Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025
Good Morning! Good morning! In the news today, Coastal Georgia Congressman Buddy Carter lambastes the federal government’s civilian aid agency, and Savannah State University students talk about the Democratic Party. We also note some things for your very crowded news radar. Questions, comments, or story ideas? You can reach me at craig.thecurrent@gmail.com
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NEWS: POLITICS
‘Radical, DEI nonsense’
Can the U.S. government no longer afford foreign aid?
Coastal Georgia’s representative in Congress, Earl “Buddy” Carter, appears to believe so. Or maybe not.
In his weekly newsletter, emailed to constituents on Sunday, Carter lambastes the primary agency that distributes foreign aid, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), describing it as “one of the most egregious offenders of waste, fraud, and abuse that we have ever seen.”
Carter says USAID is among those federal government departments that are tools of “democrat agents and bureaucrats” that have been using taxpayer dollars to “fund woke, radical, DEI nonsense not only in America, but around the globe.”
“DEI” refers to diversity, equity and inclusion; programs perceived to be part of that effort are being targeted by Trump Republicans as discriminatory.
The five-term congressman from St. Simons hasn’t always been so scathing about USAID, which was created in 1961. Last year, he voted against a bill to defund the agency, much to the dismay of U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Rome), who sponsored the measure.
Also last year, Carter joined more than a dozen other representatives, on a weeklong visit to Rwanda and Tanzania. After the visit, he praised organizations who hosted the delegation, some of which have been recipients of USAID funds. He also stressed the importance of increasing ties with nations in sub-Saharan Africa to reduce their ties to China and ensure a steady supply of critical minerals to the U.S.
What appears to have turned Carter into a zealous critic of USAID is that the agency is now a prime a target of Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). “USAID is a criminal organization,” Musk wrote on his social media platform, X, on Feb. 2. “Time for it to die.”
Yet while Carter has become more accommodating to the anti-USAID views of Musk and Donald Trump, it isn’t clear whether he opposes all civilian foreign aid or just foreign aid programs overseen by USAID.
Foreign aid has never been popular among voters, though policymakers view it as a critical tool of “soft power” and given the size of the federal budget, a cost-effective one.
The $71.9 billion in foreign aid that the government spent in fiscal year 2023 was just 1.2% of that year’s total federal outlays, which were more than $6.1 trillion, according to the Pew Research Center. In fiscal 2023, USAID distributed nearly $43.8 billion in aid, about three of every five foreign-assistance dollars.
On Friday, Greene introduced a bill to eliminate the agency entirely. Carter didn’t sign on as co-sponsor.
Dismantling of the agency would have repercussions in Georgia, as well as overseas.
MANA, a Fitzgerald, Ga., nonprofit that makes a children’s survival mixture from milk and peanuts known as an RUTF — or ready-to-use therapeutic food — received a stop work order from USAID last week.
The company manufactures enough packets of the vitamin-rich paste to feed approximately 2 million children per year through programs by USAID, UNICEF, the World Food Program, Samaritan’s Purse, World Vision and others.
NEWS: ELECTIONS
‘More confident’
Following Donald Trump’s victory in Georgia in November and with a marquee U.S. Senate race next year, chastened Georgia Democrats have a lot to sort out — and by their own admission, a lot of listening to do.
At least three dozen Savannah State University students on Saturday gathered on campus to tell state Reps. Anne Allen Westbrook (Savannah), Edna Jackson (Savannah), Tremaine “Teddy” Reese (Columbus) and Carolyn Hugley (Columbus) what they thought went wrong in November and what Democrats need to do better.
What ensued in the first of seven such listening sessions by House Democrats across the state was a “really good, candid conversation,” Westbrook said. At the top of the students’ lists of concerns? Affordable housing. Access to mental health care, especially for young people. Repaying student loans.
A second-term representative, Westbrook said she was struck by the desires expressed by the students to see themselves better represented in positions of political leadership — not simply, or even mainly, as young Black men and women but as young men and women, period.
It was clear, she said, that these young people would feel “more confident” in the party’s leadership if they saw more young people in it.
NEWS: UPDATES
6 things for your radar
- The best chance for Republicans to flip a U.S. Senate seat next year will be in Georgia, the chair of the Republican Senate Campaign Committee, Tim Scott, said over the weekend. Top Senate Republicans have launched a lobbying campaign to convince Gov. Brian Kemp to enter the race against incumbent Jon Ossoff, a Democrat.
- Speaking of Kemp, the federal government’s top wildlife official reportedly wrote the governor in the final days of Joe Biden’s administration, to warn that a mine planned at the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp would threaten the fragile ecosystem.
- A U.S. District Court judge has refused to toss the case brought by former state Senate candidate Beth Majeroni against the Chatham County Board of Elections, its chairman Thomas Mahoney III and two county police officers in connection with her forcible removal from a election board meeting in July 2023.
- AI data centers could need 10 gigawatts (GW) of additional power capacity in 2025, which is more than the total power capacity of the state of Utah, a Rand study says.
- The U.S. Commerce Department has sent officials of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration a broad set of keywords to search grants in ways that would cover most climate change-related projects.
- Trump administration cuts in federal funding for biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health threaten medical research and jobs at Georgia universities, hospitals, and businesses, school officials say. In response to allegations that he’s cutting funding for cancer research, Elon Musk says on X, “I’m not. WTF are you talking about?”
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Georgia measles case now has infected family members
Two family members of a metro Atlanta person diagnosed with measles last month have also contracted the disease, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health.
NIH cuts target Georgia’s biomedical sector, risking research, jobs, experts say
The Trump administration announced major cuts to federal biomedical research funding, threatening the viability of life-saving research and putting at risk coveted knowledge jobs in Georgia, including those at Emory University and the University of Georgia.
USAID shutdown jeopardizes Georgia nonprofit’s peanut-based humanitarian program
USAID’s dismantling could negatively impact local economies in south Georgia, where a nonprofit like MANA relies heavily on USAID funding to produce peanut products for severely malnourished children.
State senator pushes bill to protect Georgia Power customers from rate hikes fueled by data centers
Georgia Power and clean energy groups are divided over legislation that would prevent state-regulated utilities from raising electricity rates to cover the costs of energy-guzzling data centers, with the Senate committee debating the potential impact on residential and commercial ratepayers.
Seafood-testing campaign ahead of Super Bowl raises awareness of foreign shrimp
Testing efforts ramped up last year at restaurants and festivals along the Gulf Coast as domestic shrimpers and governments try to crack down on the influx of cheap foreign catch flooding the U.S. seafood market over the past two decades.
Medicaid expansion in Georgia draws interest from long-opposed Republicans
Advocates for Medicaid expansion in Georgia are encouraged by the bipartisan introduction of Senate Bill 50, which would create PeachCare Plus, expanding Medicaid access for low-income Georgians.
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