Via NPR:
A question of legality
The question of the legality of any attempt to change the status of USAID is connected to its origins. The agency was created in 1961 when President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order after Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act, which mandated the creation of an independent agency to focus on development separate from politics and the military. The agency was formally established by Congress as an independent agency in 1998.
That means “it cannot just be undone, at this point, by an executive order,” Konyndyk said. “To actually disestablish the agency and dissolve it into the State Department will take an act of Congress.”
Source: Why does Musk want USAID ‘to die’? And why did its website disappear? : Goats and Soda
I’m doubtful relying on congress is any comfort either however.
Fun fact, they’re still providing USAID funding to Israel and Egypt but stopped providing funding to Ukraine.
Trump executive order requiring the state and all state-funded education institutes to not acknowledge Ukrainian as a language separate from Russian coming in 3…
deleted by creator
The perma stun proceeds
What was USAid?
It’s the organization that manages all of the official external humanitarian aid from the US government. It does everything from food distribution to micro loans in developing countries.
external humanitarian aid from the US governmen
its not. its just a cover. It’s funding for CIA programs.
My wife worked there for years, no its not. She cried reading the news, she spent years going to field locations, organizing aid and watching the difference it made.
Ok
It’s really easy to say flagrant things like this. Do you have any information or proof or can you hear me through the layers of tin foil wrapped around your head?
The USAID people I know would be very surprised to hear that delivering food to starving people is somehow a CIA front.
I think people are asking for a source for your claims.
It provided funding to Ukraine, Irsael, and Egypt among other things.
Now it provides funding to Israel and Egypt.
And soon to Russia.
Also you can read this link if you accept a more opinionated article:
Did a Trump executive order just cripple the global US regime change network?
It’s a CIA front that mascarades as an aid organisation. Part of the US’ soft power projection. I’m guessing for all their talk about hating China, they’re really keen on China taking on the role the US has been playing since WWII, as they’re simultaneously doing their best to undermine the US dollar as the global reserve currency.
You think that the CIA pretends to be an international aid organization for the sake of advancing the interests of checks notes… China? The 3-letter agency that has spent decades building and maintaining American hegemony is now serving that same purpose for a rival nation? And the people that have also spent decades building for this moment to take over the federal government entirely… want to now give their power away? … what?
The first two statements are describing USAid and the last sentence is a sarcastic remark, indicating taking it down is working in Chinas best interest. Thats how it reads to me.
Here’s an article that casually lays out the ties.
As for USAID helping China, I don’t see how you could’ve read my comment like that. I’m saying defunding it helps China. One of the roles of the organisation is providing aid to friendly countries. If that stops, the countries will stop being friendly and will look for other countries to provide aid. It looks like someone deleted my comment, but I thought I was pretty clear about that.
There’s a lot of taking anti-western government’s word at face value with no modern evidence in that article. The Cuba thing is well documented, in fact it’s documented well enough that it looks like it was an unsanctioned operation that got shut down when the higher ups learned about it. Everything modern after that relies on the reader nodding along with the Cuba stuff as evidence for all of the unrelated stuff after it.
That’s a pretty manipulative form of writing and it immediately makes me think there’s no actual evidence for those other allegations.
I’m guessing for all their talk about hating China, they’re really keen on China taking on the role the US has been playing since WWII, as they’re simultaneously doing their best to undermine the US dollar as the global reserve currency.
I’m genuinely having trouble understanding your comment then.
Who is “they” in the quote above?
The Trump admin, who just stopped funding USAID. They are seperate from what has historically been the foreign policy consensus. Whether intentionally or due to incompetence, that’s going to be the effect of their actions.
How does this have 36 votes? It’s ridiculous.
Your comment appears to be very controversial judging by the votes.
That’s because it’s batshit crazy. Off to the right start, but no, the CIA is not secretly undermining the US for the benefit of China, wtf
That’s not what my comment is saying.
Why do you think they would be keen to release power to China? Economics?
Because trump views ties as weakness. He thinks isolationism is strength. The exact opposite is true - our ties and treaties, both hard and soft power - have ensured American strength for a century.
Trump is going to set all that ablaze because he can’t think further than his own experience: fuck everyone else to get ahead.
They’re not doing it on purpose. The people currently making these decisions do not understand the government, what it does, why it is powerful, where the money comes from, etc. It’s like someone stripping the copper wiring out of their own house.
This may be the best description of the Trump presidencies I’ve ever read.
