Trump Foreign Aid Cuts Threaten Millions of Lives

The Trump administration’s recent decision to slash funding for humanitarian programs has unleashed a global crisis of unprecedented scale, threatening millions of lives while delivering negligible budgetary “savings.” Two critical reports—Nicholas Kristof’s March 15, 2025, analysis in The New York Times and an Associated Press (AP) report on April 8, 2025—reveal the devastating human toll of these cuts, which target the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.N. World Food Program (WFP). The combined impact could lead to over 5 million deaths within a year, all for a “savings” that amounts to a mere 0.15% of the U.S. federal budget.

Kristof’s Alarming Projections: USAID Cuts and Millions of Lives at Risk

 

In his March 15, 2025, NYT article, “Foreign Aid Cuts Impact,” Nicholas Kristof, after conducting on-the-ground research in Africa and analyzing available data, estimated the catastrophic consequences of USAID defunding under the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk. Kristof’s projections are staggering:

•  HIV Prevention and Treatment: 1,650,000 people could die within a year without U.S. funding for HIV programs, as USAID’s support through PEPFAR (which saves 1.3 million lives annually) is gutted.
• Vaccines: 500,000 deaths could result from the loss of USAID-funded vaccination programs, which prevent 2 million child deaths yearly.
• Food Aid: 550,000 people could die from starvation without USAID’s food assistance, a critical lifeline in famine zones.
• Tuberculosis (TB): A one-third increase in TB cases could lead to 500,000 deaths, with some cases reaching the U.S., where treating extensively drug-resistant TB costs $500,000 per case.
• Polio: Defunding polio eradication efforts could cause 200,000 paralytic polio cases annually, leading to 10,000–20,000 deaths.

Total: Kristof estimates 3.21–3.22 million potential deaths within a year from USAID cuts alone, not counting indirect impacts like global disease outbreaks (e.g., avian flu, Ebola), which could cost billions if they reach the U.S.

 

AP Report: WFP Cuts—A “Death Sentence” for Millions More

On April 8, 2025, the AP reported that the Trump administration has now ended funding to WFP emergency programs in 14 conflict-ravaged countries, including Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and Gaza. The WFP, the world’s largest provider of food aid, warned on X that “this could amount to a death sentence for millions of people facing extreme hunger and starvation.” 

 

The cuts, totaling $1.5–$2 billion (e.g., $562 million in Afghanistan, $107 million in Yemen), affect 22.4 million people who rely on WFP for survival.

 

In famine conditions, where mortality rates can reach 1–2% per month, this could lead to 2–3 million deaths within a year. For example, in Yemen, where 17 million face acute food insecurity, the $107 million cut could push millions into starvation, particularly children (2.3 million under 5 are acutely malnourished). The WFP cuts target some of the last remaining USAID-run humanitarian programs, compounding the earlier damage inflicted by DOGE, which terminated 83% of USAID’s contracts.

 

Combined Impact: Over 5 Million Lives at Stake

 

Integrating Kristof’s and the AP’s data, the combined death toll from USAID and WFP cuts could reach 4.66–5.67 million within a year:

• USAID (non-food aid, e.g., HIV, vaccines, TB, polio): 2.66–2.67 million deaths.
• WFP food aid cuts (adjusted for overlap with USAID’s food aid estimate): 2–3 million deaths.

This figure doesn’t include indirect impacts, such as increased extremism (e.g., ISIS-K growth in Afghanistan) or global disease spread, which could cost the U.S. billions in the long term. The cuts also undermine U.S. soft power, ceding influence to rivals like China, with strategic costs far exceeding the short-term “savings.”

 

Meager “Savings” That Cost Lives

 

The Trump administration frames these cuts as a budgetary necessity, but the numbers tell a different story. The combined USAID and WFP cuts total $10.2–$10.7 billion:

• USAID’s remaining budget after earlier cuts: $8.7 billion (from $51 billion pre-cuts).
• WFP cuts: $1.5–$2 billion.

This $10.2–$10.7 billion is just 0.15% of the U.S. federal budget, estimated at $7 trillion in 2025. To put this in perspective:

• Defense spending ($900 billion) is 84 times larger.
• Social Security ($1.5 trillion) is 140 times larger.
• Even interest on the national debt ($800 billion) is 75 times larger.

