Gaza. There are so many possible angles to this it is mind boggling. One, where will the resistance get the money to continue? Discussions are going on concerning that I'll bet. Israel does not have the construction workers for the build back. The Palistians will be needed. The other Arab (even the ones on opposite sides of the fence) nations will provide trhe money for material and payroll. The several thousand prisoners in Iraeli prisons will be released. Everyone will be too busy to fight. Idol hands are the devil's play ground. The City of London's divide and conquer group meets Trump Construction.
I surprised Trump didn't utilize old Kagan's knowledge of ancient Greece and argue that Alexander the Great destroyed Gaza in 332 BC; killed all the men and sold the women and children to slavery so this current bunch of Gazans are interlopers.
The US has extremely high basic cost of living level making us non competitive in many areas. For example health care costs in US vs China. Also, US spends much more on military than China. The average US citizen only knows about rising costs and extreme levels of income inequality.
***
A book by a friend, since deceased, published in 2012 was a wake up call on political economy. The book can be downloaded from amazon.com for 99 cents. This book could be used for a class because now books can cost over $200 in some fields. Search amazon.com using the title and his name: Worse Than You Think Quincy
"Worse Than You Think: The Real Economy Hidden Beneath Washington's Rigged Statistics, and Where to Go from Here Kindle Edition
by Keith Quincy (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
"In the 1990s, the economy performed so poorly it had become an embarrassment. To hide the truth from the public, Washington rigged the formulas for calculating unemployment, inflation, and GDP growth, turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse. Worse Than You Think reveals the true numbers by recalculating the data, using the formulas before they were rigged.
What the recalculation reveals is this. By 2008, the typical wage had shrunk to one-third of what it was in 1973. This is why it now takes two bread winners and a maxed out credit card to make it in today’s economy. This has not been easy to do. For one thing, unemployment has been painfully high. In the Clinton years, it averaged 12 percent. It was 13 percent under Bush. And under Obama, so far, it has been 22 percent. Inflation has also been much higher than reported. It averaged 7.5 percent in the Clinton years, nearly 10 percent when Bush was at the helm, and 9 percent under Obama (an amazing feat during a depression). On top of this, the economy has performed miserably. It grew only 4 percent during Clinton’s two terms, shrank 10 percent under Bush, and continues to shrink under Obama, at a rate of -3.23 percent per year.
Washington committed other crimes besides rigging economic statistics. It stole $4.2 trillion from the Social Security and Medicare trust funds to hide the true size of the deficit. It cut taxes for the rich and corporations and dramatically increased taxes for working Americans. Reagan set the pace, increasing workers’ taxes nine times during his two terms. The largest increase was in the withholding tax (Social Security and Medicare taxes). Between 1980 and 2008, the withholding tax rate nearly doubled. Add this to the income tax and American workers now pay higher taxes than their counterparts in Canada, Europe, or Japan.
Worse Than You Think not only explains why our economy has failed, it reveals why our leaders deliberately allowed this to occur. Every president since Truman believed it was the price we had to pay to win the Cold War and, today, to maintain our sprawling military empire.
A final twist to the story is that Wall Street advisers were able to convince Clinton, Bush, and later Obama, that we can continue our military empire indefinitely even while broke. We can, they explained, finance the project by relying on foreign loans from nations that need unfettered access to our market to sell their exports to American consumers. So long as we remain a free trade country, they will give us loans. The price we pay for this strategy is an unrelenting fall in American wages, which hurts workers but benefits American corporations. For Wall Street, a side benefit is that banks will be kept busy processing the flood of foreign money, which increases the income of bankers and Wall Street CEOs.
Worse Than You Think also points the way out of this mess. First, wages will rise if we return to the 1944 tax code. We used this code for thirty years, the period of our nation’s greatest prosperity. Wages doubled even after adjusting for inflation. The economy grew nearly 4 percent, year after year. Second, our economy will grow again if we abandon the policy of free trade. We are the only industrial nation that practices free trade. Every one of our competitors is protectionist. They use tariffs (often disguised as VAT taxes) to shelter their manufacturing from foreign competition. They manipulate their currency to make their products artificially cheap. They subsidize their industries and even nationalize them when they fail. They violate patent rights, ban certain imports, and tightly control investment, making sure the money stays at home. They learned these tricks from us. We were once the most protectionist nation in the world. It is why our wages were once the highest and why we became the most powerful economy on earth. We did it once. We can do it again."
Rubio and USAID and NED - National Endowment for Democracy. From a pull down tab on the web this morning
"What is the NED in politics?
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a non-profit organization created in 1983 to strengthen democratic institutions around the world. Through its worldwide grants program, NED assists those abroad who are working to build democratic institutions and spread democratic values.
Those who are glad the USAID shut down are aware of USAID's role in government overthrows and even support of chemical weapons labs around the globe. Does anyone know which revenue stream supported the many biological weapons labs in Ukraine?
