From and For the American People
Joined February 2025
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🚨🚨THIS IS NOT A DRILL 🚨🚨
CALL YOUR SENATORS: We must stop Congress from giving @elonmusk all our hard-earned 💵 to chainsaw everything from #publicschools to #veteransbenefits to #cancerresearch to #medicare to #foreignaid. See call script here: instagram.com/p/DHGn08KA_mx/
Friends of USAID retweeted
Elon, I can give you many, many names of people who have died because of your aid cuts.:
*Yamah Freeman was a 23-year-old woman who died in childbirth because you stopped paying for the diesel for ambulances in her part of Liberia. I talked to her parents and sister in their village.
*Gbessey Kiadu, age 1, died of malaria because of your cuts in Liberia. I talked to his mom in her village.
*Ibrahim Koroma, an infant, died of AIDS in Sierra Leone after you interrupted HIV supplies. I talked to health workers who cared for him.
*Achol Deng was an 8-year-old girl with HIV in South Sudan who died when you cut funding for the health care worker who provided her medicines. I talked to him.
I could go on and on. In almost every village you go to in South Sudan, Uganda, Liberia, Sierra Leone or other countries I reported in, you find people dying because of aid cuts. I challenge you: Come with me on a reporting trip, and we'll talk to these moms and dads, and you'll see the dying children themselves. I think if you see the kids whose lives are at stake, maybe you'll change your mind.
Friends of USAID retweeted
Who's funding the AI industry's Public First super PAC?
New FEC docs don't give many clues
It reported raising $1.5M
Michael Cohen of the University of California gave $500K
The rest came from Public First Action, a 501(c)(4) #darkmoney group that doesn't disclose its donors
FRIENDS, we're nominated for a prestigious WEBBY Award! VOTING NOW OPEN. Cast a ballot here and help us to the top! ⬆️ vote.webbyawards.com/PublicV… 💯 #Webbys
Friends of USAID retweeted
This is fucking outrageous, and it's the kind of story that should cause Senators to hold up Mullin's confirmation to DHS.
Looking at you, @SenFettermanPA
ICE seizes DACA recipient on way to visit premature baby in NICU. Trump admin is not renewing "Dreamers" who were given legal status as children to stay in U.S. -- says they can now be detained and deported.
@lbarronlopez
ms.now/news/ice-detains-daca…
Friends of USAID retweeted
🚨 This is not a coincidence. DHS just pushed out a white‑supremacist dog whistle so blatant it’s basically open signaling… and they’re using it to recruit people to help “round up” immigrants and even serve as “deportation judges”.
Everyone focused on the phrase “Remigration now.”
But the real tell… the part you cannot ignore… is the coded structure wrapped around it:
1. Opening sentence: 14 words
2. “Remigration now”: 14 letters
3. Follow-up comment “Help Arrest Them”: 14 letters
4. Next comment “Help Deport Them”: 14 letters
5. Even the attached link: 14 letters
This isn’t random.
This isn’t “poor wording.”
This isn’t “unfortunate phrasing.”
Five separate uses of “14” across federal messaging… the unmistakable reference to the most popular white‑supremacist slogan, “14 Words”:
“We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”
The odds this happened by accident? Functionally zero.
And it’s worse than just echoing a slogan: they structured it exactly like white‑nationalist groups do to mobilize followers… then added a call to action that reads like a recruitment flyer for vigilantes and deportation judges.
This needs to raise all the red flags and sound all the alarms.
Friends of USAID retweeted
NEW: Marimar Martinez, the woman shot by Border Patrol in Chicago only to be criminally charged (and cleared), seeks to modify a court order so she can "disclose case materials … to the public."
