By Max Blumenthal

The Grayzone

A month before Charlie Kirk’s killing, billionaire pro-Israel moneyman Bill Ackman arranged an intervention in the Hamptons during which sources say he and others “hammered” Kirk for the conservative leader’s growing criticism of Israeli influence in Washington. Kirk came away fretting about Israeli “blackmail,” sources say, as he contemplated a Catholic conversion.

On September 11, one day after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, billionaire pro-Israel moneyman Bill Ackman took to Twitter/X to trumpet his relationship with the late conservative operative. “I feel incredibly privileged to have spent a day and shared a meal with @charliekirk11 this summer. He was a giant of a man.”

The Grayzone has spoken to five people with intimate knowledge of Kirk’s meeting with Ackman, which was held in early August under the guise of a summertime Hamptons lunch. According to one source, Kirk was left upset after the gathering turned into an “intervention” where he was “hammered” for his increasingly skeptical views on the US special relationship with Israel, and for platforming prominent conservative critics of Israel at his TPUSA events.

When his hosts presented him with a detailed list of every offense he supposedly committed against Israel, Kirk was “horrified,” said one person. At one point, according to another source, Ackman angrily chastised Kirk for his disobedience. The Zionist billionaire also allegedly demanded Kirk rescind his invitation for Tucker Carlson to speak at his upcoming America Fest 2025 in December.

The Grayzone reported on September 12, citing an associate of Kirk, that Netanyahu had offered to organize a massive infusion of pro-Israel money into TPUSA, and that Kirk refused. Another longtime friend of Kirk has told The Grayzone that the conservative activist also rejected an offer Netanyahu delivered two weeks before his death to meet with him in Jerusalem.

Kirk, according to one person with inside knowledge of the meeting with Ackman, said he left feeling as though he’d been subjected to “blackmail.”

In a series of text messages with The Grayzone, Ackman described these account of his meeting with Kirk as “totally false.” He pledged to release a public statement providing his own account of the event, but refused The Grayzone’s request for clarification or further details. He would not accept phone calls from this reporter.

“I think I can easily put this to bed,” Ackman promised, “I have receipts as they say.” He did not abide when asked to provide the so-called “receipts.”

In an apparent bid to reinforce the pro-Israel tone at the Hamptons meeting, Ackman hosted a coterie of pro-Israel operatives and conservative influencers at the off-the-record engagement. One was Instagram influencer Xaviaer DuRousseau of Prager U.

Reached by phone by The Grayzone, DuRousseau sounded flustered when asked about his presence at the meeting. He repeatedly demanded to know how this reporter obtained his number, and eventually hung up, refusing to answer questions about the event.

Two weeks after the meeting, DeRousseau was reportedly junketed on an all-expenses-paid trip by the Israeli government to visit a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation “aid” hub guarded by the IDF on the Gaza frontier. There, he recorded an Instagram video denying that the population of the besieged Gaza Strip was experiencing a famine.

The Grayzone received a similarly agitated response from Wilson, known online as Emily Saves America. Following a phone call and exchange of text messages in which this reporter asked her numerous times about her attendance of the meeting in the Hamptons, Wilson refused to comment. Instagram photos place her in the Hamptons at the same time as DuRousseau.

[…]

The strong-arm tactics of the pro-Israel billionaires who helped fuel the growth of TPUSA were said to have contributed to Kirk’s alienation with evangelical Christianity, which emphasizes uncritical support for Israel as a bedrock principle. Several sources with access to Kirk said he had begun attending Catholic mass with his wife, Erika, and was considering a conversion before his death.

Bree Solsdadt, a Catholic Twitter/X influencer, has publicly corroborated this account of Kirk’s religious realignment. Kirk’s friend, the podcaster and former TPUSA personality Candace Owens, also alluded to the shift when she reflected that he was undergoing a “spiritual transformation” before his death.

