Behind the veil of humanitarian aid, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) doled out billions in taxpayer dollars to engage in left-wing social engineering abroad — from rampant LGBT advocacy to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and tech censorship.
President John F. Kennedy established USAID in 1961 to, in his words, “provide generously of our skills, and our capital and our food to assist the peoples of the less-developed nations to reach their goals in freedom.” The agency, though, has reinterpreted Kennedy’s mission statement to mean that Ecuador suffers from a lack of drag shows, that Peruvian comic books are too light on transgender representation, that the Serbian workplace is insufficiently welcoming to the homosexual community — while also offering social media platforms a host of creative tactics to suppress those who disagree with USAID’s social agenda.
“It’s probably one out of every three grants is totally insane left-wing nonsense … USAID has always been somewhat left, but when the Biden administration started, you can clearly see a huge uptick in spending,” Parker Thayer, who researches federal spending at Capital Research Center, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The amount of lunatic, fringe grants goes up dramatically. For example, if you go to USAspending[.gov] and search for the keyword ‘transgender,’ the graph is basically a vertical line when you hit 2021. It’s kind of remarkable.”
He also emphasized his discovery of a $13 million grant for an Arabic-language translation of “Sesame Street,” calling it “something else, man.”
These and other programs were the vehicle through which Power went about “working LGBT rights into the DNA of our foreign policy,” a priority she emphasized to Harvard students in 2015 during her tenure as U.S. Ambassador to the United States.
“One of the most common complaints you will get if you go to embassies around the world — from State Department officials and ambassadors and the like — is that USAID is not only not cooperative; they undermine the work that we’re doing in that country,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who assumed control over USAID on Monday, said. He condemned the agency’s more questionable programs as not only a waste of taxpayer dollars, but a diplomatic liability.
“They are supporting programs that upset the host government for whom we’re trying to work with on a broader scale,” he said.
Beyond pro-LGBT funding, former President Joe Biden’s USAID offered social media platforms a “disinformation primer,” a 100-page document providing guidance for countering “disinformation” through increased fact-checking and censorship — policies it said would make platforms more “democratically accountable.”
The document credits some of its content suppression tactics to the Global Engagement Center (GEC), a now-defunct agency that operated under the State Department. To “counter disinformation,” GEC recommended ginning up “moral outrage” against content that “violates [the] sacred value” of what it considers “the truth.”
Biden seemed to heed GEC’s guidance on moral outrage during the height of the pandemic in 2021, accusing Facebook of “killing people” by insufficiently censoring anti-vaccine content on the platform. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg recalled during his Jan. 10 appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience” an instance when the Biden administration pressured him to censor a satirical meme about vaccine side effects. Biden later walked back his accusation against Facebook in an interview with CNN.
The USAID-funded primer also recommended “advertiser outreach,” a strategy that would financially throttle agency-disfavored informational outlets by informing advertisers of potential damage to brand reputation.
“[Advertisers] inadvertently are funding and amplifying platforms that disinform. Thus, cutting this financial support found in the ad-tech space would obstruct disinformation actors from spreading messaging online,” the Disinformation Primer reads. “Efforts have been made to inform advertisers of their risks, such as the threat to brand safety by being placed next to objectionable content.”
The document further characterized the legacy media’s recent decline “leading to a loss of information integrity,” which thereby justifies USAID’s efforts to combat those “casting doubt on media.”
“It leads to a loss of information integrity. Online news platforms have disrupted the traditional media landscape. Government officials and journalists are not the sole information gatekeepers anymore … Because traditional information systems are failing, some opinion leaders are casting doubt on media, which, in turn, impacts USAID programming and funding choices,” the document continued.
USAID also faced intense congressional scrutiny in 2023 after allegations emerged that its PREDICT program and subsequent grants to EcoHealth Alliance potentially funneled U.S. taxpayer funds into gain-of-function coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology — which raised questions about USAID’s possible role in contributing to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul complained that USAID refused to hand over documents pertaining to the allegations and the agency’s funding habits.
“The response I got from your agency was: ‘USAID will not be providing any documents at this time.’ They’re just unwilling to give documents on scientific grant proposals — we’re paying for it, they’re asking for $745 million more in money. We get no response,” Rand said. “We’re not asking for classified information. We’re not asking for anything unusual. 20 million people died around the world … and you won’t give us the basic information about what grants you’re funding — should we be funding the Academy of Military Medical Research in China?”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed Rand’s transparency concerns after announcing he was the USAID’s new acting director Monday, calling the agency “completely uncooperative.”
“They’re one of the most suspicious federal agencies that exists,” Thayer told the DCNF, suggesting the agency’s reputation for being opaque is justified. “It’s kind of a character trait for USAID to be less than transparent.”
Thayer explained that, in his research, USAID is selective in its transparency. The grants he called “complete nonsense,” such as the “Sesame Street” translation, “are very specific about what they’re doing. And the ones that are vaguely humanitarian-sounding are usually written like someone put a sociology textbook through a word randomizer then just took whatever it spat out and put it on the page. They are so full of jargon words that they’re basically incomprehensible, even to people who understand what the jargon words are supposed to mean.”
“I got $1.1 million for a study of youth rural migration in Morocco,” he added. “I literally — I cannot help you in understanding what that could possibly mean. I have no idea what that means.”
Elon Musk, the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), claimed that he and President Donald Trump agreed to shutter the agency entirely during an X Spaces conversation early Monday morning. Rubio emphasized in a Tuesday interview with Fox News that he does not intend to “get rid of foreign aid,” but is considering whether USAID ought to be housed under State Department or remain an autonomous agency.
