The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a US-funded organization that meddles in elections and pushes regime change around the world in the name of spreading democracy, has confirmed reports that its funding from the US government has been frozen, forcing it to suspend operations.
“The [NED] is currently unable to access its Congressionally appropriated funds, which sustain nearly all of its grantmaking and operations. As a result, for the first time in the organization’s four-decade history, it has been unable to meet its obligations and has been forced to suspend support for nearly 2,000 partners worldwide,” the NED said in a statement on Tuesday.
While the NED presents itself as an “independent” organization, it is nearly entirely funded by the US government, which it acknowledged in the statement. The NED claimed that its funding should have been exempt from the Trump administration’s pause on foreign aid.
“Ninety-five percent of NED’s funding is directly appropriated by Congress and is not considered foreign assistance. This funding therefore was not subject to the executive order freezing foreign assistance for a ninety-day review. However, despite being exempt, access to these funds has been inexplicably cut off, forcing NED to halt all partner support and furlough the majority of its staff,” the NED said.
The NED, which was founded during the Cold War in 1983, received $315 million from the US government for the 2025 fiscal year. In 1991, Allen Weinstein, a co-founder of NED, acknowledged to The Washington Post that a lot of what the organization did was done “covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”
In the 1991 article, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius listed some examples of the NED’s “overt” action that was previously done by the CIA, including “providing money and moral support for pro-democracy groups, training resistance fighters, working to subvert communist rule.”
The NED has been targeted by Elon Musk, who asked his followers in a recent post on X to list “all the evil things that NED has done.” Jim Bovard, a senior fellow at the Libertarian Institute, replied with an article about how he has been critical of the organization for 40 years.
In a 2009 article for the Future Freedom Foundation, Bovard said the NED is “based on the notion that its meddling in foreign elections is automatically pro-democracy because the US government is the incarnation of democracy. NED has always operated on the principle that ‘what’s good for the US government is good for democracy.’”
In a 2006 piece for The American Conservative, Bovard detailed NED’s efforts to push for regime change in Latin America. “In 2001, NED quadrupled its aid to Venezuelan opponents of elected president Hugo Chavez, and NED heavily funded some organizations involved in a bloody military coup that temporarily removed Chavez from power in April 2002. After Chavez retook control, NED and the State Department responded by pouring even more money into groups seeking his ouster,” he wrote.
Bovard continued, “The International Republican Institute, one of the largest NED grant recipients, played a key role both in the Chavez coup and also in the overthrow of Haiti’s elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In February 2004, an array of NED-aided groups and individuals helped spur an uprising that left 100 people dead and toppled Aristide.”
Bets on how long this will last? 😉
He's angry at everything "Soros". So at least four years, enough to starve any corp-minded entity for good.
That is if no "mysterious circumstances" happen, you know.
Weren’t two of his appointees ex-Soros employees? His Son-in-law for one, and a recent one in this admin (can’t recall name at the moment).
I don’t know that much. Maybe he considers them “useful insiders” but then of course the son-in-law is just that: a useful relative. Is that the Lebanese or the Israeli?
Kushner. The current former Soros guy is Scott Bessent, as Treasury Secretary.
A form of Operation Paperclip maybe?
IDK, you have to work with what you have or what you can get. People do change sides and opinions anyhow.
Trump is really delightful in his ravaging of the US deep state, I must admit.
The deep state is right upfront with Musk and funds hidden under the auspices of the state department now.
That’s arguably deeper than the deep state, which is CIA-Gladio.
There’s anyhow an intestine oligarchic conflict between two segments of the great bourgeoisie. The Techno-starlets are apparently winning but the Dark Lords of Speculative Finance still lurk in the shadows menacingly, and anyhow nobody knows for sure who is who or with whom anymore.
In any case, if the oligarchs have less terror toys financed by the state, it’s generally better for everyone. You may be concerned about USAID but the Global South is celebrating.
Moderation=censorship
BlackRock invests $6 billion in X AI in late December; two days later, Musk restricts verified accounts.
