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Notes -
Someone's wrong on the Radio: Internal contradictions in the narratives on USAID
I was listening to NPR today. The main story seemed to be that Elon Musk's DOGE is seeking to shut down (or severely pare down) USAID, the US Agency for International Development. This would probably not be very interesting to me, except that the NPR narrative made two seemingly conflicting statements within a ten-minute time frame.
"Later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was now the acting administrator of USAID — which has long been an independent body — and that a "review" is underway aimed at the agency's "potential reorganization."
"You know, over the weekend, there were reports of two security officials at USAID who were put on administrative leave for refusing DOGE access to certain systems. Democrats have accused DOGE of inappropriately accessing, you know, classified materials, which the lawmakers are saying they're going to investigate.".
(This is being stated much more unequivocally by other outlets: "The Trump administration has placed two top security chiefs at the U.S. Agency for International Development on leave after they refused to turn over classified material in restricted areas to ...".)
So on the one hand, USAID is described as an independent nonpolitical agency and should not be subsumed into Rubio's State Department. On the other hand, they have troves of classified materials that should not be accessed by staff of another agency. ... Why would an independent body for economic development have classified material? I recognize that I am confused...
So I looked at the Foreign Aid Act of 1961, as amended up to 2024. It looks like amendments are added several times per year, so this is not necessarily up to date, but such is the version of the law which is easy to read, "with amendments." It is 276 pages, so I didn't read more than the first five. Searching for "indep" turns of several uses of the term "independent," but they are for functions of USAID like "support for independent media" and "independent states of the former Soviet Union" (with four hits for "independent audit[or]). So the department isn't "independent" under the law, at least not in those terms.
Surprise surprise, on page 2 or 3 USAID is defined as "Under the policy guidance of the Secretary of State, the agency primarily responsible for administering this part should have the responsibility for coordinating all United States development-related activities," and is headed by an "Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development." There is no mention of whether this is a cabinet-level position. So Rubio taking over as the director of the agency and delegating actual responsibility to someone else appears totally legal, quotes from guests on NPR to the contrary notwithstanding.
Also, USAID is tasked with funding the International Atomic Energy Agency, for "civilian nuclear reactor safety" in former Soviet states, for limiting aid to countries engaged in nuclear weapons development, and for "nonproliferation and export control assistance." So that seems to explain why classified information may be found in its headquarters.
The claims of Elon Musk and NPR actually align on the topic of aid for LGBT causes, with NPR guests stating that the loss of USAID will be a disaster for gender nonbinary people. The MAGA narrative is also supported by the Act when compared to archives of the agency's website: there are only 12 mentions of "gender" in the law, and they are exclusively for "gender-responsive interventions" for HIV/AIDS, for "gender parity in basic education", "performance goals, on a gender disaggregated basis" and for statistics about who has received how much aid, again "disaggregated" by gender. In contrast, USAID's website used to contain pages with text like "USAID proudly joins this government-wide effort with its own commitment to advance the human rights of LGBTQI+ people around the world, including members of its own workforce, and supports efforts to protect them from violence, stigma, discrimination, and criminalization.". There is a Trans angle, with text like "In Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, and Nigeria, transgender-led CSOs delivered health services (including transgender-specific health and HIV services), emergency housing, and economic empowerment programs. In Burma and South Africa, the first transgender health center was organized, drawing upon best practice from Thailand." (ibid)
Then there is the pandemic angle, of which I am skeptical, but Musk did retweet that USAID provided $38M in funding to Ben Hu for "bat coronavirus emergence" research from 2014 to September, 2019, from a document which appears to have been obtained under FOIA by the White Coat Waste Project. Ben Hu was a PI with EcoHealth alliance and was previously alleged to be one of the first three Covid patients according to "sources within the government," although an intelligence community report mandated by Congress later denied that any Wuhan Institute of Virology scientists were known to have been among early Covid patients.
If the FOIA document about funding is true, that funding appears to have been outside of its mandate and potentially a misuse of public funds: the only mentions of "pandemic," "epidemic," or "virus" in the Foreign Aid Act concern HIV/AIDS.
I'm left with the impression that Musk and MAGA are being more truthful than NPR, and maybe the Agency does deserve to go into receivership.
To me the most fascinating thing about US AID being terminated as an independent organization, is the sheer and complete panic among leftist. "Independent" media I used to respect has apparently been spun into a full blown panic over it. They appear to be operating under the delusion that the "AID" is USAID is actual help, of which a tiny minority might be, and not a deep state slush fund for unaccountable NGO, corruption and graft.
