Donald Trump tweeted “Looks like billions of dollars have been stolen at USAID and other agencies much of it going to the fake news media as a payoff for creating good stories about the Democrats”. Revelations about corruption in the USAID beg questions about the integrity of Australia’s aid programs.
There are long-standing questions dating back to the Clinton days and before the Rudd ALP Government.
The Clintons are estimated to be worth between $120 million and $240 million having been in debt by $16 million when Bill left office in January 2001. According to the newsagency, Associated Press, 85 private sector stakeholders, which is more than half of the non-government people who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state, gave money — either personally or through companies or groups — to the Clinton Foundation. This amounted to $156 million. In addition, Clinton met with representatives of at least 16 foreign governments that donated as much as $170 million to the Clinton charity. Australia was among these governments.
According to Grok, in:
February 2006: $25 million was donated to the Clinton Foundation by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer
October 2006: Another 15 million was given for HIV/AIDS initiatives by the Clinton Foundation
April 1 2008– September 5 2008: Under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd $10 million was donated to the Clinton Foundation
September 2012: Under Prime Minister Julia Gillard $14 million was donated while Hillary Clinton was the US Secretary of State. Gillard later Chaired the Foundation’s Global Partnership for Education
September 22 2014: Foreign Minister Julie Bishop announced a commitment of $88 million over five years to the Clinton Health Access Initiative, a sister organisation to the Clinton Foundation
Miranda Devine reported, “The Abbott government topped up the left-wing organisation’s coffers with another $140 million in 2014, bringing total Australian largesse to $460 million, according to a press release from Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. The funding ceased in 2016, when Trump assumed office.
Section 70.2 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code Act 1995 makes it illegal for Australian individuals or companies to bribe foreign officials. Apparently, the law does not extend to Australian officials and politicians!
AusAID (which Tony Abbott located within DFAT in 2013) follows a similar playbook to USAID. Thus:
DFAT has a $3.5 million Inclusion and Equality Fund to support LGBTQIA+ organisations to catalyse change in their communities.
ODA spent $619 million (15 per cent of its budget) on climate related issues in 2022/23. It is not clear that grants to NGOs pressing climate issues are included.
Other Australian agencies are also involved in foreign expenditures. These include considerable funding for activities associated with climate change under the IPCC and the biennial Conference of Parties in which Foreign Affairs participate (as do CSIRO, BoM, Industry, Agriculture and others). These activities will surely soon be fully recognised as the gross destructive squandering of resources that they always were.
The Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute (GCCSI) was initially launched in 2008 by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd who committed up to $100 million annually as part of his aim to make Australia a global leader in CCS technology. Over 15 years of total failure has not daunted its subsidy-seekers’ zeal.
More recently, the Quad Clean Energy Supply Chain Diversification Program, a spin-off from the diplomatic partnership between Australia, India, Japan and the United States, has a $50 million budget administered by “Business Australia”. Round 1, which closed on February 10, provides up to $2.5 million in funding for Australian and Indo-Pacific joint applications for studies to develop and diversify clean energy supply chains in the Indo-Pacific region. Such a scheme would not find support from President Trump but will program inertia allow it to survive the changed US agenda?
If Australia is ever to get the Trumpian leadership it needs, such programs will have to be excised, perhaps by using techniques, pioneered by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), involving freezing bank accounts.
Banning pharmaceutical advertisements from television is just one of the many ways RFK Jr has planned to disrupt the pharmaceutical industry. Hear how new tech pharmacies are peddling compounded drugs like injectable weight loss medications without the personal care of a doctor.
Bird flu can be very confusing. This is true because, as is so often the case with our government, those who claim to be trying to solve the problem – our so-called “public health” and “pandemic preparedness” “experts” – are actually the ones who created the problem. What is worse, they are actively seeking to perpetuate it.
In this brief article, my goal is to explain what is happening with H5N1 Bird flu in the clearest, most fundamental terms. I hope to make it so clear that all our elected officials can understand what is going on, and therefore can take action to stop it.
The key to understanding the current Bird flu panic is this: Bird flu is a complete rerun of the Covid script. There is just one twist:
Last time, with Covid, the pandemic-planning bioterrorists directly blackmailed us by taking away our civil rights, in order to coerce us to accept their unsafe and ineffective vaccines.
This time, with Bird flu, the pandemic planning bioterrorists are indirectly blackmailing us by targeting our food, in order to coerce us to accept more of their unsafe and ineffective vaccines into our food supply and those who supply it.
Here is their playbook. Learn it, and you can understand how to put an end to it.
Let’s review. What happened during Covid?
Over many years, bioweapons scientists, under the guise of “pandemic preparedness,” genetically manipulated a bat coronavirus to be both transmissible and virulent in humans. In other words, they created a bioweapon.
Meanwhile, they also developed and patented technologies for vaccines against that same virus. In other words, they created the countermeasure to their bioweapon.
In late 2019, the lab-manipulated coronavirus bioweapon, SARS CoV-2, was leaked from a lab.
While the countermeasure vaccines were rushed into production, “public health” authorities took advantage of the lab leak by denying its occurrence, while simultaneously coercing governments to impose lockdowns and other civil rights violations on the human population.
To perpetuate the lockdowns, “public health” authorities performed indiscriminate PCR testing for the virus among the population, knowing full well this would generate countless false positives.
The authorities used this excessive testing along with media-generated fear-mongering and governmental abuse of power, to prolong the lockdowns and the civil rights abuses.
The lockdowns and civil rights abuses were used to blackmail the population into mass acceptance of the vaccines into their own bodies, in exchange for a return to normal life.
What is happening now, with H5N1 Bird flu?
Over many years, bioweapons scientists, under the guise of “pandemic preparedness,” have genetically manipulated the H5N1 avian influenza virus to cross classes of animals and even become more transmissible to humans. In other words, they created a bioweapon.
Meanwhile, they also developed and patented technologies for vaccines against that same virus. In other words, they created the countermeasure to their bioweapon.