January 5, 2025 9:26 pm by CWR
In late December 2024, BlackRock and other major investors participated in a $6 billion Series C funding round for Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI. This substantial investment is aimed at accelerating the growth of xAI’s artificial intelligence infrastructure and product offerings, signaling strong confidence in the company’s future.
However, just two days after the funding announcement, Musk made headlines by restricting and suspending verified accounts on the X platform (formerly Twitter). This move is part of his broader initiative to combat misinformation and improve security on the platform, marking a significant shift in his approach to content moderation.
https://citizenwatchreport.com/blackrock-invests-6-billion-in-x-ai-in-late-december-two-days-later-musk-restricts-verified-accounts/
Just get out of large social networks: they have clearly failed us (and that’s no bug but feature). We can only flourish at the cracks of the regime.
icloud is not social media. If not turned off, it uploads and stores every single activity on an iphone.
Get also out of iPhones, for Chaos sake!
I doubt they are limiting a scope to apple.
Why do you think doge is rummaging through all government systems?
It’s to replace functions of humans with AI, which you admitted is problematic for errors, but also to hoover up as much comprehensive data as possible on those below.
Do you think that AI/e-government replacement began only with Musk and DOGE? Nope, Estonia has been at the avantguard of all that and anyhow that’s why they organized the covid scare as well (and remember that’s more of a Bidenist thing than a Trumptard one): to make everything annoying e-whatever even more than before. I hate that, I much rather prefer the old queue up and wait for a human to attend you: every day is crazier and more difficult, but I can’t relate that to Musk and DOGE but rather to the liberal extreme center’s totalitarianism first and foremost.
Musk was using Israeli spyware to verify accounts on x, which I’ve read included demonstrated proof like a driver’s license.
He was an integral part of both surveillance intelligence and target acquisition in both Gaza and the proxy war in Ukraine. He has approx an $18 billion dollar contract with the Pentagon.
Look closer when you think he is a maverick outsider breaking the system. He is part and parcel of it. He was thus under Biden, and under Trump there is an acceleration.
Another hint is that the owners of everything and the real global overlords, BlackRock, have bought in.
I don’t think they’re “maverick outsiders”, they’re just a far right neoliberal-neofascist faction, in contrast to the neoliberal-pseudo-progressive faction (extreme center). They are still cleaning up the system, with a vengeance, because they feel wronged by it (Russiagate especially), but then of course their final goal is, much like Erdogan’s when he purged Ergenekon (Turkey’s Gladio), is to make sure that the deep state is loyal to them. They’re not altruists.
Said that, Musk and Thiel are somewhat of “outsiders” because they’re both white South Africans with more fascist ideology than usual. Because of uprising, they don’t think like regular Westerners, but rather “something else”, and they are the two who are quite shameless about fascist/nazi showing indeed, while the rest, incl. Trump, seem to know the limits a bit better.
As for the Dark Lords of Wall Street, it’s very hard to say what they’re thinking. It’s clear that Trump is not any revolutionary and that he won’t shatter their ultra-speculative foundations, at least not intently (what dooms any attempt at reindustrializing the USA anyhow).
He is probably on partying terms with the heads of Unit 8200.
The UK, part of 5 eyes, wanted the whole enchilada:
Why Apple's disabling of iCloud encryption in the UK is bad news for everyone
The UK's demand for an encryption backdoor in iCloud, and Apple's response, have repercussions that go far beyond national borders, threatening user privacy and security worldwide.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-apples-disabling-of-icloud-encryption-in-the-uk-is-bad-news-for-everyone/
Not travelling to New Puerto Rico is probably a good idea for everyone. Remember what happened to Julian Assange.
Anyhow: don’t use Apple, it’s all kinds of dumb. Even Microsoft is less evil!
You trust Bill Gates, of all people?
Nope, not at all. Just saying that someone is even worse (i.e. Apple) does not make Satan into a saint, you know. Excuse my religious analogy (I also don’t believe in Deus nor Satan, I believe in Loki marching on the Rainbow Warrior at Ragnarok… and only in odd days).
Trump freezes U.S. law banning bribery of foreign officials
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-fcpa-anti-bribery-law-executive-order/#
The money from USAID under the cover of the state department with little to zero scrutiny can now be deployed through direct bribes. Or who knows whatever types of operations?
