Free Republic

USAID is/was an octopus, with tentacles extending everywhere. What did those tentacles do? First and foremost, they extended into the taxpayers' pockets to extract tens of billions of dollars a year, transferring those dollars to organizations and agencies favored by the transnational elite. The projects could be anything from overthrowing a government or two to putting some spending money into the pockets of the favored elites. A grain or two of rice might be given to some starving people for appearance's sake, but that was hardly the point. The grift and the power were. A perfect example is the case...

USAID: British politician complaining that his wife was supposed to get $1M in USAID grants before Trump cancelled the contract. Rory Stewart's wife runs Turquoise Mountain Foundation, which exposes modern art to puzzled Afghan women.

For almost as long as we've had civilization, we've lost it. There are records going back hundreds of years of explorers discovering huge temples encrusted with jungle, or giant pits full of treasure that were once grand palaces. Why did people abandon these once-thriving cities, agricultural centers, and trade routes? Often, the answer is unknown. Here are ten great civilizations whose demise remains a mystery. 1. The Maya The Maya are perhaps the classic example of a civilization that was completely lost, its great monuments, cities and roads swallowed up by the central American jungles, and its peoples scattered to...