***
Rubio says that the humanitarian aspect of USAID should continue. Yes, they have done some good things. Here is a link to an interview yesterday of a former top executive of USAID who among other things led the USAID Sars-Corvid 2 response by distributing mRNA vaccines at a high price and extracting promises like not dealing with China in certain areas.
The larger issue with the mRNA vaccine is that it was produced in labs, and the USA for sure, and China, thus were behind the world wide "pandemic." That is not good for foreign policy to be a pandemic producer agent. Along with being involved in genocide in Gaza, USA's image as the savior of the world is tarnished, to say the least. There will be many somersaults by Rubio and Trump in the next few months.
Here is an interview published yesterday in the New Republic. Like most democrats, they are still in denial about "the pandemic."
"Transcript: Trump’s Angry USAID Rant Undercut by Surprise Rubio Video
An interview with a former USAID official about the Trump-Musk assault on the agency, why it will create big problems for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and how awful the global consequences will be."
"A former USAID director, John Gilligan, admitted that USAID was "infiltrated from top to bottom with CIA people." Gilligan explained that "the idea was to plant operatives in every kind of activity we had overseas; government, volunteer, religious, every kind." Given that USAID is widely believed and reported to be infiltrated by CIA personnel, and to function essentially as an arm of the CIA, it is ironic that USAID was established by President John F. Kennedy on November 3, 1961, through the signing of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. Kennedy aimed to create a more efficient way to counter Soviet influence abroad through foreign assistance, seeing the State Department as too bureaucratic to accomplish this task efficiently."
...
"US State Department uses USAID to Target “Dissidents” and Spread Disinformation
In 2008, the US State Department, through its "foreign assistance" agency USAID, set up a fake social network in Cuba. Supposedly concerned with public health and civics, its operatives actively targeted likely dissidents. The site came complete with hashtags, dummy advertisements and a database of users' "political tendencies".
In 2016, Wikileaks termed the Panama Papers leak a "Putin attack" and that it "was produced by OCCRP which targets Russia & former USSR and was funded by USAID & Soros"
***
"
USAID Subverted a Pakistani Vaccine Campaign to Locate Osama bin Laden
USAID was also involved in a hepatitis B vaccination campaign in Pakistan that was used to gather intelligence leading to the assassination of Osama bin Laden. An American woman (presumably a CIA operative) recruited a Pakistani doctor named Shakil Afridi, referred to as "Kate," who operated USAID's vaccination campaigns in the tribal region along the Afghan border. The goal of the campaign was to vaccinate children in areas near Abbottabad, where bin Laden was believed to be hiding, and to test the DNA on the used syringes to see if they were related to bin Laden, eventually leading to identification of his compound location. Blowback from this operation included suspicion about public health campaigns in Pakistan, leading to a spike in refusals of polio vaccinations and targeting of health workers.
***
"USAID Funded Pfizer mRNA COVID vaccines for International Distribution.
In researching USAID funding history relating to COVID, searching on the Federal USA Spending web portal revealed that USAID has awarded up to 6.9 Billion US Dollars to Pfizer for “COVID-19 VACCINES FOR INTERNATIONAL DONATION” as of July 20, 2021 (contract W58P0521C0002). Of those 6.9 B$, 2.8B$ are reported to have been spent."
Note: this part brings in Gates foundation and Clinton foundation
***
a comment to this post:
"Barbara Charis
Barbara’s Newsletter - Journey …
15h
Nobody would have known this information...and America would have slid deeper into the pit, if President Trump had not won this election. Any who bad mouth him, have to be insane. He is doing the best he can to clean up a very toxic mess; both major parties are responsible for..the selling out of America President Trump is not into party, he wants what is best for our country. He loves America. In 2016 I changed from an Independent to a Republican, so I could vote in the primaries for President Trump/. I asked for guidance...and was guided to vote for him. I was not disappointed. He did the best he could with all the vipers that he faced in Washington, D.C."
Gaza. There are so many possible angles to this it is mind boggling. One, where will the resistance get the money to continue? Discussions are going on concerning that I'll bet. Israel does not have the construction workers for the build back. The Palistians will be needed. The other Arab (even the ones on opposite sides of the fence) nations will provide trhe money for material and payroll. The several thousand prisoners in Iraeli prisons will be released. Everyone will be too busy to fight. Idol hands are the devil's play ground. The City of London's divide and conquer group meets Trump Construction.
Cheers George
I surprised Trump didn't utilize old Kagan's knowledge of ancient Greece and argue that Alexander the Great destroyed Gaza in 332 BC; killed all the men and sold the women and children to slavery so this current bunch of Gazans are interlopers.
2012 seems like a long time ago.
Today there is a substack comparing China vs US
"Is the average Chinese already better off than the average American?
