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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.
You're missing some important context.
It is a
long running conspiracy theoeryopen secret that the Democrats and the CIA have been (are?) in the tank with Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, the Taliban Et Al. actively working against US/Western interests in the name of "decolonization" and that the primary role of USAID was to "launder" food, fuel, arms, and other forms of material support allocated to these groups while also as serving as a slush fund for various woke causes and NGOs. Ever wonder who was funding all thos migrant caravans? The reason the current administrator presumably doesn't want to turn over the books to Rubio is that is that they don't want the opposition (Ie the MAGA crowd) to know where the proverbial bodies are buried or who to subpoena.See, calling it a "conspiracy theory" would be borderline, but when you literally and explicitly take off the mask and call it an "open secret," you've definitely entered "inflammatory claim that should be proactively supported with evidence." To a lesser degree, same thing goes for the claims about USAID, though we are less worried about inflammatory claims about a US government agency that may or may not be true than your literal assertion that all Democrats are pro-terrorist traitors, which is definitely not true and also something you're saying about people here you are talking to. You can't just say things like that - and if you insist on claiming that yes, it's really true, then bring receipts, and if your claim is as broad as the claim you made, your receipts can't just be "Ilhan Omar" or the latest unhinged screed by a Democrat on Twitter or whoever else you want to point to.
You can absolutely criticize the Democrats, and the CIA, and you can make arguments about how you think both have damaged the interests of the US and the West. But you cannot just say "the Democrats are in the tank with terrorists and working against the US" with no justification beyond what you presume to be a shared consensus.
It gives me no joy to tell people to stop flaming their hated outgroup and then being accused of being "in the tank" for that outgroup myself, but you know better, and frankly, everyone who does this knows better, they just think it shouldn't apply to them when they talk about their outgroup because their outgroup really is that bad.
Is it really that inflammatory? It's not like i claimed that the Democrats are "barely sentient" only that they have aligned themselves with some very bad people against interests of the wider nation.
I am honestly kind of surprised that you find this claim controversial. "Why are we shipping pallets of cash to people who wish us dead, and occasionally act on that wish?" has been a boilerplate Republican talking point since the early 2010s and the reply, when the question has been acknowledged at all, has always been something about "decolonization" and spreading "American values" with the implicit understanding that "American Values" are not things like baseball and apple pie, but rather progressive values.
To that end, I want to emphasize that I do not think that Democrats are stupid. But if we assume that Democrats are not stupid, that begs the question of "what are they actually up to?". What is your theory for why the Biden administration so invested in ensuring that niether the Egyptians nor the Isrealis would be able to see what sort of aid we (the US) were supplying to Gaza? Ive already offered mine.
As for Ilhan Omar, this is someone that the Democratic National Convention has chosen to to be associated with. Hers is a constituency that the DNC has chosen to court. I find the whole "it's just some kids on campus" argument significantly less compelling when the notional "kids" are sitting members of congress. Again, i don't think the Democrats are dumb, so what what they actually up to?
Ps: don't try to claim that the linked comment was never reported, I reported it when it showed up in my inbox.
No, you are not surprised that it's controversial that Democrats hate America and side with terrorists. You are not confused about why you were modded.
If someone dropped inflammatory Democratic rhetoric (eg "Republicans are fascists who want to commit genocide and repeal civil rights for everyone but straight white men") you would not be surprised or find it controversial when I mod them.
Just so we are both on the same page...
You consider a comment dismissing the voting public as "barely sentient" to be uncontriversial and in-keeping with the spirit of theMotte, including the rule about writing like everyone is reading.
But if I cheekily allude to the publicly acknowledged policies of the outgoing administration, or the plain language meanings of statements made by people like Ilhan Omar, Maxine Waters, and Joy Reid, you will moderate me for being inflammatory and uncharitable?
We are not on the same page.
Read the rules, reread them, and then contact the mod team if you have further questions. If you wish to have this particular moderation decision reviewed by other members of the mod team, you may likewise contact the mod team, and someone besides myself will do so.
I've read the rules, I've reread the rules, and I'm pointing out what (to me at least) looks like a disparity in how allegedly inflammatory claims are being treated.
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