DOGE Catch-All

[nycfan]

—> The Trump Administration Is About to Incinerate 500 Tons of Emergency Food

“… Sometime near the end of the Biden administration, USAID spent about $800,000 on the high-energy biscuits, one current and one former employee at the agency told me. The biscuits, which cram in the nutritional needs of a child under 5, are a stopgap measure, often used in scenarios where people have lost their homes in a natural disaster or fled a war faster than aid groups could set up a kitchen to receive them. They were stored in a Dubai warehouse and intended to go to the children this year.

Since January, when the Trump administration issued an executive order that halted virtually all American foreign assistance, federal workers have sent the new political leaders of USAID repeated requests to ship the biscuits while they were useful, according to the two USAID employees. USAID bought the biscuits intending to have the World Food Programme distribute them, and under previous circumstances, career staff could have handed off the biscuits to the United Nations agency on their own. But since Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency disbanded USAID and the State Department subsumed the agency, no money or aid items can move without the approval of the new heads of American foreign assistance, several current and former USAID employees told me.

… Over the coming weeks, the food will be destroyed at a cost of $130,000 to American taxpayers (on top of the $800,000 used to purchase the biscuits), according to current and former federal aid workers I spoke with. One current USAID staffer told me he’d never seen anywhere near this many biscuits trashed over his decades working in American foreign aid. Sometimes food isn’t stored properly in warehouses, or a flood or a terrorist group complicates deliveries; that might result in, at most, a few dozen tons of fortified foods being lost in a given year. But several of the aid workers I spoke with reiterated that they have never before seen the U.S. government simply give up on food that could have been put to good use.“

Sorry, I screwed up the original attempt to share the gift link. Think I’ve got it fixed now.

The Trump Administration Is About to Incinerate 500 Tons of Emergency Food

Federal workers warned for months that the high-energy biscuits would go to waste.

www.theatlantic.com

 

[altmin]

An Iconic NASA Probe Is at Threat of Being Shut Down Due to Trump Cuts

If it weren't for the new budget, New Horizons could keep exploring the outer reaches of the solar system into the 2030s.

gizmodo.com

 

[gtyellowjacket]

This is infuriating, but unless I'm mistaken, we've been paying red state farmers billions of dollars per year for decades now for product that we've subsequently destroyed. I'm more than happy to pay a substantial subsidy to remain relatively food independent. But for fuck's sake, can't we figure out a way to put our agricultural surplus to use rather than letting it rot in the barn???

They don't usually destroy the food. It's usually just not grown thereby artificially suppressing supply.