Her atty, Chris Parente, points partly to events in Minneapolis:
Friends of USAID retweeted
Take a moment to look at the inhumanity captured in this extraordinary photo running on the front page of tonight's Minneapolis @StarTribune. It shows federal immigration agents immobilizing a protester on the ground and spraying chemical irritant directly into his face. The scene reminds me of the brutality used against civil rights protesters in the 1960s. We look back at those old photos and wonder how the authorities could have behaved so savagely; many years from now, young Americans will look at these photos from 2026 and wonder how anyone could have justified shooting a woman in the head as she tried to drive away, arresting 5-year-old schoolchildren on the street, or holding a man down and spaying chemicals into his face. Thanks to the Star Tribune reporters and photographers for documenting this work; they create accountability, they make democracy work, and they make all of us in journalism proud.
Friends of USAID retweeted
🚨BREAKING: ICE/Border Patrol just blatantly violated the constitution and illegally stormed a family home in Minneapolis…
Kicked the door in, guns drawn, tased multiple U.S. citizens, with children inside, WITHOUT a judicial warrant AND WITHOUT a no-knock warrant.
Watch the video. You hear them scream “We have a warrant!” and then immediately smash the door in.
No pause. No paperwork. No judge issued warrant.
And here’s the part they don’t want you to understand:
If you don’t have a judicial warrant, you do not get to enter a home.
If you don’t have a no-knock warrant, you do not get to kick a door in.
They had neither.
Then you see the inside footage.
A woman, in her own home, surrounded by armed men, asks a very simple question:
“Where’s the warrant? Show me the warrant. There are kids in this house. Put the guns down.”
She asks again: “Where is the warrant?”
The agent says, “We’re getting it.”
Then says he doesn’t have to show it.
So let’s be clear:
They admit they don’t have the warrant, but they enter anyway, rifles up, adrenaline high, kids watching.
They grab a man. Still no warrant.
They order the woman to “back up”… inside her own house… while they are illegally trespassing.
When she doesn’t comply fast enough, he shoves her. That is assault.
In the background, another woman is tased for hugging the man they’re trying to take. Not attacking. Not armed. Just holding onto someone she cares about.
Still. No warrant.
Then the woman filming has a taser aimed directly at her. She’s standing in a doorway, asking… again… for the warrant they keep lying about.
An agent fires the taser at her.
At a woman.
Inside her own home.
For asking for a warrant.
Only after they’ve shoved people, after they’ve tased multiple U.S. citizens, after they’ve terrorized children, do they finally hold something up.
And what is it?
An administrative warrant.
Not signed by a judge.
Not legal authority to enter a home.
Not permission to kick in a door.
Not permission to point guns at kids.
Not permission to tase U.S. citizens.
This wasn’t a mistake.
This wasn’t confusion.
This was federal agents knowingly violating the Constitution, because they think no one will stop them.
If this can happen to them, it can happen to anyone.
And the question isn’t if this will happen again.
The question is how many more homes are they going to break into before someone is killed?
Friends of USAID retweeted
I regret to inform that this is all very simple, and dumb: since 2017, Putin has been trying to goad Trump into seizing Venezuela and Greenland. Putin thinks this will cement the “Monroe Doctrine” as US policy, which he thinks will drive US disengagement from Ukraine.
This effort failed in 2019 because it was blocked by John Bolton, Fiona Hill, Rex Tillerson, and other cabinet officials who considered these proposals but found them unwise.
Putin’s efforts to goad Trump resumed in 2025, first with renewed interest in Greenland, second with Venezuela. The Venezuela dangle worked, and there were no adults to stop it, and plenty of profiteers eager to help.
Now he’s after Cuba and Greenland, which Putin thinks (again) will catalyze US disengagement in Ukraine, which he hopes will give him a freer hand there, as well as reorient US power in the Western Hemisphere and away from Europe.
That’s it. That’s what’s going on. Oil, minerals, peace prizes are all part of the dangle. But this is the whole ballgame.
Friends of USAID retweeted
Still waiting on a response, @SecRubio
newyorker.com/culture/the-ne…
Reporting continues to highlight the widespread suffering & death caused by the Trump admin’s dismantling of USAID & deep cuts to US foreign aid.
RM @RepGregoryMeeks is again demanding @SecRubio explain his claim before Congress that “no one has died” as a result of the cuts.