Israel-centric influencer summit in the Hamptons

The Grayzone has obtained a partial list of attendees alleged to have been in attendance at the Bridgehampton meeting convened by Ackman this August. They include:

[…]

Via https://thegrayzone.substack.com/p/billionaire-bill-ackman-convened

Capturing Water 

Al Jazeera (2025)

Film Review

https://www.aljazeera.com/video/featured-documentaries/2025/4/16/capturing-water

South Africa, a prime example of “racist capitalism,” is recognized as the most unequal country in the world, with Capetown the most unequal city. One of the water activists profiled here blames this on the decision not to return the land – nor the access to water – to the indigenous Africans it was stolen from.*

In 1994 when apartheid ended, 40 million South Africans had no reliable access to clean water. As of 2019, that number had dropped to to 21 million

In Capetown 600,000 homeless people of color are still waiting for social housing while private real estate development is booming. Thirteen percent of Capetown residents use 51% of the city’s water on their lush gardens and landscapes and face no restriction on its use nor pressure to conserve. Water intensive export industries (eg beer, wine, juice, bottled water) also have unlimited access to water. All the city’s water conservation efforts are directed at the poor.

South Africa’s grassroots PHA Food and Farming Campaign also focuses heavily on ending water wastage and updating the city’s failing water infrastructure. A prime example of water wastage is using pristine mountain streams (at a rate of 55 million liters daily) to flush sewage and other waste into the ocean.

Private companies routinely dump their waste in Capetown’s freshwater streams to avoid paying for processing. Meanwhile the condition of 67% of the city’s waste water works is rated a poor to critical. The city routinely warns residents to boil their water (impossible in many low income households who can’t afford the extra electricity/gas).

Activists blame Capetown’s failure to upgrade their waste water systems in part on low property taxes (a city with the most valuable properties in South Africa has the lowest tax revenues) and in part on outsourcing waste management and fresh water distribution to private companies.

The current Capetown mayor plans to reduce the city’s ownership of fresh and waste water management from 80% to 35% over the next 10 years. This trend has led many European companies to eye water management in the global South as the new gold.

*As the late John Pilger outlines in Freedom Next Time, Nelson Mandela was released from prison in December 1988 to live in the warden’s home until his official release in February 1990. During that period he met with numerous international officials and was pressured to to commit the first ANC government would 1) refrain from prosecuting Apartheid officials who had committed crimes against humanity 2) allow white South Africans to keep their land 3) repay South Africa’s IMF loan.

Florida’s Dr. Joseph Ladapo is no longer alone — Louisiana’s Dr. Ralph Abraham has now joined him in warning against deadly COVID mRNA shots.

By Abhinandan Mishra
September 14, 2025

Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli’s resignation last week, forced by weeks of what have been termed and hailed as “Gen Z”-led protests that left at least 30 dead and government buildings and commercial establishments in flames, has cast that country into a moment of political uncertainty.

What looks like a sudden eruption of youth anger over corruption, unemployment, and social media ban sits against a longer story: a massive, documented American effort to reshape Nepal’s political space.

In March, The Sunday Guardian was shared with internal documents that proved how a plan was afoot to bring in a regime change in the Himalayan nation. The details shared by a top-ranking whistle blower with access to sensitive details, also revealed names of local politicians, who were allegedly financially compromised to become a part of this entire process.

Internal USAID communications accessed by The Sunday Guardian, alongside program outputs published by US democracy organisations, show that since 2020, more than $900 million in US assistance has been committed to Nepal, much of it channelled into governance, media, civic, and electoral activities run by the Washington-based consortium CEPPS—the National Democratic Institute (NDI), International Republican Institute (IRI), and International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES).

The scale of this investment is unusual for a country of Nepal’s size. In May 2022, USAID signed a $402.7 million Development Objective Agreement (DOAG) with Nepal’s Ministry of Finance. By February 2025, $158 million had already been disbursed, leaving $244.7 million still unspent.

In parallel, the $500 million Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Compact, signed in 2017 and ratified only in February 2022 after fierce protests and parliamentary battles, remains in play. As of early 2025, only $43.1 million (8.63%) of MCC funds had been disbursed, but the Compact’s implementation period was extended, keeping its infrastructure and governance projects alive.

Taken together, these two packages—USAID and MCC—bring total US commitments to over $900 million.

Within the USAID agreement, internal documents break down specific lines of spending. Project 4150: “Democratic Processes” carries a commitment of $8 million, of which $5,028,238 (62.85%) had been spent by February 2025. Its agreement date is March 2023, with a planned end in March 2028. Implementers: NDI and IFES.

