Jennings described what he called the "dumbest strategy in politics" currently being utilized by Democrats, where they take the side on an issue that has 20 percent approval because they reflexively revolt against whatever Trump is doing. This includes keeping men out of women's sports and collapsing USAID.
"This is like Trump's superpower," said Jennings. "Finding a bunch of 80-20 issues and getting on the 80 and everybody who is reflexively against him gets on the 20, and now the Democrat Party has a 31% approval rating."
As usual, Jennings is right. Though he's using the 80/20 idea here loosely, he's still accurate.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that America wanted to freeze foreign assistance programs via USAID by 16 points (56 percent vs 40 percent) and an NYT/Ipsos poll found that people say 79 percent of males should not be allowed to participate in women's sports.
But you can see this in other places as well. //
According to the Daily Wire, a poll conducted by McLaughlin and Associates on behalf of Tea Party Patriots Action, sees that the vast majority of Americans love DOGE's work and want to see a border bill: //
But far be it from me to stop them from lodging their own bullets in their own feet.
USAspending is the official open data source of federal spending information,
including information about federal awards such as contracts, grants, and loans.
The more President Donald Trump does, the more the left flies into stammering, impotent rage, and the more the rest of us have to point and laugh at. And the president is doing a lot, including removing us from impractical and even wasteful international deals that hurt American prosperity - like the Paris climate accords, which the president yanked us out of right away.
That made the climate scolds angry, of course. But now it's getting even better; as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is finding more and more wasteful expenditures, the more all the president's men are cutting out of the executive branch's budgets - and a lot of those cuts are emptying the coffers of some notorious climate scolds.
That's right, the federal government was paying these people to advocate for the destruction of our modern, high-technology lifestyles. At the great climate website Watts Up With That, author Charles Rotter has brought receipts.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/02/05/schadenfreude-at-its-finest-climate-grifters-cry-over-trumps-grant-freeze/
“The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America,” reads the very first sentence of Article II of the Constitution. “A” is singular. There is a President of the United States. He has the executive power. The federal bureaucracy operates under the President. Congress has, in some cases, established executive departments that the President cannot get rid of due to their statutory origin. Congress has granted some executive powers that the President cannot get rid of due to their statutory origins. But everyone in the executive branch serves at the pleasure of the President and, with few limits, he gets to direct the executive branch. //
rump is, they claim, engaged in a coup against the American administrative state.
One can hardly launch a coup against oneself. The executive power is vested in a single President, not an administrative state. Mr. Trump is retrieving powers long ago distributed to unelected bureaucrats who have used that power to advance progressive goals even when progressives do not hold power. //
Contrary to some Trump supporters’ claims, USAID did not spend $50 million on condoms for Gaza. It was $45 million and included “sexual and other reproductive health care” for Gaza, not just condoms. There was, separately, $10 million for condoms in the Gaza Province of Mozambique, in Africa. USAID also spent $2 million on healthcare for transgender youth in Guatemala; $45 million for DEI scholarships in Burma; $520 million for leftwing ESG investments in Africa; and $45 million to promote social justice and democracy based on the theories of an Italian Marxist professor. The money flows through and subsidizes various leftwing NGOs. Virtually one hundred percent of USAID’s top outside contractors, recipients of billions of dollars, donate to the Democratic Party. Tim Meisburger, a former USAID employee, discovered that “Of the top 17 grantees and partners of USAID’s Office of Democracy, Human Rights and Governance, 14 saw 100 percent of their political donations during the 2019–2020 election cycle directed to Democratic Party causes with only one (the International Republican Institute) under 90 percent.”
Therein lies the reason Republicans now wish to wind down USAID and Democrats wish to preserve it. The organization is not just a clearing house for aid from the United States to the developing world but both a boundary-breaking vanguard of progressive funding abroad and a pass-through source of Democratic Party donations domestically.
The State Department can run PEPFAR and other programs. USAID is not a necessary entity.
Things are about to get much worse, though, so buckle up. According to recently revealed records, left-leaning news outlet Politico received over thirty-four million dollars from USAID and other government agencies. That money went to pay for "subscriptions" for various bureaucratic officials, including "pro" subscriptions that add up to over $10,000 a pop. //
Stephen L. Miller @redsteeze
·
Guess which outlet the Biden campaign and intel officials solicited the laptop letter story to?