In early 2022, a lab-manipulated Bird flu bioweapon leaked from the USDA Southeast Poultry Lab in Athens, GA. Multiple Bird flu leaks have also occurred from other labs.
While the countermeasure vaccines are being rushed into production, “public health” authorities take advantage of these lab leaks by denying their occurrence, while simultaneously coercing our government to impose mass slaughter of farm animals, creating food shortages for the human population.
To perpetuate the mass slaughter and worsen food shortages, “public health” authorities are performing indiscriminate PCR testing for the virus among the animal population and farmers, knowing full well this will generate countless false positives.
Authorities are using this excessive testing along with media-generated fear-mongering and governmental abuse of power, to prolong the mass slaughter of farm animals and the food shortages.
The mass slaughter of farm animals and resulting food shortages are being used to blackmail the population into mass acceptance of the vaccines in their food supply, in exchange for a return to normal life.
This is not conspiracy theory. This is basic pattern recognition.
The “pandemic planners” are operating just like a moderately competent, if unimaginative, high school football coach. If you run a play, and it works, run it again. Keep running it until they stop it.
How do we stop it?
Here’s how:
End the brutal mass slaughter of poultry flocks immediately. This disgusting, death-wish practice is directly analogous to the deadly and unconstitutional human lockdowns during Covid. It is also an act of biological terrorism. It traumatizes farmers, wastes resources, creates food shortages, is inhumane in the extreme to animals, and does nothing to stop the virus. Let the flocks develop natural immunity. Slaughtered flocks cannot develop natural immunity to a virus, just as locked-down human populations cannot either. Sound familiar?
End the indiscriminate PCR testing for Bird flu in animals and humans immediately. A positive PCR test is like the proverbial grand jury indictment – you can get one on a ham sandwich if you try hard enough. Willy-nilly PCR testing creates innumerable false positives, which fuels the fear porn and hysteria, paralyzes decision-makers, and promotes population-wide blackmail.
The USDA appears to be acting as a rogue agency. The USDA’s leadership needs to be thoroughly reviewed and, well, culled. All those attached to the pandemic preparedness industry, and all those perpetuating the fear-mongering, irresponsible mass PCR testing, mass slaughter of animals, etc. must be immediately removed from the agency. They represent not only a threat to animals and the food supply but to President Trump’s entire second term.
The personnel at the CDC need a similar prompt and thorough overhaul. TheCDC, while somewhat chastened by President Trump’s executive order silencing HHS agencies, and benefitting from the departure of former Director Mandy Cohen, is still led by Biden-era appointments whose past resumes raise serious doubt about their willingness to abandon the Covid-era “pandemic planning” model of public health. For example, acting director Susan Monarez, PhD’s bio shows multiple Deep State connections to the pandemic preparedness industry. Should she remain at the CDC?
The USDA Southeast Poultry Research Lab in Athens, Ga. should be shut down and thoroughly investigated.
The Kawaoka Bird flu lab at the University of Wisconsin, which has been doing reckless gain-of-function research for decades, and which has had multiple lab leaks, should be shut down and investigated as well.
Brooke Rollins, the new USDA Secretary, needs to be fully briefed on H5N1 Bird flu by honest experts who are not embedded in the pandemic preparedness industry. Individuals such as Meryl Nass, MD, and Peter McCullough, MD and his team would both be excellent choices.
President Trump should follow through on his 2024 promise to disband the redundant, Biden-created Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy (OPPR). Mr. Trump’s instinct was correct then, and it remains correct now.
The $590 Million dollar Bird flu vaccine development contract to Moderna that the Biden administration approved a couple of days before President Trump’s inauguration should be cancelled.
The USDA’s reported “conditional approval” of a Bird flu vaccine with Zoetis should be cancelled. Bird flu vaccination in poultry flocks has been demonstrated in other countries to select for more virulent strains. Furthermore, the CEO of Zoetis has close ties to Pfizer, BlackRock, and the Gates Foundation, all well-established bad actors during the Covid era. Beware, Mr. President.
The “pandemic preparedness” racket isn’t as complicated as it seems. Once one comes to terms with the fact that the arsonists are running the fire department – as they have been demonstrated by DOGE to be doing in so many other areas of government as well – we can recognize what is actually happening and apply the necessary solutions.
C.J. Baker, M.D. is an internal medicine physician with a quarter century in clinical practice. He has held numerous academic medical appointments, and his work has appeared in many journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine. From 2012 to 2018 he was Clinical Associate Professor of Medical Humanities and Bioethics at the University of Rochester.
The EU’s “Democracy Shield,” is presented as a way to strengthen information integrity online, especially in the context of elections – but which opponents believe is another way for the bloc’s bureaucracy to tighten the screws on tech giants, speech-wise – is facing vocal opposition in the European Parliament (EP).
The initiative’s first monthly meeting heard criticism in particular from MEPs that come from conservative and sovereignty parties, who wanted to know what exactly qualifies as “foreign interference in elections” – and why the double standard in the way social media content is treated compared to legacy, corporate media.
Namely, while the latter, in Europe at least almost without exception aligned with those in power, is free to publish any opinion, including those that are biased and could be reasonably expected to impact the outcome of an election, social media accounts get banned, while platforms are forced to change algorithms to limit the reach of any content branded as “foreign interference.”
To this point, some MEPs asked if only Russia is to be considered as a possible “election meddler” – or if other countries, the US included, can play the same role in some scenarios – and, that could be true of the EU itself.
According to European Conservative, MEP Fidias Panayiotou gave an example: “In my country, Cyprus, in 2004, through USAID, the US spent $60 million on the referendum for reunification.”
The main topic of the meeting is the now long-contested presidential election in Romania, where the “surprise” victory of Calin Georgescu got annulled as Brussels went all-in trying to make sure he is not eventually elected (that crisis is ongoing.)
