The SCOTUS will eventually have to weigh in on autocratic rule. Republican voters, however, seem to fully support it. This means that I never have to listen to or respond to their fake bleating about democracy, the constitution, or representative republics ever again unless I want to, though. They have made their true views known. They will support / enable a dictatorship as long as it's a far right wing one.
I'm not optimistic that the Roberts court will tell him no. If they do tell him no and he just keeps doing it anyway, I only see a couple unlikely paths of enforcement considering that congress won't do anything, either.If Trump changed his mind, so would they.
I never said that the above didn't occur. I have no doubt that the CIA takes advantage.
Omg, you guys blame everything on Russia.
90% of the USAID funding went to all the nefarious stuff. Only 10% went to humanitarian aid.I never said that the above didn't occur. I have no doubt that the CIA takes advantage.
However it is far from true based on my experience and reading that ALL of USAID is about subterfuge.
By the way, how much did that op in Cuba cost?
That's a bold claim.90% of the USAID funding went to all the nefarious stuff. Only 10% went to humanitarian aid.
Sometimes I wonder if when Dubya said "you're either with us or against us", whether uneducated leftists just took the bait and said, "o.k., I guess I must be against, then.Predictable. It turns out that executives are actually allowed to engage in "executive powers" granted by the Constitution. Imagine that!
The more leftists challenge basic elements of the Constitution like this, the more foolish they look. Talk about self-sabotage....it's like watching a trainwreck!
True claims always are.90% of the USAID funding went to all the nefarious stuff. Only 10% went to humanitarian aid.
Some people think it is ironic that the richest man in the world has managed to cut off food from the absolutely most impoverished people of the world.Let the crying begin.
WINNING!
Judge gives go-ahead for the Trump administration to gut USAID's workforce
The decision comes after the judge had temporarily paused efforts to place thousands of USAID employees on administrative leave following a lawsuit by labor groups.www.nbcnews.com
Yes, bold.That's a bold claim.
The claim about 90/10 is quite wrong. Unless there is info different from this (rather long) explanation with examples.90% of the USAID funding went to all the nefarious stuff. Only 10% went to humanitarian aid.
On the scale of things, the numbers involved in any large scale audit are just numbers, be them hundreds or billions of dollars per line-item. For the approach, there seem to be two schools of thought here. One entails surgically removing the "waste", while the other is the bulldozer demolition approach with an optional rebuilding of the patient from the rubble. In the case of the latter, there is some span of time where the patient is "dead" and worthwhile (subjective measures of "worthwhile" notwithstanding) programs are at very least dead in the water with no known prospect of when / if they will be resurrected.Great question. I've never seen a macro-level fiscal audit that doesn't start with something like DOGE. With such large amounts of capital involved, there's no way that the initial fact-finding stage could possibly follow any specific protocol. It's a bulldozer stage, just like any large-scale demolition effort.
In picking up the pieces of the colossal mess of spending that both parties have created over decades, there will inevitably be spending items that are worthwhile and should be reimplemented once the dust settles.
I agree with you on the central question, but I disagree that the determinant of this should be the executive in any administration. This is the responsibility of our representatives in Congress - both their funding decisions and their oversight responsibility. If that process is flawed, and it is, that's where we should focus. Not only because the Constitution says this is where this particular power lies, but also because Congress is a more deliberate and representative body than the Presidency.I wouldn't go as far as saying that it's "all bad," but it's pretty clear that USAID was going well beyond the scope of its mission statement to "promote and demonstrate democratic values abroad, and advance a free, peaceful, and prosperous world." Spending tens of billions of dollars on military weaponry/supplies for war is not really a promotion of peace and prosperity. It's just the newest way in which we've engaged in policing the world and warmongering rather than focusing on our own common defense.
But that's beside the point, because the central question to me isn't whether or not budgetary items are "good or bad" based on their intent. A more relevant question is whether we should be spending our taxpayer dollars on foreign issues in the first place, when many of those countries are not our allies, when we have so many unresolved issues for our own citizens.
Just because we can doesn't mean we should. First of all, there's no limiting principle whatsoever on our current approach to foreign spending. Secondly, there's absolutely no evaluation of whether or not the money we're handing out is EFFECTIVE at addressing whatever issue is being targeted. Thirdly, we almost always place no conditions whatsoever on the aid, which means that once it's out of our hands, we have no control over the use of it, and we gain very little to nothing from it most of the time. This has led to many abuses of our generosity from foreign governments, many of whom act like entitled trust fund kids in response to our efforts. And lastly, we have chosen to meddle in affairs that should be a global effort, and we do this so we can engage in militaristic and economic abuses of other countries on a global scale. We definitely should have a role, but this assumption that the USA should "take a lead" on global efforts rather than engaging in equal collaborative efforts with every other country around the world is self-defeatin
Here we agree.If our aim is to create a peaceful and prosperous world, then why is our top priority always about creating a global hierarchy in which we are at the very top both economically and militaristically? This strategy is completely at odds with that stated mission.
Anytime. Cheers.By the way, thank you for discussion-oriented post. If I'm reading it correctly, you're probably in disagreement with a lot of my views, but I appreciate that you approached possible disagreement in a friendly way.
Are the examples or are they just unsupported claims?You've already been given numerous examples. Why would doing that again be useful?
Well I don't doubt there's Russian funded troll farms just like there's Chinese funded troll farms.If you are serious about needing examples, then search for info on Russia funded troll farms.
USAID was started in the aftermath of WWII and it was started as a way to kind of end communism. It has been used to make sure the dollar stays the international currency for the oil trade. So I'm not going to say it's all a total scam needs to be ripped out completely but there's certainly a lot of stuff hiding in itIt's a cover for them to do their shady shit.
It depends on where.And I pointed out that we aren't, and gave an example.
Fred De Sam Lazaro:The claim about 90/10 is quite wrong. Unless there is info different from this (rather long) explanation with examples.
GoodLet the crying begin.
WINNING!
Judge gives go-ahead for the Trump administration to gut USAID's workforce
The decision comes after the judge had temporarily paused efforts to place thousands of USAID employees on administrative leave following a lawsuit by labor groups.www.nbcnews.com
Not in this case. A bi-partisan Congress knew what they were funding. Of the $6.8 trillion US budget, USAID was allotted $21.4 billion. That's 0.3%. What do you have against PEPFAR, clean water, immunizations, children, food, monitoring possible pandemics, schools, empowering women and girls, hospitals, training locals to respond to famine, malaria vaccine research, capital investments and international development. And the most important our support for freedom and furthering our ideals and Democracy, versus influence and exploitation from Russia and China. Just to name a fewAre you saying Congress is incapable of waste?
This is the reminder to everyone that Mike Benz used to post to Twitter under the Name "Frame Game" and showed his White Supremacist tendency to blame the Jews for a lot of the world's ills.
Those people called Biden a dictator for freeing students of college debt. Now, anything goes as long as it's their fuhrer doing it.The SCOTUS will eventually have to weigh in on autocratic rule. Republican voters, however, seem to fully support it. This means that I never have to listen to or respond to their fake bleating about democracy, the constitution, or representative republics ever again unless I want to, though. They have made their true views known. They will support / enable a dictatorship as long as it's a far right wing one.
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