Rep. Tim Burchett: Mr. Roman, are you aware that we are sending $40 million a week to the Taliban?

Gregg Roman: Yes, sir.

TB: Can you name other instances of foreign aid going to terrorist organizations?

GR: We have assisted Al-Shabaab in Somalia, there's been instances of the Hamzi network in Sudan, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Kata'ib Hezbollah, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham in Syria. Dozens of terror organizations have received indirect assistance from US foreign aid.

TB: Could you elaborate a little on the mechanisms in place to stop foreign aid from going to terrorist groups and why are they not working if we have any in place? (Goes on to explain a graphic display of terrorist weapons and explosives.)

GR: Let's use Gaza as our case study. $2.1 billion in American taxpayers' money to Gaza since October 7th when Hamas invaded southern Israel. USAID money was going in terms of an emergency use authorization to try to go to parties that USAID formerly had a relationship with in the Gaza Strip. That had to have been vetted by (Office of Foreign Assets Control) OFAC, they should have been vetted against the special designated terror list from the State Department and from other Treasury organizations. Waivers were granted because they said that there was an emergency use to have that money come into Gaza, thereby jettisoning the usual, typical screening procedures. As a result, 90 percent of aid that was going from the United States by way of its agents in Gaza ended up in Hamas-controlled areas.

It seems USAID security was trained for every contingency except that of an American citizen showing up at an American government agency — an agency, mind you, that is supposed to be something like the governmental equivalent of Samaritan’s Purse — and asking mundane questions.

One of the two receptionists invited me to sit down to prevent me from overhearing the phone conversation. As the security guard spoke quietly and nervously on the phone, a host of people came and went through the foyer. Whatever they were doing here, shut down they were not. //

This accusation was quickly dropped in favor of another: espionage.

I freely admitted it to the NSA man: “Yes, I am spying. On my government, not yours” — a cheeky reply but one that clearly caused some consternation.

“Do you have an Egyptian government permit to take photos of Egyptian government buildings?” he asked.

“No.” He briefly looked triumphant. “But I’m not taking photos of Egyptian government buildings. That,” I pointed in the direction of USAID, “is an American government building, and I am an American.”

Annoyed, he left again, pacing on the phone. They clearly did not know how to proceed, and while being charged with espionage is a terrifying prospect, I knew it was problematic for them because it would be a tacit admission that there was more than pallets of rice and canned goods behind the high spiked walls of USAID in Egypt. //0

Safely out of the country, there are several takeaways from this incident. The first is that this is how an intelligence agency behaves, not a benevolence arm of the United States. USAID security guards had been embarrassed by my previous visit where I had breached their security, not by force but with their assistance. This was, for them, a kind of payback. But neither Cairo police nor the NSA had any interest in that. Indeed, they treated USAID security contemptuously.

The second is that I was, I think, dealing with three governments: the authentic U.S. government represented by the naïve fellow who took my call at the U.S. Embassy, the Egyptian government represented by Cairo police and the state security apparatus, and the shadow government represented by whoever it was inside USAID that had the NSA on speed dial. President Trump doesn’t yet have all his own people in place, and the deep state, as real as any branch of government, is deeply embedded. Nowhere is that truer than in the corrupt USAID.

The third is the desperate attempts to get me to enter the USAID compound. One had the feeling they were trying, to quote Fox, to “Jamal Khashoggi” me. Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist, entered a Saudi consulate in Istanbul of his own accord and was there murdered by his own government.

Finally, this was a monumentally stupid response. Had the USAID office, on my first visit, simply said something like, “Yeah, President Trump is slashing the USAID, and we are in the process of closing shop,” there would be no story here. But the fearful, reactionary response smells of corruption. This was the Streisand effect, initiating calls from high in our government to ask: What the hell is going on at USAID in Egypt?

I will leave that question unanswered. But with war in Gaza, Trump’s plan to resettle Palestinians, and mounting evidence that USAID has been funding not only the invasion of the United States by illegal aliens but the very demise of our republic and even terrorism, the destruction of this rogue agency cannot come soon enough.