“This is not about getting rid of foreign aid,” Rubio said. “There are things we do through USAID that we should continue to do, that make sense. And we’ll have to decide: Is that better through the State Department, or is that better through a reformed USAID? That’s the process we’re working through … but they’re completely uncooperative. We had no choice but to take dramatic steps to bring this thing under control.”
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Chief David Jimmie is president of Stonlasec8 and Chief of Squiala First Nation in B.C. He also chairs the Western Indigenous Pipeline Group. Photo courtesy Western Indigenous Pipeline Group
Stonlasec8 agreement is Canada’s first federal Indigenous loan guarantee
The first federally backed Indigenous loan guarantee paves the way for increased prosperity for 36 First Nations communities in British Columbia.
In May, Canada Development Investment Corporation (CDEV) announced a $400 million backstop for the consortium to jointly purchase 12.5 per cent ownership of Enbridge’s Westcoast natural gas pipeline system for $712 million.
In the works for two years, the deal redefines long-standing relationships around a pipeline that has been in operation for generations.
“For 65 years, there’s never been an opportunity or a conversation about participating in an asset that’s come through the territory,” said Chief David Jimmie of the Squiala First Nation near Vancouver, B.C.
“We now have an opportunity to have our Nation’s voices heard directly when we have concerns and our partners are willing to listen.”
Jimmie chairs the Stonlasec8 Indigenous Alliance, which represents the communities buying into the Enbridge system.
The name Stonlasec8 reflects the different regions represented in the agreement, he said.
The Westcoast pipeline stretches more than 2,900 kilometres from northeast B.C. near the Alberta border to the Canada-U.S. border near Bellingham, Wash., running through the middle of the province.
Map courtesy Enbridge
It delivers up to 3.6 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas throughout B.C. and the Lower Mainland, Alberta and the U.S. Pacific Northwest.
“While we see the benefits back to communities, we are still reminded of our responsibility to the land, air and water so it is important to think of reinvestment opportunities in alternative energy sources and how we can offset the carbon footprint,” Jimmie said.
He also chairs the Western Indigenous Pipeline Group (WIPG), a coalition of First Nations communities working in partnership with Pembina Pipeline to secure an ownership stake in the newly expanded Trans Mountain pipeline system.
There is overlap between the communities in the two groups, he said.
“It’s not a new idea. Alberta started it before us, and Ontario,” Labelle said.
“We hired some of the same advisors AIOC hired because we want to make sure we are aligned with the market. We didn’t want to start something completely new.”
Broadly, Jimmie said the Stonlasec8 agreement will provide sustained funding for investments like housing, infrastructure, environmental stewardship and cultural preservation. But it’s up to the individual communities how to spend the ongoing proceeds.
The long-term cash injections from owning equity stakes of major projects can provide benefits that traditional funding agreements with the federal government do not, he said.
Labelle said the goal is to ensure Indigenous communities benefit from projects on their traditional territories.
“There’s a lot of intangible, indirect things that I think are hugely important from an economic perspective,” he said.
“You are improving the relationship with pipeline companies, you are improving social license to do projects like this.”
Jimmie stressed the impact the collaborative atmosphere of the negotiations had on the success of the Stonlasec8 agreement.
“It takes true collaboration to reach a successful partnership, which doesn’t always happen. And from the Nation representation, the sophistication of the group was one of the best I’ve ever worked with.”
“So we’re going to have an order on that pretty soon – we can’t do that to our farmers and leisure too, hotels, we’re going to have to use a lot of common sense on that.”
President Donald Trump said Thursday that changes are coming to his aggressive immigration policies after complaints from farmers and business owners.
“Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,” Trump wrote in a social media post Thursday morning. “In many cases the Criminals allowed into our Country by the VERY Stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs. This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!”
Later Thursday, Trump made it clear that businesses need workers.
“Our farmers are being hurt badly. They have very good workers – they’re not citizens, but they’ve turned out to be great. And we’re going to have to do something about that,” the president said.
He added: “We can’t take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don’t have, maybe, what they’re supposed to have.”
Just how Trump may change his approach to immigration enforcement remains unclear, but he said he wants to help farmers and business owners.
“You go into a farm and you look and people, they’ve been there for 20 or 25 years and they work great and the owner of the farm loves them and you’re supposed to throw them out. You know what happens? They end up hiring the criminals that have come in, the murderers from prisons and everything else,” Trump said.
Trump said changes would be coming soon, but gave little detail on how policies could change.
“So we’re going to have an order on that pretty soon – we can’t do that to our farmers and leisure too, hotels, we’re going to have to use a lot of common sense on that.”
In a later post on Truth Social, Trump said illegal immigration had destroyed American institutions.
“Biden let 21 Million Unvetted, Illegal Aliens flood into the Country from some of the most dangerous and dysfunctional Nations on Earth — Many of them Rapists, Murderers, and Terrorists. This tsunami of Illegals has destroyed Americans’ Public Schools, Hospitals, Parks, Community Resources, and Living Conditions,” the president wrote. “They have stolen American Jobs, consumed BILLIONS OF DOLLARS in Free Welfare, and turned once idyllic Communities, like Springfield, Ohio, into Third World Nightmares.”
He added that deportations would continue: “I campaigned on, and received a Historic Mandate for, the largest Mass Deportation Program in American History. Polling shows overwhelming Public Support for getting the Illegals out, and that is exactly what we will do. As Commander-in-Chief, I will always protect and defend the Heroes of ICE and Border Patrol, whose work has already resulted in the Most Secure Border in American History. Anyone who assaults or attacks an ICE or Border Agent will do hard time in jail. Those who are here illegally should either self deport using the CBP Home App or, ICE will find you and remove you. Saving America is not negotiable!”
