Re: Gutting USAID

In article <vo2ngb$313lr$1@dont-email.me>, atropos@mac.com wrote:

Never fear! I've got more...
>
USAID spent taxpayer dollars on
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--$43 million on a gas station in Afghanistan that had no customers
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--$1.5 million to promote LGBT Jamaicans
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--$4 million for trans Hungarians
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--$5.5 million for gay rights in Uganda
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--$17 million for "trans inclusion" programs in Vietnam
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--$25 million to promote "green transportation" in Georgia
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--$1 million for Arab and Jewish photographers
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--$20 million for the fund George Soros uses to get prosecutors like L.A.'s
George Gascon elected
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--$8 million to teach Sri Lankan journalists how to avoid "binary-gendered
language", and...
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--$122 million ended up in the hands of terrorists

The now-shuttered U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) paid
Ukrainian models and designers to go to Paris Fashion Week and other frivolous
luxuries, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said Wednesday.

Ernst revealed that USAID did not report the expenditures in public databases
and tried to block her staff from seeing them, claiming they were classified.
In reality, she said, they were not classified, merely embarrassing for how
wasteful they were.

Ukraine�s leader Volodymyr Zelensky has demanded billions from American
taxpayers, raising the specter of gruesome deaths and suffering. But �staff
learned that the aid intended to alleviate economic distress in the war-torn
nation was spent on such frivolous activities as sending Ukrainian models and
designers on junkets to New York City, London Fashion Week, Paris Fashion
Week, and South by Southwest in Austin, Texas,� a memo obtained by The Daily
Wire said.

Ukrainian recipients of �Competitive Economy Program (CEP)� funds included,
the memo said:

� A modern women�s attire company ($150,000) � A trade mission for a fashion
design house ($128,000) � A photographer for fashion design publications
($126,000) � A purveyor of contemporary knitwear ($161,000) � A luxury bridal
brand ($84,000)

� Marketplace for designer artisanal pieces inspired by folk crafts ($84,000)

Money going to Ukraine also went to a vineyard ($89,000), an �artisanal fruit
tea company� ($104,000), a �custom carpet manufacturer� ($2 million), a
confectionary company ($678,000), a dog collar manufacturer, and a designer of
upscale furniture.

Ernst said that for years, USIAD had treated her efforts at congressional
oversight with open hostility. She wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio
this month that the agency �has engaged in a demonstrated pattern of
obstructionism� in which they refused to say how they were spending money.
When they begrudgingly let congressional overseers see their finances,
bureaucrats videotaped the investigators and not only barred them from copying
the records, but even restricted their note-taking.

Ernst, the chair of the Senate Small Business Committee, said USAID would only
allow her staff to review documents �in a sensitive compartmented information
facility (SCIF) at USAID headquarters. These requirements were all presented
to my staff under the false pretense that this data was classified.�

�From my staff�s review of the data on USAID assistance to businesses in
Ukraine thus far, it seems clear why USAID is trying to withhold information
from Congress. Based on the in-camera review, it appears that over 5,000
Ukrainian businesses received U.S. taxpayer funded assistance through the
Competitive Economy Program (CEP), Investment for Business Resilience (IBR),
Credit for Agricultural Producers (CAP), and Agriculture Growing Rural
Opportunities (AGRO) programs with awards of up to $2 million each.�

She found that USAID was also allowing NGOs to keep more than 25% of grants
for themselves, to pay for �indirect costs� such as office rent, and that it
claimed it would be against the law for it to provide her information
necessary to evaluate whether that was appropriate.

Zelensky is set to visit the White House Friday to sign a new mineral deal
with the United States.

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Not a joke! Don't jump!