Charlie Kirk

@charliekirk11
·
Follow
For the first time in my lifetime we have an administration that is dead serious about rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in government so the next generation doesn’t live as debt slaves.

Every expense must be justified—with our tax dollars you are guilty until proven innocent.

5:11 PM · Feb 24, 2025. //

The thing to realize about the government is that it's not a citizen of the United States, and thus isn't subject to the same rights as we are. In fact, the government doesn't technically have any rights, it has allowances as agreed upon by the people of the United States of America. It has certain powers, to be sure, but these powers can be increased, decreased, or eliminated as the people see fit.

As you can see, this is exactly what's happening with DOGE. The people demanded a reduction in government power and a removal of waste, and that's exactly what's happening. Even as the Democrats and leftists cry foul, the government is losing its power.

There is a simple truth buried here.

If a government is unable or unwilling to reveal how it's using the money it takes from us with the threat of punishment for not giving up, then it's not our government. //

. In fact, government is often times a necessary evil, born out of a need to inhibit the worst impulses of man, whether those impulses be foreign or domestic. It is a system necessary for civilization to happen in an imperfect world, but it's the fact that we have an imperfect world that the system we create to curb is itself imperfect, and thus needs to be monitored, audited, and sometimes destroyed, at least in part so as not to have to be destroyed in its totality.

JHW252
7 hours ago
Has anyone noticed that no one in Congress from either side of the aisle has acknowledged that the oversight occurring by Musk and his team was the job they were elected to do ?
The entire Congress should be embarrassed and humiliated that their incompetence and malfeasance has cost the taxpayers millions.
Politicians have hides like rhinoceroses my father used to say. //

Sane & Logical
8 hours ago edited
I didn’t hear her going on about how bad it was for the Keystone Pipeline employees who lost their jobs. Or any other number of private sector employees who had lost jobs because of government shutting down coal and gas companies.
As far as I am concerned, government employees should not be paid more than the average private sector worker. And no lavish bonuses or benefits. They are supposed to be public servants.
Also need to get rid or all the lifetime pensions, perks, and benefits for members of congress and senators.

Steamfish Sane & Logical
8 hours ago
Nor did she shed a tear over military personnel and defense contractor employees who were sacked for refusing The Holy Vax.

Autism Capital 🧩 @AutismCapital
·
🚨NEW: Elon Musk comes out on stage at CPAC 2025 and is presented a golden chainsaw by Argentinian President, Javier Milei, and yells, “THIS IS THE CHAINSAW FOR BUREAUCRACY!” 🔥

10:48 PM · Feb 20, 2025. //

If he hadn't done enough already by reviewing finances with his team, now Trump has also tasked them with reviewing regulations in accordance with a new executive order. //

review regulations, with emphasis on those that are cost heavy.

Any regulations that aren’t in line with the Trump administration policy will be rescinded or modified, including those determined to be based on “unlawful delegations of legislative power,” that inflict costs on private parties that don’t also benefit the public, that harm national security interests, and other criteria.

Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger
·
The New York Times says “Musk Asserts Without Proof That Bureaucracy Is Rife With Fraud.” Seriously? The GAO — under Biden — estimated last year that we are losing $233-$521 billion per year to fraud. Guys, it’s right there. Why do you continue with this… fraud? SMH
4:47 AM · Feb 12, 2025. //

After just over a month, Musk has found billions of dollars in waste and fraud, including a $2 billion kiss for Georgia's favorite salad-dodging election loser, Stacey Abrams.

So Trump is dismantling the false god of transgenderism, and Musk is rooting out fraud like a truffle pig on Red Bull. Here comes JD Vance.

Vance said what no evil straight, white man could say a mere 365 days ago; he told Europe that mass migration is killing their nations and the U.S. as well. //

Ian Jaeger @IanJaeger29
·
BREAKING: Rep. Tim Burchett says he thinks there’s a “paper trail” of money that was sent overseas that ended up back in the pockets of lawmakers in Washington D.C.

He said there will soon be a lot of retirements.
4:18 PM · Feb 17, 2025

Thomas Hern @ThomasMHern
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CNN interviewed eleven Arizonans who voted for Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2024.