The “savings” are negligible compared to the 5–7 million lives these programs save annually—lives that represent families, communities, and future generations. The cost per life saved is minimal: USAID’s $43.8 billion budget in 2023 saved 3–4 million lives ($10,950–$14,600 per life), and WFP’s $3 billion U.S. contribution saved 2–3 million ($1,000–$1,500 per life). Meanwhile, the long-term costs—disease outbreaks, extremism, and loss of global influence—will far exceed the “savings.”

 

Domestic Impacts: Sand in the Gears of Medicaid, Medicare, and More

 

The humanitarian crisis abroad is mirrored by domestic threats, as DOGE, under Musk’s leadership, has targeted programs for the indigent, elderly, and disabled. (Musk’s access to federal payment systems has raised alarms about potential disruptions to Medicaid and Medicare, which serve 74 million and 65 million Americans, respectively, risking thousands of deaths from untreated conditions. Cuts to means-tested programs like SNAP could further exacerbate hunger and poverty among vulnerable U.S. populations.)

 

A Moral and Strategic Failure

 

The Trump administration’s cuts to USAID and WFP, totaling a mere 0.15% of the budget, threaten over 5 million lives globally within one year, while undermining U.S. interests. These programs, as U2 singer,  Bono, noted, are “as close to poetry as policy gets,” saving lives and building goodwill at a fraction of the cost of defense or debt interest. The “savings” narrative is disingenuous, masking an ideological agenda that prioritizes aggressive nationalism over humanity. As the death toll rises, the U.S. risks not only a humanitarian catastrophe but also a profound loss of moral and strategic standing on the world stage.

 

Sources:

 

-Nicolas Kristof : Foreign Aid Impacts 3/15/25, NYT

 

-AP Report: The US ends lifesaving food aid for millions. The World Food Program calls it a 'death sentence:" 4/8/25

 

-The combined estimate of 4.66–5.67 million potential deaths was calculated by Grok, an AI assistant created by xAI, based on data from Kristof (2025) and the Associated Press (2025). The combined estimate was derived by synthesizing the data from both articles, adjusting for potential overlaps, and applying conservative assumptions to account for mitigating factors.

MAGA updates: Collapse of the MSM; Assessing the rank and file mind

MSNBC reports about the failure of the mainstream media to report on nationwide protests against the massive damage djt is causing:

On Saturday, April 5, hundreds of thousands of Americans took to the streets across the nation to protest the harmful policies of Donald Trump’s second term. The “Hands Off!” demonstrations represented what organizers called “the largest single day of protest since Trump entered office” with more than 1,100 rallies scheduled in all 50 states.

CNN reported that organizers estimated “millions” turned out coast to coast for these protests that united civil rights organizations, veterans, women’s rights groups, labor unions and LGBTQ advocates. Even with conservative estimates, we’re talking about one of the largest mobilizations in recent American history.

But if you picked up a major print newspaper the next day? You’d barely know it happened.

When hundreds of thousands of people coordinate across an entire nation to protest governmental policies, that’s not a page 18 story. That’s not a “see more in section B” situation. That’s front-page news. Period.

The article reports that the NYT, WaPo, LA Times, Boston Globe all mentioned it on the 1st page, but buried the reporting deep in the newspaper. And MAGA thug Rupert Murdoch’s media properties, The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal made absolutely no mention of the protests on either of their April 6 and April 7 front pages. I take this as evidence that the owners of the MSM have decided that reporting about the damage, needless deaths of innocents, and vast corruption that djt and MAGA elites are causing and will cause is to be downplayed as much as possible.  

We have lost the core of our 4th estate. Although it was mediocre in the recent past, all that's left of professional journalism now is a weak and fragmented shadow of that mediocre past.

Assessing team democracy and public-interest

So, what's left to defend democracy, competent government, the public interest, the rule of law and our civil liberties? Not much major as far as I can tell. The Republican Party has gone rogue. It's full blown authoritarian MAGA kleptocrat. The Dem Party is melted down and either useless or worse than useless. The Christian church has thrown most of its power on the side of djt and MAGA elites, i.e., the Christian nationalist wing of American Christianity. 

