Today’s Report by Mike Benz: What Has Been Going on at USAID?

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I created the following transcript of Mike Benz' discussion with David Harris, Jr.:

David Harris 0:00

The Executive Director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, Mike, Benz, Mike, thank you for joining me this evening, brother. We're hearing some pretty disturbing accusations about some of where our tax dollars have gone via USAID. Give us the give us the facts.

Mike Benz 0:17

Well, that's because USAID is one of the most disturbing organizations in the entire federal government. It may rank number one. In fact, USAID is under the cloak of being a humanitarian aid organization designed to advance US foreign policy is assigned the dirtiest tasks that the State Department can't get caught doing, and that used to be done directly by the CIA, but USAID is able to act as essentially a covert operations division in the way that the CIA used to, except it's not even bound by the requirement of a presidential finding to authorize a covert operation that the CIA does, which is why what you've seen for the past Two decades is that most of the International scandals involving spy craft have had to deal with US aid rather than CIA. And if you understand the CIA's history with money laundering, you'll begin to get a glimpse at the size of the problem with US aid and why they won't let either congressional oversight or DOGE see their books.

David Harris 1:19

So have they? They literally have struck gold, the gold of corruption, the the massive bank vault that holds all the dirty details and secrets of the left and of the machine maybe left and right anybody complicit in basically selling out the American citizen and their tax dollars for the various actions, ...

Mike Benz 1:51

Well, I mean, just to your point about first, about the Democrat, Republican side, it's, it's both. While USAID employees contribute 97% to Democrats, the more pernicious concern, so far as I'm concerned, is actually the Blob Republicans, the internationalist Republicans who profit off of exploiting the American empire for their own private gain. For example, Bill Kristol, the famous never Trumper, who likens MAGA people to terrorists. He is a part of an organization that receives millions of dollars from USAID, and so to the barricades he goes to defend USAID. You find Liz Cheney was spawned out of USAID. USAID sister group, the National Endowment for Democracy, has a Democrat organization and a Republican organization, and that Republican organization, the International Republican Institute, gets about $100 million a year just for Republican profiteering off of US foreign policy.

And the problem is far deeper than wokeness. And I want people to really understand this. When the National Endowment for Democracy, the constant companion of USAID ... it was, was born out of a USAID memo in 1982 to give birth to the National Endowment for Democracy. But when, when they overthrew the government of Bangladesh four months ago, in September 2024--these are leaked documents that were published in the Gray Zone just just three months ago, the internal baseline assessment that the IRI submitted to the State Department was that the only groups that they could muster to form an opposition group against the sitting government were gay and transgender groups, were two racial minority groups within Bangladesh and youth and student groups who predominantly listen to rap music. So what do they turn around and do? IRI in tandem with USAID, they funded Bangladeshi rap groups. They funded transgender dance festivals, and they funded the local universities in order to push radicalization messages to overthrow the democratically elected government. But that was Republicans. That was the International Republican Institute, not the Democrats.

And my concern is, if this were just a partisan issue, there'd be no problem shutting USAID down, because right now there's going to be a legal fight over whether you can shut USAID down by executive order. This is one of the one of the main contentions right now that Democrats are vowing to fight. But if you couldn't do it through an executive order, you could do it through an act of Congress. The problem is, it's going to be much harder to do it through an act of Congress, because Republicans there, internationalist Republicans, who do foreign policy for personal profit, can form a majority coalition block with Democrats. That is, they can defect over to the Democrats and shoot down an attempt to legislate USAID out of existence. And the problem, again, is because they, either directly or indirectly, or their sponsors or donors, are on the take.

David Harris 4:50

Wow, wow, wow, wow. Yeah, we have hit the mother load here. I really hope that it's something that President Trump can just issue an EO and say it's done. I hope. Also that as they begin to uncover the details of all of these schemes that go back 20 years, as you say, I hope that the individuals involved get exposed, and literally, the America, America gets to see exactly who's been on the take for for doing what. And maybe that'll push, maybe that'll push the ability for President Trump to sign executive order and shut it down. What are your thoughts?

