What transpires in the bowels of the Federal bureaucracy?  Sometimes that bureaucracy is described as a swamp, but perhaps it would be more accurate to compare it to the intestines of a giant leviathan.  That would help explain the occasional leakage of noxious gases.  Something foul is being produced.

Recently, Congressman Jim Banks, Chairman of the Republican House Study Committee, got a malodorous whiff.  He then penned a letter to President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken concerning a grant program being promoted by State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.  This grant was via a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), one of hundreds (or thousands) of grants issued by various Federal agencies, many of them a terrible waste of taxpayer money.

The letter read in part, “In April 2021, the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) announced a grant program to promote atheism worldwide. . . .  It announced a ‘competitive’  process that would award grants of up to $500,000 to organizations committed to the practice and spread of atheism and humanism, namely in South/Central Asia and in the Middle East/North Africa.  . . .

“It is one thing for the Department to be tolerant and respectful of a wide range of belief systems, and to encourage governments to respect the religious freedom interests of their citizens. It is quite another for the United States government to work actively to empower atheists, humanists . . in public decision-making. . . . Were such programs known by the citizens of the target countries, we would expect that local populations, interest groups, and governments would bristle at what any ‘objective observer’ would see as ‘covert’ funding from a foreign power designed to shatter local religious and cultural relationships. This is not ‘religious freedom.’ This NOFO, like others we have reviewed, prioritizes atheists and humanists above all other potential recipients. . . Americans rightly discern this as a part of the broader effort on the part of your administration to promote radical, progressive orthodoxy abroad. Atheism is an integral part of the belief system of Marxism and communism.”

Astonishing!

Is Congressman Banks correct in his charges?  Does Secretary Blinken know what is going on in his department?  What nation or nations is the State Department working for?  Is the Biden administration in league with the Devil? 

Strange things occur in the belly of the beast.