Friends of USAID retweeted
Nearly ten percent of humanity (roughly 800 million people in 2025) struggles to live on less than $3 a day. It’s important for Americans to appreciate that reality — as well as the growing gap between the extremely poor and the extremely privileged — because, as illustrated by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)’s track record in recent years, our nation has the power to change it.
If, like me, you are an American who embraces the universal moral tenet referred to by Christians as “love thy neighbor,” I hope that each time you vote, you remember that the outcome of an election can, especially for privileged Americans, have a far greater impact on those struggling with poverty both at home and south of the border than it will ever have on you.
___
This is the first entry of a 16-part series sharing what I learned about smart development aid while filming my 2020 public television special “Hunger & Hope: Lessons from Ethiopia and Guatemala,” which is streaming free and ad-free on the @PBS app and at ricksteves.com/hunger.
I’m sharing these posts in response to President Trump’s argument — which he has used to justify dismantling USAID — that leading the fight against extreme poverty on our planet doesn’t advance an “America First” agenda.
Earlier this year, the Trump State Department announced that nearly 5,800 USAID contracts worth $54 billion were being eliminated (representing a 92% reduction of what had already been awarded to the agency) because “they were not aligned with the administration's priorities.” The DOGE initiative then eliminated about $8 billion more in foreign aid, and now, the White House is fighting to withhold about $5 billion more in foreign aid funding — all in the name of making our country stronger and safer. However, after traveling to Ethiopia and Guatemala and hearing from many experts in the field, it’s clear to me that an extremely practical way to make our world a more stable and peaceful place is to invest in modern development aid, in concert with the family of nations.
Even if you don’t believe in the ethic of “love thy neighbor,” it’s important to remember that the core goal of USAID is to use soft power (foreign aid) to complement our nation’s hard power (the U.S. military) in a shared effort to make America safer.
classroom.ricksteves.com/vid…
Friends of USAID retweeted
No one has ever made a clear argument, supported by data, for why destroying USAID and Voice of America served U.S. national interests. All we got were anecdotes about some stupid project or some allegation about "woke" takes on the radio. Such a colossal own goal.
Quite a journey, indeed! Now he's Secretary of State, USAID Administrator, head of the National Archives aaannndd our National Security Advisor. So many hats to juggle while ensuring there's no fraud, waste or abuse going on anywhere--how does he do it!
Friends of USAID retweeted
I think today was an inflection point - maybe small, but real.
The President, having launched a global trade war, feted in the Oval Office a Central American dictator who runs a mega-prison known for starvation and torture - a prison to which our government has, by its own admission, sent at least one person "in error."
They disappeared a man without a single criminal charge who's lived and worked here for 15 years - who was alleged to be a member of a gang based in a state he never lived by one anonymous informant. No other evidence. No trial. No conviction. Nothing but a legal order that he not be deported to El Salvador, where he's now serving a life sentence.
The Supreme Court just ruled, without any noted dissent, that the government must facilitate the man's release.
But Trump and his dictator friend said no. They laughed. They mocked the journalist who asked whether they'd abide by the Court's order. The Attorney General, the Secretary of State, and the White House Deputy Chief all lied about the facts of the case. Then the President repeated his proposal to send American citizens to the dictator's prison, and asked him to build five more.
The same day we found out that the government knowingly disappeared a PhD student for nothing but an op-ed, a man's 19-year old son who agents admitted was the wrong kid, and a visa-holding Russian scientist at Harvard who forgot to declare frog embryos at the border.
But: it's all breaking through. It's getting more coverage. More people are paying attention. More elected Democrats are speaking up. More conservative pundits and legal scholars are speaking up. Even Joe Rogan thinks it's bullshit.
Now we have to keep pushing. This is much bigger than immigration or deportation policy - this is about whether we live in a free country or a police state. It's the whole ballgame.
Friends of USAID retweeted
AFRICOM commander Gen. Langley tells senators that China is "trying to replicate" USAID programs in Africa as the US scales back USAID.
"They’re trying to use that as an extension of the Belt and Road Initiative to gain favor by the African countries," Langley said.