Project 4177: “Democracy Resource Center Nepal (DRCN)” was allocated $500,000, fully disbursed by July 2023. DRCN describes itself as a research and monitoring organization; critics call it a propaganda organ.

Other allocations are still larger. The Civil Society and Media initiative is budgeted at $37 million, of which over $20 million (54%) has been disbursed. Officially aimed at strengthening civic and media organizations, it has been described by observers as a way to influence narratives around corruption, governance, and treaties like the MCC.

The Adolescent Reproductive Health (ARH) project is funded at $35 million, with over $18 million (52%) disbursed. While framed as health programming, critics allege it doubles as political outreach, targeting vulnerable populations whose support is critical in social mobilization.

Two letters from Karen Welch, Acting Mission Director of USAID/Nepal, underline the machinery of this funding. A letter dated 24 May 2023, addressed to Shreekrishna Nepal, a senior Finance Ministry official, listed 58 USAID-funded projects worth $134.5 million for fiscal year 2023/24, including Democratic Processes ($8m), Civil Society and Media ($37m), and ARH ($35m). It requested their inclusion in Nepal’s official Red Book of foreign aid.

A second letter, dated 16 April 2024, sent to Finance Secretary Dr Krishna Hari Pushkar, complained about NGO registration fees imposed by Nepal’s Social Welfare Council and attached a list of over 100 local sub-partners working under USAID grants. These letters reveal not just funding amounts but the extensive sub-grantee network—the local NGOs and civic groups through which influence is exercised.

The money is visible; so are the outputs. NDI’s Policy Review series, released between 2020 and 2022, analysed federalism, youth inclusion, Dalit rights, climate change, and LGBTQI+ issues. Its Internal Political Party Reform booklet (2021) urged Nepal’s established parties to democratize internally.

During the pandemic, NDI published guidance for municipalities on transparent Covid recovery. Its Civic Forum education model and the YALA Youth Facilitator Toolkit gave young activists structured training in leadership, advocacy, and civic engagement. These are the very cohorts that today fill the streets of Kathmandu.

IRI has played the role of researcher and communicator. Its June 2024 National Survey of Nepal, based on 2,400 telephone interviews, showed 59% of Nepalis still support democracy, 62% want new political parties, and 36% cite unemployment as the top issue. Among youth, over one-third said they intended to migrate abroad for work. These findings foreshadowed the grievances driving this year’s protests.

Beyond polling, IRI published a Decentralization Resource Guide (2022) based on fieldwork in Nepal and piloted fiscal transparency tools like digital budget boards in Nepalgunj. It also authored toolkits on counter-disinformation and foreign influence, referencing Nepal directly.

IFES, less prominent in public reports, concentrated on the mechanics of elections. Its work with the Election Commission of Nepal during the 2022 local elections included voter education campaigns, efforts to improve access for women and people with disabilities, and technical assistance to strengthen administrative credibility.

The stated objectives of these projects are explicit: “deepening party democracy,” “empowering youth as agents of change,” “building citizen trust through transparency,” and “credible, inclusive elections.” Critics, however, interpret them as tools of political engineering—embedding US-funded programs in exactly those spaces (parties, youth, civil society, media, and local governance) where Nepal’s politics is now breaking apart.

The parallels are regional. The Sunday Guardian has previously reported on NDI and IRI activities in Bangladesh and Cambodia, where US-funded programs targeted youth politicians, LGBTQI+ groups, and minority inclusion. In Dhaka, these were read as regime-change efforts against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina; in Phnom Penh, similar programs unsettled the ruling party.

Nepal now shows the same pattern: large allocations, the same implementing partners, emphasis on youth, civil society, and governance—followed by political upheaval.

With Oli gone, the question is unavoidable: how much of Nepal’s democratic turbulence is organic, and how much has been fostered by years of sustained, well-financed external intervention?

What is clear is that the numbers are not abstract. They sit in official agreements, letters, and project codes. $402.7 million from USAID, $500 million from MCC, $37 million for civil society and media, $35 million for adolescent health, $8 million for democratic processes, $500,000 for DRCN. Add them together, and the figure that emerges—over $900 million—represents one of the largest per-capita US democracy investments in the region.

[…]

Via https://sundayguardianlive.com/news/top-5/900-million-allocation-raises-spectre-of-us-hand-in-nepal-138106/