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What if you knew that there was an organization called the The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which claims to be one of the largest news organizations in the world, with 200 staff members that is partnered with more than 50 independent media outlets worldwide, but whose fundamental mission is to instigate regime change in countries or entities deemed hostile to the United States?

How is this accomplished? With an annual budget of around 23 million, OCCRP leverages its substantial financial resources to investigate individuals and governments for crimes or misconduct in nations deemed hostile to U.S. interests. OCCRP then collaborates with the Global Anti-Corruption Consortium (GACC) to initiate criminal investigations or sanctions based on its reporting. Lastly, OCCRP joins forces with the CIA-affiliated organization "Transparency International" to develop initiatives aimed at regime change.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) is a worldwide collective of investigative journalists established in 2006, primarily funded by USAID and the Soros Foundation. It claims to focus on revealing international corrupt financial transactions, organized crime, and corruption—solely focused offshore and published through local media outlets. Its aim appears to be to influence political movements and shifts in nations not aligned with US interests, without those nations realizing that the USA and George Soros are behind this influence.

Hahahaha! Behold, the most side-splitting headline since they had to figure out how to climb down from mandatory outdoor masking. Yesterday, the New York Times ran a story headlined, and I am not making this up, “Trump Team Finds Loophole to Defy Spirit of Court Orders Blocking Spending Freezes. The sub-headline explained, “Officials cite other legal authorities — not Mr. Trump’s court-blocked directives — to keep withholding foreign aid and domestic grant money.”

Speaking as a litigator, try as hard as you like, but it is literally impossible to “defy” the “spirit” of an order—because a court doesn’t issue a “spirit.” It issues orders. Not spirits. Parties aren’t required to hold séances asking spirits what the judge really meant. ‘Spirit of the Injunction, speak to us!’

The phrase “defying the spirit” is semantic skullduggery. It hints darkly at malfeasance without actually alleging any particular violation. It’s how journalists (or robed activists) smear someone even when they are following the rules. If a judge wanted to prohibit a specific action, they could —arguably, they are duty bound to— do so clearly. If they didn’t, but wished they had done, that’s on them.

The Times isn’t even accusing the Trump Team of malicious compliance. It should know the difference too, since the Times lovingly reported Biden’s childlike efforts to skirt the Supreme Court’s slamdown of his criminal student loan forgiveness programs. Oh, Biden’s lawyers are so creative! So brave! So persistent! But I guess when Democrats actually defy the express terms of orders, that’s okay. Just not spirits.

The Times’s knickers are twisted. It wasn’t supposed to be this way! Things were going so swimmingly. Last week, Judge Amir H. Ali —the country’s first Muslim-Canadian federal judge— ordered the Trump Administration’s foreign payments freeze to itself be frozen. In other words, get out your Ouija boards and reopen the money gates!

Biden appointed Judge Ali, 39, to the DC District Court last year based on his experience practicing as a civil rights activist lawyer. (He was confirmed 50-49.) In other words, Ali had never been a judge, not even a county judge, not even a traffic ticket magistrate. But now, he’s a brand-new federal court justice. Ta-da! And he is conjuring up restraining orders against the President of the United States faster than a drive-thru medium reading palms at an interstate travel plaza.

This week, after the payments gusher failed to resume gushing (it resumed only a flaccid trickle) as per the spirits of Judge Ali’s order, the plaintiffs complained in court they still hadn’t gotten their checks. The judge summoned the parties into court, and the Trump Team explained that they were complying, they were ignoring Trump’s instructions, as ordered, but they were still withholding payments under various other statutes, contractual and grant provisions, and other rules that have been around for a long time. The judge never ordered them to ignore other laws.

Young Judge Ali is discovering what a more seasoned benchholder might have foreseen: the vexing difficulty of micromanaging the federal bureaucracy. The bureaucrats know the byzantine laws and regulations and contract rules— and he doesn’t. So one simple order won’t resurrect USAID. He’ll need an entire team of Ghostbusters.

NBC ran a terrific story yesterday headlined, “Judge gives go-ahead for the Trump administration to gut USAID's workforce.” The sub-headline explained, “The decision comes after the judge had temporarily paused efforts to place thousands of USAID employees on administrative leave following a lawsuit by labor groups.”

Following the hearing on the preliminary injunction, Judge Terry Nichols dissolved his earlier temporary restraining order. “Weighing plaintiffs’ assertions on these questions against the government’s is like comparing apples to oranges,” the judge wrote. “Where one side claims that USAID’s operations are essential to human flourishing and the other side claims they are presently at odds with it, it simply is not possible for the Court to conclude, as a matter of law or equity, that the public interest favors or disfavors an injunction.”

Womp, womp. Judge Nichols apparently either didn’t feel like playing hero for bureaucrats, or he decided that this case wasn’t the best case to test the unitary theory of executive power on appeal.

