Posted on 02/13/2025 4:11:00 PM PST by Kazan
One of Elon Musk’s latest targets is a nonprofit dedicated to bolstering democracy overseas that has long been a darling of the GOP. Yet prominent Republicans with ties to the group — including a lawmaker who serves on its board — are staying conspicuously silent.
Musk, in recent posts on X, has demonized the National Endowment for Democracy — a 41-year-old organization rooted in efforts to counter communism that provides grants to democracy and civil society groups abroad — is “rife with corruption” and guilty of unspecified “crimes.” He posted in early February that the “evil organization needs to be dissolved.”
The group has since been unable to access its funding from the Treasury Department, and organizations it supports have begun laying off staff.
NED informed organizations that depend on its financial support Wednesday that it will cease payments to them immediately because it can’t access its congressional funding. “Once you run out of money, consider your agreement with our organization suspended,” NED said in the statement, which was obtained by POLITICO.
The democracy organization is one of dozens of groups that Musk has gone after in recent weeks, but it is notable because it has long had support from the Republican establishment.
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Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) is a board member.
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Musk targeted Young directly in his online campaign against the organization. In an X post last week, he accused Young of being a ”deep state puppet” for serving as an NED board member. Musk deleted the tweet within hours and followed with a post that said Young “will be a great ally in restoring power to the people from the vast, unelected bureaucracy.”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
All one needs to know about how corrupt NED has become is that Neocon Queen of Death Victoria Nuland was named to its board last fall.
The only Communists I see these days are in the Democratic Party.
There shouldn’t be anyone or any organization immune from the DOGE.
“While this organization did once have a noble purpose, in recent years it has become a mechanism by which the CIA undermines democracy on behalf of the globalist elite.”
Absolutely. Goes to show the GOP establishment is in just as deep. Good that Musk is being bipartisan...
Exactly—if you are corrupt we go after you.
Conservative talking points are not going to save anyone from our wrath.
The reason—actions speak louder than words.
President and CEO Damon M. Wilson (born May 24, 1973) is an American foreign policy expert and the President and CEO of the National Endowment for Democracy,[1][2] an independent grant-making foundation supporting freedom and democracy around the world. From 2011 to 2021, he was the Executive Vice President at the Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan think tank focused on international cooperation.[3] A former civil servant, Wilson served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European Affairs at the National Security Council during the second term of President George W. Bush.[4][5]
For over twenty years, Wilson has helped shape U.S. strategy and national security policy in regards to NATO and US-European relations to advance freedom and security around the world. He is an advocate for strengthening democratic alliances to address security challenges, believing “US interests are best served when Washington and its allies act in unison.”[21]
From January 2004 to November 2006, as Director for Central, Eastern and Northern European Affairs at the National Security Council, Wilson coordinated U.S. interagency policy on Ukraine during the Orange Revolution,
From July 2001 to January 2004, Wilson served as Deputy Director of the Office of the NATO Secretary General, assisting Lord Robertson to transform the Alliance by enlarging NATO membership, implementing the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, and adapting Allied capabilities to face modern threats.[24] In this role, Wilson also supported NATO efforts to broker the Ohrid Agreement to avert civil war in Macedonia.[25][26]
Wilson completed a Master of Public Administration at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 1998. During his studies, he interned in the African Affairs Directorate of the National Security Council led by Susan Rice. After graduation, Wilson was selected as a Presidential Management Fellow and assigned to the State Department’s NATO office, working for Ron Asmus, under the tenure of Secretary Madeleine Albright; his fellowship included tours on the China desk and to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing from 1998-2001.[19][20]
Wilson lives with his husband in Washington, D.C. and part-time in Charleston, SC. His mother, Mary Thornley, is President of Trident Technical College in Charleston, SC.[61]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damon_Wilson
Seems the NED has taken over what the CIA used to do as far as regime change.
New York Times reporter John Broder wrote in 1997 that NED was created:
“to do in the open what the Central Intelligence Agency has done surreptitiously for decades,”
John Broder (March 31, 1997)
Allen Weinstein, who worked in the same framework of NGO activity, commented about the general situation in an interview by the Washington Post in 1991:
“A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA,”
Allen Weinstein (September 22, 1991)
And CIA whistleblower Philip Agee described the NED as:
“Nowadays, instead of having the CIA going around behind the scenes and trying to manipulate the process by inserting money here and giving instructions secretly and so forth, they have now a sidekick, which is this National Endowment for Democracy, NED”
Philip Agee
Frances Stonor Saunders, who researched covert CIA funding of cultural organizations during the Cold War, described it as:
"The NED is the umbilical cord of gold that leads directly back to Washington...And by this I’m not only referring to official U.S. government programmes, but to the vast network of clandestine players that plan and enact its information warfare operations. The cultural Cold War has never gone away, it’s just shifted from target to target.”
Frances Stonor Saunders (January 2022)
Damon Wilson of NED is just one person in a web of inter-related NGOs that control our foreign policy.
Also from everipedia;
Activists of the Orange Revolution were funded and trained in tactics of political organisation and nonviolent resistance by Western pollsters and professional consultants who were partly funded by Western government and non-government agencies but received most of their funding from domestic sources. [2] [150] According to The Guardian, the foreign donors included the U.S. State Department and USAID along with the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the International Republican Institute, the NGO Freedom House and George Soros's Open Society Institute. [151]
So all of the below groups funded and/or trained Orange Revolution Activists.
U.S. State Department
USAID
National Democratic Institute for International Affairs
International Republican Institute
Freedom House
George Soros's Open Society Institute
The National Endowment for Democracy
National Endowment for Democracy is not enumerated in the Constitution.
It is not a “good bureaucracy” no matter how many Republicans Politico finds in favor of it.
You can’t buy Democracy support, but they will gladly take OUR money. This is why we are revolting against the Republican Party, because you all are either as dumb as a box of rocks or you are corrupt. Sadly, either option can be true, as is the both option.
Politico - always has an agenda for every article. Here, it’s simply trying to drive a wedge between conservatives.
That’s because when we said audit everything, that’s exactly what we meant. If there’s corruption on the right, I want to know just as much about that as I do the clowns on the left.
The time for turning and looking the other way is over. It’s time to bring actual justice to anyone dabbling in corruption and crooked dealings. NO MORE OF IT!
Not even from our own side.
“National Endowment for Democracy — a 41-year-old organization rooted in efforts to counter communism”
2025-21=1984. It was late to the game in fighting communism. However, it may have still made a contribution. After the fall of the Soviet Union and the freeing of Warsaw Pact nations, its mission required re-evaluation. These organizations should not have been left alone to invent new missions.
FWIW, if it’s corrupt, I don’t care WHO’S the head, or who supports it. If it’s corrupt, it needs to go.
“Wilson live with HIS HUSBAND in Washington, D.C.”
Okay . . ..
Very informative post. Thank you for posting it.
RFK Jr. had an interesting take about Trump’s take down of USAID started by his Uncle JFK.
He praised Trump for dismantling it.
“Wilson lives with his husband.” I vaguely remember a comment from Tucker Carlson that “none of these people have normal sex lives.”
Once upon a time, NYT and WaPo agreed that this was a CIA cutout in line with NATO doing regime change, meddling in elections and orchestrating color revolutions worldwide
Spot on.
I don’t doubt it started with the most noble intentions, but Leftists turn everything they touch into crap.
Source is Politico so l regard it as trash.
I thought RFK’s swearing in was a very moving ceremony. I hope he does a great job and doesn’t go rogue. He’ll be so busy carrying out his life’s major project that he won’t have time for much else.
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