Tag: foreign aid

Guess What DOGE Found Your Money Is Funding Now!

There are times when reading a list of projects funded by the United States federal government sounds more like parody than reality.

The Department of Government Efficiency — unlike Congress, it seems — is still working hard every day to identify and eliminate waste and fraud from the federal government funded by our taxpayer dollars. And this week’s update included some profoundly idiotic programs and grants that were, until now, recipients of our hard-earned cash.

DOGE normally releases a contracts update on X on Fridays highlighting some of the stupidest agency contracts that it has discovered in the last week, and this past week‘s was a doozy: “Over the last 5 days, agencies terminated 50 wasteful contracts with a ceiling value of $2.9B and savings of $762M, including a $2.4M DoD contract for ‘transgender health medical evaluation unit services’, a $128.5k DoD contract for ‘LGBTQ magazine advertising campaign’, and a $48.7M USAID contract for ‘the Belarus Regional Initiative to provide transition activities in Belarus and other countries in Europe’.” 

One wonders what exactly that is supposed to mean. Whenever a description is that vague and meaningless, you can guess it covers up something shady.

In conclusion, the X post stated, “DOGE wishes the hardworking American taxpayers a great Labor Day weekend!”

DOGE also had an interesting contracts update last week, on August 24: “Over the last 5 days, agencies terminated 163 wasteful contracts with a ceiling value of $1.9B and savings of $647M, including, a $35M USAID contract to ‘acquire contractor support to establish and manage a flexible, quick response mechanism supporting activities that will support democracy and stability in El Salvador’, a $280k DOI contract for ‘horse mounted patrol groom services’.” You can bust your brains trying to figure out why the heck we would be funding horse mounted patrol groom services. I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of any good reason.

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Trump Admin Moves To Cut Another $4.9 Billion In Foreign Aid Funding

President Donald Trump on Aug. 28 proposed the cancellation of $4.9 billion in appropriated funds for foreign aid spending, using a maneuver that could effectively bypass the congressional approval process normally required to rescind the funds.

The funds were allocated to the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development—which is in the process of being closed by the Trump administration—during the Fiscal Year 2025 appropriations process.

Under the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, the government must make a rescission request to Congress, which then has 45 days to approve the cancellation of appropriated funds. A “pocket rescission,” however, refers to such requests made within 45 days of the end of the fiscal year, which is Sept. 30. In these cases, the funds are withheld during the 45-day congressional review period, and if Congress doesn’t act before the fiscal year ends, the funds expire.

“Last night, President Trump cancelled $4.9 billion in America Last foreign aid using a pocket rescission,” the Office of Management and Budget, a cabinet-level agency in the Executive Office of the President, wrote on X on Aug. 29.

Pocket rescissions are uncommon, and the last one attempted was in 1983, when President Ronald Reagan sought to cut $2 million appropriated to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Trump, during his second term, has successfully requested some rescissions from Congress. A rescissions bill canceling $9.4 billion in funding for foreign aid and public broadcasters was approved by Congress in July.

Rescission requests, when presented to Congress, may be enacted through legislation with simple majorities voting in favor in both houses, meaning that the minority has no leverage to stop or alter the process. Democrats in Congress, who are the minority in both houses, have thus protested against Trump’s rescissions, but often to no avail.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in an Aug. 29 statement that the announcement of the administration’s rescissions plan “is further proof” that Trump and congressional Republicans are set on “rejecting bipartisanship and ‘going it alone’ this fall.”

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US Announces Plan To Arm Ukraine With Thousands of Long-Range Cruise Missiles

The Trump administration has announced that it approved an $825 million weapons deal that will arm Ukraine with thousands of Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM) air-launched missiles, which can hit targets up to 280 miles away, a significantly further range than other missiles that the US has sent into the proxy war.

The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said the deal will provide Ukraine with 3,350 ERAM missiles, 3,350 Embedded Global Positioning System (GPS)/Inertial Navigation Systems, and other related equipment.

The arms sale will be funded in part by Foreign Military Financing (FMF), a State Department program that provides foreign governments with money to buy US-made weapons. Other funding for the deal will come from Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on Saturday that the Trump administration had approved the deal and that the missiles would start arriving in Ukraine within six weeks. The report also said that the administration had been quietly blocking Ukraine from using US-provided missiles in attacks on Russian territory, but the provision of the ERAMs suggests that might change.

