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‘I HAVE THE RECEIPTS’: Ernst Exposes Billions in Wasteful Spending to Russia, China.

Gender Equality, Cat Experiments, and an Old Familiar Lab Come into Focus.


Photo for: ‘I HAVE THE RECEIPTS’: Ernst Exposes Billions in Wasteful Spending to Russia, China.

Over the past five years, the U.S. has given at least $1.3 billion dollars to our enemies Russia and China. Not only are we putting cash in adversarial pockets, we’re doing it for a host of reasons almost too silly to name —cat experiments, for Pete’s sake.

The newly uncovered information was circulated by watchdog group Open the Books and Iowa Senator Joni Ernst who flagged just a few egregious examples of money flushed down the toilet.

“The analysis revealed that millions of taxpayer dollars have been given to, among others, a Chinese software developer for military tech support, a Russian health insurance provider that has since been sanctioned and Chinese agriculture companies,” Fox News reports. “And it showed the federal government gave $2 million, more than previously reported, to the Chinese state-run Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses.”

There’s that old familiar lab. Maybe some cash made it into that infamous wet market, as well.

“Washington’s continued spending is so out of hand, it is losing track of Americans’ hard-earned taxpayer dollars, but I am creating accountability for every penny,” Ernst said in a statement.

“It is gravely concerning that no one in Washington can actually account for millions sent to Russia and China for pointless projects,” Ernst continued. “But I have the receipts. I’m shining a light on this reckless spending, so bureaucrats can no longer cover up their tracks and taxpayers can know exactly what their hard-earned dollars are funding.”

In an effort to ensure taxpayer cash doesn’t flow to our enemies, Senator Ernst has introduced the TRACKS Act: Tracking Receipts to Adversarial Countries for Knowledge of Spending. The bill would require the tracking of all federal funds going to organizations in China and Russia.

It’s a good move, especially since we’re sending money to fund things like giving Beijing-based Crossroads Cultural Communication $96,875 for “gender equality” through the exhibition of New Yorker magazine cartoons.

The purpose? “To increase awareness on gender equality and women empowerment through an exhibition of works by women cartoonists of the New Yorker Magazine in China,” the 2021 grant description states. Yeah, it’s bad

Did we mention “cat experiments?” We did.

According to Fox News, “$4.2 million Health and Human Services program granted $770,466 to the Pavlov Institute, a state-run lab located in St. Petersburg, Russia, to experiment on cats running on treadmills. The Biden administration ultimately cut off funding for the program after criticism from groups like White Coat Waste and Republican lawmakers.”

Cats…running on treadmills…in Russia. Sounds like a joke setup —not something we should be funding.

Now we look like a joke.