All eleven said they support the job President Trump has done in his first month in office.

"He got transgenders out of women's sports, that's number one!"

Dana Bash did not seem very pleased.

5:42 PM · Feb 17, 2025 //

Jason Cohen @JasonJournoDC
·
🚨NEW: @FrankLuntz says former Biden, Clinton voters who flipped to Trump in 2024 "love" how fast he's moving 🚨
"They love the pace of change. They were very fed up over the last four years. They wanted action, they wanted results. They looked at prices, they looked at affordability, they looked at immigration. And they didn't see anything happening."

"They wanted to see a reduction in wasteful Washington spending and they're seeing that...For the first time they have confidence in the future, which is why you now see some significant shifts in the polling for the direction in the coming years."

9:00 PM · Feb 17, 2025. //

InteractivePolls @IAPolls2022
·
📊 President Trump Job Approval

🟢 Approve: 55% (+12)
🔴 Disapprove: 43%

Was net: +6 (51-45) on Feb. 6
——
• @NapolitanNews | RMG Research
• #63 (2.3/3.0) | 3,000 RV | 2/10-14 | ±1.8
11:40 PM · Feb 15, 2025. //

Weminuche45
7 hours ago edited
They focus on change itself, and the pace of change, while mostly ignoring the direction of change, the goals, the policies, the results.

Their conclusion will almost certainly be that they should double down on their existing religion of toxic ideology and policies by driving their garbage faster and harder, with more screeching, wailing, fear, outrage and deconstructing of traditional American values.

The harder and faster they drive unwanted unpopular change, the more they will self-destruct. Changing what to change would require loosening their external TDS riddled tunnel vision and spending some difficult time looking in the mirror at what they see there. I dont see much sign of that, yet anyway.

KAROLINE LEAVITT: If you just watched that video, but shut your eyes and listen to the words from those Democrat politicians, you would think you are listening to President Trump, Elon Musk and our entire administration, who are saying the exact same things that Democrat politicians promised the American people they would do for decades. President Trump is just the first president in our lifetimes to actually do it. And now you see the Democrat Party and the mainstream media spiraling out of control about a very simple promise: rooting out waste, fraud and abuse from our federal bureaucracy. This is a promise President Trump campaigned on. He is now delivering on it.

I've been fighting fake news reporters all day long here in the Washington, D.C. swamp who are trying to fearmonger the American people into believing that this administration is going after their hard-earned tax dollars and their hard-earned Social Security checks. So I want to set the record straight on your show tonight, Sean, and I'm very grateful for the opportunity to do so. President Trump has directed Elon Musk and the Doge team to identify fraud at the Social Security Administration. They haven't dug into the books yet, but they suspect that there are tens of millions of deceased people who are receiving fraudulent Social Security payments and so their goal in going into the Social Security Administration is to identify three things: Number one, to identify duplicate payments and to end them, Number two, to identify payments that are going to deceased people who are no longer living and should no longer be receiving that money and number three, to protect the integrity of the system for hardworking Americans who have been paying into it their entire lives.

Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
I’ve had a top secret clearance for many years and have clearances that themselves are classified.

That said, FAR too much information is made “classified”. If something is easily found online or patently obvious, it should NOT be classified. This impedes effective communication within the government.

TONY™ @TONYxTWO
This moment from the USAID House Hearing is 🔥🔥🔥!!!

“@elonmusk does have a security clearance, he has a top secret security clearance, by God he makes the rockets for NASA! But the suggestion that he somehow can’t be trusted to dig in to how we’re spending our money is nothing…
Embedded video
6:10 AM · Feb 14, 2025. //

1. FOIA Exemption 1 (5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1)) – This exemption protects information that is classified under Executive Order 13526 (or its successors) for national security reasons. Security clearance information often falls under this exemption because it involves classified material.

reported earlier on Tuesday how they discovered that there was a missing code in regard to $4.7 trillion in payments, that would link a treasury payment to a line item, that the code was optional and was often left blank, making tracing the payments almost impossible. Yikes. I'm sure no one has taken advantage of that (/sarcasm). //

Even MSNBC is now recognizing there's a problem, in a bit of a stunning report. They acknowledge that there had been $71.8 billion in improper Social Security payments over eight years, which had been discovered by the inspector general in 2024. That's billion, not million. //

Even for anchor Jose Diaz Balart, that sounds crazy. He isn't buying it: "72 billion! And that's without a comprehensive search!"

