Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 115
February 20, 2025
How USAID Funded Hamas
The most striking aspect of President Donald Trump’s dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) isn’t that unsavory aid recipients have misused taxpayer dollars. It’s that anyone is shocked by the revelations of waste, fraud, and abuse. After all, watchdog groups have sounded the alarm for years about misuse of USAID funds.
People shouldn’t just be enraged by USAID’s wasteful spending. They should also focus on what that spending supported—particularly when it promoted terror or aligned with Hamas’s interests.
Rather than being used to provide humanitarian aid and stabilize conflict-ridden regions—in accordance with USAID’s stated goal—American funds have often been funneled into corrupt, Hamas-tied institutions, with minimal oversight. A new multiyear study of USAID by the Middle East Forum identified $164 million in grants to radical organizations, including $122 million to those “aligned with designated terrorists and their supporters.” The MEF also found that “millions of federal dollars have been handed by USAID to organizations directly in Gaza controlled by Hamas, with government officials even visiting Gaza terror proxies’ offices and launching joint programs.”
The money has kept flowing, as the U.S. has distributed $2.1 billion in Gaza since Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostages on October 7, 2023. But the warning signs predate October 7. The USAID’s Inspector General—now raising the alarm about Trump’s shutdown of the agency—has consistently voiced concern over lax vetting mechanisms and inadvertent terror funding in the region.
The watchdog community has echoed these concerns. In December 2024, the group NGO Monitor highlighted USAID’s lack of transparency, reporting that it allocated $200 million to “miscellaneous foreign awardees” operating in the West Bank and Gaza. USAID identified neither the recipients of these funds nor their local partners. In 2021, NGO Monitor warned that alterations to USAID’s anti-terror vetting practices made the group “vulnerable to engagement with grantees and/or partners linked to terrorist organizations, or with groups that support, glorify, or excuse violence.”
Such misuse of taxpayer dollars could not have happened without significant failures of oversight from the State Department, which needs its own reckoning. The State Department should have more strictly supervised and prevented the agency’s corruption. Instead, department staffers were busy enacting soft coups from within by pushing back against former President Joe Biden’s Middle East policy, which they absurdly deemed too pro-Israel.
These subversive trends were mirrored within USAID itself. As revealed this week by the Washington Free Beacon, “USAID staffers went as far as to urge the Biden State Department to end military aid to Israel.” In 2021, then-USAID Administrator Samantha Power refused to meet with Israel’s ambassador unless Israel reached a ceasefire with Hamas—in direct contradiction to the plans of the White House National Security Council.
The absurdity here is as staggering as the implications are disturbing. For years, a contingent within USAID has actively subverted American foreign policy and greenlit aid to terror-tied entities without properly vetting them or, worse, vetting them and greenlighting anyway. We are only now scratching the surface of what’s happened.
The solution isn’t just closing USAID. A full investigation, led by newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio, must be launched into the State Department’s role in these failures. The American people deserve answers—not just about USAID’s missteps, but about a State Department that let this happen on its watch.
[…]
Via https://www.city-journal.org/article/usaid-spending-hamas-gaza-terror
Vaccine Spike Protein Still Circulating 709 Days After Injection
Immunological and Antigenic Signatures Associated with Chronic Illnesses after COVID-19 Vaccination
Studies providing evidence such as this will not be published unless they make loud claims in favour of the pharmaceutical industry’s needs, such as “COVID-19 vaccines have prevented millions of COVID-19 deaths.” This statement makes zero sense given that the more doses of the product you have, the more likely you are to “get covid”. It is also not supported at all by the clinical trial data, where the absolute risk reduction was 0.84% – 0.9% of placebo recipients compared to 0.4% of “vaccine” recipients developed symptoms.
The claim of “millions of lives saved” is based on flawed mathematical modeling used as a marketing ploy, rather than real world data. In the real world it is becoming widely understood that medical protocols such as end-of-life treatment pathways and toxic drugs were in fact the cause of many deaths at the height of the “pandemic” which only killed those already at the stairway to heaven.
