about what every decision billionaires make for Lent and am starting early. Carry on

 

Ask WDG if Charles Barkley or a host of other celebrities should be employed right now. Doubt any of their employers took a vote of their piers either. The hypocrisy from the left is amazing. But, when you have no message of your own ...

 

Check again.

Not 5 or 6 years ago. July and September.

There is a pretty big gap between never hiring somebody and handing them access to the personal information for every person receiving any form of payment from the federal government.

Do you figure that he went through deep soul searching in October/November and came out drastically different?

Wait, isn't Musk supposed to be working for the government?

 

There you go using facts... just the type of "hypocrisy" the left is always accused of. LOL