As I’ve explained, short-term TROs are relatively easy. Longer-lasting preliminary injunctions are brutal.

The judge explained he could not find sufficient irreparable harm — an extremely difficult showing for employees getting laid off. “Plaintiffs have presented no irreparable harm they or their members are imminently likely to suffer from the hypothetical future dissolution of USAID,” Nichols wrote. He added, nor is it “clear why the speed of proceedings in the relevant agencies would be insufficient to address the only actions that have already happened and are presently ripe for review: administrative leave placements, expedited evacuations, and other changes to working conditions of the sort those bodies routinely confront.”

The plaintiff unions vowed to appeal. If there is a harder case to appeal than the denial of a preliminary injunction, I’m not sure what it could be. But if they do appeal, it will only play right into Trump’s lawyers’ hands, who are praying for a window to launch challenges over executive powers toward the Supreme Court.

The FBI wasn’t the only culprit involved in creating the two-tiered justice system that is now experiencing blowback. The Hill ran a deeply gratifying story yesterday headlined, “Angry Democratic donors turn off the flow of money.” The Democrats “have a major problem as they try to refashion their brand— the money isn’t there.” Weird. Where did all that money go? ...

The Hill said big donors were pulling back the cash pallets because they don’t see any plan. And small donors, explained the Hill, are snapping shut their change purses because they want to see more combat with Trump. The consistent theme among all levels of immigrant-loving Democrat donors is, apparently, no mas.

If I were just a little more conspiratorial, I’d suspect they are frantically trying to lower expectations for future Democrat fundraising, after Trump’s team canceled all that murky USAID funding for Nigerian trans operas. Haha! That would be crazy though!

The Democrats’ fundraising woes probably has nothing to do with the funding freezes...

Why not 100%?

Patrick says

Why not 100%?

Might be a few legit programs. Government is corrupt, but not certain it's 100% corrupt.

https://nitter.poast.org/MikeBenzCyber/status/1899569636250702328#m

WASHINGTON (AP) — A union for U.S. Agency for International Development contractors asked a federal judge Tuesday to intervene in any destruction of classified documents after an email ordered staffers to help burn and shred agency records.

Judge Carl Nichols set a Wednesday morning deadline for the plaintiffs and the government to brief him on the issue. A person familiar with the email who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal verified that it was sent to at least some essential personnel.

The President and his sidekick, Elon, keep coming at the country’s resident blob-of-evil like pit-bulls on a pack of wild hogs. Shreds of bacon have been flying all over the Beltway. I could have told you years ago that the blob was mostly lard and little meat. Now you know. It’s a sight to behold for the ages.

Yet, strange things keep happening day by day. The Democratic Party’s main grifting engine, the USAID, was deconstructed weeks ago, yet we hear that just this week USAID workers were ordered to go back into their offices to shred all their documents. Did they have anything to hide, ya think?

Questions: 1) federal janitors pried the nameplate off the building back in February, and we must suppose that somebody also locked the joint up, or what?. 2.) How did these former USAID workers propose to get in the building and do their dirty-work? 3.) Why have we not heard that the FBI or the US Marshals Service was dispatched to prevent such a document shredding party?

USAID workers were ordered to go back into their offices

All surviving USAID programs have been rolled into the State Department. Border Patrol got the USAID building. And early yesterday, the State Department officially notified Congress of its plans to eliminate the agency, which massively triggered the perpetually outraged denizens of BlueSky.

Secretary Rubio explained, “USAID strayed from its original mission long ago … Thanks to President Trump, this misguided and fiscally irresponsible era is now over.”

Grifters, including Somali lesbian pot smokers and Afghani transgender puppeteers, were hardest hit. “Humanitarian workers” —who receive USAID grants— and former USAID officials” —formerly on payroll— “blasted what they labeled a ham-fisted shuttering of a crucial operation of the U.S. government.” Uh huh. Also, it caused “fierce backlash from Democrats,” who relied on the benighted agency to spread transgenderism and kindergarten sex-ed worldwide.

Haha, a crucial operation of the U.S. government. Good one, WaPo. It was such a “crucial operation” that nobody ever heard of it before Trump pulled the plug in February. Guess what the main “fierce backlash” argument was? Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) impotently warned that, thanks to closing USAID, “Diseases we worked for decades to confront and eradicate are now at risk of landing on our shores.”

Diseases!

For decades, they’ve relied on America’s germaphobic fears of Hollywood-style outbreaks to justify anything they wanted to do. It’s their new slogan, replacing the overused shibboleth it’s for the children. Missiles for marxists? It’s to stop germs. CIA bases in Ukraine? It’s for preventing pandemics. Billions to pay protestors to topple democratic governments in the global South? It’s for disease prevention.

We aren’t buying the disease thing anymore. They need a new mantra.