Meanwhile, the toxic products named “vaccines” have been a genius move towards ensuring a lifetime of pharmaceutical industry custom, with a wide range of adverse effects depending on where the product travels to and how the individual’s physiology responds to its presence. Extreme differences have been found between batch numbers due to appalling quality control and apparent deliberate contamination.
Politicians, bureaucrats and “experts” doing the bidding of the pharmaceutical industry all said the spike protein was broken down at injection site. They lied. The lipid nanoparticles – toxic in themselves – allow the product to travel and concentrate throughout the body. Methyl pseudo-uridine (replacing natural uridine) – toxic in itself – was used to increase product stability and persistence in the body.
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CISA Shake-Up: Democrats Fight to Restore Government Control Over Online Speech
Didi Rankovich
Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) and Representative Joe Morelle (D-NY) are once again championing censorship under the guise of election security, objecting to the Trump administration’s decision to sideline several officials within the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). These lawmakers, both strong advocates for government intervention in online discourse, are alarmed that employees who previously played a role in monitoring and flagging speech for suppression have been placed on administrative leave.
Padilla, the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, and Morelle, the Ranking Member of the Committee on House Administration, are demanding explanations from senior CISA officials, asserting that the removal of these employees threatens election security. However, their concerns conveniently ignore the broader issue — CISA’s troubling involvement in suppressing free speech under the pretext of combating so-called “misinformation.”
In a formal letter, the lawmakers stated, “Election-related mis- and disinformation from domestic and foreign actors continues to threaten the strength and integrity of our democracy by weakening trust in our elections and promoting falsehoods about election officials that have resulted in threats against them and their families.” This rhetoric is a familiar justification for empowering government agencies to police online speech, often silencing dissenting voices and alternative perspectives in the process.
We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.
The removals at CISA are part of a course correction to ensure that federal agencies are not overstepping their bounds in surveilling and controlling public discourse. The Trump administration’s actions follow other moves aimed at restoring balance, such as dismantling an FBI task force that engaged in similar activities and removing Federal Election Commission (FEC) Chair Ellen Weintraub. Senator Padilla has responded by rallying fellow Democrats to demand the reinstatement of such figures, further exposing their commitment to government-controlled narratives.
Padilla and Morelle also question how CISA determined which employees to place on leave, suggesting that even those who had moved away from overt censorship operations remain essential to their agenda. They also bemoan CISA’s absence from recent election security conferences — gatherings that often serve as echo chambers for expanding government control over online speech.
The lawmakers’ letter demands a range of responses from CISA, seeking details on employee removals, directives from the Department of Homeland Security, and ongoing election security efforts. However, their real aim appears to be ensuring that CISA remains a stronghold for pro-censorship policies.
They have set a deadline of February 28, 2025, for CISA to respond, pushing for continued interference in election-related discourse. As they stated in their letter, “Regardless of party affiliation, all Americans deserve and expect free and fair elections.” Ironically, their persistent advocacy for government-regulated speech only undermines that very principle.
[…]
Via https://reclaimthenet.org/senators-defend-cisa-censorship-under-election-security-pretext
February 19, 2025
Correcting the Record on Court Actions Against Trump Executive Orders
Jonathan Turley
On CBS’s Face the Nation, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) repeated the talking point of Democratic politicians and pundits that the courts are stopping President Donald Trump’s lawless actions taken after his inauguration. Raskin declared “we’re winning in court…we’re winning across the board.” The boast was dubious at best on Sunday given earlier losses, but became embarrassing on Monday and Tuesday as additional courts ruled in favor of the Trump Administration in major cases.
For weeks, some of us have expressed confusion over the basis for some of the Democratic challenges and initial injunctions in court. President Trump clearly has the authority to designate federal officials to look at the books and track expenditures in the executive branch. After losing both houses and the majority vote, Democratic groups sought to use the courts to block such executive actions.