Like Bill Krystol, neocon never Trumper, came out swinging. Then it was quickly discovered the foundation he draws an income from is funded by USAID. Which, to me, immediately made something clear. You are constantly subjected to a series of talking heads who are wrong about everything if you pay attention to the mainstream media. And they are always introduced as working at some important sounding institute, like that lends them credibility. How many of those assholes are just psyop puppets funded entirely by USAID to influence public opinion on policy at home?
That aside, I'm noticing the talking points getting distilled, and they are every bit as nonsensical as you can imagine, some more than others.
"It's a coup!" I mean where to even begin on this. Was it a coup when Clinton fired all the federal attorneys? Was it a coup when Reagan fired the air traffic controllers? Was it a coup when Gerald Ford fired a bunch of security state apparatchiks, including Kissinger? No, it's the duly elected Executive executing their lawful authority to implement their agenda. It's preposterous that a branch of the executive should believe it's some sort of independent entity completely outside the executive's authority. Come back when the military has dissolved congress and arrested the supreme court.
"It's a smash and grab!" To which I just heard the cohost go "There is no grab." There is this heavy implication that Elon Musk is somehow pocketing the money. Nobody ever comes out and states it directly. But the weasel words are there. "Musk has conflict of interest!" "He's looting the nation!" "The worlds richest man is just getting richer!" A baseless bullshit smear, which is why they just darkly hint at it.
"Nobody voted for this!" I mean this is the most insane one, and if they somehow big-lie it into sticking, it will erase all the faith in humanity I gained over the last few months. All I fucking see from people who voted for and supported Trump is euphoric glee that he's doing exactly what he said he would do. After being lied to and lead along by controlled opposition our entire lifetimes, and maybe the entire lifetimes of our parents too, a guy is actually making good on all the promises he, and the Republican party broadly, has made for decades.
There is some serious galaxy brained mushy reasoning going on here, like Trump never promised to shut down (or roll into the State Department) USAID specifically, therefore nobody voted for it. But he ran on draining the swamp, stopping foreign aid as long as there are still unmet challenges at home, shrinking the federal government, stopping waste and corruption. It's like if a guy ran on starting a war with Cuba, and then when Havana get's bombed, normies start shouting "Nobody voted to bomb Havana!" I mean, alright, but they voted for the guy who's #1 issue was starting a war with the country Havana is in. Pretty reasonable to think that was on the table and a high likelihood. Nobody ever votes on day to day tactical decisions of a strategic campaign promise.
Personally I think this speaks to the larger conceit among liberals when it comes to their Message: Liberals are automatically right, and everyone who does not heed the wisdom of our words is just too stupid to understand what we are saying so we need to say it louder.
At no point in all this political discussion have I seen liberals consider that maybe their words have been heard and understood and have been found wanting. That the foundational reality the liberals aim at creating is not one that people want to live in, and that the path to get to that reality is even more broken than the end result. A nanny state run by Sorkins fantasy West Wing archetypes is great to a liberal, but when I watch that show I see careerist egoists unable to resist sticking their grubby fingers in everything they don't even have the interest to understand.
I recently did a long post on my Tumblr about this, making an analogy to a classroom:
I've seen a lot of Youtube video on this, too. That they didn't do enough to point out how Trump is an evil, racist fascist campaigning on pure hate and desire to hurt people, and how the Democratic party stands for joy, hope, and everything that is good in the world. The metaphorical teacher just isn't giving the lesson properly for the dummies in the back of the class. Or they're being drowned out by lies and disinformation pouring from far-right pipelines like x.com, and we need more censorship and fact-checking.
I have seen people, on Tumblr, Reddit, and Youtube, who do indeed consider that. They do hold that a lot of voters did understand what the Democratic party was selling, and rejected it in favor of Trump. That their words have been found wanting… which is why Trump voters aren't stupid, but evil. Because if you knowingly, with full understanding, choose the "indisputably fascist" Trump and his party of pure hate over Harris's "flawless campaign of joy and unity" with all the objectively correct policies, knowingly choose lies over truth, knowingly choose fascism over democracy, then you're a Nazi. It's not that everyone on the other side is "just too stupid" — it's that they're either stupid or evil. The former just need to hear the message louder and more often, until they finally get it. The latter need to get what they deserve, just like Corey Comperatore.
If the voters don't like what the Democratic party is selling… then the voters are wrong, and it's the voters who are the problem needing fixed.
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