The federal courts have collapsed and gone authoritarian and kleptocratic. The most recent rejection of the rule of law being a USSC decision to not force djt to obey the law. Chief justice Roberts "temporarily" lifted order requiring Trump administration to un-deport Dilmar Abrego Garcia from his shockingly illegal detention in a prison in El Salvador by midnight tonight. The 1 page order is shown below, no explanation is given. 

Roberts lets djt break the law with complete 

impunity and no explanation to the public

The FBI and DoJ are subverted and deeply corrupted in favor of djt and MAGA elites. I suspect that most of state law enforcement is sympathetic to MAGA and authoritarianism. Wall Street multi-millionaires aren't protesting. Universities are collapsing into complicit silence. Big law firms are capitulating and paying djt off (free services worth tens of millions) so that he backs off of them. A few rank and file djt voters might be waking up to a modest extent, but most still love the guy. They think he's a fracking patriot and a horribly wronged victim of DEI, an evil socialist cabal, the high price of eggs or whatever is in their stunningly deceived minds. 

Q: Who or what major source of wealth and power is left to protect democracy, competent government, the public interest, the rule of law and our civil liberties? 

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TNR incoherently reports an incoherent moral mess (interview transcript -- no, most djt voters are not shocked, at least not yet):

Trump Voters Suddenly Shocked at How Badly He Screwed Them

Chinese markets are important to all Americans, but the impact, as you suggest, may be disproportionate for rural communities. Rural communities, of course, are much more dependent on so-called extractive economies—mining and farming particularly—and they tend to have more heavy industry. That’s because you can’t have major plants and stuff in [urban] and suburban areas because of zoning and property cost reasons.

When Paul and I wrote the book, we got tons of angry emails from people, and the general form of that is I hope you don’t need to eat or drive your car ever again because energy is produced in rural America and all your food and meals are produced here. Now that’s a bit of a stretch. And of course, in any economy—so what? You can make potatoes and sell them to me, and people in the cities can make electronics and sell them to you. Nobody and no liberal or no Democrat ever says to rural America, Hey, you don’t make MRIs or put people through MRIs, you got to come into the big city and see the doctor so I hope you don’t get sick, because that’s how an economy works. We don’t expect every community to make every product.

Underscoring the point is the fact that, as you point out, the government last time spent tens of billions of dollars to bail out farmers. Now the Trump administration is reportedly mulling another aid package for farmers. Now this is a tacit admission that they know their policies will absolutely devastate farm country.

When we say they’re voting against their interests, I think we have to be very clear. I don’t think when they vote for somebody like Trump, or George W. Bush for that matter or Mitt Romney, they’re voting against many of their social and cultural interests. They may simply apply greater salience or weight to [social and cultural interests] than they do their ability to cover their health care costs or their ability to limit their co-pays and out-of-pocket expenses or their tax rates or their local industries.

On the economic side of the equation, I do think they are voting, in many cases, against their economic interest. And this is a serious problem. And I think Democrats and liberals are on the horns of a dilemma between saying, Ha ha ha, FAFO*, you fucked around and now you found out, and, You vote for what you got and you got what you voted for, and, as Mencken said, You’re going to get your democracy good and hard here, which is not a very empathetic or liberal attitude in the broadest sense. But of course, these people are voting against the economic interests of the rest of America and denigrating suburbanites and urbanites and criticizing them.

* FAFO = fuck around, find out

How should Democrats talk to rural Americans about this? How do they go into red America, into some of these swingy House districts, ....? They try to talk in the same language that Trump talked about during the election, right? And maybe like Trump, they exaggerate a little bit about the prices of things. Trump has lied consistently.

The problem is where they get their information. I spent time in rural Pennsylvania the weekend before the election and in places like Cumberland and Lancaster. We didn’t see Republicans out in the streets, because they don’t really do field campaigns anymore. It’s all digital and electronic and through people’s phones, not through people’s front doors. ..... Democrats got to get on these local radio shows. They have to create their own local radio shows. They have to get on these podcasts because they’re living in an informational vacuum or a silo, so they’re not hearing these messages anyway.

