USAID, Sunlight is the best Disinfectant - 2/4/2025

I gotta be honest, three days ago I had never heard of USAID. Today's post will be short, just my nearly random thoughts about it.

USAID vaults into the spotlight just two weeks into Trump's second term.

1) The Democrats going nuts over this, Jamie Raskin and Ilhan Omar, for example to name two of them, are instructive for me. Chances are good that if they're not happy, I'm happy.

They're freaking out because they know Musk is better at finding than they were at hiding.

2) The freaking out over Elon Musk and his band of incredible programmers having access to their systems is also instructive. They never expected anyone to look behind their curtain, especially not people like the people Musk has brought in who are better at finding stuff than the USAID folks were at hiding it.

3) They're freaking out because President Trump is liable to shut USAID down by Executive Order. I read yesterday that President Kennedy started USAID with... you guessed it, an Executive Order. 'Live by the sword, die by the sword,' as they say.

4) If USAID is intended to be the clearinghouse for foreign aid, it belongs under the Department of State. Trump is right to assign it to Secretary of State Rubio (who is off and running, doing a great job so far).

Secretary of State Marco Rubio. If USAID is what they say it is, Department of State is where it belongs.

5) Rubio himself said yesterday that much of what USAID spends is vital, so I don't see it going away completely.

6) Some of the early disclosures of things USAID funded overseas are outrageous. Clearly, leftist political activists have been pushing not a pro-America foreign policy, but a pro-LGBTQ+ agenda, and doing so deep in the shadows. The cliché, 'sunlight is the best disinfectant' comes to mind. Transgender comics or cartoons for kids? YGBSM!

7) Some of the expenditures seem to be the kind allocated by congress on page 645 of a 1500 page spending bill, stuff they're ashamed of, but put in to support unpopular expenses. Now that those things are being moved into the sunlight, some of us are outraged.

8) I have read reports, maybe speculative, that USAID is where the CIA's dark money for the naughty shit they do flows though. Maybe so.

9) I also read that Ukraine aid flows from USAID. I found it interesting that yesterday Zelensky said significantly less than what we allocated actually got to them. As soon as he knew the books were open, he was the first to say, "Wasn't me!" Sure it wasn't.

10) I strongly suspect, strongly is NOT a strong enough word, that many of our politicians are lining their pockets with donations and kickbacks from recipients of USAID money and or from contractors whose services USAID recipients use to do those things being funded.

11) I also suspect that a significant amount of foreign aid goes to corrupt foreign leaders, and that we've been just fine with that, as long as lining their pockets keeps them in line with our agenda.

12) The NGOs who help migrants beat our system are funded by USAID. Via USAID we, the U.S. taxpayers, mostly unwittingly and nearly universally against our will, aid and abet illegal immigrants in beating the system.

As I said in opening, I just learned about this organization. From what I can see, all the right people are complaining, so I hope Trump, Musk, and Vivek keep right on peeling back this onion and exposing what hides inside to the disinfecting sunlight.