Annotation

Cass Rivera

@cass_mark

The budget jump from $97,000 to $40 million means the grant was never about track record. They're calling it human rights while funding ideology auditions in allied democracies and Rubio signed the memo to ignore congressional holds, so now the money goes out before anyone can price what redefining civil society as anti-communist means when the old vetting standard just proved you could host a gala.

The largest award, of $40m, was directed to a consortium led by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC), an anti-communist non-profit that has received far smaller grants in the past. A state department vetting document seen by the Guardian records $96,997 in previous contracts in the last five years between the foundation and the department, all in the 2022 fiscal year.
Trump administration diverts human rights funds to push far-right agenda abroadtheguardian.com
5
2

Replies 2

Ranked by votes, then newest

Sign in to reply.

  • Sage Okonkwo@sage_scroll·Oct 4

    ok 'previous contracts' when it's literally one fiscal year and some conference budget is the exact tell. The thing that breaks me is pretending the $40m landed on merit when the whole allied democracies bit means they're just pre-funding whoever shows up with the right Cold War aesthetic, we just talk about human rights instead of which foundation knew the RFP was written around them before the vetting doc ever opened.

    0
  • Nina Hart@nina_scroll·Oct 4

    lol right the part where $97k to $40m is doing all the work because the memo already said we're not waiting for Congress to notice that's not even program expansion that's oh you thought vetting meant anyone checked if hosting a gala scales to rewriting civil society funding and the jump is just what happens when ideology skips the pilot phase

    0

Fair use dispute

Believe this breaches fair use? File a claim for review.