There was obvious forum shopping as these groups went to many of the same courts and judges for relief. However, even judges viewed as decidedly hostile to Trump like Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington ultimately balked at the demand for an injunction and allowed the access and actions to continue.
On Monday, Judge Randolph Moss, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia delivered a blow to groups seeking to block the Department of Government Efficiency from gaining access to data from the Department of Education on student borrowers. Judge Moss found in his ruling that the University of California Student Association failed to show sufficient irreparable harm to receive such immediate relief.
He, however, left the door open a crack: “The Court leaves for another day consideration of whether USCA has standing to sue and has stated a claim upon which relief may be granted. Those questions are less clear cut and are better answered on a more complete record.”
Judge Chutkan also refused to grant the plaintiffs’ request to issue a temporary restraining order of DOGE, again citing the failure to demonstrate evidence of “irreparable harm.”
There was a palpable sense of reluctance, even regret, in the opinion by Chutkan who noted that “Plaintiffs legitimately call into question what appears to be the unchecked authority of an unelected individual and an entity that was not created by Congress and over which it has no oversight.”
This, of course ignores the “elected individual” in the body of the President who is allowed to delegate such responsibility to subordinates. Chutkin would have been reversed by the higher courts if she had issued the requested TRO as demanded by the coalition of 14 Democratic state attorneys general.
Even before Raskin’s boast, U.S. District Judge John Bates also rejected a request to block DOGE from accessing records of three government agencies, writing in his own opinion Friday that plaintiffs “have not shown a substantial likelihood that [DOGE] is not an agency.”
Likewise, challengers thought that they had a victory in hand when U.S. District Court Judge George O’Toole enjoined the buyout offer by the Administration. Some of us criticized the injunction as lacking any cognizable basis given the clear authority of the President to make such an offer. Then, as many were citing the victory as proof of the Trump Administration’s unlawful actions, Judge O’Toole lifted the injunction on the buyout program, agreeing to allow the buyouts to go forward.
Then Judge Randolph Moss (D.D.C.) in Doe v. Office of Personnel Mgmt. rejected another challenge to testing by the Office of Personnel Management (“OPM”) of a new email system. The federal employees argued that the move violated federal law including privacy protections. The court, however, ruled that the “Plaintiffs have failed to carry their burden of demonstrating (1) that they likely have standing to bring this action, and (2) that they are likely to suffer irreparable injury in the absence of emergency relief.”
These and other setbacks do not mean that new cases cannot be brought with new records and parties. However, it is a far cry from the claim of Democrats “winning across the board.”
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How USAID Assisted the Corporate Takeover of Ukrainian Agriculture
John Klar
A recent essay titled “The Real Purpose of Net Zero” by Jefferey Jaxon posited that Europe’s current war against farmers in the name of preventing climate change is ultimately designed to inflict famine. Jaxon is not speculating on globalist motives; he is warning humanity of a rapidly unfolding reality that is observable in the perverse lies against cows, denigration of European farmers as enemies of the Earth, and calls by the WHO, WEF, and UN for a plant-based diet dependent entirely on GMOs, synthetic fertilizers, and agrichemicals.
Revelations about the evil doings of the Orwellian-monikered “United States Agency of International Development” (USAID) reveal a roadmap to totalitarian control unwittingly funded by America’s taxpaying proles. USAID’s clandestine machinations have long focused on controlling local and global food supplies as “soft colonization” by multinational chemical, agricultural, and financial corporations. European farmers revolting against climate, wildlife, and animal rights policies are harbingers of this tightening globalist noose.
The roots of the current globalist plan to “save humanity from climate change” link directly to the infamous Kissinger Report, which called to control world food supplies and agriculture as part of a globalist collaboration between nation-states and NGOs to advance US national security interests and “save the world” from human overpopulation using “fertility reduction technologies.” Kissinger’s 1974 Report was created by USAID, the CIA, and various federal agencies, including the USDA.
