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Funny Money

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It’s April 15! Do you know what “woke” craziness your tax dollars funded? Every April, millions of Americans bite the bullet, file their taxes, and pray that Uncle Sam puts their hard-earned dollars to good use. Few Americans would imagine their tax dollars going toward transgender treatments for mice. Or promoting DEI values in Lithuania. Or studying honeybees’ behavior on cocaine. We’re not making this up — that’s exactly where they went. What other “woke” insanity has the federal government funded? Divisive so-called “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) programs in higher education have been the beneficiaries of tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars annually. The National Institute on Aging gave Rutgers and the University of Michigan $3.7 million to study the long-term effects of “structural racism.” The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded the City University of New York (CUNY) a whopping $19 million to create “The New York Center for Minority Health, Equity and Social Justice.” Not too long after, Duke University received $770,000 from the National Cancer Institute to study “Systemic Racism and Biological Embodiment of Risk in Breast Cancer Mortality.” Taxpayer dollars have underwritten the promotion of the progressive LGBTQ agenda and radical gender ideology — both at home and abroad. For example, USAID gave $1.5 million to promote job opportunities for LGBTQ individuals in Serbia, and another $425,622 to help Indonesian coffee companies become more climate and gender friendly. $1.93 million more supported LGBTQ activity in the Western Balkans. And $1 million was shoveled out the door of the State Department to boost French-speaking LGBTQ groups in West and Central Africa. Arguably the most mind-boggling destination of our tax dollars were devoted to subsidizing silly animal studies. One such study, sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, taught pigeons to gamble using slot machines in “a token-based economy.” Scientists also now know, thanks to your tax dollars, “What makes goldfish feel sexy?” after the National Science Foundation gave $3.6 million to a study entitled, “The Good, the Bad, and the Sexy: How Brain Chemistry Affects Social Judgment.” One NIH-funded study observed the effects of alcohol on zebra finches’ behavior and singing abilities to the tune of nearly $5 million! Another received $10 million to create transgender mice, rats, and monkeys. But that’s not all. If you thought things couldn’t get any crazier, check out these jaw-droppingly wasteful uses of taxpayer funds, courtesy of Rand Paul’s 2024 Festivus Report: TV time in the Middle East! USAID reportedly spent $20 million on a new Sesame Street show in Iraq, while The State Department gave the Royal Film Commission $873,584 for movies in Jordan. Taxes for Tech! The State Department paid a total of $4,840,082 to social media “influencers,” and spent $123,066 to teach Kyrgyzstan youth how to “go viral.” Skate and Break! The National Endowment for the Arts awarded a drag group, the Bearded Ladies Cabaret, $10,000 to support a cabaret show on ice skates focused on climate change, while the State Department allocated $32,596.12 for breakdancing. Honorable mentions include $7,026,689 spent by the federal government on various “magical” projects, including $6,293,820 from the Department of Defense (DOD) on a Magic City Discovery Center and $388,863 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) toward a podcast entitled, “Magic in the United States.” So next time you’re gaping at inflated grocery prices, budgeting for that new house, or wondering if you can crank one more year out of that busted Jeep, just remember: somewhere, a federal agency might be spending your tax dollars getting pigeons wasted. Government spending doesn’t have to be this ridiculous. The inauguration of President Trump and aggressive auditing by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) seems to be rooting out the more ridiculous and frivolous federal grants. But until the public demands a full divestment from “woke” grants and transparency for the destination of our hard-earned tax dollars, who knows where they might end up next?

Past Campaigns

NewsGuard Must Answer for Fact-Check Bias

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Have you heard of NewsGuard? Chances are you haven’t, but they’re the largest and most influential so-called “fact checking” organization in the United States. They’re also incredibly biased. Left-leaning media outlets like CNN and the New York Times are regularly given “high credibility” scores — the same CNN that presented the Jussie Smollet and Nick Sandeman hoaxes as full-blown hate crimes, and the same New York Times that wrote prolifically for years about the Russia-collusion fraud. At the same time, right-of-center sources such as Fox News, PragerU, and The Federalist are branded by NewsGuard as “uncredible,” “risky” purveyors of “misinformation” and “disinformation.” NewsGuard’s ratings are taken as gospel by Big Tech and public schools nationwide, used to filter what can be taught in class and shared on social media sites. They’ve partnered with the federal government in initiatives “discrediting and demonetizing the disfavored press and redirecting money and audiences to news organizations that publish favored viewpoints,” according to a blockbuster lawsuit essentially labeling NewsGuard a censor-for-hire. The New Tolerance campaign is proud to join forces with the team at PragerU to demand accountability from this purported “objective” gatekeeper of speech. Tell NewsGuard that any credibility they might salvage demands full transparency.

Past Campaigns

Tell the ACLU: Stand by Your Mission — or Be Honest and Change It

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On Thursday, July 15, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki made an alarming announcement that the Biden Administration was “flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation” about the COVID pandemic. Exactly what the President of the United States and his team deem “disinformation” was not stated. One day later, Psaki doubled down, stating people “shouldn’t be banned from one platform and not others for providing disinformation.” If you’re deemed in violation of one social media company’s terms of service, you’re apparently in violation of them all. While the federal government admitted to colluding with Big Tech to censor Americans, our country’s preeminent free speech advocacy organization the ACLU was nowhere to be found. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has a storied history of being an objective defender of American civil liberties — however controversial the individual or vile the speech, the ACLU built a reputation around a mission that the Constitution protects everyone. Sadly, in recent years, the ACLU has made a drastic departure from its stated mission. Once a bastion of free speech, the ACLU has started letting social justice trends direct its actions. As the New York Times recently exposed, the ACLU can’t decide if it wants to stick to its founding principles or becoming just another soldier in the progressive cause. Join us in holding on the ACLU accountable: state your mission and make it clear! The ACLU is over a century old as had defended the First Amendment rights of everyone from the Nation of Islam to the KKK. Many at the ACLU still believing in defending the rights of all, and they still do occasionally take cases that are highly controversial or benefit groups that are right-of-center. However, the ACLU has generally not engaged in the recent string of free speech cases on college campuses, while it has eagerly jumped on the ‘defund the police’ bandwagon. The organization rallied and fundraised off hatred for President Trump and embraced the extremes of identity politics. Leadership also recently rolled out guidelines that, according to NYT, “suggested lawyers should balance taking a free speech case representing right-wing groups whose ‘values are contrary to our values’ against the potential such a case might give ‘offense to marginalized groups.’” In the words of ACLU founder Ira Glasser, “There are a lot of organizations fighting eloquently for racial justice and immigrant rights. But there’s only one ACLU that is a content-neutral defender of free speech. I fear we’re in danger of losing that.” The ACLU has risen to its current prominence partially because of its principled non-partisan stances, and while its actions were often controversial, it arguably did a lot of good by being a consistent example of principle over partisanship. Organizations are of course free to change their mission, and if the ALCU wants to only champion progressive causes, that is its right. But if it chooses the latter, it must be honest about it and not deceive donors or the public. Use the form on this page to tell the ACLU to make their choice clear: Do they stand for civil liberties for all? Or just for those they agree with?

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