The fact that Georgescu is not to the establishment’s liking, caused him to be labeled “pro-Russian” and, “ultra-nationalist” – while his use of social platforms to get the message across was condemned as some sort of “foreign interference.”
But “Democracy Shield’s” opponents are warning that – yet again – there is an attempt to misuse the term “disinformation” to undermine people’s, and country’s rights, namely their sovereignty.
In the context of elections, sovereignty is further threatened by initiatives such as setting up a new EU intelligence agency – that critics say may result in even more “centralization of electoral control in the hands of EU institutions.”
Anonymous officials informed major US outlets this week about the CIA’s ‘benevolent’ new role: flying MQ-9 Reaper drones over Mexico to spy on drug cartels. What’s wrong with this picture?
Unfortunately for the CIA, anyone with even a cursory knowledge of its activities knows that the agency has been more of an ally, rather than an enemy, to the drug pushers bringing violence and death to American communities.
In 1985, the Iran-Contra scandal exposed the Reagan administration’s facilitation of secret arms sales to Iran to fund rebels in Nicaragua, with the CIA implicated in Contra cocaine trafficking into the US.
In 1996, investigative reporter Gary Webb independently corroborated and elaborated on allegations that the crack epidemic rocking America’s inner cities was linked to traffickers enjoying protection from the CIA.
Webb’s reporting was probed by the federal government and major US media, but any info on the CIA’s involvement was swept under the rug. Webb was found dead in his home in 2004, shot twice in the head. His death was ruled a suicide.
Iran-Contra was just a small part of the CIA’s global drug smuggling empire:
In 1962, Helliwell created the Castle Bank & Trust offshore in the Bahamas to support CIA ops against Castro’s Cuba and other anti-US forces across Latin America. Before that, he ran Overseas Supply, a CIA front company smuggling Burmese opium to finance a dirty war against China.
The Bahamian scandal blew up in 1973 during a tax evasion probe by the IRS, with Richard Nixon attempting to clip the CIA’s wings by creating the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Some believe the move, combined with Nixon’s obsession with the JFK murder, helped precipitate Watergate and the president’s 1974 resignation in disgrace.
Renowned US drug and arms smuggler Barry Seal ran drugs for the Medellin Cartel and, according to US authorities, was recruited as a double agent. But investigative journalist Alexander Cockburn and others have alleged that Seal was a CIA agent as far back as the Bay of Pigs and the Vietnam War implicated for working with the Contras.
In 2017, Juan Pablo Escobar, son of the infamous founder of the Medellin Cartel, confirmed that his dad “worked for the CIA,” and alleged that drugs were being trafficked, by Seal and others, directly to a US military base in Florida.
Independent reporter Manuel Hernandez Borbolla has documented the formation of large Mexican cartels under the protection from the Federal Security Directorate, which the journalist described as “practically employees of the CIA, along with some former Mexican presidents.”
So intricate were the links, Hernandez Borbolla recalled, that infamous CIA agent Felix Ismael Rodriguez was present while members of the Guadalajara Cartel tortured and murdered DEA agent Kiki Camarena in 1985 after he uncovered drug and arms smuggling ops linked to the Contras.
The CIA was allegedly also involved in the 1984 murder of Mexican journalist Manuel Buendia, who was investigating the agency’s drug operations, and corrupt officials’ involvement.
In 2012, Chilean journalist Patricio Mery uncovered a CIA plot to smuggle cocaine from Bolivia to Chile, Europe and the US to raise funds for ops to destabilize Ecuadorian President Correa’s government.
The CIA hasn’t been the only US three-letter agency implicated in drug smuggling and cooperation with cartels, either.
In 2010, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (commonly referred to as the ATF) was accused of “purposely allow[ing] licensed firearms dealers to sell weapons to illegal straw buyers, hoping to track the guns to Mexican cartel leaders and arrest them,” with no arrests ever made. The case, popularly dubbed the ‘Operation Fast and Furious’ scandal, was dubbed a potential ‘Watergate’ moment for the Obama administration by Forbes.
A few years later, El Universal published court documents revealing that from 2000-2012, the DEA collaborated with the Sinaloa Cartel, led by Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, looking the other way as it smuggled drugs into the US in exchange for info on rival cartels.
Earlier this month, The Cradle exposed how in 2023, the US State Department’s shadowy Near East Regional Democracy (NERD) fund earmarked $55 million to stoke unrest in Iran during the following year’s elections.
This was part of a wider US campaign of interference designed to disrupt and destabilize the Islamic Republic. As that investigation noted, details on where this money goes – and who benefits – are strictly confidential as a matter of policy. Still, there are clues in the public domain pointing to at least some recipients.
Regime change by another name
As a US Congressional Research Service report records, due to hostile US–Iran relations, and Tehran’s well-founded view of NERD “as a means of financing regime change,” its programs rely on “third-country training” as well as “online training and media content.”
The report further confirms that despite NERD being Washington’s primary “foreign assistance channel” for projects targeting Iran, “activities, grantees, [and] beneficiaries” are not advertised “due to the security risks posed by the Iranian government.” It continues:
“NERD was created in 2009 as a ‘line item for Iran democracy’ but was not (and is still not) technically Iran-specific … For 2024, the Biden Administration requested $65 million for NERD … to ‘foster a vibrant civil society, increase the free flow of information, and promote the exercise of human rights,’ including at least $16.75 million for internet freedom.”
What was unstated in the report is that NERD represents a simple rebranding of the Iran Democracy Fund, created by former president George W. Bush in 2006 with the explicit goal of toppling the Islamic Republic.
The initiative was ostensibly shut down under Barack Obama three years later, eliciting bitter condemnation from much of the western media, neoconservative pundits, and lawmakers. However, as the BBC acknowledged at the time, the move was in fact “welcomed by Iranian human rights and pro-democracy activists”:
“These US funds are going to people who have very little to do with the real struggle for democracy in Iran and our civil society activists never received such funds,” a Tehran-based human rights lawyer told the British state broadcaster. “The end to this program will have no impact on our activities whatsoever.”
