Everyone loves pandas, right? The adorable, clumsy, endangered fuzzballs from China are always a hit whenever they are featured in zoos around the world. Their antics make us laugh while we wonder how this species could have ever survived in the wild.
Just be careful because sometimes those pandas ... aren't actually pandas.
But it's not surprising, given how cute the roly-poly balls of fur are, that Americans would be more than happy to open up our wallets to ensure their survival.
Well, guess what, America? That money you thought you were donating to preserve the beloved bears is being spent by China on everything BUT pandas. And our government knows this but keeps sending over the money anyway.
Light up the night sky with the DOGE-Signal because this sounds like a job for the Dynamic Duo of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
U.S. zoos sent millions of dollars to China to help protect wild pandas. But the Chinese government instead spent the money on apartment buildings, roads, computers, museums and other expenses, a New York Times investigation found. https://t.co/yvXndFg43V
— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 29, 2024
We're a little shocked that this report came from the corrupt and dying New York Times, but maybe they are trying to get with the DOGE program.
The Times used two decades of financial reports, internal correspondence, photos and archival records to track more than $86 million from American zoos to a pair of organizations run by the Chinese government ...
Zoos approve which projects get financed and then list them in annual reports to the Fish and Wildlife Service. Those records show that funds were allocated to build apartment buildings far from nature reserves. China also bought computers and satellite television for local government offices and built at least three museums with the money, according to the records ...
Regulators with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees the payments, have for two decades raised concerns about this with American zoo administrators and Chinese officials alike. The U.S. government, on three occasions, froze payments to China over incomplete record keeping, documents show ... Ultimately, the regulators allowed the money to keep flowing and agreed not to check the spending in China so thoroughly, according to records and former officials. [emphasis added]
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Basically, what the report discloses is a pay-for-play operation where zoos keep sending money so that China will keep sending pandas to America to put on display. And the regulators at USFWS turn a blind eye even though they know what's going on.
Once again, Musk and Ramaswamy might ask, 'What would you say it is that you DO here?'
D.O.G.E https://t.co/cHT33fY4Hg
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) November 30, 2024
Between this and the other recent report about USFWS declaring giraffes endangered in America -- despite the fact that no giraffes outside of zoos live in America -- many of the USFWS administrators should be getting very nervous right about now.
Who is surprised?
— Flyover Country Gal ✝️🇺🇸 (@FlyoverCntryGal) November 29, 2024
Not a single word of it is surprising.
Newsflash: Foreign aid is stolen like this all over the world every day of the week.
— john jackson (@pvtjokerus) November 30, 2024
It's been a joke for 40yrs and it has to stop. https://t.co/hSJVne99FL
This report is tracking about $86 million over decades. That's bad.
But maybe we can get a similar report about the $200 BILLION we have sent to a certain Eastern European country just in the past four years.
Wait until you find out where the money sent to Zelenskyy ended up.
— Right Wing Vegan (@rightwingvegan2) November 30, 2024
Or how about those hundreds of millions of dollars in 'humanitarian aid' we have sent to Gaza? How much of it made it to the people who live in Gaza and wasn't stolen by Hamas?
Now investigate the inflation reduction act subsidies and tell us which Democrat mega donors that went to.
— pmpnyomom (@Pmpnyomom) November 30, 2024
Oh, no. The New York Times could never investigate that. Those mega-donors are their friends.
https://t.co/3BwfnYPsaQ pic.twitter.com/Z3SQLUICfe
— CTIronman (@CTIronman) November 30, 2024
Hey, we can't really blame China. Not when the U.S. (and many other countries included in the report) are the ones who keep letting them get away with it.
Somebody should try to create a department of government efficiency. https://t.co/PyFrETDBMG
— Mark Ashworth (@marklarflash) November 30, 2024
LOL. What a great idea. Why didn't we think of that?
Hello @DOGE, please call your office https://t.co/XFjeGybCRQ
— Craig S. Bell (@craig_s_bell) November 30, 2024
Musk and Ramaswamy's little red light of incoming messages on their office phone has to be blinking like crazy.
There’s a metaphor somewhere in here https://t.co/WkrzPcKaiz
— The Good Shepherd (@HoyasFan07) November 30, 2024
We're pretty sure we just got slapped in the face with that metaphor like a watermelon gets slapped by a hungry panda.
US ripped off by China...AGAIN
— Big Cat Tech (@PMaxiums) November 29, 2024
Hey, at least this is just pandas and not, say, the intellectual property for an American F-35 fighter jet or anything.
Oh, wait...
Panda-money-'em? 🤔 🐼 💸
— Owen the Monkey 🐵 (@owenmiller75) November 30, 2024
DAMMIT.
We're a little jealous we didn't think of that one for our headline. Well played, sir.
Wordplay aside, this is exactly the reason that DOGE is so desperately needed. Eighty-six million dollars might not sound like a lot of money in the big picture of the federal government, but some tens of millions here, some hundreds of billions there, and pretty soon we're talking about real money.
And somehow, even if we clean up the corruption and waste, we're pretty sure those wonderfully goofy black and white bears will still survive to chow on some more bamboo, fall off another swingset, or roll down another hill to our neverending delight.
Maybe pandas look at our government's corruption and waste and wonder how we ever survived in the wild.
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