Illinois-based nonprofit American Transparency is detailing some of the foolish, fraudulent, and frivolous federal projects.
nypost.com
Andrzejewski pointed to a March report from the Government Accountability Office that
tallied $281 billion in improper and mistaken payments in 2021 alone – without even attempting to count the billions wasted on fraud-ridden COVID relief programs.
Pigeon Slots Cost: $465,339
axpayers are rolling the dice on a high-stakes study that aims to untangle the psychology of gambling addiction – by building a casino for pigeons. The National Institute of Health has
sent nearly half a million dollars to uber-liberal Reed College in Portland, Ore., where researchers are taking three years to create a “self-contained miniature economy” for the school’s flock of birds. The pigeons receive currency-like tokens that they can “earn, accumulate, spend, or gamble” on slot machines, Dr. Timothy Hackenberg
explained in the project’s abstract. But even he admits the “practical applications” of his work are few. Presumably the eye-popping budget is needed to pay for all the comped rooms, free drinks, and tiny uniforms for feathered cocktail waitresses.
Fake Farms Cost: $7 million
Giddy-up, pardner, and round up some COVID cash! The pandemic was a bonanza of wasteful federal spending. Case in point: a single loan processing company sent about $7 million worth of Paycheck Protection Program checks to imaginary farms in impossible places, a
ProPublica investigation found. Scammers successfully claimed that tiny Beach Haven, NJ, a resort town of bungalows and marinas just north of Atlantic City, was home to phantom agricultural operations like the
Beefy King cattle ranch and the
Deely Nuts tree nut farm. “There’s no farming here,” Joe Mancini, the local mayor, told the watchdog group. “We’re a sandbar, for Christ’s sake.” The ranch, according to the fraudulent filings, operated at Mancini’s home address – where he keeps three dogs, he said, but no cows.
The National Science Foundation spent a pretty penny on capturing lizards.Colin Donihue via AP
Leapin’ Lizards Cost: $75,000
Harvard biologists turned a leaf blower, a wooden pole, and a lounge of Caribbean lizards into a $75,000 payday. The National Science Foundation, claiming concern about worsening climate-change-induced hurricanes,
paid researchers to capture 47 anole lizards in the Turks and Caicos Islands, then blast the animals with leaf blowers. The scientists filmed the critters hanging onto their sticks for dear life in windspeeds up to 108 mph – and kept recording as they went flying. The experiment produced some
hilarious YouTube footage, plus a theory that bigger toes help lizards survive hurricane-force winds.
A Florida lab is intent on turning male monkeys female using hormones.Getty Images/iStockphoto
Transgendered Monkeys Cost: $477,121
A Florida lab is
dosing male rhesus macaques with feminizing hormones – intent on turning them trans. The experiment, funded by Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, aims to figure out why male-to-female transgender humans suffer high levels of HIV infection. “HIV/AIDS thrives in the margins of society,”
reads the uber-woke project description. “No population is more affected by these social injustices than transgender persons.” The scientists suspect estradiol, the hormone commonly given to transgender women, may weaken the immune system. Next up: drag monkey story hour in your local library.
Cow Surveillance Cost: $45,000
The rich got richer during the coronavirus pandemic, thanks to Uncle Sam. Bold-faced names like Kanye West, Robert Redford, and Francis Ford Coppola
collected big bucks in 2020 from the COVID relief Paycheck Protection Program. West, who now has a net worth of about
$6.6 billion, received $2.4 million for Yeezy, LLC, his famous sneaker company, which was valued at
$2.9 billion at the time. Meanwhile,
$3.04 million in loans went to Redford’s Sundance Institute. Two of Coppola’s companies, Francis Ford Coppola LLC and Niebaum Coppola Estate Winery, LP received a combined
$8.5 million. The PPP program was created to help businesses stay afloat and keep idled workers off the unemployment rolls, but for wealthy celebrities, the forgivable loans didn’t make any cents.
Zombie” Russian Cats Cost: $549,331
Grisly experiments in a Russian lab turned cute kitties into
electrically-controlled zombies – with the help of the US government. Researchers at the Pavlov Institute of Physiology in St. Petersburg, Russia were
paid by the US National Institutes of Health to “decerebrate” 18 healthy cats,
severing their brain stems to prevent movement while keeping them alive. The ghoulish scientists then used electrical charges to make the cats walk on treadmills, transforming them into the walking kitty dead. Congressional Republicans exploded at President Biden when news of the “cruel and wasteful” tests leaked earlier this year, just days after Russia invaded Ukraine. “Our foreign adversaries, especially ones run by tyrants, should not be given US tax dollars to conduct heinous animal research,”
they wrote in a March 10 letter to the president
And on and on!!!