Internet interference
In reality, the program never ended – it was merely repackaged. White House officials maintained the fiction that NERD was focused on democratization rather than regime change, a claim undermined by a June 2011New York Times exposé.
That investigation revealed the Obama administration’s so-called “Internet Freedom” initiative aimed to “deploy ‘shadow’ internet and mobile phone systems dissidents can use to communicate outside the reach of governments in countries like Iran, Syria, and Libya.”
In other words, Washington sought to build a covert legion of regime change operatives in Tehran, and provide them with the technology to coordinate in secret. It is clear from the Congressional report’s marked reference to “internet freedom” that these machinations continue today.
Moreover, as a 2020 report by the DC-based Project on Middle East Democracy noted, organizations genuinely committed to advancing Iranian rights still steer well clear of NERD. An anonymous NGO worker described its “style” as “aggressive.” Another implied NERD is engaged in deeply dirty work:
“We choose not to apply for NERD grants because we do not want to get pulled into [anything] crazy.”
‘Non-Iranian’
The same year, the Financial Times (FT)reported how NERD efforts had become turbocharged under US President Donald Trump’s administration, explicitly to facilitate and encourage “anti-Tehran protests.”
This included “providing apps, servers, and other technology to help people communicate, visit banned websites, install anti-tracking software,” and more in the Islamic Republic, in order to offer “Iranians more options on how they communicate with each other and the outside world.”
Curiously, while portraying Iran as a digital prison, the FT admitted that major western social networks remain accessible in the country, and Iranians can easily view western media. As usual, recipients of NERD funds remained unnamed – except for Psiphon, a VPN provider long-associated with discredited exiled Iranian opposition figures and, by then, controlled by the Open Technology Fund (OTF). The FT estimated that just three million Iranians used Psiphon, less than four percent of the population.
OTF was an “Internet Freedom” product – one of its board members has openly admitted the Fund’s agenda is “regime change.”
Fast forward to September 2024; as former US president Joe Biden’s administration was seeking increased funds for NERD – mere months after the $55 million invested the previous year failed to produce desired mass unrest and upheaval around that year’s elections in Iran – a White House meeting was convened with major tech giants, encouraging them to offer more “digital bandwidth” for OTF-bankrolled apps and tools.
As fund chief Laura Cunningham explained, a “sizeable chunk” of OTF’s budget was taken up by the cost of hosting all the network traffic generated by its vast array of digital destabilization apps, which included Signal and Tor.
While OTF sought to support “additional users” of these products, it lacked resources to keep up with “surging demand.” What came of this meeting, which was attended by representatives of Amazon, Cloudflare, Google, and Microsoft, is not clear.
Yet, if further “digital bandwidth” was granted to OTF, it is clear the Trump administration’s “pause” in overseas aid funding has thrown all NERD’s meddling efforts in Iran into total – and potentially permanent – disarray.
A 27 January report in the Saudi-funded, anti-Islamic Republic Iran International quoted numerous anonymous beneficiaries of US financing bemoaning how grantees, including foreign-run Persian-language media outlets and organizations documenting purported “abuses” to keep the Islamic Republic “accountable,” had been abruptly shuttered.
An anonymous “human rights activist” told the outlet Washington’s freeze on aid spending “(will) impose restrictions on projects that address human rights violations or investigate governmental and military corruption which have impacted Iran’s economy and social conditions in favor of foreign terrorist activities and money laundering.”
They said “several non-Iranian American institutions [emphasis added] have been using these funds to investigate corruption and money laundering.” Now though, “these organizations will be forced to halt their activities.”
‘Severe implications’
US-supplied Virtual Private Network (VPN) services also loomed large among the malign resources impacted by the aid “pause.” A nameless “activist” told Iran International that 20 million Iranians used such tools “to bypass Tehran’s internet curbs.”
The outlet further quoted an article published by Human Rights Activists in Iran, a US-funded NGOnot based in the Islamic Republic, but Virginia, near the CIA’s Langley headquarters: “In today’s Iran, the internet has no meaning without VPNs.”
Such dire warnings were echoed by Ahmad Ahmadian, head of California-based tech firm Holistic Resilience, which “aims to advance internet freedom and privacy by developing and researching censorship circumvention.”
An Iranian expat and alumni of Tehran University, Ahmadian warned major US tech firms “may not be willing or able to continue their support for providing anti-censorship tools” without government support. Such remarks highlight how these supposedly popular resources lack grassroots backing or financing, being wholly dependent on Washington’s sponsorship to operate:
“The leadership of the US government has been crucial in urging big tech companies to provide public services. Without the encouragement of the US government, these companies wouldn’t take the initiative on their own.”
Other unnamed activists further warned Iran International, “the consequences of Trump’s executive order will not remain limited to internet censorship circumvention tools.” They believe that if NERD’s activities “do not receive an exemption within the next month” – by the end of February – “they will either collapse entirely or be deeply curtailed.”
One declared, “the impact of this freeze might not be immediately noticeable, but its severe implications will become evident over time.”
Meanwhile, “internet experts” cautioned that “even if US aid starts again” after the 90-day pause, “the damage is irreversible since many people … might never fully return to using US-backed secure services.”
As The Cradle noted on 11 February, Washington’s forced withdrawal from meddling in Iran could create fresh opportunities for genuine diplomatic engagement between the two long-time adversaries. But another possibility looms: after spending $600 million over a decade with little success, the US may simply be preparing to test out new, potentially more malign regime-change strategies.
There has been considerable controversy surrounding the Trump administration decision to cutback on government agencies that are ostensibly committed to charitable, educational and other nation building activities both overseas and in the United States. This spending, amounting to scores of billions of dollars, has helped produce budget deficits that ballooned in the twenty-first century, largely due to the surge in overseas activity that occurred after the trauma of 9/11 when the United States decided that it had to serve as policeman for the rest of the world to make itself safe. As the US is now verging on bankruptcy due to its unsustainable debts, the second incarnation of the Trump Administration has focused on cutting budgets in areas that it considers to be enemy occupied, often meaning “woke” or institutionally allied to the Democrats. Social programs as well as the bloated defense department spending were considered to be suitable targets so starting during the first week in February, the White House brought down the hammer when it went after a number of government agencies, inter alia calling for huge cuts in Pentagon spending and the complete elimination of the Education Department.
