Posted on 11/18/2017 2:39:19 PM PST by qaz123
WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department is hitting back at the growing bipartisan criticism of Rex Tillerson's leadership and accusations he is presiding over a debilitating brain drain of the nation's diplomatic corps. At the same time, it allowed that a lack of communication with employees about Tillerson's intent to reorganize the department had contributed to low morale.
In a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Republican chairman, the department said Tillerson's reorganization plans aren't crippling the agency as reports have claimed. Top ranks aren't being intentionally gutted through attrition, mass retirements and buyouts, it said, and a planned 8 percent reduction of its nearly 75,000 employees had been mandated by the Office of Management and Budget and is proceeding under that order.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
hate America ... hate everything America stands for ... completely embrace Socialism/Communism ... love spending taxpayer money on utter nonsense without any accountability ... use the State Dept to enrich their former coworkers and USAID employees - turned contractor- with 'no bid' contracts and jobs ... love to live in foreign countries on the taxpayer dime as they accomplish next nothing but partying and having a good time ... get to travel the world on the taxpayer dime
isn't a bad thing, that's for sure. Due to technological advances in communications and air travel, the need for having a behemoth agency like the State Dept, has long worn out it's usefulness. It doesn't need to be dismantled, as their is a need for a SecState, etc. But, needing an embassy in London with a few hundred employees, all making 6-figures, isn't necessary there or anywhere else.
Like Candidate Trump said on the campaign trail, the US needs the most vicious guys from Wall St, ones you wouldn't invite into your home for dinner, to negotiate trade deals. Not a bunch of Ivy League college, Leftists that have never held a real job.
The “Feel Good” story of the day!
Low morale on the part of the anti-American saboteurs?
Sounds good!
“accusations he is presiding over a debilitating brain drain of the nation’s diplomatic corps.”
This is satire, right?
L
Outstanding!
State is 1% of the Federal budget.
The job of these people is essentially to prevent war and abet intelligence gathering efforts.
I disagree with gutting State just because they are largely but not wholly Democrat-leaning.
There are LOTS of conservatives at State. There are lots of Dems who, like everyone else, do what the President and Sec State says.
Kerry and Obama were the saboteurs, not everyone who worked for him.
LOL we gotta get some of your “vicious guys from wall street” to accept $40K to live in Uzbekistan, Jalalabad, Ulaanbaatar, and process Visa requests 10 hours a day.
Good. The state department is at the root of almost all the evil the US government does around the world. I’d prefer they purge everyone and start over.
Low morale for the swampistas is good news.
If State shut down would that mean the immigration invasion would stop? No one left to process the paper work be a good thing. US State Department: Closed.
So. Much. WINNING!
STILL not tired of it! :)
Oh I suspect there is a draining going on, but I wouldn't say 'brains.'
If they want to find good people they should look at those that didn’t make the cut when Hillary was ripping us off there.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — US authorities should probe the Clinton Foundation instead of going after FIFA officials abroad, Wall Street financial analyst Charles Ortel told Sputnik. “The FIFA prosecution is outrageous. It reflects a complete double standard,” Ortel said on Thursday. “The first thing that the United States should do is to get its own financial house in order.” **SNIP** Ortel, who is investigating the financial records of the Clinton Foundation, argued the US government should investigate institutions based within the country with suspect financial records rather officials in Zurich-based FIFA.(Excerpt) Read more at sputniknews.com ..
Conniving Hillary set up her own private State Dept outside the US gov’t......and even used a private server to conduct govt business. Now it seems that Obama did not know about this. ROTFLOL
<><> He did not know that Hillary signed off on Bill's lucrative deals w/ foreign govts?
<><> Obama did not know that Bill and Hill were jerking around major areas of US foreign policy?
<><> He did not know Abedin's Muslim bgrnd?
<><> He did not know Hillary gave her aide Huma Abedin special status---to have an outside job while working at State.
<><> Obama did not know Abedin's side jobs as a "private consultant" worked for a company that empoloyed Bill Clinton?
<><> He did not know her aide, Huma Abedin, was using Hillary's "private" eamil server?
<><> Obama knew zilch about all of it?
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Oh, please...gimme a frickin' break. Anybody believes that, I gotta bridge I can sell 'em....real cheap...in Brooklyn.
