I was trying to research how exactly Congress funds USAID... remember a lot of Congressional funding is for what we might say a Mission tied to a Dept... some of that is very specific in that it is for a submitted and approved budget. But, some depts get something like a Block Grant that they then distribute according to the mission and their internal vetting criteria -- NIH is a good example of this. Congress didn't fund EcoHealth Alliance, it funded NIH for various mission defined projects and NIH solicited grants and EHA's grant was funded.
It *might* be the goal to simply end USAID... but it could also be the goal to scrutinize all the aid and then decide to fund other projects with those funds.
It depends on how the USAID appropriation is set-up as to how specific those things are... So, we've also heard that State is going to take over the disbursement of appropriated funds and the USAID dept would be disbanded.
As I mention above, it depends on how it's all structured, but it's not impossible that USAID remains and its future grants are routed elsewhere, or, if legal, it's disbanded and the funding goes, say, to State where it is disbursed.
One thing that I was able to confirm doing initial research is that 80% of all funding goes through 75 large 'partners' as is typical. Here's a really poorly formatted chart of 2024 and 2023 funding categories.
2024 / 2023
Grants to PIOs $7.93 billion $7.20 billion
Direct Payments to Ukraine 4.22 / 14.80
Grants/CAs to NGOs 7.18 / 8.76
Contracts and IDVs 7.27 / 6.80
Other Financial Assistance 1.70 / 0.64
Total $28.30 billion / $38.20 billion
Still, for clarity, my personal political philosophy is that you have to work within the legal framework to change where the funding goes or how it's managed... but nothing at USAID should be considered 'required' funding... there's simply projects we want to fund and projects we don't -- if Congress doesn't specify what exactly is funded, then the Agency sets criteria and funds whatever it wants as long as it plausibly meets the mission.
The long march through the institutions was, in fact, very successful; but in the end, TOO successful. Think about it this way, as long as each team could fund various pet projects, there's little incentive to audit too closely... as long as there's a Rodeo Clown Training Pipeline being funded for every Anti-Racist Baby Seminar there's some sense of shared ownership. In this sense, the Trump Populist review is an outsider's review of people not on the spigot. I mean, it's pretty obviously a bad use of funds to create an artificial category of Rodeo Clown.
I think the Schelling point is an interesting idea, but doesn't it behave differently depending on who's doing what? It's essentially a coordination problem, no?
In one case the lack of a Schelling point allows for coalition building, but hinders the coalition from actually prioritizing marginal gains... or put another way, it's your old favorite of crab-bucketing on the entire prioritization project -- which never ends. So, in terms of 'going on the offensive' the Omnicause can't really because no-one ever goes to the right rallying point -- or, another way to put it is everyone believes *they* are at the right rallying point but everyone else is at various wrong ones.
I think I see your point that Trump is exploiting the Schelling point coordination problem of Team Blue; BUT, I'm not entirely sure that that's only what's happening. Put another way, it's not simply a coordination problem, but more of a bandwidth overload problem -- more like obscuring chaff. Chaff is difficult to deal with even if you have a singular mission of blowing up the airplane.
I think it get's exacerbated by Unreliable Narrators who can't (or don't want to) separate the chaff from the plane... but there's just an awful lot of chaff.
I have only imbibed Conclave indirectly via friends/family who have seen it. The universal approval was Costumes! Location! Ralph Fiennes (plus Italian)!
As to Good? Well, you don't have to be Good to win an Oscar or secure a prediction. :-)
But, most felt 'disappointed' by the Twist and opined that a) a murder mystery or b) straight political drama would've been better.
Both liberal and conservative Catholics felt that the Conservative catholics weren't properly crafted foils... but the liberals were ok with it and the cons felt is soured what could've been a better movie. Kinda like a Sorkin loop.
I'll wait until it cycles through HBO... meanwhile will re-watch Young Pope for Costumes! Location! Villains! Jude Law! TrenEdgy!
US becomes a third-party (perhaps with other parties) guarantor of a 'population exchange' plan where the US commits XX(X) $Bs for relocation, resettlement and rebuild. Gaza become a multi-party re-development zone with, say, Saudis, Qatar, Egypt, etc.
Evan that would be a WTF proposal - especially if you announced it without the Saudis, Qatari, Egyptians, etc. already on-board -- which they aren't.
So, yeah, interesting to see how this morphs.
Possibly we frame it as the Steel Dock recovery act... and just never leave. :-)
Funniest I saw was John Podheretz owning the maximalist Neo-Con a**hole blogger mantle saying, 'WTF'
I mean, you can steelman Tariffs and argue whether he's using his threat to get real or fake concessions... but so far I haven't seen anyone steelman the fallback position...