Yeah, that could be it. It’s highly irrational to me, and only a pathological greed combined with a complete lack of understanding that money without a functioning society means jack shit. Yes, you’ll be rich, but you built a society where you’ll need to fly in a helicopter between your properties over slums.
Trump is keen on doing it because he’s being told to do it by the people who control him.
Russia and China are allies and in BRICKS. Russia paid for Trump to get elected twice.
I thought that it was BRICS? Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
You are correct.
I think they are taking bribes
Maybe too stupid to realise that they’re doing that.
I don’t know, the American Empire basically exists to serve billionaires like him, I don’t see how a Chinese takeover would serve them, as they just disappear billionaires if they don’t get in line.
I guess they just want to turn the USA into what Russia is now, but even there you really don’t want to get on Putin’s bad side or you lose everything. It’s honestly very irrational IMHO, as the US has the right mix of opportunity and lack of any personal risk for the wealthy. They want to turn the US into a crime ridden shithole where they’re beholden to the whims of Trump or whomever follows him.
Each of them personally wants to be Putin and cannot comprehend the idea that they won’t be at the top of the pile when the ashes fall.
Wow, I guess I better get used to a ton of USA events and news per day for the next years.
Probably not. Sooner rather than later most free press will be shut down by trump and the only news that anyone will get is whatever there government wants you to hear. Stories like this will disappear.
I think you vastly overestimate how organized the Trump admin is. I’m sure they will try, though.
It’ll only get more competent and organized as time goes on.
Don’t you think that’s a bit of a hysterical take?
Stories like this one, someone noticing that a website has been taken down, will disappear??
It’s hardly the peak of investigative journalism or a complicated story requiring hundreds of hours of work by a trained journalist.
Hysterical as in funny? It’s already happening.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/fcc-investigation
If you cut off a story before it’s printed, you never even have to take it down.
No, I mean hysterical as in overly exaggerated due to high emotion.
Well, you’re just wrong on that front given the examples shown
The examples given are about Trump limiting access for news agencies to the government, and trying to bully big news orgs. How would those things prevent someone writing a story about a public website disappearing?
Don’t get me wrong, what he’s doing is bad for press freedom and will have a chilling effect on the more complicated stories that need more journalistic input and explanation to gain traction and public understanding, but as I said “this kind of story” isn’t exactly complicated and saying “stories like this will disappear” is just not realistic.
I’m pretty sure by “stories like this” they’re referring to ones that highlight the activities of the Trump administration, not literally stories about websites going down (if that’s a mischaracterization of what you’re saying, I apologize, but I’m not sure what your meaning was if not that)
You seriously wrote that first paragraph and can’t see what the other person is saying?
Have you watched the news in the US in the time period since the original post? Has any news media even mentioned this? A post on mastodon is great. I would venture that 99% of the population from the US doesn’t use Mastodon, tho I don’t really know for sure the numbers . Of the percentage that do, how many are going to see this person’s post?
Nah the free press like the billionaires and everyone else who wants to stay in business will lick Trump’s balls.
It keeps burning the wick at this rate and you’ll only have to deal with it for months
🎶 Just want one thing, just to play the king
But the castle’s crumbled and you’re left with just a name 🎵That’s awesome. One less headcount for federal budget.
Hahah you’re right fuck people looool
USAID - that’s just for funding CIA operations if I recall. they don’t really do food and water help.
I actually don’t mind this.
Nah it’s mostly graft. A large amount of USAID’s budget goes to DC consulting firms, while claiming it goes to developing countries.
But some of it did go to the developing world. Have to read through a lot of legalese to find the loopholes to avoid the money staying DC tho. I remember when I was doing work for NGOs in a developing country those computer cases with USAID stickers on them were kinda valuable for this reason. Getting money to buy a new computer was basically impossible, but you could get money from USAID to “upgrade” the computers with a new motherboard, CPU, RAM, hard drive, etc.
But any chance they’d get, they’d direct them money to DC consulting firms which would do very little.
It is far easier to knock something down than to bring something up.
From barbarism to civilization requires a century; from civilization to barbarism needs but a day.
Will Durant
Life is an anthology of destruction. Everything you build eventually breaks. Everyone you love will die. Any sense of order or stability inevitably crumbles. The entire universe follows a dismal trek toward a dull state of ultimate turmoil.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-entropy-a-measure-of-just-how-little-we-really-know-20241213/
USAID is corruption central and a job program for certain type of “american”