The White House also shut down the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), firing nearly all of its 10,000 employees, reportedly leaving only little more than 600 employees in place to assist in the shutting down or downsizing of facilities in the US and in foreign countries. Also, about 800 awards and contracts that are administered through USAID were reportedly being canceled. There have reportedly been some judicial delays in the firings due to the complexity of removing thousands of employees and families from overseas offices and housing, though the pause is likely to be only temporary.
Tax dollars are traditionally used corruptly to fund projects and policies dear to the hearts of politicians, which is why Ron Paul and others have called for sweeping audits, including of the Federal Reserve system and the Pentagon in particular. This hidden spending is particularly difficult to identify if the program is somehow linked to foreign policy and/or national security, which have traditionally been protected from scrutiny by denying nearly all public access to sensitive information based on the “need to know” principle to safeguard sources and vulnerable activities.
USAID was founded in 1961 during the John F. Kennedy administration to unite several foreign assistance organizations and programs under one agency. At first it was seriously intended to be a mechanism for the US to aid in health, disaster relief, socioeconomic development, environmental protection, democratic governance and education. Its focus, however, eventually became to guide development in parts of the world that suffered from what were considered to be dysfunctional governments and institutions in terms of American interests. USAID has always been funded by the federal government and its upper management has worked closely with the Department of State, to which it is technically accountable, and the intelligence agencies in particular. Its budget in 2023 was $43 billion. Trump’s reduction in force (RIF) of USAID has been accompanied by a shake-up in its management, its remaining responsibilities now being in the hands of the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has considerable experience in special agency management after having served on the Board of the National Endowment for Democracy’s (NED) Republican subsidiary component, the International Republican Institute (IRI). NED, which operates extensively overseas, has also been stripped of funding by Trump.
The dismantling of USAID does not necessarily mean the organization will completely go away, it will just be much reduced and under new management. It will likely have a new mission, though no one is at this point sure what that will mean. And USAID and NED are not alone as the presidential memo has called for a halt to the funding of all the government components that are dependent on taxpayer generated funds to provide what is perhaps euphemistically referred to as “foreign aid.” USAID and NED do have humanitarian projects, i.e. feeding the hungry, but they are primarily politically driven. The NED component IRI puts it this way on its website “Our mission at IRI—advancing democracy worldwide—is a battle with many fronts. I am proud to say that IRI is supportive of every endeavor that will bring freedom to more people. We have made progress in our mission by giving hope to those who wish to protest on a city street, run for office, or cast a ballot.”
So the aid organizations overtly have a political role, but how does it translate in practice and does it extend to playing favorites with the US media and political parties? Trump has put it another way, declaring that USAID leaders were “radical left lunatics.” This is what he claims on his website Truth Social:
“LOOKS LIKE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS HAVE BEEN STOLEN AT USAID, AND OTHER AGENCIES, MUCH OF IT GOING TO THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA AS A ‘PAYOFF’ FOR CREATING GOOD STORIES ABOUT THE DEMOCRATS. THE LEFT WING ‘RAG,’ KNOWN AS ‘POLITICO,’ SEEMS TO HAVE RECEIVED $8,000,000. Did the New York Times receive money??? Who else did??? THIS COULD BE THE BIGGEST SCANDAL OF THEM ALL, PERHAPS THE BIGGEST IN HISTORY! THE DEMOCRATS CAN’T HIDE FROM THIS ONE. TOO BIG, TOO DIRTY!”
There are, in fact, credible reports that the 2019 impeachment of Trump was driven by the actions and disinformation coming from CIA, FBI and USAID operatives, so it is plausible to assume that Trump is now settling scores. Beyond that, USAID and NED are both notorious for their roles in the business of covertly supporting opposition political parties worldwide and assisting in regime change. Billionaire philanthropist George Soros, through his network of organizations, received $260 milllion from USAID for funneling funds to non-governmental-organizations (NGOs) connected with Soros’ Open Society Foundations, which are known for advocating for radical policies and regime changes globally. Soros is also a Democratic Party favorite and major fund raiser, having recently received at a White House ceremony the honor of the Presidential Medal of Freedom presented in absentia to his son Alex from outgoing President Joe Biden.
As a result, both USAID and NED have been banned from foreign countries, including Russia, due to their meddling in local politics. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who was often a target of USAID activity, immediately thanked Trump for his decision to cancel USAID. Both USAID and NED were deeply involved in Eastern Europe. Former Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland has revealed that the aid agencies were deeply engaged in the multiple source $5 billion dollar multiyear US “investment” in Ukraine that culminated in regime change in 2013 and led to the current war with Russia. In government circles it has frequently been asserted that USAID and NED and other such organizations now do what the CIA used to do routinely in terms of regime change between its founding and the 1990s.
One might suggest that recent US governments, operating through their various subsidiaries like USAID and NED have been funding just about everything to control a world community in line with American interests. Mainstream media worldwide that is directly or indirectly funded reportedly includes journalists, news outlets, and activist NGOs and sites – and that’s just through USAID. That would appear to include Reuters, Associated Press, BBC, The Guardian, NBC, CNN, NPR, NYT, Politico, PBS, The Financial Times, The Atlantic, The Daily Telegraph, as well as much more media in the developing world. The anti-China hysteria media “ecosystem” currently depends on US government funding, and is already complaining about the impending shutdown of USAID support. To cite only one example of how it is packaged, Reuters news service has received millions in funding from the US government specifically for “active social engineering.”