... just pictures of Suzie Wiles losing her mind.
But, I'm sure there are people working on retconning a plan as we speak.
RUBIO: OK, uhh well what we'll do, I'll run in first, uh gather up all the eggs, we can kinda just, ya know blast them all down with AOE. Um, I will use Intimidating Shout, to kinda scatter'em, so we don't have to fight a whole bunch of them at once. Uhh, when my Shouts are done, uhh, I'll need Anfrony to come in and drop his Shout too, uh so we can keep them scattered and not have to fight too many. Um, when his is done, Bass of course will need to run in and do the same thing. Uhh, we're gonna need Divine Intervention on our mages, uhh so they can, uhh, AE, uh so we can of course get them down fast, cause we're bringing all these guys, I mean, we'll be in trouble if we don't take them down quick. Uhh I think this is a pretty good plan, we should be able to pull it off this time. Uhh, what do you think Ratcliffe? Can you give me a number crunch real quick?
RATCLIFFE: Uhhh.. yeah gimme a sec... I'm coming up with thirty-two point three three, repeating of course, percentage, of survival.
NOEM: That's a lot better than we usually do, uhh, alright, you think we're ready guys? [interrupted]
TRUMP: All right chums, I'm (back)! Let's do this! LEEROOOOOOOY JEEENKIIIIIINSSS!!! [runs into Gaza]
-Short pause-
HEGSETH: [incredulous] ... Oh my God he just ran in. [runs in]
Heh... one of the things that provides a little cognitive dissonance for those of us old enough to remember is the Left white-knighting the CIA, NSA, Homeland Security, FBI, DoD, Treasury, etc.
That isn't the check on the Executive. DA's aren't the check on the Executive exercising (questionable) authority over the Executive branch.
If he's overstepping power reserved to Congress... SCOTUS can and will rule such. That's still not an indictable offence. Think about it... we don't put in jail every administration that had an Executive order or action stopped by the Courts.
If SCOTUS rules against his Executive Actions *and* he ignores SCOTUS *and* isn't impeached... that's an actual Constitutional crisis.
...but still not resolvable by a DA or an indictment.
Yes, it's very much like this. The weird part is that "J" is often irrelevant or incoherent... like, we need Google, but it can't be an internet version of Google... but it has to have all the stuff that is on the internet, otherwise it would just be internal search -- we want the stuff that Google has, but only as long as it's not on the internet -- for security reasons.
I mean, that's a joke, but "J" is usually such a confounder that instead of achieving success that 99% of the commercial world has, you've just invented a category that doesn't exist, requires custom $B, and will break within 2-years. But I guaranty at least 3 Bidders will give you a number for it.
Saul, while you're in aisle 4, grab a few small brown paper bags - I'm concerned you're not going to make it all 4-yrs.
It's not Murc's Law -- it's the perennial problem of the Imperial Presidency.
I mean, kudos to Congress for fixing the Electoral Count act early in Biden's presidency... which just shows that there's at least some awareness that Congress should act; it seems though that there was only political capital for that limited scope -- but I also didn't hear of any additional items that were on the table.
This is the circular meta-problem of the 'fourth-branch' of Government. It occupies the space between Congress and the Executive with both having legitimate claims of oversight and control.
It is exacerbated by the fourth-branch participating in its own definitions of scope, oversight and control.
I hate to say there's no easy way to manage this phenomenon, but... there's no easy way to manage this.
If I wanted to write a controversial essay, I'd suggest that the trigger for all of this is that the balance between the Right owning some part of the spoils system* and the Left owning another part broke...
*there's totally not a spoils system like originally... it's a 'soft-spoils-system' in a way Tocqueville would have understood.
On “Keynesian Beauty Contests, Schelling Points, and the Omnicause”
I'm not entirely sure if that's the goal.
I was trying to research how exactly Congress funds USAID... remember a lot of Congressional funding is for what we might say a Mission tied to a Dept... some of that is very specific in that it is for a submitted and approved budget. But, some depts get something like a Block Grant that they then distribute according to the mission and their internal vetting criteria -- NIH is a good example of this. Congress didn't fund EcoHealth Alliance, it funded NIH for various mission defined projects and NIH solicited grants and EHA's grant was funded.
It *might* be the goal to simply end USAID... but it could also be the goal to scrutinize all the aid and then decide to fund other projects with those funds.
It depends on how the USAID appropriation is set-up as to how specific those things are... So, we've also heard that State is going to take over the disbursement of appropriated funds and the USAID dept would be disbanded.
As I mention above, it depends on how it's all structured, but it's not impossible that USAID remains and its future grants are routed elsewhere, or, if legal, it's disbanded and the funding goes, say, to State where it is disbursed.