Not yet, but ... Roger Boyd Feb 07, 2025"
https://rogerboyd.substack.com/p/is-the-average-chinese-already-better
The US has extremely high basic cost of living level making us non competitive in many areas. For example health care costs in US vs China. Also, US spends much more on military than China. The average US citizen only knows about rising costs and extreme levels of income inequality.
***
A book by a friend, since deceased, published in 2012 was a wake up call on political economy. The book can be downloaded from amazon.com for 99 cents. This book could be used for a class because now books can cost over $200 in some fields. Search amazon.com using the title and his name: Worse Than You Think Quincy
"Worse Than You Think: The Real Economy Hidden Beneath Washington's Rigged Statistics, and Where to Go from Here Kindle Edition
by Keith Quincy (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
"In the 1990s, the economy performed so poorly it had become an embarrassment. To hide the truth from the public, Washington rigged the formulas for calculating unemployment, inflation, and GDP growth, turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse. Worse Than You Think reveals the true numbers by recalculating the data, using the formulas before they were rigged.
What the recalculation reveals is this. By 2008, the typical wage had shrunk to one-third of what it was in 1973. This is why it now takes two bread winners and a maxed out credit card to make it in today’s economy. This has not been easy to do. For one thing, unemployment has been painfully high. In the Clinton years, it averaged 12 percent. It was 13 percent under Bush. And under Obama, so far, it has been 22 percent. Inflation has also been much higher than reported. It averaged 7.5 percent in the Clinton years, nearly 10 percent when Bush was at the helm, and 9 percent under Obama (an amazing feat during a depression). On top of this, the economy has performed miserably. It grew only 4 percent during Clinton’s two terms, shrank 10 percent under Bush, and continues to shrink under Obama, at a rate of -3.23 percent per year.
Washington committed other crimes besides rigging economic statistics. It stole $4.2 trillion from the Social Security and Medicare trust funds to hide the true size of the deficit. It cut taxes for the rich and corporations and dramatically increased taxes for working Americans. Reagan set the pace, increasing workers’ taxes nine times during his two terms. The largest increase was in the withholding tax (Social Security and Medicare taxes). Between 1980 and 2008, the withholding tax rate nearly doubled. Add this to the income tax and American workers now pay higher taxes than their counterparts in Canada, Europe, or Japan.
Worse Than You Think not only explains why our economy has failed, it reveals why our leaders deliberately allowed this to occur. Every president since Truman believed it was the price we had to pay to win the Cold War and, today, to maintain our sprawling military empire.
A final twist to the story is that Wall Street advisers were able to convince Clinton, Bush, and later Obama, that we can continue our military empire indefinitely even while broke. We can, they explained, finance the project by relying on foreign loans from nations that need unfettered access to our market to sell their exports to American consumers. So long as we remain a free trade country, they will give us loans. The price we pay for this strategy is an unrelenting fall in American wages, which hurts workers but benefits American corporations. For Wall Street, a side benefit is that banks will be kept busy processing the flood of foreign money, which increases the income of bankers and Wall Street CEOs.
Worse Than You Think also points the way out of this mess. First, wages will rise if we return to the 1944 tax code. We used this code for thirty years, the period of our nation’s greatest prosperity. Wages doubled even after adjusting for inflation. The economy grew nearly 4 percent, year after year. Second, our economy will grow again if we abandon the policy of free trade. We are the only industrial nation that practices free trade. Every one of our competitors is protectionist. They use tariffs (often disguised as VAT taxes) to shelter their manufacturing from foreign competition. They manipulate their currency to make their products artificially cheap. They subsidize their industries and even nationalize them when they fail. They violate patent rights, ban certain imports, and tightly control investment, making sure the money stays at home. They learned these tricks from us. We were once the most protectionist nation in the world. It is why our wages were once the highest and why we became the most powerful economy on earth. We did it once. We can do it again."
3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 19 ratings"
Rubio and USAID and NED - National Endowment for Democracy. From a pull down tab on the web this morning
"What is the NED in politics?
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a non-profit organization created in 1983 to strengthen democratic institutions around the world. Through its worldwide grants program, NED assists those abroad who are working to build democratic institutions and spread democratic values.
National Endowment for Democracy - State.gov
U.S. Department of State (.gov) https://2009-2017.state.gov › organization PDF"
Rubio has been active with NED
"Sen. Marco Rubio’s Message to NED’s 2017 Democracy Awardees
Published on June 8, 2017 by Communications"
****
Their website is blank. ned.org
***
Those who are glad the USAID shut down are aware of USAID's role in government overthrows and even support of chemical weapons labs around the globe. Does anyone know which revenue stream supported the many biological weapons labs in Ukraine?
***
Rubio says that the humanitarian aspect of USAID should continue. Yes, they have done some good things. Here is a link to an interview yesterday of a former top executive of USAID who among other things led the USAID Sars-Corvid 2 response by distributing mRNA vaccines at a high price and extracting promises like not dealing with China in certain areas.
