The Goat Pen

aTm wrote: ↑Wed Feb 05, 2025 3:03 pm So USAID was funding media like Politico? And by “funding”, apparently that means so much that when the faucet is suddenly shut off Politico cant even make payroll????

Politico’s Payroll Mishap Shines Light On USAID Ties

Employees at Politico were caught by surprise when their paychecks failed to arrive for the latest pay period. According to internal emails shared by staff, company leadership pointed to a “technical error” in the payroll system and promised to resolve the issue promptly.

Within roughly 24 hours, staff reported that pay had been disbursed, but not before speculation emerged on social media on what might have transpired.

https://thedeepdive.ca/politicos-payrol ... said-ties/

The claim was picked up by right-wing political commentator Benny Johnson, who called the news “the biggest scandal in news media history” in an X post with more than 3 million views. “No employee at Politico got paid yesterday. First time ever the company missed a pay period. This is a crisis,” Johnson wrote. “Now we learn Politico — a ‘news company’ — which spent the last 10 years trying to destroy the MAGA Movement was being massively funded by USAID.

Becker and Johnson’s claims are false. The only payments received by Politico LLC from USAID were for two subscriptions to E&E—an energy and environment publication it produces—totaling $44,000 over two years.

According to USAspending.gov, an official source for U.S. government expenditure data—and the resource used by Becker in his post—Politico received $8.2 million in total payments from government departments and agencies between fiscal year 2016 and fiscal year 2025. However, only $44,000 of this total came from USAID.

https://thedispatch.com/article/fact-ch ... d-funding/

What inconvenient timing to have a “glitch” then, for them.

Maybe USAID was only involved to facilitate Politico leaking of Supreme Court decisions early.

Well, Politico's parent company had revenues of $4 billion last year, I don't think $44K (over two years) from USAID really tipped the scales too much. $22K amounts to about $425 a week, I would hope that getting that firehose of caaiiiissshhh from USAID closed off wouldn't affect their weekly payroll...

You already accepted the glitch story. I think its pretty likely a significant source of their funding was affected. Apparently the latest version is that many government agencies were purchasing subscriptions with taxpayer money at some kind of special tier where for some reason they are more than $30,000 each.

I wish you would fall off a special pier and tap the fuck out.

hedge wrote: ↑Wed Feb 05, 2025 4:35 pm "Large Scale Social Deception"

Is this a new thing, like the Great Awakening or the Great Replacement (or whatever they're called)?

you were talking about the Pentagon

google it and you'll see.

and the Politico argument falls a bit flat - the argument is now, it was just USAID giving Politico money, other government agencies were giving it money too!

USAID need to be shut down. If its a valid government agency, then it can be restarted on its own merit, but regardless of whatever good it does, domestic election interference and foreign coups would suggest it has to be shut down.

Does your company receive any government money? Do any of your clients?

"the argument is now, it was just USAID giving Politico money, other government agencies were giving it money too!"

It seems pretty clear that they were getting the money for goods and services. You might not agree that tax money should be spent on whatever they're buying from Politico (and that's fine, I don't agree with a lot of shit my tax money is spent on), but it's disingenuous at best to say that the government was simply "giving" money to Politico. Considering that the US government is probably the largest purchaser of goods and services on the planet and the DoD is the largest fiscal outlay, why don't we start looking into those $400 hammers, etc, etc? Seems like I've been hearing about those for decades..

"You already accepted the glitch story."

Well you had evidently already accepted the "Politico is more or less 100% funded by USAID and couldn't make payroll b/c the USAID funds were shut off" story. Would be interesting to see if and who else was also paying similar rates for those Politico subscriptions, as well as if other entities (think tanks, universities, etc) produce similar publications at similar subscription prices, and who buys them. I wonder if the Heritage Foundation receives any government money for any of it's publications or "goods and services"?

This country is fucked.

But again, all of that is small potatoes. The largest discretionary budgetary outlay by far, year in and your out, is the DoD. Do you really think Musk & Co are going to go in and run roughshod over the DoD and unilaterally stop them from receiving funding that was statutorily approved by Congress like they've done with this much smaller Agency that most people had probably never heard of before yesterday? And more to the point, do you really not have a problem with an unelected foreigner (or anybody for that matter) single-handedly and at his own whim having the power to thwart the will of Congress, which is, after all (at least in our current system of government, until now) the will of the people?

"other government agencies were giving it money too!"

According to reports they've received about $8 million over the past 10 years. That's an average of $800K a year, which is about $15K a week. According to wikipedia, they have 1100 employees. I sure hope they were bringing in more than $15K a week to pay that many people. The math on the claim that government handouts were the major source of Politico's income just doesn't add up. Doesn't matter though, somebody tweeted it so now it's true...

ok, so its just a little government election interference then and that's OK

its the takeaway from your comment?

hedge wrote: ↑Thu Feb 06, 2025 11:33 am "the argument is now, it was just USAID giving Politico money, other government agencies were giving it money too!"

It seems pretty clear that they were getting the money for goods and services. You might not agree that tax money should be spent on whatever they're buying from Politico (and that's fine, I don't agree with a lot of shit my tax money is spent on), but it's disingenuous at best to say that the government was simply "giving" money to Politico. Considering that the US government is probably the largest purchaser of goods and services on the planet and the DoD is the largest fiscal outlay, why don't we start looking into those $400 hammers, etc, etc? Seems like I've been hearing about those for decades..

you're argument isn't valid.

a $400 hammer is bullshit but its not political bias. And again, while the politico stuff is bad, its part of a larger issue of Government funneling taxpayer money for activities that not in the interest of government obligations.

You want to focus on the Pentagon, OK, good but don't defend Politico. Agree that the government is wasting money in both of them and they both should be audited and corrective measures taken. You're splitting hairs on dollar amounts , not the issue of accountability.

Its easy to see why the focus is on USAID at the moment and not the Pentagon. One is constitutionally mandated to perform while the order is essentially an EO with little government oversite.

btw



you got guys trannies demanding sex changes in the Army under Biden

"You're splitting hairs on dollar amounts , not the issue of accountability."

I wouldn't call the difference b/w $40 billion and $1 trillion "splitting hairs." As far as Politico goes, I don't really know anything about them but obviously you're saying they're a liberal news organization, and maybe they are, but that may or may not have any bearing whatsoever on the product they put out for subscription. I'm absolutely certain you don't know the answer to that question. Does the government subscribe to any similar products from, say, the Heritage Foundation or the Cato Institute? Would it bother you if they did?

Now then, having the Sec. of Defense run an audit on the Dod, I'm all for that. But having the cabinet level department head doing that is a far cry from some foreign billionaire with a newly created acronym unilaterally running in with "his people" and shutting off statutorily approved funding from Congress on his own whim. I can't believe you're OK with that (hell, not just OK but seemingly giddy). And oh yeah, let's just wait and see what this "audit" turns up, and when, and what actions are taken. I'd say there's a great chance this is going to be more like Trump promising to release his tax returns when they got thru "auditing" them, that was 9 years ago...

hedge wrote: ↑Thu Feb 06, 2025 2:39 pm Now then, having the Sec. of Defense run an audit on the Dod, I'm all for that. But having the cabinet level department head doing that is a far cry from some foreign billionaire with a newly created acronym unilaterally running in with "his people" and shutting off statutorily approved funding from Congress on his own whim. I can't believe you're OK with that (hell, not just OK but seemingly giddy). And oh yeah, let's just wait and see what this "audit" turns up, and when, and what actions are taken. I'd say there's a great chance this is going to be more like Trump promising to release his tax returns when they got thru "auditing" them, that was 9 years ago...

I am giddy about it