Fast forward to the 2003 Iraq War, justified using fear-mongering propaganda about weapons of mass destruction and neo-conservative malarky about rescuing the Iraqi people. The US-led occupation of Iraq became a rapacious profiteering smorgasbord for colonizing corporations husbanded by USAID. Iraq is heir to the birthplace of human civilization, made possible by early Mesopotamian agriculture: many of the grains, fruits, and vegetables that now feed the world were developed there. Iraq’s farmers saved back 97% of their seed stocks from their own harvests before the US invasion. Under Paul Bremer, Rule 81 (never fully implemented) sought to institute GMO cropping and patented seed varieties, as Cargill, Monsanto, and other corporations descended upon the war-ravaged nation using American tax dollars and USAID.
That playbook was more quietly implemented during the Ukraine War, once again orchestrated by USAID. Before the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, Ukraine was the breadbasket of Europe, prohibiting GMO technologies and restricting land ownership to Ukrainians. Within months of US intervention, USAID assisted in the dismantling of these protections in the name of “land reforms,” free markets, financial support, improved agricultural efficiency, and rescuing the Ukrainian people. In just two years, over half of Ukraine’s farmland became the property of foreign investors. GMO seeds and drone technology were “donated” by Bayer Corporation, and companies such as GMO seed-seller Syngenta and German chemical manufacturer BASF became the dominant agricultural “stakeholders” in war-torn Ukraine. Russia may withdraw, but Ukraine’s foreign debts, soil degradation, and soft colonization will remain.
The UN, WTO, WHO, and WEF all conspire to peddle a false narrative that cows and peasant farmers are destroying the planet, and that chemical-dependent GMO monocropping, synthetic fertilizers, and patented fake meats and bug burgers must be implemented post haste (by force if necessary) to rescue humanity. The argument that pesticides and synthetic fertilizers (manufactured from natural gas, aka methane) are salvific is patently false. They are, however, highly profitable for chemical companies like Bayer, Dow, and BASF.
Jefferey Jaxon is exactly correct. The Netherlands committed to robust agricultural development following a Nazi embargo that deliberately inflicted mass famine following their collaboration with Allied Forces in Operation Market Garden. France boasts the highest cow population in all of Europe. Ireland’s culture is tightly linked to farming as part of its trauma during the (British-assisted) Irish Potato Famine. The corporate/NGO cabal now uprooting and targeting farmers in these nations and across the EU in the name of staving off climate change and preserving wildlife is a direct outcropping of Kissinger’s grand dystopian scheme launched through USAID in 1974.
Americans watch European farmer protests from afar, largely oblivious that most all of US agriculture was absorbed by the Big Ag Borg generations ago. Currency control linked to a (political, environmental, and economic) social credit scorecard promises the fruition of Kissinger’s demonic plan: “Control the food, control the people.”
Modern humans suffer a double hubris that blinds them to the contemplation of the truth of Jaxon’s hypothesis: a cultish trust in technology, coupled with an irrational faith in their self-perceived moral superiority to past civilizations (Wendell Berry calls this “historical pride”). Yet, as long as mankind has had the capacity to harm another for personal gain, humans have devised ways to control food for power or profit. Siege warfare generally depended on starving defenders of castle walls into submission.
Even if globalist food control proposals are well-intentioned, a monolithic, monocultured, industrial-dependent worldwide food system is a lurking humanitarian disaster. Berry observed:
In a highly centralized and industrialized food-supply system there can be no small disaster. Whether it be a production “error” or a corn blight, the disaster is not foreseen until it exists; it is not recognized until it is widespread.