One thing that I was able to confirm doing initial research is that 80% of all funding goes through 75 large 'partners' as is typical. Here's a really poorly formatted chart of 2024 and 2023 funding categories.
2024 / 2023
Grants to PIOs $7.93 billion $7.20 billion
Direct Payments to Ukraine 4.22 / 14.80
Grants/CAs to NGOs 7.18 / 8.76
Contracts and IDVs 7.27 / 6.80
Other Financial Assistance 1.70 / 0.64
Total $28.30 billion / $38.20 billion
Still, for clarity, my personal political philosophy is that you have to work within the legal framework to change where the funding goes or how it's managed... but nothing at USAID should be considered 'required' funding... there's simply projects we want to fund and projects we don't -- if Congress doesn't specify what exactly is funded, then the Agency sets criteria and funds whatever it wants as long as it plausibly meets the mission.
"
I think this is itself an interesting question.
What *is* winning?
It isn't Deficit Reduction.
The hypothesis I'd throw out is this:
The long march through the institutions was, in fact, very successful; but in the end, TOO successful. Think about it this way, as long as each team could fund various pet projects, there's little incentive to audit too closely... as long as there's a Rodeo Clown Training Pipeline being funded for every Anti-Racist Baby Seminar there's some sense of shared ownership. In this sense, the Trump Populist review is an outsider's review of people not on the spigot. I mean, it's pretty obviously a bad use of funds to create an artificial category of Rodeo Clown.
"
Right, if things go 'well' they will be shielded from any future prosecution.
If things go sideways, Trump will hang them out to dry.
The 20-something will eat it; Musk might eat it, but has various ways to deflect.
Either way, it's a really really bad bet for the kids.
"
I think the Schelling point is an interesting idea, but doesn't it behave differently depending on who's doing what? It's essentially a coordination problem, no?
In one case the lack of a Schelling point allows for coalition building, but hinders the coalition from actually prioritizing marginal gains... or put another way, it's your old favorite of crab-bucketing on the entire prioritization project -- which never ends. So, in terms of 'going on the offensive' the Omnicause can't really because no-one ever goes to the right rallying point -- or, another way to put it is everyone believes *they* are at the right rallying point but everyone else is at various wrong ones.
I think I see your point that Trump is exploiting the Schelling point coordination problem of Team Blue; BUT, I'm not entirely sure that that's only what's happening. Put another way, it's not simply a coordination problem, but more of a bandwidth overload problem -- more like obscuring chaff. Chaff is difficult to deal with even if you have a singular mission of blowing up the airplane.
I think it get's exacerbated by Unreliable Narrators who can't (or don't want to) separate the chaff from the plane... but there's just an awful lot of chaff.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/3/2025”
Seems hard to believe, I'm pretty sure the President declared it the law of the land.
On “The 97th Oscars’ Best Picture Race: As Wide Open As It Gets”
Exactly!
...with a twist you will probably find cringe.
"
I have only imbibed Conclave indirectly via friends/family who have seen it. The universal approval was Costumes! Location! Ralph Fiennes (plus Italian)!
As to Good? Well, you don't have to be Good to win an Oscar or secure a prediction. :-)
But, most felt 'disappointed' by the Twist and opined that a) a murder mystery or b) straight political drama would've been better.
Both liberal and conservative Catholics felt that the Conservative catholics weren't properly crafted foils... but the liberals were ok with it and the cons felt is soured what could've been a better movie. Kinda like a Sorkin loop.
I'll wait until it cycles through HBO... meanwhile will re-watch Young Pope for Costumes! Location! Villains! Jude Law! TrenEdgy!
On “Welcome to the Quagmire”
Here's my *guess* at how they might reframe it.
US becomes a third-party (perhaps with other parties) guarantor of a 'population exchange' plan where the US commits XX(X) $Bs for relocation, resettlement and rebuild. Gaza become a multi-party re-development zone with, say, Saudis, Qatar, Egypt, etc.
Evan that would be a WTF proposal - especially if you announced it without the Saudis, Qatari, Egyptians, etc. already on-board -- which they aren't.
So, yeah, interesting to see how this morphs.
Possibly we frame it as the Steel Dock recovery act... and just never leave. :-)
"
Yeah, I haven't seen any yet.
Funniest I saw was John Podheretz owning the maximalist Neo-Con a**hole blogger mantle saying, 'WTF'
I mean, you can steelman Tariffs and argue whether he's using his threat to get real or fake concessions... but so far I haven't seen anyone steelman the fallback position...
... just pictures of Suzie Wiles losing her mind.
But, I'm sure there are people working on retconning a plan as we speak.