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Taxpayers On Hook For $3.5 Billion To Replenish Munitions US Used Defending Israel

Taxpayers are yet again on the hook for America’s supposed “closest Middle East ally” as the Pentagon is planning to allocate at least $3.5 billion to restock weapons used in defense of Israel.

A Bloomberg report issued this week has reviewed Department of Defense budget documents prepared through mid-May. Emergency expenditures are highlighted which include US combat operations “executed at the request of or in coordination with Israel for the defense of Israeli territory, personnel or assets during attacks by Iran” or its proxies.

The largest single portion of the funding is $1 billion that is earmarked for replenishing Standard Missile interceptors, specifically the SM-3 IB Threat Upgrade models made by Raytheon and deployed by US Navy ships to intercept ballistic missiles.

Each of these big missiles are estimated to be between $9 million and $12 million, and these were used in the initial April 2024 flare-up and brief round of fighting between Israel and Iran.

The US assisted Israel following the Netanyahu government’s airstrike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus – which was the first such deliberate attack by a sovereign government on a foreign embassy in history (the lone precedent being the Chinese embassy strike in Belgrade in 1999, which the US apologized for as an ‘accident’).

The second-largest funding request in the documents is $204 million to restock THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) interceptors, produced by Lockheed Martin at a price tag of about $13 million each.

All of this will be pushed through despite recent polls showing public support for Israel being at a recent all-time low. The American public is also generally war-weary, given the now years-long conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, and the fact that Washington has sunk billions into supporting one side of each war.

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US To Fund $500 Million Boeing KC-46 Tanker Aircraft Deal for Israel

The Israeli Defense Ministry announced on Wednesday that it will be signing a contract to purchase two Boeing-made KC-46 tanker aircraft in a deal worth about $500 million that will be funded by US military aid.

“This is a follow-on contract with the US Government for procuring two advanced refueling aircraft in addition to four previously purchased KC-46 aircraft. This will expand the IDF’s new refueling fleet to six aircraft,’ the Defense Ministry wrote on Facebook.

“The new aircraft will be equipped with Israeli systems and adapted to the IAF’s operational requirements. The contract’s scope is estimated at approximately half a billion USD and is funded through US aid,” the ministry added.

The US provides Israel with $3.8 billion in military aid annually, including $3.3 billion in Foreign Military Financing, a State Department program that gives foreign governments money to purchase US weapons.

Since October 7, 2023, the US has provided Israel with significantly more aid, including an additional $3.5 billion in FMF that was part of a $17 billion military assistance package for Israel tucked into a $95 billion foreign aid bill authorized by Congress and signed by President Biden last year.

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Want proof USAID was meddling in right-wing foreign elections? Well, here you go…

For decades, USAID has sold itself as a “humanitarian” agency handing out aid to struggling nations. But that wasn’t the case. As soon as folks started digging, an entirely different story was uncovered. As it turns out, USAID has quietly served as a front for left-wing political experiments, funneling US taxpayer money into projects that prop up globalist and crush populist movements all over the world.

Mike Benz, executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, has been digging into the Brazil story, and what he’s found is damning. The trail of breadcrumbs shows USAID’s fingerprints all over Brazil’s censorship regime, which looks a heck of a lot like the same lawfare and censorship tactics that were unleashed against President Trump and his supporters.

Earlier this month, Mr. Benz testified before the Brazilian Congress on how USAID helped build the censorship state in Brazil. The only recording was in Portuguese, but he’s promised to prepare an English version for Americans to see and hear.

This matters because Brazil has become a literal playground for left-wing censorship. The regime there has been using North Korea-style tactics against their own people. They’ve banned populists from running for office, censored political speech online, and persecuted dissidents.

And it all centers around one corrupt judge: Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.

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The US Has Given Ukraine The Most Aid To Date

To date, the United States has been the biggest supporter of Ukraine in terms of aid, according to data from the Ukraine Support Tracker compiled by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).

EU institutions (including the European Commission and the Council), followed by Germany and the United Kingdom have been the next biggest contributors.

As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the following chart, financial assistance (such as loans and grants), humanitarian aid (like food and medical supplies), and the value of weapons and equipment delivered is enormous.

This included in-kind donations to the Ukrainian military and financial support tied to military purposes.

When looking solely at military aid, including weapons and defense-related financial support, Germany ranks second, contributing an estimated €16.5 billion.

The United States remains the largest military backer, however, having delivered weapons and military funds totaling approximately €115 billion between January 24, 2022 and June 30, 2025.