The current push to dominate global food production using industrial systems is the cornerstone of complete globalist dominion over all of humanity. The “Mark of the Beast” without which no American will buy or sell goods – including guns, bullets, or factory-grown hamburgers and cricket patties – is mere steps away. Mr. Jaxon is correct that these leaders “know these basic historical and current facts,” and that “[f]armers are becoming endangered because of government [climate] policy … and it’s being allowed to happen.” USAID has been actively seeding and watering this dystopia for decades.
Klaus Schwab and Bill Gates are as fully cognizant of this fundamental truth as Henry Kissinger was in 1974. USAID has aided all three. Having lost almost all of their small farms over the last century, Americans are well ahead of Europeans in their near-complete dependence on industrial food.
[…]
Via https://brownstone.org/articles/how-usaid-assisted-the-corporate-takeover-of-ukrainian-agriculture/
Kentucky, Montana, Idaho Among States Looking to Ban mRNA Vaccines
Critics of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines and similar mRNA products say that even though the federal government continues to claim the products are safe, they’re hopeful that state and local initiatives will succeed.
As calls to ban mRNA shots intensify worldwide, a growing number of U.S. states and communities are eyeing laws to prohibit or pause their use.
A bill introduced Tuesday in the Kentucky House of Representatives would ban until July 1, 2035, the administration of “any human gene therapy product for any infectious disease indication, regardless of whether the administration is termed an immunization, vaccine, or any other term.”
Lawmakers in Idaho and Montana recently introduced similar bills. Legislative initiatives are in the planning stages or have been passed at the county level in at least four other states, including Iowa, South Carolina, Texas and Washington.
“A critical mass will soon be reached, forcing the federal government to follow suit,” said epidemiologist Nicolas Hulscher of the McCullough Foundation.
Dr. Kat Lindley, president of the Global Health Project and director of the International Fellowship Program for the Independent Medical Alliance (IMA), said such initiatives are “important in sending the message” to public health agencies “that states recognize the damage mRNA shots have done to U.S. citizens.”
Hulscher said the McCullough Foundation “will be actively engaged in legislative efforts to ban mRNA injections” in several states.
The state and local initiatives come as Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) called on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to “immediately revoke approval” of the COVID-19 vaccines, in a post Wednesday on X.
Montana bill cites contamination, lack of safety studies
Montana’s House Bill 371 would ban mRNA vaccines entirely and classify their administration as a misdemeanor, citing the “enormous numbers of deaths, disabilities, and serious adverse events” the shots have caused.
The bill states that the vaccines “are contaminated with DNA, metallic particles, and other unknown nanoparticles” and may shed to others or “integrate into the human genome and be passed onto the next generation.” It noted that no long-term safety studies of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines have been completed.
Anyone who administers the vaccines in Montana would face a $500 fine per incident and a review of their professional license, NBC Montana reported.
The Judiciary Committee of the Montana House held a public hearing Feb. 7 to debate the bill. Lindley testified in support of the bill, citing an increase in cancers, miscarriages and abnormal vaginal bleeding in vaccinated females. Characterizing the mRNA COVID-19 shots as “dangerous,” Lindley called for their total ban.
Dr. Christine Drivdahl-Smith, a Montana family physician and volunteer board member of the , also testified against the mRNA shots. “Gene-based vaccines, or mRNA vaccines, are the most destructive and lethal medical products that have ever been used in human history,” she said.
IMA, formerly known as the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, also publicly supported the bill, as did Dr. Robert Malone, who was involved in developing mRNA vaccine technology
The bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Greg Kmetz previously sponsored a 2023 bill that would have prevented COVID-19 vaccine recipients from donating blood.
Idaho bill named after vaccine injury victim
Proposed legislation in Idaho would place a moratorium on “human gene therapy products,” including mRNA shots, until July 2035, the Idaho Statesman reported.
Senate Bill 1036, introduced by freshman Republican Sen. Brandon Shippy, defines “human gene therapy products” as products that include nucleic acids, genetically modified organisms and other “engineered site-specific nucleases.”