What could they find with a comprehensive search? And if there is that much of a problem resulting in such massive overpayments, then yes, this is more evidence of a systemic problem that DOGE needs to help resolve. We already saw the concerning issue of the active Social Security numbers for millions of people over 120 years old that could be used for all kinds of nefarious things, yet hasn't been addressed. //

DOGE is supposed to end in 2026, but we need to have something in place to continuously review all this stuff, so these issues cannot come back after they are resolved. Otherwise, there can be backsliding unless the whole system is changed to one of responsibility and accountability. Obviously, what has been in play hasn't been enough to stop these crazy things.

The crux of the case brought before Chutkan is that Musk's participation in government is illegal as the US Senate has not confirmed him as a "principal officer" as required by Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 or the Constitution and Congress does not have oversight of DOGE because it exists within the Executive Office of the President. This sounds rather bizarre to me as the President has clear authority, in my view, to set up an ad hoc task force to carry out a time-limited mission and to appoint anyone he wishes to lead it. But I'm not a judge on the DC Circuit.

In these circumstances, it must be indisputable that this court acts within the bounds of its authority. Accordingly, it cannot issue a TRO, especially one as wide-ranging as Plaintiffs request, without clear evidence of imminent, irreparable harm to these Plaintiffs. The current record does not meet that standard. //

NavyVet
32 minutes ago
I am sick and tired of this "unelected official" BS. It is "unelected officials" that have been malfeasant allowing massive fraud waste and abuse. That's the way it works.

So the entire "unelected official" mantra is a smokescreen for the ignorant and stupid. That means it works on democrats and their media bootlickers, but has no credibility with the rest of us.

In fact, all it shows us is that the democrats are corrupt and stupid.

The cadre of elite disease detectives at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to be left in ruin today as the Trump administration continues to slash the federal workforce.

Many members of the CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service, EIS—a globally revered public health training program—were informed earlier Friday that they were about to be fired, according to reporting from Stat News. Multiple sources told CBS News that half of EIS officers are among the ongoing cuts.

The Trump administration is ousting thousands of probationary federal workers in a wide-scale effort to dramatically slim agencies.

The EIS is a two-year program filled with competitively selected, highly educated and trained experts. EIS officers are the ones deployed in critical public health situations, such as deadly outbreaks or bioterror attacks. The program has a long, rich history since its establishment in 1951, which includes contributing to the eradication of smallpox, among other achievements.

Now we have another example. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner has formed a DOGE task force to work with the larger effort to comb through HUD's books, and one of the first things they found was $1.9 billion - that's "billion" as in a "b" followed by an "illion" - that had been "misplaced" by the Biden administration.

How, for the luvva Pete, do you "misplace" almost two billion taxpayer dollars? //

There has to be more to this story than a huge block of money confiscated by force of law from American taxpayers just being "misplaced." Remember that the Biden administration was marked by corruption and incompetence, from the very top down, and it's hard to credit that this money was just "misplaced."

Margot Cleveland @ProfMJCleveland
·
Replying to @ProfMJCleveland
3/3 As drafted, the Order would prohibit Donald Trump & heads of agencies from assessing data or firing anyone. Would be most restrictive of all TROs entered to day if Court enters.
10:23 PM · Feb 15, 2025

Slowly but surely, these multiple lawsuits against the Trump administration, often for exercising the barest amount of oversight of agency expenditures, are being settled. The Trump agenda is being slowed, but not as much as the first time around. The actions by the administration are much better planned and coordinated than they were in 2017, and the lawyering is much superior. When the dust settles, Trump will have had his way on these ridiculous ankle-biter cases, and I think he will score a huge win at SCOTUS that will crush the administrative state. More on that to come in a VIP post.