Sunny @sunnyright
We do indeed appear to be funneling large sums of tax money to @politico so that some bureaucrats can read left-wing journalists complain about Republicans
9:02 AM · Feb 5, 2025. //
There's more, though, and while it's speculative, it's certainly a pretty big coincidence. After all the funding from USAID to Politico got shut down in late January, they suddenly missed their next pay period, claiming "technical difficulties.". //
If you've ever wondered how some of these left-wing news outlets stay afloat financially, what has been revealed about Politico is one big reason. Democrats use federal agencies to funnel money for the express purpose of influencing elections and pushing left-wing ideology. It's been out in the open with organizations like NPR and PBS, but the level of corruption we are going to find out about will be mind-blowing. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Politico should not survive this. To take millions of dollars from the entity you are covering and not let your readers know about it is a huge breach of journalistic ethics. Hopefully, this leads to major investigations because does anyone actually believe it costs $447,998 for 37 subscriptions to a news site? If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck.
The truth is, with every discovery of waste and corruption, I feel even more excited about what Musk is doing. With every panicked and angry speech given by a Democrat, my confidence in what Musk is doing is only increases.
I'm not just feeling hostile, I feel happily hostile.
But one thing needs to be understood by Psaki and the Democrats. This is definitely a takeover, but it's not a takeover by Trump or Musk, it's from the people. All the hostility they're feeling is coming from us, the people whose tax dollars were wasted and even used against us. Before we stopped them, they wanted to empower the IRS with our own tax dollars to take even more of our tax dollars.
Have a happily hostile year, everyone!
Ernst’s struggle to hold USAID accountable frustrated Musk who called the agency’s obstruction of her attempts to investigate ‘outrageous.’. //
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst disclosed in an X Spaces forum with DOGE Head Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy on Sunday that USAID issued “all kinds of threats” to the Republican and her office for her attempt to “exercise my oversight capacity in Congress.”
Ernst first pressed USAID on how it used its tax dollars to pay the facilities and administrative costs outlined in Negotiated Indirect Cost Rate Agreements (NICRAs) in November 2022. //
When USAID finally responded in February 2023, the agency claimed it did not “have a system to track or report on this data, as it is not possible to compare indirect costs between for-profit and nonprofit organizations at the rate level.”
One week later, Ernst’s staff debunked this claim by sending USAID a link “to a publicly reported NICRA database.” USAID confirmed the existence of a database but once again refused to indulge Ernst’s demands.
This time, the agency claimed that divulging NICRA information was impossible because it would violate several federal laws including “the Economic Espionage Act, Protection of Trade Secrets Act, and Disclosure of Confidential Information Act.” //
Eventually, Ernst’s staff was permitted access to “very limited data” about USAID’s indirect costs.
“They were allowed to go into a room and they couldn’t take notes. They were on camera the whole time. They couldn’t remove any of the information,” Ernst told Musk.
Even with “very limited data,” Ernst said her staff discovered USAID spent “anywhere from 50 to 60 percent” on indirect costs which could range from someone’s “rent in Paris” to a “fancy dinner to entertain whomever.”
Kennedy's Executive Order 10973 named the USAID. But read the first line carefully.
By virtue of the authority vested in me by the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (75 Stat. 424) and section 301 of title 3 of the United States Code, and as President of the United States, it is hereby ordered as follows:
This corresponds to a Congressional directive, the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. That law required Kennedy to create a foreign aid organization to replace the hodgepodge then in existence. The law lists a wide range of international aid activities required by Congress and directs the president to put those functions under a single person.
The President may exercise any functions conferred upon him by this Act through such agency or officer of the United States Government as he shall direct. Tne head of any such agency or such officer may from time to time promulgate such rules and regulations as may be necessary to carry out such functions, and may delegate authority to perform any such functions, including, if he shall so specify, the authority successively to redelegate any of such functions to any of his subordinates. //
Such designation and authorization shall be in writing, shall be published in the Federal Register, shall be subject to such terms, conditions, and limitations as the President may deem advisable, and shall be revocable at any time by the President in whole or in part. //
From the beginning, the USAID administrator has required Senate approval and has had a budget.
Because Congress created the agency, President Trump will either gut it and leave the remnant alive or set off a direct conflict with Congress, which he may or may not want.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt battled the press on Monday, listing off several grants she described as "insane." That includes over a million dollars to push DEI in Serbia and tens of thousands of dollars for a transgender opera in Colombia. As it turns out, those examples were just the tip of the iceberg. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) put out a thread on Tuesday and you won't believe what your money has been going to.
On second thought, you might believe it given our government's track record, but it's still jarring. Take a walk with me because things are about to get crazy.
Elon Musk @elonmusk
.
Fraud in the federal government is closer to 10% of disbursements, so more like ~$700 billion per year.