Mike Benz 5:25

Well in terms of what the amount is, totally eye-popping and overwhelming. The analogy that I've been giving for the past two years is that many people think they live in the world they think they live in, but in some respects, it's a carefully constructed Truman Show made up of movie characters around them, produced by USAID. And what I mean by that is USAID has infected the institutional architecture of every aspect of American society and and world society. They have infected the media by USAID sponsored media. They have infected social media by galvanizing advertiser boycotts and pressure to change social media algorithms. They've corrupted the prosecutors by USAID's work with prosecutors, Prosecutor groups and media in media groups to create predicates for prosecutors to take action. They've corrupted the unions. They've corrupted the public health institutions. Virtually every layer from academia to civil society to the private sector to the media to the government, is flowing through with unaccountable USAID bribe money to advance what's said to be US foreign policy interests. But because Donald Trump ran on a foreign policy vision dramatically different from the legacy establishment, they used US aid as the tip of the spear to kill the domestic drivers of foreign policy, aka, take out the guy who's running for president and his movement, and you won't have to worry about anyone challenging our foreign policy vision.

David Harris 6:56

... Has every past president for the last 20 years known how known about this corruption with USAID and just chose not to do anything about it?

Mike Benz 7:11

Well, most of them are on the take. Joe Biden was the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which directly oversees USAID. USAID was funding Burisma. USAID gave money to Burisma and had a formal partnership agreement with Burisma. Barack Obama's mother worked for USAID. The Bush family runs right through it, Bucha. Bucha, you know, Vice President Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney, worked for USAID. They're all in on it. And this is the reason that the Trump revolution was so revolutionary is because it defeated both sides of the USAID snake. And now we're going to see just exactly how the snake bites back when it's cornered.

David Harris 7:55

I wonder if all of the law fare and the everything that they threw at President Trump in his first term, the Russiagate, the collusion, all the stuff. I wonder if that was just to try to keep him on his on his heels enough to not look at USAID. But wait,

Mike Benz 8:09

But that was a USAID opp. . . . USAID funded a group called the OCC RP. Everyone can look this up. They paid $20 million to a group of hit piece journalists who turned around and dug up dirt on Rudy Giuliani and then use that as the basis to impeach the sitting President Donald Trump in 2019. That was USA

On FB, many people scoff at Mike Benz and Elon Musk. I forgive many of them because they are Writing Under the Influence of a complex system of government propaganda, as you've stated. They are afraid to step out of their silos to challenge themselves with information the runs counter to their comfy familiar narratives. All of us, including the still-un-red-pilled among us, are victims of a years long psychological/intellectual rape perpetrated by our own government.

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About the Illusion of Information Adequacy

What happens when to a person who fails to expose themselves to only a few "news" sources? What does it do to their world view when they fail to take affirmative steps to engage with a broadbased news ecosystem that includes viewpoints they disagree with? For instance, what happens when they only follow legacy (corporate) news outlets? What happens when they refuse to consider independent journalists? What I've noticed is that they are much more confident in their opinions, not less. What's going on? At X, Owen Gregoian offers an explanation of the "Illusion of of information adequacy." Excerpt:

Why We’re Confident with Only Half the Story | Neuroscience News

Summary: A new study reveals that people often overestimate the amount of information they have when making decisions, a phenomenon researchers call the “illusion of information adequacy.”

Participants who were only given partial information about a situation were just as confident in their decisions as those who had the complete story. They believed they had enough facts and thought others would likely make the same choice. However, when some participants were later presented with the opposing view, many were open to changing their decision, suggesting that having more complete information can bridge misunderstandings.

Key Facts

- People feel confident in decisions, even with only partial information.

- This “illusion of information adequacy” leads to overconfidence in judgments.

- Additional information often leads to more informed, balanced decision-making.

Source: Ohio State University

Of course, the same problems result with the government or the legacy news consortium limit your access to alternate viewpoints. In these circumstances we are fooled by a false consensus. It looks like everyone agrees, but this is only because everyone else has been censored. That leads to such things as allowing others to put a dangerous so-called vaccine into your arm.  When free speech is limited, it leads to things like this:

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Ships Passing in the Night

I once canvassed for Bernie. Some people who then respected me for those political views now think I'm a right wing zealot. How do I convince them that because they limit their news diet to legacy outlets NYT/CNN/MSNBC/NPR/WP, that their minds have been hacked, for years, by hundred of billions of dollars of CIA propaganda (including through CIA cutout USAID), that they know almost nothing about what has really been going on and that their current state of willful ignorance disqualifies them from participating in meaningful conversation?