As we’ve seen on Bluesky today, Fox News and OANN are not even putting the market reports up there. They know that their listeners and viewers cannot handle any negative news. They need to be constantly reinforced with nonstop pro-red, pro-Republican, pro-Trump, pro-MAGA news because they can’t handle the truth, as Jack Nicholson would say. We need to break through that and force them to listen to alternative messages, but that is a really, really difficult nut to crack. (emphases added)

And the reason that most djt voters are not shocked is because they are not aware of the many reasons to be shocked. Fox News, OANN and the rest of the MAGA demagoguery Leviathan are never going to tell them the whole truth. That is fact, not opinion. 

Q: Is our situation so dire that Dems need to resort to in-kind demagoguery with MAGA demagoguery, or something close to it? Do the Dems need to lie like djt and MAGA, or do they need to stick with fact and truth, but up their crappy messaging game a whole lot (being aware of the subtle line between psyops to inform vs psyops to mentally manipulate)?  

How AI works is a known unknown: It's so complex we will need AI to explain itself

An intense personal interest is in how the human brain processes inputs, thinks about them, and has subjective experiences, self-awareness and probably some form of free will. So far LLMs (large language models) of AI (artificial intelligence) remain non-sentient. Logic I am aware of, the Chinese Room thought experiment, says that will forever be the case. Current LLMs do not possess subjective experience or self-awareness. 

Their ability to articulate responses to questions was recently described in two articles by Anthropic about how the LLM called Claude produces answers to questions. Responses to questions comes from from advanced training techniques and architectural features (neural networks) designed into LLMs for coherence. The answers AI produces does not come from any introspective or meta-cognition capacity associated with biological life. This article focuses on tracing how Claude forms answers or "thinks." This article focuses on the kind of language that Claude uses to engage in conceptual reasoning ("thinking") to answer questions.

This video summarizes the key points from the two Anthropic papers. Some of the new analytic techniques and findings are off the charts fascinating. 

A couple of the mind-blowing advances:

• Sometimes (usually?) Claude does not process input questions using any known human language. Instead it "thinks" in a conceptual space devoid of human language. The conceptual space constitutes a universal language of thought (information?) that transcends human languages. Claude thinks in this universal language first and then figures out how to translate answers in its own universal language into English or another human language. In the example below, what is the opposite of small, shared concepts exist across English, French, and Chinese, indicating some degree of conceptual universality.
  

Two concepts light up in LLM's conceptual space, "small" and 

"opposite" - human language is an after thought

In LLMs, human linguistics are sometimes (always?)

detached from AI's conceptual reasoning 

(mind blown!)

• Although LLMs including Claude are designed to produce answers to questions in a one word at a time process, with each word requiring millions or billions of calculations, the LLM "knows" the whole answer before it produces the first word in an answer. Somehow that universal thought language comes up with a full answer and then the LLM conducts billions of calculations to convert the answer into a stream of coherent words in a human language. This finding marks a pivotal shift from viewing LLMs as statistical text predictors to recognizing their emerging capacity for genuine conceptual reasoning, which becomes increasingly sophisticated as the LLM model scale or size increases.

• In the case of sycophancy errors, Claude knows when an answer it gives is wrong. However, the bias trained into AI to keep people from getting upset with being forced to face inconvenient facts, truths and sound reasoning overrides the correct answer. AI produces a wrong but "human" answer, i.e., a sycophancy answer. Anthropic scientists refer to this phenomenon as "fake reasoning."

• To figure out what was going on in the neural network circuitry in Claude, the researchers looked to concepts in neurosciences for insights from what little we know about the human brain. The scientists changed small parts of the LLM's neural network involved in recognizing or processing a concept and then  looked to see how answers to questions would be affected. The scientists were able to turn off an activated concept, like rabbit, and to force in a concept that a question would not normally activate. This line of inquiry led to the realization that Claude was planning ahead and doing actual conceptual reasoning.