Outright waste is at least 15%, so another trillion+ dollars.
Anyone who works in government knows this.
Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger
·
Forty-three paragraphs into the NYT's latest hit piece on @elonmusk, the six (!) by-lined reporters reveal that the federal government lost $236 billion to apparent fraud ("improper payments") in 2023 alone. Maybe this isn't the dunk you guys thought it was?
John Ʌ Konrad V
@johnkonrad
Fact: Bribery is rampant in the U.S. government and military—but it’s also legal.
To understand what’s going on at USAID you must understand how bribery works in America today.
Here’s how to legally bribe a 4-star US Army General:
American bribery operates differently than the classic cash-in-a-suitcase (or bitcoin today!) model still used in most other countries. It relies on trust, time, and reputation—making it nearly impossible to prosecute.
Efficiencies
Tracking DOGE wins
We are grateful to the wide range of funders, including national governments, the UN and other international organisations, foundations, corporate partners and private individuals who support us.
Our significant donors include the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, several UN agencies, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), the Norwegian Agency for Development Co-operation, Global Affairs Canada, USAID and many others.
In an interview with Fox News, however, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the agency had become filled with “rank insubordination.”
“They just think they’re a global entity and that their master is the globe and not the United States. And that’s not sustainable,” Rubio said.
Rubio told reporters on his first foreign trip to Latin America he is now the acting director of USAID after employees and congressional Democrats were locked out of the headquarters this week.
“There are a lot of functions of USAID that are going to continue, that are going to be part of American foreign policy, but it has to be aligned with American foreign policy,” Rubio said in El Salvador.
A review of its recent priorities reveal the agency had more to do with far-left social engineering overseas than responsible diplomacy. Here’s a look at what USAID has been funding with American tax dollars:
The White House’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has finally gained access to the U.S. government’s payment system after a career bureaucrat had blocked them out. In an executive order creating DOGE, President Donald Trump ordered all agencies to provide the small but energetic team, headed by Elon Musk, with “full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems,” for the purpose of identifying and exposing areas of government waste, which can later be cut.
A single payment system within the U.S. Treasury Department is effectively the spigot for every dollar Uncle Sam spends, and for decades access to it has remained closely held among career officials in the U.S. Treasury Department’s Bureau of Fiscal Service. Since the election, agents of DOGE have requested access to this system, and they renewed their requests after Trump’s executive order made their department official.
Yet through the first week of the Trump administration, Acting Treasury Secretary David Lebryk denied DOGE access to the payment system. Last Monday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Trump’s nominee, received Senate confirmation, and Trump administration officials placed Lebryk on administrative leave.
On Friday, Lebryk announced his retirement in a letter to Treasury employees — rather a high-flying move for a civil servant. The letter addressed the Fiscal Service without addressing the controversy directly. “The Fiscal Service performs some of the most vital functions in government,” he said. “Our work may be unknown to most of the public, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t exceptionally important.”
This could simply be encouraging comments, or it could be a subtle call to further resistance against impending changes by the Trump administration. The latter would be both inappropriate and unwelcome. //
“The fact that there are people in the government, paid by taxpayers, who think the President of the United States or his designee cannot see who is being paid by the federal government is a scandal of the highest order,” Kilgannon added. “Expect resignations and firings until this situation is corrected. We have a right and a duty to know where federal dollars are flowing.”
Meanwhile, the mainstream media is not enamored by the thought of public accountability for public spending; their reporting attempts to make the access by DOGE appear sinister. //
For now, the stated purpose of DOGE is to audit the government for waste, so that the elected agents of the people can actually control the government that governs in the people’s name. The team is too small and moving too fast to pull illegitimate shenanigans along the way. //
But even mechanical jobs need oversight because machines can malfunction, too. Musk reported on Saturday, “The @DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups. They literally never denied a payment in their entire career. Not even once.” //
“More will come out,” Gacek continued, “but two things are clear: Trump was watching how Elon Musk took over Twitter, and there will be no #resistance in the federal workforce.”
Cafeblue32
5 minutes ago
Like I said, pattern recognition. I see it all the time with democrats now. Whatever crime they're accusing the GOP of committing and whatever awful character flaw they assign conservatives is inversely proportional to the guilt of the accusers themselves. The louder they are, the guiltier they are of trying to deflect. This has always been so to a point, but nothing like today. Hillary did it by gaslighting her working with Russia to get rid of Trump and transferring all onto Trump to take the attention off her involvement, and dems have been openly doing this since. //
Sandy-like the beach I can be
2 hours ago
"All the billionaires I know..." How does a bartender from the Bronx know so many billionaires? Never mind. //
reddog1
2 hours ago
"the danger ... in the lack of expertise ... that Elon has"
I can't think of anyone with more demonstrated achievements in more diverse fields. I don't know if it's expertise or just boldness and some ability to assimilate information at a pace that most of the rest of us don't possess, but the guy is amazing.