Oh, I see it all the time….

Actually, Elon called me, he said, you know they're trying to drive us apart. I said absolutely. No, they said, “we have breaking news that Donald Trump has ceded control of the presidency to Elon Musk. President Musk will be attending a cabinet meeting at 8 o'clock.” [Musk cracks up in laughter at this point.]

And I say, it's just so obvious, they' so bad at it. I used to think they were good at it. They're actually bad at it because if they were good at it, I'd never be president. …I think nobody in history has ever gotten more bad publicity than me. I could do the greatest things. I get 98 percent bad publicity. //

Owen Gregorian
@OwenGregorian
·
Follow
TV Hits Trump With 85% Negative News vs. 78% Positive Press for Harris | mrcNewsBusters

One week before Election Day, a new analysis from the Media Research Center finds that broadcast evening news coverage of the 2024 presidential race has been the most lopsided in history.… Show more
11:17 AM · Oct 29, 2024. //

anon-x8p1 Maximus Decimus Cassius
2 hours ago
He just did [ridiculed the press], with the greatest one-liner of all.

While the Democrats' stance on the matter is divorced from MAGA's—hardly news—what is notable is that it's also quite divorced from what was traditionally the Left's position on USAID.

Prolific mainstream and left-wing journals have reported on some of USAID's more nefarious dealings for many years, often posting critical coverage of the organization itself. Just a few weeks ago, an opinion article in American socialist magazine Jacobin kicked the organization while it's down as it became clear Trump aimed to gut it. Left-wing website The Grayzone published a similarly critical feature around the same time.

Though Democratic President John F. Kennedy established USAID in 1961 with humanitarian ambitions in mind, the organization has been distorted far beyond its intended use.

Over the years, USAID has indubitably used "humanitarianism" as a veil for regime change efforts in countries the U.S. sees political climates as unfavorable. //

Many suggest USAID also aided a regime change effort in Ukraine in 2004. This narrative came not from pro-Trump media, as one may expect it to—it was actually reported by The Guardian at the time. //

Onetime left-wing hero Matt Taibbi tore into USAID as far back as 1997 when he blamed it for making the world more hostile for American citizens because of its attempted manipulation of international politics. Furthermore, he suggested that on top of its shortsighted political engagements, it made life worse for those it intended to help. A February 3 tweet indicates he still feels largely the same about the organization. //

It's just another example of how Trump has so emphatically destroyed the traditional American political axis and recruited a cult of supporters so disillusioned with the federal government that they've gleefully adopted a traditionally left-wing viewpoint.

As for the Democrats, their marching in defense of a regime change tool that Trump's base is giddy to destroy is extraordinary, but unsurprising. The USAID saga is a further indictment that the party's messaging and actions have estranged portions of the Left—so much so that some of them are even in Trump's cabinet.

The Biden administration had asked the State Department to explore interests by private companies to make armored EVs, leading to a public Request for Information to find interested EV-makers, a department spokesperson said, adding that only one company responded at the time.

An official solicitation for EV manufacturers to bid on making armored EVs is on hold with no current plans to use it, the spokesperson said, adding that the government has not awarded any contracts. [....]

Axios is confirming this sentiment in a focus group of swing voters that they surveyed. The focus group included 11 people who had voted for Biden in 2020 but switched to Trump in the 2024 election. Eight were independents, two were Republicans, and one was a Democrat.

Every Arizona swing voter in our latest Engagious/Sago focus groups said they approve of President Trump's actions since taking office — and most also support Elon Musk's efforts to slash government.

"An official website of the United States government," reads small text atop the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) website that Elon Musk's team started populating this week with information on agency cuts.

But you apparently don't have to work in government to push updates to the site. A couple of prankster web developers told 404 Media that they separately discovered how "insecure" the DOGE site was, seemingly pulling from a "database that can be edited by anyone."

One coder couldn't resist and pushed two updates that, as of this writing, remained on the DOGE site. "This is a joke of a .gov site," one read. "THESE 'EXPERTS' LEFT THEIR DATABASE OPEN," read another.