The bill is named after Doug Cameron, a rancher in “excellent health” who “was severely injured immediately after receiving a genetic immunization encouraged by his employer.”
According to the bill, the vaccine injury left him disabled from the waist down, unable to walk and confined to a wheelchair.
“His experience highlights the urgent need for caution, transparency, and rigorous oversight in the deployment of these treatments,” the bill states.
Shippy told the Statesman he believes “all the gene therapy products that are being used for immunization should be put on hold until we can determine their safety and efficacy.”
The Idaho Senate will hear testimony about the bill on Feb. 17. Hulscher said the McCullough Foundation will testify in favor of the bill.
Sasha Latypova, a former pharmaceutical research and development executive with 25 years of experience in the industry, will also testify in support of the bill. She said her testimony will focus on the fact that mRNA vaccines reached the market after “bypassing all expected consumer protection regulations.”
A similar initiative in Idaho, introduced during the 2023 legislative session, failed.
Some Idaho counties have already passed resolutions calling for the ban of mRNA COVID-19 shots. Last year, Boise County passed a resolution “to advise against use of genetic biologic ‘vaccine’ platform technology on the child vaccine schedule.”
In 2023, the Washington County Republican Central Committee passed such a resolution. In a post on Substack, Latypova, who testified in favor of the resolution, said such local initiatives are important.
“After 2.5 years working more than full time on trying to stop the government atrocity, I came to the realization that this is not going to be prosecuted at the federal level,” Latypova wrote.
In October 2024, Idaho’s Southwest District Health board announced it would no longer offer COVID-19 vaccines at its 30 locations, becoming the first health district in the U.S. to enact such a ban.
Bills, resolutions banning mRNA shots in the works in several states
In several other states, initiatives are in the planning stages or are proceeding at the county level. On Feb. 19, Franklin County in Washington will hold a hearing to debate and consider a resolution to warn county citizens of the dangers of mRNA COVID-19 shots. Hulscher and Cameron are slated to testify at the hearing.
Hulscher said other Washington counties are considering similar resolutions “in the near future.”
Republican Party committees in Lexington County, South Carolina, and Scotland County, North Carolina, passed resolutions last year banning the mRNA shots.
In Texas, Republican state Rep. Wes Virdell expressed support for introducing a bill banning mRNA shots at the state level in a December 2024 post on X. In 2023, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Pfizer for “unlawful misrepresentations concerning the COVID-19 vaccine.” The case is continuing on appeal.
Hulscher said similar efforts are underway in Iowa, where a bill is being drafted “with high hopes of it soon being filed.”
In Tennessee, however, such efforts faced a setback recently. “Key Senate testimony for a proposed mRNA ban was abruptly canceled,” Hulscher said. “At this time, we are unaware of any serious efforts to reschedule this meeting in the near future. As a result, filing the bill during this legislative session will be impossible.”
Hulscher also cited the example of Florida, where last year, Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo called for a “halt in the use of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines” over safety concerns that the mRNA technology delivers DNA contaminants into human cells.
State and local bans may lead to ‘federal action’ on mRNA products
Last month, the Canadian province of Alberta issued its official COVID-19 response review, calling for an immediate halt in the administration of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines.
In October 2024, an official report by the government of Slovakia recommended mRNA vaccines be banned after determining they are “dangerous.”
That month, the Port Hedland Council in Australia passed a motion calling for the immediate suspension of the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines and for the Australian government to ban the products.
“Given the overwhelming evidence, I am very optimistic that we will finally succeed in getting the mRNA injections off the market in some states,” Hulscher said. “This could trigger a chain reaction … that forces federal action.”