AOC as the PR voice for your movement -- that's what I would call not smart. //
GeoMcGeo
an hour ago
I'm sitting here working remotely from my home high in the mountains with reliable high-speed Starlink internet service put in place by SpaceX, two ventures that were unimaginable to most people 20 years ago, and marveling at Elon Musk's vision and execution skills. What has AOC and her party done for me? Reduced my spending power by 20% over the last 4 years and wrecked my childrens' career prospects as they wrapped up college at the beginning of the COVID panic.
The US Digital Service was a part of the Executive Office of the President (EOP) established by Barack Obama. Trump then renamed that unit "DOGE." Most of the people in the EOP are "unelected" as are most of the people in the executive branch and the USAID officials. Chuck thinks they are somehow sacrosanct and immune from review.
Schumer is essentially saying the elected president doesn't have any right to review an agency within the executive branch. Indeed, it is Schumer who is arguing that an "unelected shadow government" of bureaucrats from USAID should not be questioned or reviewed by the president and the people in the EOP when USAID has control of $50 billion a year.
Plus, imagine Democrats having fits about things being run by a shadow government when Joe Biden was in cognitive decline for four years. They have some nerve. //
Elon Musk
@elonmusk
·
Hysterical reactions like this is how you know that @DOGE is doing work that really matters.
This is the one shot the American people have to defeat BUREAUcracy, rule of the bureaucrats, and restore DEMOcracy, rule of the people. We’re never going to get another chance like this.
It’s now or never. Your support is crucial to the success of the revolution of the people.
Chuck Schumer @SenSchumer
An unelected shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover of the federal government.
DOGE is not a real government agency.
DOGE has no authority to make spending decisions.
DOGE has no authority to shut programs down or to ignore federal law.
DOGE’s conduct cannot be…
3:59 AM · Feb 4, 2025
It seems shocking that a government entity that has the word "aid" in its acronym would ever be accused of doing dirty tricks and worse against the friends and foes of the U.S., much less be defanged or shut down by Donald Trump. For the world's lefties this defanging is unthinkable. But now, we're finding out all kinds of skullduggery attributed to our color revolutionistas at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Victoria Nuland, and Samantha Power and their kindred through the years. And color revolution coups have been their specialty. See Ukraine 2014.
Need a race riot in Africa? No problem, USAID is your go-to riot planner. Want to force out a democratically elected president? Call USAID for an information onslaught guaranteed to get rid of any elected populist. Need conservatives censored? Call USAID.
But you may not have heard this one unless you follow the work of former CIA targeter and Defense Department operative Sarah Adams. See her interview on the "Shawn Ryan Show" podcast below.
She tracked the Al-Qaeda operation and operators that Jake Sullivan and Hillary Clinton denied were part the Benghazi attack and proved it was a preplanned Al-Qaeda terrorist attack.
And Adams has tracked-back the money being sent by the United States government to our enemies—the people we went to war against to settle the score for 9/11.
Catherine reports nearby that USAID dollars support Iran's proxies Hamas. If that's shocking, then you'll want to sit down for this next revelation. The U.S. State Department and USAID pay millions of dollars per week to the Taliban, the bin Laden family leading the group, and the Haqqani terror network. Remember those guys? Didn't we wage a 20-year-long war to get rid of them ...??? //
And now, as Adams reckons, we pay the Taliban and all the above parties between $40-87 million per week that is carried on a plane complete with a bag man who doles out the payoffs. //
We pay our enemies—and they're our enemies—millions per week. We share intelligence with them, and we left our other enemy, China, in the driver's seat in Afghanistan. How does this help the United States? Both the U.S. State Department and USAID and the Pentagon made that happen.
Whose side are they on? //
And even though we're paying them millions per month, Adams says Al-Qaeda terrorists who's training camps we're paying for have gone gotten visas from Brazil, come up through Panama's Darien Gap, and entered our country for Hamas-like attacks in the U.S. Thanks, Joe Biden.
I know Trump talked about negotiating with the Taliban to get out of Afghanistan when he was President #45, but considering that the USAID employees were attempting to sidestep his foreign policy priorities (and were fired for it), wouldn't it be a good idea to get a reckoning of how much we're paying these terrorists to kill us? //
Federal government grant award search
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