In early March 2025, U.S. military aid was briefly paused, but resumed on March 11 after Ukraine signaled openness to a potential ceasefire.

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Low IQ Jasmine Crockett Says USAID Is Vital To Fund Sesame Street In Iraq… Or Something

Idiocracy-a-like Democrat Jasmine Crockett argued during a hearing that USAID, the slush fund decimated by DOGE, is desperately needed in order to fund US propaganda in places like Iraq to ensure Islamists there don’t become radicalised against America.

Yes, really.

Crockett claimed that past programs including a version of Sesame Street that was made for Iraq are vital to national security, suggesting “This is so that there is not this warped thought process about the Western world.”

What in God’s name is she on about?

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USAID food for nearly 30,000 hungry kids to be destroyed: Official

Food intended to feed 27,000 starving children in Afghanistan and Pakistan will soon be incinerated in the wake of President Donald Trump’s closure of the United States’ aid agency.

A senior US official on Wednesday said nearly 500 tonnes of high-energy biscuits, to be used as emergency food for malnourished young children, expired this month while sitting in a warehouse in Dubai.

Under questioning by lawmakers, Michael Rigas, the deputy secretary of state in charge of management, tied the decision to the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which closed its doors on July 1.

“I think that this was just a casualty of the shutdown of USAID,” Rigas said, adding that he was “distressed” that the food went to waste.

Aid officials managed to save 622 tonnes of the energy-dense biscuits in June – sending them to Syria, Bangladesh and Myanmar – but 496 tonnes, worth $793,000 before they expired this month, will be destroyed, according to two internal USAID memos reviewed by Reuters, dated May 5 and May 19, and four sources familiar with the matter.

The wasted biscuits will be sent to landfills or incinerated in the United Arab Emirates, two sources said. That will cost the US government an additional $100,000, according to the May 5 memo verified by three sources familiar with the matter.

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MTG Moves To Strike Half-Billion Of Military Aid To ‘Nuclear-Armed Israel’

Vying for the title of Most Brazen Bull in the china shop that is America’s relationship with the State of Israel, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene announced she will introduce an amendment to strike a half-billion dollars in additional military aid for the country — and she notably emphasized its status as a nuclear power. 

“I’m entering amendments to strike $500 million more for nuclear-armed Israel. And it’s important to say nuclear-armed Israel, because they do have nuclear weapons,” Greene said on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, an influential hub of the MAGA movement with an audience of listeners comprising not only everyday Americans but also West Wing officials.

The additional $500 million would flow to a program that lie “at the heart of Israel’s aerial defense operations,” reports Responsible Statecraft. Greene says enough is enough. “We already give them $3.4 billion every single year…they don’t need another $500 million in our defense budget. That’s for the American people’s defense,” Greene told Bannon. “That’s for the defense of the United States of America and our borders.”  

It’s highly significant that, in her references to Israel, Greene used “nuclear-armed” five times, noting that “it’s important to say ‘nuclear-armed’ because they do have nuclear weapons — this is not a helpless country.” While Greene’s nuclear references ostensibly underscored the country’s military strength, she may have had other intentions: 

  • Spotlighting the hypocrisy of “nuclear-armed Israel” pushing the United States to war over Iran’s nuclear program. While the US intelligence community has concluded isn’t aiming for a nuclear weapon, Greene did give credence to Israel’s claims to the contrary, saying last month’s US strikes “on [Israel’s] behalf… destroyed Iran’s nuclear problem.” 
  • Firing a shot across the bow of all Israel aid, by violating a long-standing US government policy of refusing to confirm that Israel has a nuclear arsenal. Those refusals to acknowledge Israel’s nuclear status are part of a decades-long conspiracy to keep billions of dollars in aid flowing to Israel in violation of US law.

 As Brian McGlinchey explained in a deep-dive on the topic at Stark Realities: 

While having amassed upwards of 200 nuclear warheads, Israel is not a member of the the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)…That makes U.S. aid to Israel illegal under the Symington Amendment of 1976, which bars economic and military assistance to countries that acquire nuclear reprocessing technology without submitting to international safeguards and inspections. The law was reinforced by the Glenn Amendment of 1977.

The proposed redistribution another $500 million of American wealth to Israel is contained in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the annual bill that funds the Department of Defense. “There are some parts of this NDAA that I cannot support, and that’s continued foreign aid and foreign funding, and it needs to come out,” said Greene. Bannon called this year’s iteration of the NDAA “disastrous,” as it calls for a trillion dollars in total purported “defense” spending.

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