Friends of USAID

🚨🚨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/

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/PublicVoting#/… 💯 #Webbys

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

🚨 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.

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:

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.

All eyes on #Minneapolis

🚨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?

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.

Still waiting on a response, @SecRubio newyorker.com/culture/the-ne…

@RickSteves Thank you for shining a light on the invaluable contribution that U.S. taxpayers have made to global health, security and prosperity over the years for less than 1% of the federal budget through #USAID. People mistakenly think that foreign aid costs so much more.

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/videos/what-ex…

@KatieMiller Your husband is masterminding masked abductions, but yeah that's some scary ass chalk 👻

To the “Tolerant Left” who spent their day trying to intimidate us in the house where we have three young children: We will not back down. We will not cower in fear. We will double down. Always, For Charlie.

🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

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.

watch every second of this

@declanwalsh @PulitzerPrizes thank you for your work on such an important issue

An immense honor to be awarded the @PulitzerPrizes for our work on Sudan. pulitzer.org/node/declan-wa…

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!

Quite a journey!

@marcorubio @nytimes (2 of 2) to promises that life-saving humanitarian and food aid would be spared from the chainsaw, (nope!) it is just pure, utter garbage, and the American ppl are smarter than that. Save the outrage Marco you are being judged by what you do and def not by anything you say.

This is fake news. The ⁦@nytimes⁩ falls victim to another hoax. nytimes.com/2025/04/20/us/…