When a regime collapses, there is a race to grab control of its archives.
That’s what we are seeing play out right now.
In one sense we all knew this battle was coming, yet from a different direction. Hegseth, Patel, Bhattacharya, Gabbard. They were all nominated to uncover the rot and conspiratorial natures of their respective agencies. That’s why their nomination battles are so contentious.
However, that was the attack everyone knew was comin –, the one to fix your attention so that you never see the other one, that is going to hit you in the flank.
Last week, Trump suspended the entire senior leadership of USAID for insubordination. Over the weekend, he announced that the entire agency was shut down and Secretary of State Rubio was to be the interim head. As of Monday, there were DHS agents patrolling the lobby of its offices at the Reagan Building, and no doubt its networks have been airgapped.
USAID is better known to the public as the agency that provides foreign aid. Officially, it sends money abroad to combat poverty, assist those suffering from natural disasters, and promote democracy and human rights. However, it is one of the crown jewels of the Deep State because it serves as the pass-through for tax dollars flowing to various slush funds and projects, both foreign and domestic.
The other big news was that Treasury Secretary Bessent granted Elon Musk access to the Department’s payment systems. The Bureau of the Fiscal Service uses the systems to disburse more than $6 trillion in annual payments. The Left is abuzz, thinking that this is a fascist hijacking of the government. In reality it is part of the same plan as is the reassertion of control over USAID.
If the archives at USAID and various agencies are the libraries for the federal government, then the Treasury payment system forms its rudimentary index. In movie terms, getting into the payment system is like grabbing Capone’s accountant.
Of special note, one of the young whiz kids Elon has parsing code at Treasury won a prize for deciphering an ancient scroll through the use of AI. Seems like just the man for the job.
Apparently much of the $5 billion Victoria Nuland claimed we used to finance the 2014 coupe in Ukraine was distributed via NGO’s funded by USAID. That led directly to the disaster we currently see unfolding before our eyes in that country, complete with the threat of escalation to nuclear war. That alone would justify shutting them down. No doubt the agency is involved in supporting a number of similar “good ideas” worldwide. So much for international charity.
There were stories yesterday about “massive” protests in front of the USAID building.
https://x.com/DemocraticWins/status/1886482695456170382
If you look at the video, there are more probably more Democratic politicians and media than anyone else. There was talk this was a coup and all.
So if this was a coup, Jan. 6 was an insurrection, silence is violence, and banning transgender surgery for minors and allowing men to use the women’s bathroom is genocide.. what is there left int he political lexicon when everything has been turned to “11”
This morning checking the news… nothing on USAID. The world has moved on. Attention on DOGE- Musk-the whiz kid 6 and RFK, Jr. making out of committee. The Dems cannot keep up. I t would have been stupid in any case to pick a fight over USAID, foreign aid is not a vote-getter.
As to the Nuland issue, yes there is alot of stuff there. Power was in USAID to interfere in Hungary with their opposition.
Yes, and USAID funded “pro-democracy” NGO’s have been propping up “spontaneous demonstrations” against the results of the election in Georgia as well. There are actually a few journalists who actually deserve the name in Germany who have been doing a great job of exposing these ongoing scams. As one might expect, little of their work has been translated into English.
I really am enjoying the spectacle of the lights being turned on, strong and bright, and watching the roaches scatter.
A few things….
There is somebody on X, Data Republican, who is trying to map the connections among various government agencies (especially USAID) and nonprofits, using EIN and various grant databases It’s not summarized, but a blow-by-blow of ongoing research
https://x.com/DataRepublican
Mike Benz states that the USAID funding woke/DEI programs is tactical in nature, to open doors to US influence, rather than pushing a woke agenda for its own sake
https://x.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/1886655861734408356
One thing that popped up a couple of days ago was that TDS Bill Kristol’s “Defending Democracy Together” had received millions of dollars through Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors which in turn receives dollars from USAID.
https://x.com/DannyCampsalot/status/1886159613084508580
I didn’t dig further into how much Kristol’s outfit actually spends, seems like a small fraction of what it receives, or the salary structure. The question remains why does Bill Kristol get this money and how many other DC people are doing the same?
Roaches indeed! It’s nice to see the Administration kicking ass and taking names, as we used to put it in the Army. USAID is hardly the only deep state slush fund. There are a lot of other agencies out there whose “ancient scrolls” need to be deciphered.
If the “ancient scroll” in question was the Vesuvius challenge, IIRC, yeah that guy is amazing. I deeply regret losing the link to the very long post where he laid out the whole approach and results. It was of the essence of engineering and scholarship.
To personally attack such people is utterly shameful. Churlish, jealous, hateful.
I know Musk can be off-putting, but the people so put off are … fundamentally selfish and insecure and, hateful. I detect nothing there but insane curiosity and nerdliness in the best way, whe wow and play and excitement of making stuff, doing stuff.
This can of course go dark into watching stuff go BOOM!, but he’s not God-Emperor, just a high-level consultant. Reminds me of Leslie Groves, who forced the Manhattan Project to go from some guys in the faculty lounge to pouring-concrete-reality in days, decisions had to be made THIS WEEK, start construction THIS AFTERNOON.
You may actually get tired of winning and say its too much. Please stop the winning, we can’t take any more winning. HA, HA, HAAA, LOL.
Death367
Not just the archives, they got the check book too. Remember, it wasn’t the Untouchables that got Capone, it was the accountants