Labor unions are also funded by USAID which is also behind the recent political unrest in Slovakia. It has also paid for multiple coup attempts in Venezuela, funded high profile trips for Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky to improve his image and popularity, and funded al-Qaeda linked groups in Syria to successfully overthrow the government in Damascus. Going back to Trump’s first term of office, it is interesting to observe that most of the “aid” to opposition parties to overthrow Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela was delivered during 2019, so Trump, guided by hardliners John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, was not at that time shy about regime change. In fact, Voice Of America (VOA), which often served as a CIA mouthpiece, even reported that Trump had tripled aid to opposition figure Juan Guaido to $56 million. Those asking themselves why Trump has now decided to “oppose” the very semi-covert agency that he’s also been using for regime change have a point, but it might be appropriate to see the shakeup as a warning against government information, law enforcement and intelligence agencies again becoming tools of the Democratic Party politicians.
Defenders of USAID are arguing that the agency is being maligned, that in addition to its political profile it is heavily engaged in promoting health and wellness worldwide. The head of USAID under Joe Biden was the highly controversial and very much “woke” Samantha Power, who claims somewhat disingenuously that the agency budget of $38 billion in 2023 included something like $20 billion in spending that should appropriately be described as humanitarian. Those who are the recipients of the programs, mostly in the third world, will consequently suffer from the defunding of aid. If that is actually so, it perhaps would make sense to roll such programs into a mechanism that would not be tied to regime change and corruption of local governments and media.
There is some question even in Congress concerning whether there will be a new centralized aid agency and what it will be called or do now that it has been reduced in size and will likely have a tiny budget relative to what it once enjoyed. It is early days and the answer to that question will likely emerge before too long, but it should be pointed out that at no point has Rubio or anyone else in the Trump administration actually condemned aggressive US engagement abroad or claimed they will bring it to an end. The State Department has even officially said the only goal is to ensure the good things that USAID did will continue by “advancing American interests abroad.” Given some of the recent aggressive positions taken by the Trump Administration over Gaza, Panama, Canada, Mexico, Iran and Greenland as well as the tendency on the part of its top officials to increase pressure on perceived adversaries, it may be that the US isn’t changing course at all. It quite plausibly might be doubling down, and organizations like USAID and NED, even if their names, roles and leadership change, will likely be integral to that process.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić told “Epilogue” viewers on TV Insider that U.S. President Donald Trump directly mentioned Serbia as a place where USAID wanted a regime change, reports Blic.
“Someone was only waiting for additional tragedies, meanwhile preparing different types of scenarios for some new riots and for some new attacks on the state. And that is nothing new, and it can be seen through the words of President Donald Trump. Donald Trump directly mentioned Serbia yesterday, the president of the United States of America directly mentioned Serbia as a place where they wanted a political change of government. Those who received American money to overthrow the government,” said Vučić in the Epilogue show on TV Insider.
In July of last year, the government of Serbia issued a joint statement with USAID regarding $18 million of new funds for a “development partnership,” and outlets have pointed out that the government has thanked the U.S. for such money in the past.
The July statement noted that the new “funds will be used, among other things, to improve public procurement procedures in Serbia, improve access to justice for citizens, improve environmental protection and energy security, promote a stronger media environment, improvement of economic opportunities for vulnerable groups, as well as for greater competitiveness of the Serbian economy.”
Vučić admitted during his TV interview that money has been received and used, but primarily for “senseless projects that were supposed to cover the eyes,” while the real intent of most funding was to overthrow the government. Asked about the “many videos” of himself and other officials thanking USAID for funding projects, Vučić said that “when someone gives you 1,000 euros, it is up to you to still politely say ‘thank you.’”
He then indicated that money was spent on equipping Serbian courts with various recording devices, microphones and many other things. But far larger amounts were being handed to NGOs such as Trag and CRTA.
“In the last four years, there were 400 million (dinar), of which not even 10 million went to the state. Everything went your way for the non-governmental sector,” said Vučić.
Oddly, in April of 2024, a few months before USAID’s additional $18 million was announced, Trag and CRTA jointly announced a USAID competition for grants under what they called a “Mobilization Fund program.”
“Trag Foundation and CRTA, with the financial support of the American Agency for International Development (USAID), invite you to apply for the competition for the Mobilization Fund program.”
Listed activities that could receive grants included: “local community development, human rights, anti-discrimination, women’s rights and women’s empowerment, youth empowerment, inclusion, solidarity economy, environmental protection, socio-economic development, rule of law, accountability of public institutions, fight against corruption, urbanism and public spaces and all others in which activists recognize challenges.”
Former prime minister and president of the National Assembly of Serbia Ana Brnabic has been called out as well for her gratitude in the past for USAID funds that had presumably “improved” the country. Now, with Trump in office, she is changing her tune, saying the “investigative media outlets” financed by USAID had systematically harmed Serbia, according to Tanjug.
“In the past 10-11 years, they have been implying that anyone who engages in politics is, in a way, corrupt or wants to be corrupt. That has made it impossible for the many quality people who wanted to help, or were perhaps helping from the background all the time, to get involved as state secretaries or ministers because they would, in fact, immediately be targeted by various media such as Krik,” Brnabic said on Pink TV.
Brnabic further let the cat out of the bag, noting there is no such thing as independent media, which merely implies reliance on U.S. money from special interest groups.
“You can see that those media outlets and the people working there were quite dependent. It is just that they were dependent on the American administration and, to make things worse, not on a U.S. administration elected by American citizens, but on what is referred to as the deep state,” Brnabic said.
According to Tanjug, Serbia will further investigate the spending of USAID funds if the U.S. asks.
Regarding the media portal Kric, mentioned above. President Vučić had a recent spat with one of its journalists who tried, again, to corner Vučić with supposed information on his brother at the opening of the International Tourism Fair in Belgrade.
The journalist said that Andrej Vučić’s name was brought up in recorded messages, indicating he held power over state contracts in Novi Sad and also regarding police appointments.