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NOTE----Wall Street investor and financial analyst Charles Ortel, who is preparing a 100-page report on the issue, says "The Clinton Foundation's financial statements over the past six years have been fraudulent."
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I hope Ortel realizes that the reason official documents are falsified (a felony) is to cover-up even bigger crimes.
The U.S. government spends billions of dollars to “resettle” foreign nationals and transparency on how the money is spent depends on the agency involved. Judicial Watch has been investigating it for years, specifically the huge amount of taxpayer dollars that go to “voluntary agencies”, known as VOLAGs, to provide a wide range of services for the new arrivals.
Throughout the ongoing probe Judicial Watch has found a striking difference on how government lawyers use an exemption, officially known as (b)(4), to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to withhold records. All the cases involve public funds being used to resettle foreigners on U.S. soil and Americans should be entitled to the records.
The (b)(4) exemption permits agencies to withhold trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person which is privileged or confidential. Depending on the government agency and the mood of the taxpayer-funded lawyers handling public records requests, that information is exempt from disclosure.
In these cases, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) disclosed a VOLAG contract to resettle tens of thousands of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) that entered the U.S. through Mexico under the Obama administration while the State Department withheld large portions of a one-year, $22.8 million deal to resettle refugees from Muslim countries.
Most of the UACs came from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala and the Obama administration blamed the sudden surge on violence in the three central American nations. The agency responsible for resettling the minors and issuing contracts for the costly services is HHS.
As a result of Judicial Watch’s work HHS furnished records with virtually nothing redacted. Disclosed were employee salaries of VOLAGs contracted by the agency to provide services for the illegal immigrant minors, the cost of laptops, big screen TVs, food, pregnancy tests, “multicultural crayons” and shower stalls for the new arrivals.
The general contract was to provide “basic shelter care” for 2,400 minors for a period of four months in 2014. This cost American taxpayers an astounding $182,129,786 and the VOLAG contracted to do it was government regular called Baptist Children and Family Services (BCFS). The breakdown includes charges of $104,215,608 for UACs at Fort Sill, Oklahoma and an additional $77,914,178 for UACs at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.
HHS rightfully provided all sorts of details in the records, including the cost of emergency surge beds ($104,215,608) for just four months; food for the illegal alien minors and staff ($18,198,000); medical supplies such as first aid kits, latex gloves, lice shampoo and pregnancy tests ($1,120,400); recreation items such as board games, soccer balls and jump ropes ($180,000); educational items like art paper and multicultural crayons ($180,000); laptops ($200,000) and cellphones ($160,000).
Hotel accommodations for the BCFS staff was $6,765,000, the records show, and the salary for a 30-member “Incident Management Team” was $2,648,800, which breaks down to $88,293 per IMT member for the four-month period. It was outrageous that the Obama administration spent nearly $200 million of taxpayer funds to provide illegal alien children with the types of extravagant high-tech equipment and lavish benefits many American families cannot even afford for their own children.
This has become a heated issue for the government which may explain why other agencies aren’t as forthcoming in providing specific figures, thus abusing the (b)(4) exemption. The State Department, for instance, redacted huge portions of records involving contracts with VOLAGs to resettle refugees from mostly Muslim countries.
The files illustrate the disparate redaction treatment given by different government agencies to the same types of records. The State Department paid a VOLAG called United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) a ghastly $22,838,173 in one year to resettle refugees that came mostly from Muslim countries. Unlike HHS, the agency redacted information related to what the USCCB charged the government for things like furniture, personnel, equipment and other costs associated with contracts to resettle refugees.
Why did one government agency hand over the same types of records that another agency claims are trade secrets? Judicial Watch is challenging the State Department’s (b)(4) exemption and will provide updates as they become available.
HHS and the State Department work with nine VOLAGs to resettle refugees and the voluntary agencies have hundreds of contractors they like to call “affiliates.” It’s a huge racket that costs American taxpayers monstrous sums and Judicial Watch is working to pinpoint the exact amount.
Besides BCFS and USCCB, other VOLAGs with lucrative government gigs to resettle refugees are: Church World Service, Ethiopian Community Development Council, Episcopal Migration Ministries, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, International Rescue Committee, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Lutheran Immigration Refugee Services and World Relief Corporation.
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