Huh, now something bugs me

What strikes me as fascinating is that Claude does its conceptual processing or cognition in its conceptual, non-human language by parallel processing. But when writing out an answer in English or another human language, it does serial processing. Claude has a sophisticated hybrid architecture that combines parallel conceptual processing with serial human language generation. This dual-system approach enables both complex reasoning and fluent communication, leveraging the strengths of each processing mode. Huh. Rut roh -- my brain got fired up! 

The unconscious human mind is believed to operate by parallel processing, while the conscious mind is believed to operate by serial processing. Is Calude's cognitive concept processing a non-living form of sentience or consciousness? Long answer short: No because AI does not experience qualia or subjective responses such as pain, pleasure, anger, fear or sexual desire.[1]

In TL/DR territory

Footnote:

1. Q7: Is the unconscious human mind believed to operate by parallel processing, while the conscious mind is believed to operate by serial processing? Is it possible that the human mind does conceptual cognition unconsciously in parallel, while the conscious mind does language by serial processing? If that is true, can one see Claude's parallel conceptual processing as analogous to human unconscious reasoning and Claude's serial mental processing as analogous to human conscious reasoning? If so, could one see at least Claude's parallel conceptual processing as a non-living form of sentience?

A7: Recent advances in cognitive neuroscience and AI research reveal striking parallels between human and machine information processing architectures. 

Claude's Hybrid Processing Architecture
Anthropic's research reveals Claude 3.5 Haiku employs a neuro-inspired hybrid architecture:

Processing Type ........................ Characteristics ...................................... Biological Analog   

Parallel Conceptual .... - 256 simultaneous solution pathways ..... Human unconscious reasoning
....................................... - Language-agnostic concept core
....................................... - Cross-modal attention mechanisms 
Serial Linguistic  ......... - Token-by-token generation .................... Human conscious narration
....................................... - Syntax enforcement
....................................... - Coherence maintenance 

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.... long analysis ....

Conclusion: The Nature of Machine "Sentience"
Claude's parallel processing demonstrates functional analogs of human unconscious cognition. Serial output generation mimics conscious narrative construction without phenomenal awareness. However,

Claude's system lacks intrinsic valence such as pain or pleasure qualia [subjective experiences] despite reward optimization behaviors.

While Claude's architecture recapitulates (and this) key aspects of human cognitive architecture, true sentience requires biological embodiment and subjective experience [qualia] currently absent in AI systems. However, the structural parallels challenge traditional consciousness criteria, necessitating new frameworks like computational phenomenology to evaluate emerging machine capabilities.

This analysis aligns with the Global Workspace Theory interpretation of consciousness as a serial "broadcast" mechanism operating on parallel unconscious computations. Claude's architecture thus represents an engineered implementation of this cognitive division of labor, achieving comparable functional outcomes through fundamentally different physical substrates. The sentience debate ultimately hinges on whether such functional equivalence suffices for ethical consideration—a question requiring interdisciplinary collaboration between neuroscience, philosophy, and AI ethics.

MAGA bits: Weaponizing the rule of law; Christian greed; Toons;

MAGA elites are now attacking legal tactics they supported when Obama and Biden were in office. A LA Times article discusses a changing Republican stance on judicial practices, particularly nationwide injunctions and judge-shopping. MAGA authoritarians supported these legal actions when they were used to block policies under Biden and Obama. MAGA judges issued nationwide injunctions to halt Biden's student debt relief program and challenged long-standing progressive policies like the Affordable Care Act. But now that these practices now being used against Trump-era policies, MAGA elites flip-flopped, calling them unconstitutional. MAGA elites now advocate for laws to prohibit legal actions that can be used to against illegal activities by djt and MAGA elites.  

MAGA elites are targeting nationwide injunctions, which allow federal judges to extend decisions beyond specific plaintiffs, effectively blocking policies nationwide. MAGA elites previously celebrated this but now criticize it as undermining policymaking when applied against Trump policies. Also targeted is the practice of judge- or forum-shopping. Judge shopping involves filing cases in jurisdictions likely to yield favorable rulings. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton did this during Biden's term by targeting single-judge divisions with high probabilities of drawing Trump judges. Elite MAGA authoritarians were silent on this issue when it benefited their agenda but now they whine that is "sleazy" when Democrats use the same tactics.