On “The 97th Oscars’ Best Picture Race: As Wide Open As It Gets”
Yeah, imagine what a stupid fundamentalist rube you'd have to be to follow a leader who could read the sands of the future.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/3/2025”
Lindsey Graham: "erm"
"
Boy is Puerto Rico gonna be pissed when we make Gaza a state.
"
RUBIO: OK, uhh well what we'll do, I'll run in first, uh gather up all the eggs, we can kinda just, ya know blast them all down with AOE. Um, I will use Intimidating Shout, to kinda scatter'em, so we don't have to fight a whole bunch of them at once. Uhh, when my Shouts are done, uhh, I'll need Anfrony to come in and drop his Shout too, uh so we can keep them scattered and not have to fight too many. Um, when his is done, Bass of course will need to run in and do the same thing. Uhh, we're gonna need Divine Intervention on our mages, uhh so they can, uhh, AE, uh so we can of course get them down fast, cause we're bringing all these guys, I mean, we'll be in trouble if we don't take them down quick. Uhh I think this is a pretty good plan, we should be able to pull it off this time. Uhh, what do you think Ratcliffe? Can you give me a number crunch real quick?
RATCLIFFE: Uhhh.. yeah gimme a sec... I'm coming up with thirty-two point three three, repeating of course, percentage, of survival.
NOEM: That's a lot better than we usually do, uhh, alright, you think we're ready guys? [interrupted]
TRUMP: All right chums, I'm (back)! Let's do this! LEEROOOOOOOY JEEENKIIIIIINSSS!!! [runs into Gaza]
-Short pause-
HEGSETH: [incredulous] ... Oh my God he just ran in. [runs in]
"
USAID: Some of our best CIA assets are sex tourists.
On “The 97th Oscars’ Best Picture Race: As Wide Open As It Gets”
It'll be Conclave... Costumes! Location! Villains! Ralph Fiennes! TrendEdgy! No Risk!
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/3/2025”
Heh... one of the things that provides a little cognitive dissonance for those of us old enough to remember is the Left white-knighting the CIA, NSA, Homeland Security, FBI, DoD, Treasury, etc.
I mean, does no one respect the old ways?
"
That isn't the check on the Executive. DA's aren't the check on the Executive exercising (questionable) authority over the Executive branch.
If he's overstepping power reserved to Congress... SCOTUS can and will rule such. That's still not an indictable offence. Think about it... we don't put in jail every administration that had an Executive order or action stopped by the Courts.
If SCOTUS rules against his Executive Actions *and* he ignores SCOTUS *and* isn't impeached... that's an actual Constitutional crisis.
...but still not resolvable by a DA or an indictment.
"
Yes, it's very much like this. The weird part is that "J" is often irrelevant or incoherent... like, we need Google, but it can't be an internet version of Google... but it has to have all the stuff that is on the internet, otherwise it would just be internal search -- we want the stuff that Google has, but only as long as it's not on the internet -- for security reasons.
I mean, that's a joke, but "J" is usually such a confounder that instead of achieving success that 99% of the commercial world has, you've just invented a category that doesn't exist, requires custom $B, and will break within 2-years. But I guaranty at least 3 Bidders will give you a number for it.
"
Saul, while you're in aisle 4, grab a few small brown paper bags - I'm concerned you're not going to make it all 4-yrs.
It's not Murc's Law -- it's the perennial problem of the Imperial Presidency.
I mean, kudos to Congress for fixing the Electoral Count act early in Biden's presidency... which just shows that there's at least some awareness that Congress should act; it seems though that there was only political capital for that limited scope -- but I also didn't hear of any additional items that were on the table.
"
Yes, but it's simply an observed fact in all US Politics classes that neither party *ever* gives up a Presidential Power collected by the other party.
Why would you? The power is only dangerous when other people exercise it.
"
We can only hope.
"
This is the circular meta-problem of the 'fourth-branch' of Government. It occupies the space between Congress and the Executive with both having legitimate claims of oversight and control.
It is exacerbated by the fourth-branch participating in its own definitions of scope, oversight and control.
I hate to say there's no easy way to manage this phenomenon, but... there's no easy way to manage this.
If I wanted to write a controversial essay, I'd suggest that the trigger for all of this is that the balance between the Right owning some part of the spoils system* and the Left owning another part broke...
*there's totally not a spoils system like originally... it's a 'soft-spoils-system' in a way Tocqueville would have understood.
"
It was to protect Italian Americans from blowback of Mob killing JFK for schtupping the wrong lady.
So... way over-classified.
"
Yeah, very high potential for blowing up.
"
I believe PEPFAR was granted a waiver a couple days ago.