The larger issue with the mRNA vaccine is that it was produced in labs, and the USA for sure, and China, thus were behind the world wide "pandemic." That is not good for foreign policy to be a pandemic producer agent. Along with being involved in genocide in Gaza, USA's image as the savior of the world is tarnished, to say the least. There will be many somersaults by Rubio and Trump in the next few months.
Here is an interview published yesterday in the New Republic. Like most democrats, they are still in denial about "the pandemic."
"Transcript: Trump’s Angry USAID Rant Undercut by Surprise Rubio Video
An interview with a former USAID official about the Trump-Musk assault on the agency, why it will create big problems for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and how awful the global consequences will be."
https://newrepublic.com/article/191270/transcript-trumps-angry-usaid-rant-undercut-surprise-rubio-video
Nothing surprising in the interview transcript. Just putting it in as a marker of a fast moving story.
"Deep State Deconstruction: USAID
What is USAID and is it used to bypass HHS for international health "interventions"?
Robert W Malone MD, MS Feb 06, 2025"
https://www.malone.news/p/deep-state-deconstruction-usaid
"A former USAID director, John Gilligan, admitted that USAID was "infiltrated from top to bottom with CIA people." Gilligan explained that "the idea was to plant operatives in every kind of activity we had overseas; government, volunteer, religious, every kind." Given that USAID is widely believed and reported to be infiltrated by CIA personnel, and to function essentially as an arm of the CIA, it is ironic that USAID was established by President John F. Kennedy on November 3, 1961, through the signing of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. Kennedy aimed to create a more efficient way to counter Soviet influence abroad through foreign assistance, seeing the State Department as too bureaucratic to accomplish this task efficiently."
...
"US State Department uses USAID to Target “Dissidents” and Spread Disinformation
In 2008, the US State Department, through its "foreign assistance" agency USAID, set up a fake social network in Cuba. Supposedly concerned with public health and civics, its operatives actively targeted likely dissidents. The site came complete with hashtags, dummy advertisements and a database of users' "political tendencies".
In 2016, Wikileaks termed the Panama Papers leak a "Putin attack" and that it "was produced by OCCRP which targets Russia & former USSR and was funded by USAID & Soros"
***
"
USAID Subverted a Pakistani Vaccine Campaign to Locate Osama bin Laden
USAID was also involved in a hepatitis B vaccination campaign in Pakistan that was used to gather intelligence leading to the assassination of Osama bin Laden. An American woman (presumably a CIA operative) recruited a Pakistani doctor named Shakil Afridi, referred to as "Kate," who operated USAID's vaccination campaigns in the tribal region along the Afghan border. The goal of the campaign was to vaccinate children in areas near Abbottabad, where bin Laden was believed to be hiding, and to test the DNA on the used syringes to see if they were related to bin Laden, eventually leading to identification of his compound location. Blowback from this operation included suspicion about public health campaigns in Pakistan, leading to a spike in refusals of polio vaccinations and targeting of health workers.
***
"USAID Funded Pfizer mRNA COVID vaccines for International Distribution.
In researching USAID funding history relating to COVID, searching on the Federal USA Spending web portal revealed that USAID has awarded up to 6.9 Billion US Dollars to Pfizer for “COVID-19 VACCINES FOR INTERNATIONAL DONATION” as of July 20, 2021 (contract W58P0521C0002). Of those 6.9 B$, 2.8B$ are reported to have been spent."
***
"USAID Funds Emerging Economy Depopulation Programs"
Note: this part brings in Gates foundation and Clinton foundation
***
a comment to this post:
"Barbara Charis
Barbara’s Newsletter - Journey …
15h
Nobody would have known this information...and America would have slid deeper into the pit, if President Trump had not won this election. Any who bad mouth him, have to be insane. He is doing the best he can to clean up a very toxic mess; both major parties are responsible for..the selling out of America President Trump is not into party, he wants what is best for our country. He loves America. In 2016 I changed from an Independent to a Republican, so I could vote in the primaries for President Trump/. I asked for guidance...and was guided to vote for him. I was not disappointed. He did the best he could with all the vipers that he faced in Washington, D.C."
Rubio has surprised me since taking office. His focus’s on Central and South America, a neglected area of U.S. policy, is a nice change.
USAID was also used as a political slush fund that the Clintons got $84 million.
https://x.com/CubanOnlyTrump/status/1887315025808724317?
Lynne Cheney got her start in USAID.
Only 2% of relief got to Haiti.
6200 press were supported by USAID.
Politico got $37 million from USAID.
Censorship was being supported by USAID.
There are ties to USAID in the impeachment of Trump.
And there is more…
The National Endowment for Democracy was involved in Ken Burns' series The Civil War - I think.