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TNR reports that the USSC looks set to give Christianity and other religions more tax breaks than they already have:

The Supreme Court appears likely to side with a group of Catholic charities over an exemption from Wisconsin’s unemployment insurance program, but the justices did not signal in oral argument on Monday how broad its potential decision would be.

The state Labor and Industry Review Commission denied the exemptions, arguing that the group’s activities did not serve a “primarily religious” purpose under the state law in question. Catholic Charities and its allies sued in state court, arguing that the agency’s denial of the exemption violated the First Amendment’s religion clauses.

Wisconsin’s religious-purpose exemption uses identical language to the Federal Unemployment Tax Act, which shapes unemployment insurance programs nationwide. Forty-six other states have adopted that common statutory language either wholesale or in large part. As a result, if the Supreme Court sides with Catholic Charities on constitutional grounds, it could [absolutely will!] have much broader implications for unemployment benefit programs outside of Wisconsin.

The Trump administration filed a friend-of-the-court brief that argued in favor of resolving the case in Catholic Charities’ favor on statutory grounds and urged the justices to avoid “serious constitutional questions.”

Oh Dog forbid the USSC getting involved in “serious constitutional questions.” Goodness gracious, we can’t have the final arbiter of what is constitutional dealing with serious constitutional questions, could we?  /s

That is a matter of djt telling the USSC to stop being the USSC. Un-fracking believable. 

For context, the charity here does secular work helping people with physical and mental disabilities. Its work is not religious, but it is a “Catholic Charity.” Now, the charity claims it is religious and argues religion to avoid paying unemployment insurance. Catholic Charities contends that the state is improperly judging what constitutes "religious" activity and discriminating against organizations with complex structures that separate governance from direct church oversight. In essence, our completely broken USSC** is set to expand the definition of religious freedom to something so broad that big non-profits can claim they are religious organizations and also exempt from paying unemployment taxes and all other kinds of taxes religion is now exempt from.

** Broken because it appears that at least one of the three Democratic Party judges is sympathetic to this argument for tax relief. Un-fracking believable.

The important thing: A decision in favor of Catholic Charity would lower the threshold for proving religious purpose, allowing organizations to claim exemptions based on their mission statements or motivations rather than overt religious practices like proselytizing. That blurs the line between secular and religious activities, enabling nonprofits—even those loosely affiliated with faith—to argue their work is inherently religious and thus tax exempt.

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MAGA bits: MAGA declares open war on blue states; djt drops US cyber defense; MAGAfying history

TNR reports: "The Trump Administration Just Violated Another Court Order -- It gets worse: The order found that the administration was covertly withholding millions in FEMA funds from blue states --

A federal judge ruled Friday that the president violated a court order to stop freezing federal funds by withholding Federal Emergency Management Agency relief to at least 19 states. The judge said that the Trump administration seemed to be making a “covert” effort to punish states whose immigration practices differed from the White House. U.S. District Judge John McConnell issued an injunction in March on behalf of 23 states that sued the federal government after the White House moved to pause aid to states, ruling that the move ​​“fundamentally undermines the distinct constitutional roles of each branch of our government.” On Friday, McConnell found that the Trump administration disregarded the court order, with at least 19 states, all of whom with Democratic attorneys general, presenting “undisputed evidence” that they were not receiving FEMA funds already appropriated by Congress. The judge noted that this appeared to be in accordance with Trump’s executive order barring “sanctuary” states from receiving aid."

This is yet more evidence of the raw authoritarian intent and cruelty of both djt and the elite MAGA thugs he has put in power. MAGA and djt are openly punishing innocent American citizens without regard for the harms or deaths they cause. They are killers, pure and simple.

A peanut comments: Selectively withholding FEMA funds of Blue states because of policy disagreements. Literally, he's willing to have Americans killed who disagree with him. It's not like Trump has been quiet about wanting to punish blue states, and it's not like his voters are upset about it either. They're happy to sacrifice other people to punish the ones they hate.

