USAID has been funding many terrible, horrible, no-good very bad things. It has been the piggy bank for the left, our primary regime change tool, and directly funded news and censorship organizations to influence both international news and censor American citizens. It has funded, through cutouts, BLM and the Soros prosecutors, and was one fo the primary funders of the human trafficking that has been destroying our cities and our finances, and funded the drug cartels.
What I did not know about until recently was just how involved the US government has been in controlling the flow of information at home and abroad. I knew we had the VOA and its satellites, but never considered that a huge problem because those outlets are transparently American government sponsored.
I knew that the Deep State and the Pravda Media had intimate relationships with each other in all senses of meaning. I knew that our intelligence community pressured foreign governments to censor Americans indirectly.
But I had no idea about Internews, which funds a lot of the "independent" media around the world. "Independent" and "US government-funded" seem pretty contradictory to me, and since these "independent" journalists provide a lot of "news" that filters into the United States, USAID has been laundering propaganda back into the country to influence our politics.
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 8, 2025
Internews is not exactly secret, but is not exactly transparent about what it does. And what it does is control 9000 "journalists," produce thousands of hours of ostensibly "independent" TV and radio programs, fund and push huge censorship organizations that pressure social media companies to censor, pressure advertisers to demonetize news outlets the government disapproves of (like Salem Media and Townhall), cut off Twitter/X and Rumble from advertising revenue, and control The Narrative™.
And, supposedly, it does it all from an empty building in California.
USAID (and State) funneled nearly half a billion dollars through this building which is at "876 7th St Arcata, CA 95521-6358". The IRS and IN government contracts list this address as the current registered address for IN although it was clearly abandoned by December 2024. Shot… pic.twitter.com/ELzv3G4p5l
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 8, 2025
No doubt that really means that it is based in offices associated with huge NGOs and collaborates with them on crafting the preferred narrative. They sure aren't doing it from some dilapidated building in Arcata, California, a remote city of 19,000 surrounded by state and national parks in Northern California.
California Secretary of State filing of October 2024 ties Jeanne Bourgault to the 7th Street Arcata address (h/t @AssyrianAngel28) pic.twitter.com/LfjtnvwmcI
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 8, 2025
Internews is an outgrowth of US efforts to rehabilitate former Soviet Republics to make them more Western, which seems like the sort of thing that our government would do and, frankly, might have been a decent investment. Governments naturally try to make the world see us in a better light, and US foreign policy does indeed use both "hard" and "soft" power to shape the world.
Like what is done or not, this is not inherently a bad use of dollars in principle. Better a few hundred million in propaganda than a few hundred billion in bullets and dead soldiers. That is the idea, anyway, and we are competing with other countries in the propaganda war.
1/ Internews, heavily funded by USAID ($470M), spent decades building media networks, training journalists, and promoting “free speech” in former Soviet states.
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 10, 2025
But their mission wasn’t neutral. It was about shaping narratives to support NATO expansion.pic.twitter.com/mDx6h2kJs2
But Internews long ago gave up on presenting America in a good light and got into the regime change business, including here at home. Rather than contributing to the flow of information and putting out spin, Internews does everything it can to control the flow of information to promote the transnational elite and the Deep State.
4/ In the 1990s, Internews partnered with the Soros Foundation to fund media organizations in post-Soviet nations, playing a pivotal role in the color revolutions of the 2000s in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine.
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 10, 2025
Their goal? To steer these countries toward NATO and Western control. pic.twitter.com/mtCtkBaZKZ
Soros. That name keeps popping up, doesn't it?
6/ By 2003, in Ukraine, Internews had:
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 10, 2025
▪️ Conducted 220 media training programs
▪️ Trained over 2,800 journalists
▪️ Produced 220+ TV programs & 1,000+ radio programs
▪️ Funded Telekritika, an online outlet central to the 2004 Orange Revolution
The result? A Western-aligned… pic.twitter.com/KJeeKlMVdW
Can you see why USAID has had so much support from the people who control our regime? It is the piggy bank that nobody looks at when examining the very incomplete information on the intelligence budget as a whole.
8/ By 2007, Internews had:
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 10, 2025
▪️ Trained 60,000 journalists worldwide
▪️ Established 2,500+ independent media outlets
▪️ Reached an audience of nearly 1 BILLION people
▪️ Advocated for media laws in 21 countries
▪️ Operated in 70 countries with offices in 42 cities
This was media… pic.twitter.com/XXrsBde15e
Remember, this is all supposedly based in an abandoned building in the middle of nowhere.
Yeah, right.
After Trump's election, Internews became a key player in the resistance to the Trump administration and helped create the censorship complex that is still growing in Europe. That censorship regime has pressured private companies to collaborate with government censors to snuff out independent media and citizen-led speech in order to control the narrative the American people and Europeans see.
13/ Internews—now collaborating with the USAID-funded World Economic Forum—shifted its focus to advertising boycotts to control online discourse.
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 10, 2025
What was once used to overthrow foreign governments was now turned against American citizens.
Their new narrative?
The internet… pic.twitter.com/mVvCWtX3L0
If it seemed that every day you saw the equivalent of Orwell's "Two Minute Hate" on TV (24 hour hate in the modern world), Internews has been the behind-the-curtain producer of that show.
17/ But here’s where it gets worse.
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 10, 2025
It’s bad enough that USAID-funded media manipulation helped expand NATO, escalate global tensions, and contribute to war.
But after Trump and Brexit, when this same public-private partnership turned inward—censoring political opposition and… pic.twitter.com/AulyRJe6de
Paid for with your USAID dollars.
19/ The final question:
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 10, 2025
Who has really benefited from USAID funding Internews across Eastern Europe?
▪️ The people in these countries?
▪️ American taxpayers?
▪️ Or NATO, the defense contractors, and Western elites?
At what point do Americans start questioning why they’re… pic.twitter.com/w7v7q6XLCZ
Now you understand why that parade of politicians has been marching to the USAID building and going to war over this little-known agency. It has nothing to do with funneling medicine, food, and tents to poor Africans and refugees around the world.
It is the backbone of a massive propaganda machine, human trafficking operation, and regime change program in the US, Europe, and around the world.
