The Real Meaning Of "Draining The Swamp"

Politicians have been telling Americans that if we voted for them, they would go to DC and root out the corruption.

When the public servants got to Washington, they seemed to forget the promise. When asked, they told their people back home, "It's complicated."

It probably is complicated, so much so that the unachieved task has become known as "Draining the Swamp."

President Trump is showing the nation and the world how it's done.

Be informed, not misled.

Associated Press said yesterday, "Staffers of the U.S. Agency for International Development were instructed to stay out of the agency’s Washington headquarters, and yellow police tape and officers blocked the agency’s lobby on Monday, after billionaire Elon Musk announced President Donald Trump had agreed with him to shut the agency."

USAID staffers also said more than 600 additional employees had reported being locked out of the agency’s computer systems overnight. Those still in the system received emails saying that “at the direction of Agency leadership” the headquarters building “will be closed to Agency personnel on Monday, Feb. 3.” The agency’s website vanished Saturday without explanation.

The fast-moving developments come after thousands of USAID employees already have been laid off and programs shut down in the two weeks since President Donald Trump took office and show the extraordinary power of Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, in the Trump administration. Musk announced closing of the agency early Monday, as Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, was out of the country on a trip to Central America.

Rubio's message to Panama, which has been charging American ships the highest rates for passage through the Canal of any other country in the world, was that our ships would now have free passage or we would repossess the waterway for violation of the original agreement.

American ships, including our military ships, now have free passage.

Mexico has responded to Trump's Tariff. They have sent 10,000 of their national guard to the border to assist the US in closing it to illegals.

Associated Press adds this for the uninformed:

The moves by the U.S., the world’s largest provider of humanitarian aid, have upended decades of policy that put humanitarian, development, and security assistance in the center of efforts to build alliances and counter adversaries including China and Russia. They’ve forced U.S. and international companies to shut down tens of thousands of programs globally, leading to furloughs, layoffs, and financial crises that have left many fearing the aid community already has been too damaged by the freeze to resume work even if funding resumes.

It has actually been decades of corruption.

Musk said yesterday: “It became apparent that it’s not an apple with a worm it in. What we have is just a ball of worms. You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair.”

“We’re shutting it down,” he said.

Is America ceasing to be a charitable nation?

USAID, whose website vanished Saturday without explanation, has been one of the federal agencies most targeted by the Trump administration as it tackles waste within the federal government and many of its programs.

Musk attacked the agency by calling it a “criminal organization” on Sunday as Trump decried it as “run by radical lunatics” and said he was considering its future.

Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, offered a foreign perspective.

He said on social media, “Most governments don’t want USAID funds flowing into their countries because they understand where much of that money actually ends up.

“While marketed as support for development, democracy, and human rights, the majority of these funds are funneled into opposition groups, NGOs with political agendas, and destabilizing movements."

“At best, maybe 10% of the money reaches real projects that help people in need (there are such cases), but the rest is used to fuel dissent, finance protests, and undermine administrations that refuse to align with the globalist agenda.”

He said, "Cutting this so-called aid isn’t just beneficial for the United States; it’s also a big win for the rest of the world."

Most governments don’t want USAID funds flowing into their countries because they understand where much of that money actually ends up.

While marketed as support for development, democracy, and human rights, the majority of these funds are funneled into opposition groups, NGOs… pic.twitter.com/bXpdK29zH5

— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) February 2, 2025

Trump placed an unprecedented 90-day freeze on foreign assistance on his first day in office on Jan. 20.

• Spending for USAID is determined by Congress. Its budget for the 2023 fiscal year was about $40bn, according to a report last month from the Congressional Research Service.
• As of 2016, USAID reported it had 10,235 employees on its U.S. taxpayer-funded payroll.

Speaking of humanitarian charity.

Zelensky is asking, "Where did all the money go?"

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that his country has only received around $76 billion in aid from the United States despite America authorizing around $175 billion to support the war-torn country.

In an interview with the Associated Press published over the weekend, President Zelensky said he doesn’t know where most of the money the United States allocated under the Biden administration to Ukraine has gone.

When I hear – both in the past and even now – from the U.S. that America has provided Ukraine with hundreds of billions, as the president of a nation at war, I can tell you – we’ve received more than $75 billion,” he said. “We’re talking about tangible things because this aid didn’t come as cash but rather as weapons, which amounted to about $70 billion.

The Ukrainian leader suggested that perhaps the additional funds went to humanitarian programs, which he said he was “uninformed about, except for knowing of their existence.”

"Perhaps the U.S. President’s administration will audit these programs and find additional billions, but I don’t know where those funds went,” Zelensky said.

Takeaway

An analysis by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) found last year that nearly 70% of Ukraine aid was spent in America, including replenishing U.S. weapons stockpiles, purchasing weapons to be sent to Ukraine, and funding Defence Department accounts.

There have been long-held concerns in Washington over sending billions of dollars to Ukraine, given its issues with graft. In 2023, Transparency International ranked Ukraine as the second-most corrupt European nation, only behind Russia, scoring 33 out of 100.

Judges 21:25 defines a time of chaos resulting from lack of leadership: "In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes."

Pray for the President.

Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Prayerful.