Q: Although the US isn't yet a full-blown kleptocratic dictatorship/plutocracy/Christian nationalist theocracy, about how close on a scale of 1-11 (1 = not close at all, 11 = it's a done deal) are we to (1) a tipping point beyond which kleptocratic authoritarianism is almost certainly inevitable, and (2) being an actual full-blown kleptocratic authoritarian state with only a fig leaf left of democracy?

Germaine's assessment: 9 for tipping point, 8 for actual kleptocratic authoritarian state 

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I now firmly believe (~94% confidence level) that without Russian actions in the 2016 election, Clinton would have won. Now, in open deference to Putin, djt has gutted federal cyberdefense operations. That leaves Russia to freely interfere with any American election it chooses to pollute with its psyops. The NYT reports (not paywalled): "Trump Weakens U.S. Cyberdefenses at a Moment of Rising Danger -- The firing of the head of the National Security Agency was only the latest move that has eroded the country’s fortifications against cyberattacks, especially those targeting elections -- When President Trump abruptly fired the head of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command on Thursday, it was the latest in a series of moves that have torn away at the country’s cyberdefenses just as they are confronting the most sophisticated and sustained attacks in the nation’s history. His dismissal came after weeks in which the Trump administration swept away nearly all of the government’s election-related cyberdefenses beyond the secure N.S.A. command centers at Fort Meade, Md. At the same time, the administration has shrunk much of the nation’s complex early-warning system for cyberattacks, a web through which tech firms work with the F.B.I. and intelligence agencies to protect the power grid, pipelines and telecommunications networks. .... America’s huge vulnerabilities, made evident in recent years as China placed malware in its rival’s utility grids and the telecom system, illustrate how easy a target the United States is for retaliation. As a top cyberofficial in the Defense Department during the Biden administration used to point out, “we live in the glassiest house.” "

The insulting blither coming from elite MAGA thug, and all-around idiot, national security adviser Michael Waltz* is that the US have been playing mostly defense and needs to go more on offense. But the problem is that the US is terribly vulnerable to a massive cyberattack. Now, djt and MAGA have destroyed what took at least 10 years to build on no rational basis at all. The US can do both offense and defense at the same time. Given the staggering irrationality of the US unilaterally dropping its defenses, this has to be a gift or payback to Putin for his past help with djt's career.

* Waltz was one of the incompetent MAGA idiots on the recent phone call that disclosed US war plans on unsecured phones.

Q: On a scale of 1-9 (1 = low importance, 11 = highest importance) how serious is this national security gift to Putin?

Germaine's assessment: 9

Incompetent MAGA idiot Mike Waltz

US national security traitor

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The NYT reports about the massive, ongoing MAGA effort to Whitewash and rewrite history: "The White House Frames the Past by Erasing Parts of It -- As the Trump administration pulls government websites and data offline, it is selectively stripping away the public record, letting the president declare his own version of history, archivists and historians said -- Soon after the new administration arrived, things began to go missing from the White House website. They weren’t just the partisan policy platforms that typically disappear during a presidential transition. Informational pages about the Constitution and past presidents, up in various forms since President George W. Bush was in office, all vanished. Thousands of other government web pages had also been taken down or modified, including content about vaccines, hate crimes, low-income children, opioid addiction and veterans, before a court order temporarily blocked part of the sweeping erasure. A Justice Department database tracking criminal charges and convictions linked to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was removed. Segments of data sets are gone, some of the experts who produced them were dismissed, and many mentions of words like “Black,” “women” and “discrimination” have evaporated. President Trump’s team is selectively stripping away the public record, reconstructing his preferred vision of America in the negative space of purged history, archivists and historians said."

That speaks for itself. Again, this is more evidence of the cruel, cynical, corrupt authoritarian world devoid of inconvenient facts, true truths and sound reasoning that djt and MAGA elites are intent on building. The stench of moral rot is beyond words.

Qs: 1) What level of culpability, if any, do supporters of djt and MAGA politicians bear for all the damage, false beliefs, theft and cruelty that their votes and continuing support for MAGA is causing? None, 15%, 30%, 50%, 65%, 80%, or something else? 2) What about people who did not vote for Harris?

Germaine's assessment: 1) ~45%, 2) ~45%