Vučić called the allegations “a notorious lie,” reiterated his brother holds no political office, and then turned on the journalist, asking, “I am interested in you answering the question of how much money you received from USAID, how much from NED? How much money did these two criminal organizations, both one and the other, transfer to you? How much, as the American president and one of the most famous secular, one might say, businessmen, Elon Musk, who calls these criminal organizations? How much money did they give you for this?
Making fun of the allegations from third parties, Vučić said, “Many people also write that I told them I would jump from the Smilovica lookout, but I haven’t jumped yet.” He then pointed out that, on the other hand, the funding Kric has received from the U.S. is a fact.
The journalist then accused the president of targeting journalists, again, to which Vučić replied: “How can I target you? I’m just asking how much money you received.”
The United States has reportedly given $937 million to Serbia since 2001. Although the USAID site is no longer online, a Google search still shows entries, with one for Serbia saying this money was meant for “economic and democratic development.”
For the longest time, USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) have been funding foreign NGOs to influence local populations through media propaganda and the presence of a civil society consensus. Donald Trump just pulled the plug by defunding USAID and even going after the NED. This is unprecedented in modern history that a state dismantles its own cognitive warfare apparatus. What happened?
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has firmly rejected attempts by left-wing organizations to secure European Union funding following U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to freeze USAID programs worldwide. In a defiant tweet, Orbán accused globalist, liberal, and Soros-backed NGOs of seeking refuge in Brussels after their financial pipeline from the U.S. was cut off.
“Our fears have come true,” Orbán wrote. “The globalist-liberal-Soros NGO network is fleeing to Brussels after President Trump dealt a huge blow to their activities in the U.S. Now 63 of them are asking Brussels for money under the guise of various human rights projects. Not going to happen!”
The Hungarian leader’s statement came in response to an urgent appeal from the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), which, alongside more than 60 civil society organizations, is pressuring the EU to replace the financial void left by the U.S. aid freeze.
Last month, President Trump signed an executive order imposing a 90-day freeze on all U.S. foreign aid, effectively shutting down USAID funding for international organizations the new U.S. administration believes is often wasted, misused, and out of line with the president’s “America First” approach.
The White House subsequently published a list of USAID projects it said highlighted the “waste and abuse,” including a grant of $1.5m to an LGBTQ group in Serbia, $2.5m for electric vehicles in Vietnam, and $6m for tourism in Egypt. In total, the U.S. spent $68bn on international aid in 2023.
The move immediately prompted widespread criticism from pro-migration, feminist, and LGBTIQ advocacy groups.
With their budgets suddenly cut off, affected organizations have turned to Brussels, urging the EU — the world’s largest foreign aid provider — to step in and cover the shortfall. Their appeal outlined specific demands, including emergency EU funding to replace lost U.S. aid; reduction of “bureaucratic barriers” to make EU funding more easily accessible to progressive groups; and the exertion of diplomatic pressure on the Trump administration to reverse the aid freeze.
Orbán’s staunch rejection of the EU funding request reiterates his long-standing opposition to foreign-funded NGOs, particularly those affiliated with George Soros and his Open Society Foundations.
The Hungarian leader has repeatedly accused such groups of promoting mass migration, radical progressive policies, and undermining national sovereignty.
Referring to Trump’s USAID-files exposé, which alleged misuse of U.S. aid funds by left-wing organizations, Orbán emphasized that Hungary and its allies would not allow these groups to establish a stronghold in Europe.
“We will not let them find safe haven in Europe!” he declared. “The USAID-files exposed the dark practices of the globalist network. We will not take the bait again!”
The wailing sound you heard last Thursday was the chorus of the Beltway warmongers shrieking in despair at President Trump’s suggestion that there was no reason for the United States to be spending one trillion dollars on “defense.”
“… [O]ne of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China and President Putin of Russia, and I want to say let’s cut our military budget in half. And we can do that, and I think we’ll be able to do that,” the President told reporters.
With this statement, President Trump blew up one of the biggest myths of our time, particularly among Republicans, that spending more on the military is essential to keeping us safe. There is a vast and well-funded network of political and industrial interests that depend on maintaining that myth, from the weapons manufacturers to the mainstream media to the think tanks and beyond. Why? Because most of what is called “defense spending” has little to do with defending this country and a lot to do with enriching the politically well-connected.
Maintaining that global military empire has bankrupted the United States while making us less safe and less free. President Trump seems to understand this. But the military-industrial complex and its cheerleaders have for decades pushed the idea that we could not survive without continuously increasing their budgets.
Thanks to the work of the “Department of Government Efficiency” we are learning that much of what has been sold as “essential spending” is nothing of the sort. Take USAID, for example. We were led to believe that this agency was feeding the poor while promoting the best kind of American values overseas. Thanks to DOGE, we learned that the money was going to absurdities like funding transgender puppet shows in Peru.
We are also learning that a great deal of USAID money was going to actually overthrow democratic governments overseas – as well as manipulate foreign media and promote censorship of “dissident” voices at home and abroad. Not only was USAID not helping countries overseas – it was actually harming them!
Just as with USAID, when we are able to see just where that one trillion military budget is going Americans are going to fully realize that they have been lied to for decades. That is why we need a full audit of the Pentagon and full transparency of the results.
We also need a change in policy. Americans are beginning to understand the economic costs of maintaining a global military empire. US taxpayers are forced to cover more than half of the entire NATO budget while European countries rattle sabers at Russia and threaten war. If Europe feels so threatened by Russia, why don’t they cover the costs of their own defense? Why do poor Americans have to pay for the defense of rich Europeans? Haven’t we had enough of this?
I very much hope that President Trump follows through with his plan to drastically reduce our bloated military budget. We can start by closing the hundreds of military bases overseas, bringing back our troops from foreign countries, and eliminating our massive commitments to NATO and other international organizations.
U.S. officials have a long history of portraying Washington’s allies and clients as democratic, even when their behavior is blatantly authoritarian. Such cynical hypocrisy was at its zenith during the Cold War, but it is surging again.