Today I posted this on FB: One more from Mike Benz. The fingerprints of the CIA are all over Burisma, where the completely unqualified Hunter Biden sat on the board pulling down $80K/month. If you are still limiting your news diet to NYT/WP/CNN/MSNBC/NPR, you are committing citizenship malpractice. Luckily, the evidence of corruption is pouring out into the public eye at an astounding rate. If you are not actively digesting independent news sources, however, you are almost totally in the dark. That is why I don't respond to most comments here. I can easily see who has been captured by corporate news. You aren't required to kick your addiction to NYT/WP/CNN/MSNBC/NPR, but if you don't, you will remain someone else's sucker. You will be abdicating self-autonymy. That said, it might not be your choice anymore. It might not be your fault in any meaningful way because the tools they have been using on us are extremely sophisticated and they are ubiquitous. Here's one clue: If you have decided that anyone is radioactive (that you should never listen to anything they say or to any questions they are asking), the deep state has you exactly where they want you. Luckily, critical formerly suppressed information is now pouring into the public light. I sincerely hope that many of you start your red-pill journey ASAP.

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Reframing Anxiety as the Exciting Opportunity to Support the Eternally Radical Idea of Free Speech

Greg Lukianoff offers a history lesson starting with Henry VIII's battle with the effects of the printing press. He then turns his attention toward those who seek censorship as the remedy for feeling anxious at ever-new revelations that many of our institutions (including colleges) are dysfunctional, even corrupted to such an extent that they are betraying their stated missions:

What’s happening now is why the free and open exchange of ideas will always be radical. Yes, what the future is going to look like seems a lot less clear. Yes, we’re living through a crisis of authority. Yes, we’re questioning the legitimacy and necessity of our institutions. But those institutions and authorities don't deserve our blind loyalty. And they showed their cards when they went after the eternally radical idea — when they answered “the problem” of free speech with new speech codes, byzantine taboos, and cancellation campaigns.

The institutions and individuals that stand the test of this era will be those who show integrity and principle, those who tell the truth even when it’s inconvenient or unpopular. That’s what happened in the Enlightenment with figures like Voltaire and Diderot, Smith and Hume, Franklin and Madison. It’s also what we’re seeing now on platforms like Substack, where individuals and institutions with integrity and courage are finding new ways to lead.

I’m proud to say that FIRE is one of those institutions. We've had the courage to be non-partisan in a partisan world. Through all the tumult, we’ve defended free speech, free inquiry, and the free press for all — even at the cost of some uncomfortable Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.

Democratic principles become even more essential during times of crisis, not less. History shows us that these principles are not luxuries. No, they are the foundations of a successful and dynamic society. The Enlightenment didn’t feel like the Enlightenment when it started. To most people, it probably felt like blasphemy, heresy, and chaos. And to Henry VIII, it probably felt like quite a bit of nasty gossiping.

But freedom always feels a little scary. Free speech is the eternally radical idea, after all.

Here’s a cognitive hack I like to teach my kids: you can reconceptualize fear as excitement. And remember, I have a well-documented history of dealing with anxiety. I know what I’m talking about here. So while I don’t blame anyone for feeling anxious right now, I also hope they feel exhilarated. What’s happening in this moment is thrilling: It is the chance to reexamine everything we thought we knew.

I invite you to read Lukianoff's full essay, "Institutional decay, Henry VIII’s big fat libido, and the eternally radical idea: When you add billions of eyes to the problems of the world, the result is not just noise but incredible breakthroughs."

Continue ReadingReframing Anxiety as the Exciting Opportunity to Support the Eternally Radical Idea of Free Speech

Tulsi Gabbard’s Indictment of the US Deep State

Tulsi Gabbard's opening indictment of the US deep state is spot on and factually uncontroversial, yet it will infuriate those who have have decided that their tribe is more important than their duty to think for themselves, Like so many others (including me), Tulsi was a longtime Democrat who became disgusted at the corruption of the Democratic party.

And for those who haven't yet seen Chuck Schumer's statement:

Continue ReadingTulsi Gabbard’s Indictment of the US Deep State