More from article which is long
“It’s a serious indictment of the mass media and their failure to speak out,” Edwards said. “There is an incredible double standard that’s being implied in this situation.”
Comparing the Russian explosion order to the current media frenzy about allegations President Donald Trump’s campaign’s “colluded” with Russia, “shows how partisan the media have become.”
When USAID departed Russia, the Kremlin intensified its already harsh crackdown on pro-democracy activities. Bloggers with more than 3,000 daily readers, for example, were required in 2014 to register with the government, while internet providers were required to allow the authorities to access users’ information.
That same year the government’s top prosecutor labeled 24 reform-minded non-governmental organizations as “foreign agents” under a 2012 law.
The State Department and the the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have failed to adequately track the more than $30 billion they spend annually on foreign aid, according to a government watchdog report released Friday.
The report released by the State Department's Office of the Inspector General noted that the department has failed to build infrastructure for tracking billions of dollars in foreign aid despite being ordered to do so in 2015.
"Because the Department had made such limited progress in building the capacity to centrally track foreign assistance data, [the Office of Inspector General] strengthened and reissued the recommendation in the original report and made an additional recommendation focused on the need for executive leadership to address this Department-wide management challenge," it read. {..snip..}
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ....