There's Science, and then there's government cheese

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and there will be a great wailing and gnashing of teeth

Ever since the Babylon Bee was founded in 2016, something uncanny has happened: the world has become even more absurd than the imaginings of its writers. 

As with The Simpsons, if something appears in the imagination of Bee writers, it soon shows up in our newsfeeds as a real thing. 

For instance:

A grant to study how to “safely” discuss the sexual preferences of cancer patients? Sure, we got that:

David Stom, as usual, has it right:

…. But of course, we know the truth: the money was being pushed out the door not for scientific reasons but to check a genderqueer alphabet research funding box. Bureaucrats up the chain wanted to fund things in this space so somebody invented a "study" to fit the criteria, and the money flowed. 

This wasn't cancer research. "Cancer" was the funding hook.

And from some Philistine of a reader, this:

DOGE Finds $2 Billion in Taxpayer Funds Earmarked for Stacey Abrams-Linked Group

EPA chief Lee Zeldin says revelation 'extremely concerning'

The Environmental Protection Agency under the Biden administration awarded Power Forward Communities the grant in April 2024 as part of the agency's Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund program. Power Forward Communities received the green energy grant despite the fact that it was founded months earlier in late 2023 and never managed anywhere near the grant's dollar figure—it reported just $100 in total revenue during its first three months in operation, according to its latest tax filings.

Power Forward Communities' grant was one of just eight Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund grants that the EPA doled out in April 2024 and that, altogether, totaled $20 billion. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin announced on Feb. 13 that his staff and Department of Government Efficiency officials discovered that the Biden administration parked that same $20 billion at an outside financial institution before leaving office, limiting the federal government's oversight of the program.

The revelation that Power Forward Communities is among the beneficiaries of the funds Zeldin's team located raises ethics questions about how the Biden administration selected recipients of such massive grants and whether it played favorites when doling those grants out. Abrams was a vocal proponent of the Biden administration's green energy agenda and campaigned for former vice president Kamala Harris.

It also appears to validate concerns expressed for years by Republicans that Biden administration allies would prop up organizations that were specifically designed to receive federal funding under programs like the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which was created to operate as a "green bank" by Democrats' behemoth Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

…. "As we continue to learn more about where some of this money went, it is even more apparent how far-reaching and widely accepted this waste and abuse has been," the EPA administrator continued. "It’s extremely concerning that an organization that reported just $100 in revenue in 2023 was chosen to receive $2 billion. That’s 20 million times the organization’s reported revenue."

Power Forward Communities and Abrams did not respond to requests for comment.