Posted on 02/02/2025 11:51:47 PM PST by ransomnote
House Republicans who have led a nearly two-year investigation into a $500,000 State Department grant to an organization that promotes humanism and secularism are pressing the agency to conduct more diligent oversight after it admitted that the organization may have misused taxpayer funds.
Rep. Mike McCaul, a Texas Republican who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who heads the panel’s human rights subcommittee, have accused the State Department of trying to promote atheism overseas under the guise of advancing religious pluralism, a longtime U.S. foreign policy priority. Rep. Brian Mast, a Florida Republican who chairs the panel’s oversight and accountability subcommittee, has also helped spearhead inquiries into the grant.
For more than a year, the trio has been investigating the decision-making behind the State Department’s April 2021 solicitation bid for a $500,000 grant titled “Promoting and Defending Religious Freedom Inclusive of Atheist, Humanist, Non-Practicing and Non-Affiliated Individuals.” The agency awarded the grant to Humanists International, or HI, an organization aimed at promoting humanism, an outlook and system of thought attaching prime importance to human effort rather than divine or supernatural powers.
In a letter sent to Deputy Secretary of State Richard Verma Wednesday, McCaul, Smith, and Mast charged the State Department with engaging in a “pattern of obfuscation and denial” throughout the investigation in order to “expand atheism networks” overseas. The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause of the Constitution bars the use of tax dollars to promote theocracy, a specific religion or belief system.
It was not until Foreign Affairs Committee staff contacted the HI to schedule a transcribed interview, and the organization retained legal counsel, that the “true scope” of the grant’s programming was revealed, the GOP House members asserted. HI’s attorneys contacted the State Department and admitted it had provided the wrong slides presented during its training session in Nepal.
“Legal counsel for the grantee uncovered in a matter of weeks what the Department obfuscated, misrepresented and denied for years,” they wrote, expressing skepticism about the agency’s stated commitment to recoup any misused funds and take action to bar HI from further State Department grants.
Much more at the link: https://highlandcountypress.com/opinions/state-dept-atheism-grant-may-have-been-misused#gsc.tab=0
THESE DEMOCRAT ORGANIZATIONS ARE RIDDLED WITH FRAUD TAKING TAX PAYER MONEY AND FUNNELING IT INTO WOKE CAUSES.
They should not cave to the it is only x amount of money and compared to trillions it is nothing. If it should not be funded, cut the funding. If it should be rolled into a similar program that should be funded. roll them together and save. If it is ineffective either get rid of it or make it effective.
Next thing he needs to do is to end the federal loans for higher education.
If you're a Leftist and you want to attend Columbia University.
Great! Don't expect Uncle Sam to pay for it.
Um wouldn’t that situation put the Federal government in the position of promoting a particular religion? Funny how socialist democrats only scream about that when the religion is Christianity.
Humanists International, or HI,
“HI’s attorneys contacted the State Department and admitted it had provided the wrong slides presented during its training session in Nepal.”
Nepal? Interesting.
Not as much as they have been spending in Nepal.
Just one week in Nepal....even more nonsense:
State Department Spending Tax Dollars on Transgender Makeup Entrepreneurs in Nepal
townhall.com ^ | May 5 | Spencer Brown
Posted on 5/6/2023, 9:22:05 PM by lowbridge
According to USA Spending, a site that tracks how and where taxpayer dollars being spent, at least $2,315 worth of grants from the Biden State Department have gone to the Nepal Federation of Sexual and Gender Minorities between April 16, 2023 and this week. Never mind, apparently, that the United States is nearly $32,000,000,000,000 in debt and we’re potentially days away from Biden bumbling his way into the first default in U.S. history.
Nope, the Biden administration is still throwing taxpayer dollars at woke causes around the globe. The description of how the State Department grant funds — read: taxpayer dollars — will be used explains that the money will “provide financial support to conduct English language classes to professional transgender women makeup entrepreneurs.” Apparently, transgender men in Nepal will need to get Rosetta Stone or Duolingo if they desire to learn English. ...
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