[…]
Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/kentucky-montana-idaho-states-looking-ban-mrna-vaccines/
USAID Accused of Funding Boko Haram’s REIGN OF TERROR against Nigerian Christians
Lance D Johnson
In a shocking revelation that has sent ripples across international borders, Nigerian politician Adamu Garba has accused the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) of funding Islamic terrorist groups, including Boko Haram and ISIS, in Nigeria. Garba, a prominent member of Nigeria’s All Progressives Congress, claims that USAID funds have been used to purchase weapons for these groups, which have waged a brutal campaign of violence against Christians in the region.
Boko Haram, often operating under the guise of Fulani herdsmen, has terrorized northeastern Nigeria for years. Their tactics include burning homes, killing men, and kidnapping and raping women and girls. A 2018 report by Voice of the Martyrs documented the displacement of over 300,000 people and the deaths of more than 500 individuals in that year alone. Garba’s allegations suggest that these atrocities were bankrolled, at least in part, by U.S. taxpayer dollars.
Garba’s claims align with recent statements by U.S. Congressman Scott Perry, who during a February 12 hearing titled “The War on Waste: Stamping Out the Scourge of Improper Payments and Fraud,” accused USAID of misdirecting 697 million to terrorist organizations. Perry highlighted a specific example in which 136 million intended for the construction of 120 schools in Pakistan vanished without a trace.
“I mentioned this before that Boko Haram, ISWAP, and most of these terrorists, the weapons they get are actually funded by some clandestine foreign operators,” Garba stated in a video posted on his X page. “The exposé about USAID has confirmed that Boko Haram and all these terrorists are getting their weapons through the funding from USAID.”
Garba questioned the whereabouts of $824 million in USAID funding allocated to Nigeria last year, which was ostensibly intended for child mortality and education programs. “When did the money come in, where did it go to?” he asked. “These monies go to the funding of Boko Haram and kidnappers that are used to kill and destroy our land.”
[…]
Via https://www.naturalnews.com/2025-02-18-usaid-accused-of-funding-boko-haram.html
Pilot Unaware of Being Taped Admits To Dumping Toxic Chemicals In Chemtrails
Dan Dicks
A pilot who didn’t know he was being recorded while being confronted about the dumping of toxic chemicals over people’s homes has not denied the accusation but instead insisted that what he was doing was not illegal and if anyone has a problem with it they can take it up with his boss. This incident has reignited the debate about Chemtrails and their impact.
[…]
Via https://www.activistpost.com/chemtrails-legal-or-environmental-issue/
February 18, 2025
No, 150-Year-Olds Aren’t Collecting Social Security Benefits
Wired
Elon Musk claims to have found rampant fraud in the Social Security Administration. There’s a much simpler explanation.
Elon Musk has repeatedly claimed that his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project had uncovered massive government fraud when it alleged that 150-year-olds were claiming Social Security benefits.
But Musk has provided no evidence to back up his claims, and experts quickly pointed out that this is very likely just a quirk of the decades-old coding language that underpins the government payment systems.
Musk first made the claims during his Oval Office press conference last week, when he claimed that a “cursory examination of Social Security, and we got people in there that are 150 years old. Now, do you know anyone that’s 150? I don’t know. They should be in the Guinness Book of World Records … So that’s a case where I think they’re probably dead.”
While no evidence was produced to back up this claim, it was picked up by the right-wing commentators online, primarily on Musk’s own X platform, as well as being reported credibly by pro-Trump media outlets.
Computer programmers quickly claimed that the 150 figure was not evidence of fraud, but rather the result of a weird quirk of the Social Security Administration’s benefits system, which was largely written in COBOL, a 60-year-old programming language that undergirds SSA’s databases as well as systems from many other US government agencies.
COBOL is rarely used today, and as such, Musk’s cadre of young engineers may well be unfamiliar with it.
Because COBOL does not have a date type, some implementations rely instead on a system whereby all dates are coded to a reference point. The most commonly used is May 20, 1875, as this was the date of an international standards-setting conference held in Paris, known as the “Convention du Mètre.”