A similar trend is evident with respect to U.S. interference in the internal political affairs of other countries through such mechanisms as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Such agencies fund regimes and political movements that are deemed obedient to Washington’s wishes and supportive of American foreign policy objectives.Conversely, U.S. administrations actively undermine governments or movements that they consider hostile or even just insufficiently cooperative. The actual nature of U.S. clients often is a far cry from the carefully crafted democratic image of them that Washington circulates.
A recent example of American meddling in the internal affairs of another democratic country appears to have taken place in the Republic of Georgia. According to Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili, USAID spent $41.7 million to support its preferred candidates in the country’s recent parliamentary elections. Adjusted for the size of Georgia’s population, such an expenditure in the United States would amount to $3.78 billion,
The U.S. track record in Georgia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union lends credibility to the speaker’s accusation that Washington is meddling in his country’s internal political affairs. President George W. Bush fawned with praise for Mikheil Saakashvili, the leader of Georgia’s “rose revolution” in 2003. Under Saakashvili, Georgia had become a “beacon of liberty,” Bush crowed. Generous flows of aid from Washington ensued. However, massive corruption soon characterized Saakashvili’s rule, as did his growing repression of political opponents. Ultimately, Saakashvili’s adversaries ousted Washington’s beloved “democratic” client from power.
The contrast between the laudatory American portrayal of Saakashvili as a paragon of democratic reform and the reality of his conduct was stark. However, Washington’s role in Ukraine over the years has been even more pervasive and dishonest. Although Ukraine’s president, Victor Yanukovych, came to office in a 2010 election that even a team of European Union (EU) observers conceded was reasonably free and fair, officials in Barack Obama’s administration, especially Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, worked to undermine his presidency. Yanukovych’s preference for closer economic ties with Russia instead of the EU and the United States apparently was intolerable to Western policymakers.
In 2014, the United States and key NATO partners helped Ukrainian demonstrators (primarily in Kiev’s Maidan Square) force Yanukovych to flee. An intercepted telephone call between Nuland and the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine confirmed the massive extent of Washington’s interference in Ukraine’s affairs.Nuland herself later admitted that the United States had poured more than $5 billion to Ukrainian groups in the years before the Maidan uprising. Supposedly, the purpose was to “promote democracy,” but as usual, the funds went almost entirely to groups Washington considered supportive of U.S. policies. It would be hard to identify a more flagrant case of outside interference in the affairs of another country.
Even if U.S. leaders sincerely intended their largesse to bring a stronger, healthier democracy to Ukraine—which is extremely doubtful—Washington did not achieve that goal. Corruption and blatant repression have become increasingly bad under the post-Maidan governments. Even though U.S. leaders invariably portray Ukraine’s current president, Volodymyr Zelensky, as a democratic champion, his record proves the opposite. Under his rule, Ukraine has outlawed opposition parties, muzzled the press, harassed uncooperative churches, and amassed a record of arbitrary imprisonment and torture. Much of that abuse was evident before the outbreak of war between Ukraine and Russia. Confirming that any attempt to portray Zelensky’s rule as democratic is a hypocritical farce, Ukraine has now postponed elections indefinitely.
The rot of hypocrisy and covert authoritarianism has infected even governments in NATO and the European Union. A grotesque example occurred earlier this month in Romania when an election commission dominated by the two governing parties, the Social Democratic Party (PSD and the National Liberal Party (PNL), annulled the first round of the presidential election held on November 24. Instead of the candidates of those two parties advancing to the second round runoff as expected, neither one did so. Instead, Caliin Georgescu, the candidate of a right-wing populist party led the field. Elena Lasconi, a reformer representing another “minor” party took the other runoff spot.
That outcome apparently was intolerable to Romania’s political establishment or its supporters in the EU and the United States. They viewed Georgescu as especially unacceptable, since he openly criticized NATO and opposed continuing to aid Ukraine. The country’s election commission nullified the voting results and rescheduled the first round balloting for May 4, 2025. Commissioners charged that, wait for it… Russia had illegally tampered with the election! Moscow’s horrid offense was its alleged support of a Tik Tok campaign that seemed to benefit Georgescu. Tangible evidence regarding Russian involvement was noticeably absent. Despite the lack of evidence, U.S. and EU officials denounced Russia and praised the Romanian government for trashing the election.
Eugene Doyle, a reporter for New Zealand’s Solidarity.com, noted the menacing significance of this episode. “To save democracy, the US and the European elites appear to have found it necessary to destroy democracy. For the first time ever an election was overturned in an EU/NATO country. Ever,” he wrote. Doyle also cites evidence that Russia was not even the likely culprit. The Tik Tok effort apparently originated with a botched PNL scheme to siphon off votes to Georgescu from other mainstream competitors.
Moreover, as Doyle points out, “Even if the Russians did it, in what crazy world would you wipe an election for a Tik Tok campaign, particularly one that was at best a few hundred thousands of dollars’ worth of advertising/messaging/ chatting—in contrast to the millions of dollars the U.S. State Department and various branches of the U.S. government spent on the same campaign?”
The answer is that it would happen in a world where political elites in the United States and its principal allies have never really been committed to democracy.Not as a domestic governing principle and definitely not as a foreign policy objective. Instead, the alleged commitment is a propaganda tool that is discarded whenever it becomes inconvenient. We live in such a world, and have done so for many years.
… What is known about 9/11 is that there are many incredible facts that continue to be ignored by the government and the mainstream media. Here are fourteen.
An outline of what was to become the 9/11 Commission Report was produced before the investigation began. The outline was kept secret from the Commission’s staff and appears to have determined the outcome of the investigation.
The 9/11 Commission claimed sixty-three (63) times in its Report that it could find “no evidence” related to important aspects of the crimes.
One person, Shayna Steiger, issued 12 visas to the alleged hijackers in Saudi Arabia. Steiger issued some of the visas without interviewing the applicants and fought with another employee at the embassy who tried to prevent her lax approach.
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