To be clear, I don’t support the CIA operations fronted by so called humanitarian purpose. But people are looking at this as a sea change, when it is simply a reconstitution of empire.
Bildeberg meeting highlighted AI. It’s not just about war toys. It’s also about mass surveillance and social credit scores via digital ID.
Dan Cohen & @dancohen3000
One of USAID's most demonic projects is to use Ukraine as a laboratory for the DIIA digital ID program, which is being implemented around the globe. Watch my mini-documentary from 2023 on the USAID/Zelensky digital dictatorship. (Video)
https://x.com/dancohen3000/status/1886125531898187976
Dan Cohen @dancohen3000
Yesterday, Elon Musk was calling USAID a "criminal organization" that must "die
Now, it's confirmed that USAID has been reshuffled into Marco Rubio's State Department, and Musk's top influencers are going along with the Trump administration's charade.
The bribery thing (which is of course outrageous) was suppossed to “help” US companies compete with China and other powers which definitely “tolerate” bribery. Bribes did of course happened all the time anyhow but now it’s legal.
As for AI, the more I see of it, the less scared I am: it’s clearly hackeable and more of “artificial stupidity” than actual “intelligence”. A regime that is not willing to endorse transparency and self-criticism is doomed, because it can only get dummies to work for it, biological or electronic.
So you don’t mind AI monitoring you under social security number, looking at banking, purchases, health records, social media, texts, emails, phone calls, etc?
Perhaps determining that some comment, purchase, disease may deem you ineligible for some service, like banking? Or healthcare, etc?
I can’t help part of that. Remember I was born under US-sponsored fascism, I’ve got to have an ID card since I was 16. Someone (or something now, I guess) always had an eye on me and almost invariably not for good. It’s not that I like it, it’s that I’m resigned to it and just avoiding to give them more than I’m forced to… while, on the other hand, as I grow older, I also fear less, because I’m anyhow pretty much dead man walking, so to say. Beware of old people, we have very little to lose.
You don’t understand possible consequences. Not being able to access funds could leave you destitute and homeless. Old people fare the worst under those conditions.
Yeah, sh*t happens all the time under the bourgeois regime. That’s why you should never have too much money in the bank, old good under the matress gold and guns is much much safer surely. Not that I have enough money to care anyhow, I pretty much live by the day.
Old people always fare the worst under most conditions, it’s implicit in the word “old” itself. But for the very same reason we have the least to fear: we just have no future no matter what.
I’m trying to balance the perception that people have of Trump’s administration doing away with clandestine fuckery.
The point is the glee of uprooting the USAID system will be short lived. And it is not eliminating deep state.
Of course not but it does weaken it: the whole US propaganda machine in Cuba or many other places is reeling and about to collapse because they’re not being paid. That’s good.
REPLACING it……
How old. I am really old.
Then I’m “young” to you almost for sure: 56.
My primary doctor uses AI.
What for? Diagnosis?
You always see through the BS. I love it. Thanks for the links.
He is also killing off the CFPB. So it goes.
What is taking form to replace the "deep state"?
I don’t understand your question nor I’m any expert in “deep state replacement” either.
Is the US government increasing the budget for the CIA or other government security organizations instead?
https://irp.fas.org/budget/ Intelligence Budget Data
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60826 Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/project-2025-will-undermine-americas-national-security/ "The far-right policy proposals in Project 2025 will fundamentally undermine the national and economic security of the United States, benefiting its adversaries and making all Americans less safe."
Good news. As James Bovard has pointed out many times, the NED is one of the principal color-revolution engines. Too bad for anyone who got furloughed, but you were doing the evil bidding of the CIA and the US Gov and you should have been stopped decades ago.
Good. Shitcan the entire department – with prejudice.
Bad news for CIA…! But the agency always has a back door to the US Treasury Department…!
"Suspended" does not equate shutting down.
Correct…! but even suspension can be harmful…!
Just saw on the news that Trump is shutting down the CFPB. Throwing everyone, including his constituents, to the predators.
The function of the CFPB is to stop poor people from getting credit in the name of “helping” them.