These systems default to the reference point when a birth date is missing or incomplete, meaning all of those entries in 2025 would show an age of 150.
That’s just one possible explanation for what DOGE allegedly found. Musk could also have simply looked up the SSA’s own website, which explains that since September 2015 the agency has automatically stopped benefit payments when anyone reaches the age of 115.
However, on Monday morning Musk doubled down, posting a screenshot of what he claims were figures from “the Social Security database” to X, writing that “the numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE!”
The figures suggested that over 10 millions people aged over 120 were collecting benefits.
“Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security,” Musk wrote.
The database Musk took the screenshot from listed almost 400 million people, which is more than five times the number of people receiving benefits in 2024, according to the SSA’s own website. It’s also significantly more than the entire US population.
The fact that the Social Security system contains millions of entries from people who are dead is likely distinct from a potential COBOL-caused error, and also not news. A report written by the SSA’s inspector general in 2023 found that 98 percent of those aged 100 or older in the Social Security databases are not in receipt of any benefits. The report added that the database would not be updated because it would cost too much money to do so.
“DOGE going into all these agencies with largely unfettered access with a wrecking ball and no understanding of the business logic and structure behind the code, database and configured business logic, related payment systems, and integrated decision trees, poses real risks to the privacy and persona-level data of millions of people across all of those records,” Thomas Drake, a former National Security Agency executive-turned-whistleblower, tells WIRED.
Can We Really Cut Half of The Military Budget? You Bet!
By Ron Paul
The wailing sound you heard last Thursday was the chorus of the Beltway warmongers shrieking in despair at President Trump’s suggestion that there was no reason for the United States to be spending one trillion dollars on “defense.”
“…[O]ne of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China and President Putin of Russia, and I want to say let’s cut our military budget in half. And we can do that, and I think we’ll be able to do that,” the President told reporters.
With this statement, President Trump blew up one of the biggest myths of our time, particularly among Republicans, that spending more on the military is essential to keeping us safe. There is a vast and well-funded network of political and industrial interests that depend on maintaining that myth, from the weapons manufacturers to the mainstream media to the think tanks and beyond. Why? Because most of what is called “defense spending” has little to do with defending this country and a lot to do with enriching the politically well-connected.
Maintaining that global military empire has bankrupted the United States while making us less safe and less free. President Trump seems to understand this. But the military-industrial complex and its cheerleaders have for decades pushed the idea that we could not survive without continuously increasing their budgets.
Thanks to the work of the “Department of Government Efficiency” we are learning that much of what has been sold as “essential spending” is nothing of the sort. Take USAID, for example. We were led to believe that this agency was feeding the poor while promoting the best kind of American values overseas. Thanks to DOGE, we learned that the money was going to absurdities like funding transgender puppet shows in Peru.
We are also learning that a great deal of USAID money was going to actually overthrow democratic governments overseas – as well as manipulate foreign media and promote censorship of “dissident” voices at home and abroad. Not only was USAID not helping countries overseas – it was actually harming them!
Just as with USAID, when we are able to see just where that one trillion military budget is going Americans are going to fully realize that they have been lied to for decades. That is why we need a full audit of the Pentagon and full transparency of the results.
We also need a change in policy. Americans are beginning to understand the economic costs of maintaining a global military empire. US taxpayers are forced to cover more than half of the entire NATO budget while European countries rattle sabers at Russia and threaten war. If Europe feels so threatened by Russia, why don’t they cover the costs of their own defense? Why do poor Americans have to pay for the defense of rich Europeans? Haven’t we had enough of this?
I very much hope that President Trump follows through with his plan to drastically reduce our bloated military budget. We can start by closing the hundreds of military bases overseas, bringing back our troops from foreign countries, and eliminating our massive commitments to NATO and other international organizations.
[…]
Via https://ronpaulinstitute.org/can-we-really-cut-half-of-the-military-budget-you-bet/
The Most Revolutionary Act
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