By Ted Galen Carpenter, Antiwar.comFebruary 17, 2025.
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A recent example of us who interfere with the internal affairs of another democratic country has taken place in the Republic of Georgia. According to Parliament speaker Shalva Papuashvili, USAID spent $ 41.7 million to support his preferred candidates in the recent parliamentary elections of the country. Adapted for the size of the population of Georgia, such an expenditure in the United States would be $ 3.78 billion.
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That result was apparently unbearable for the political establishment of Romania and its supporters in the EU and the United States. They considered Georgescu as particularly unacceptable, Because he openly criticized NATOAnd against continuing to help Ukraine. The election committee of the country has canceled out the voting results and again planned the first round ballot paper for 4 May 2025. Commissioners accused that, waiting for it … Russia had tampered with the elections illegally. The horrible attack of Moscow was the alleged support of a Tiktok campaign that seemed to have had Georgescu for good. Mantelable evidence with regard to Russian involvement was noticeably absent. Despite the lack of evidence, American and EU officials have denounced Russia and praised the Romanian government for throwing the elections away.
Eugene Doyle, a reporter for that of Nieuw -Zeeland Solidarity.comnoticed on the threat of this episode. “To save democracy, the US and the European elites seem to have found it necessary to destroy democracy. For the first time, an election was destroyed in an EU/NATO country. Ever. “Doyle also mentions evidence that Russia was not even the likely culprit. The Tiktok effort apparently comes from a failed PNL scheme to give votes to Georescu from other regular competitors.
by Fiona Harrigan, RodeMarch 2025.
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At the end of 2021, Charlotte Bellis, an unmarried journalist from New -Zeeland, found pregnant during work in Qatar, a country where that status brings the risk of imprisonment or deportation. A doctor advised her to get married or go out of the country. But New Zealand, which was still taking drastic measures at that time to limit the distribution of COVID-19, made his citizens only come home if they have Lottery-Carey places in a quarantine program protected by the government. Bellis applied but was not successful. She desperately turned to the Taliban.
The Islamic fundamentalist group said yes. Bellis went to Afghanistan, where she had worked and where her boyfriend was located. “When the Taliban offers you – a pregnant, unmarried woman – secure port, you know that your situation is confused,” written in The Nieuw -Zeelandse Herald in January 2022.
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Travel restrictions, which all Member States of the 194 World Health Organization (WHO) that were used against COVID-19, may seem like a sensible pandemic reaction. It is easy to forget that the WHO had long seen measures as ineffective and counterproductive. Apart from doing little to stop infection, travel restrictions can prevent critical staff and equipment from crossing the borders. They can also promote confidentiality. After South African scientists discovered the new, rapidly spreading Omicron Covid-19 variant in November 2021, many countries responded by imposing travel prohibitions on South Africa and its neighbors. A government can conclude that transparency is not worth the economic damage of canceled flights and holidays.
By Alex Nowresteh and Jerome Famularo, Cato at LibertyFebruary 18, 2025.
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The congress is currently debating whether they should spend $ 175 billion About deportations for future payments such as the $ 650 million That congress spent shelter and other services for migrants last year. Poor expenditure of $ 650 million last year does not justify spending 269 times as much to prevent comparable relatively small costs if the congress could just decide not to spend the money on migrant care and services in the first place.
Instead, the better policy would put an end to access to the non -citizen to welfare and the benefits of rights that could save more than $ 109 billion in the first year.
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We believe that all immigrants have consumed 21 percent less welfare and legal benefits than indigenous Americans per head of the population in 2022, based on data from the survey of income and program participation (SIPP). Immigrants were 14.3 percent of the American population and that year consumed only 11.9 percent of all means that the well -being and the rights tested.
The biggest myth in the debate about the use of immigrants Welfare is that not – citizens – who include illegal immigrants and who include legally present at various temporary visas and green maps – consume disproportionately well -being. That is not the case. Non-citizens immigrants consumed 54 percent less well-being than indigenous Americans. Non -citizens were 7.3 percent of the population and consumed only 3.5 percent of all benefits of welfare and rights. In total, non -citizens consumed $ 109.4 billion shares in 2022.
Naturalized immigrants, however, consumed 17 percent more well-being than indigenous Americans because they consumed an older population 7 times as much social security and 4.3 times as much medicare as non-citizens per head of the population. Naturalized immigrants were 7 percent of the population and consumed 8.4 percent of lifestyle benefits.
by Eric Boehm, RodeFebruary 19, 2025.
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Elon Musk claims That has discovered his Ministry of Government Efficiency (Doge) “The greatest fraud in history” within the Social Security Administration: payments to millions of Americans who have probably been dead for a long time.
That claim seems to be based on an incorrect concept of social security data from Musk’s side. More relevant: the tax problems of social security are not the result of fraudulent payments to people who are already dead. It is not advantages for the dead, but rather payments to the living people who drive the program to insolvency.
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However, the crucial question is whether the lack of ‘death information’ of social security about those people means that they still receive benefits.
That is not the vast majority. According to The Inspector’s report -General98 percent of them (18.4 million) currently receive no social security payments. That is because those 18.4 million people “have not reported the income to SSA in the last 50 years,” the general inspector notes. “The fact that these persons were 100 years or older, had no profit for the past 50 years and has not received SSA payments, indicates that they have died.”
Another way to know that these payments are not made is by simply looking at the annual social security costs. Jared Walczak, vice -president of state projects at the Tax Foundation, has cut some of those figures in it A message on X. In short, if the social security would pay benefits to all those clearly deceased people, the program would spend around $ 1 trillion more than it already.
By W. Joseph Campbell, Media Myth Alert, July 1, 2017.
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The idea that Murrow’s career was in the balance by taking the bullies Senator from Wisconsin was promoted in Good night and good luckAn exaggerated of the Murrow-McCarthy confrontation. But in reality the risks for Murrow were scarce by the time he took on McCarthy in 1954.
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That’s because, while I write, Murrow “was very late in confronting McCarthy” and “did this only after other journalists had already challenged the senator and his tactics for months, even for years.”
These journalists include the syndicated columnist Drew PearsonThat almost exaggerated McCarthy as soon as the senator began to swing accusations of Communists -infiltration of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. That was in February 1950 – year For Murrow’s program on McCarthy.