Posted on 11/05/2019 10:02:25 AM PST by ransomnote
Testimony of veteran diplomat Marie Yovanovitch exposes Trump’s paralysing hold on the administration What shines through the testimony of Marie Yovanovitch is her disorientation. She is a veteran diplomat at the peak of her career, and in one of the most challenging but important posts in US foreign policy. But she had no clue what was happening inside her own government.
On 24 April this year, she received a call from Carol Perez, the director general of the foreign service, speaking to her in cryptic tones as if Yovanovitch’s life was in danger if she remained at her ambassadorial post in Kyiv. She spoke as if there was a threat too awful to describe clearly on a phone line.
“She said that there was a lot of concern for me, that I needed to be on the next plane home to Washington,” Yovanovitch recalled in her testimony to the congressional committees conducting impeachment hearings. Taken aback, the ambassador to Ukraine wanted to know what the sudden panic was about. Perez just told her: “I don’t know, but this is about your security. You need to come home immediately.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Oh, and since it is the Guardian, I should add:
The US does not have responsible government where cabinet officials and ministers must hold the confidence of the House of Representatives.
This was carefully considered at Philadelphia and rejected in favor of a (temporary) unitary executive.
Our current temporary unitary executive is named Donald John Trump, and we sent him there to have a paralyzing hold on the Executive Branch, which he has not completely succeeded at, but so far has done tolerably well.
Wow, who knew Trump could send a death-ray thunderbolt by Twitter?!
Awwww, was she swooning? Did the career donothingocrat get the vapors?
This woman is a snowflake if there ever was one. She is a basket case. Nothing in her testimony seems to be based on fact. Everything seems to be based on her opinion. What did she know about Hunter and Joe Biden’s money laundering scheme. The U. S. taxpayer is forced to funnel tons of money to Ukraine, and the corrupt in Ukraine gave a portion of it to the Bidens to keep the money spigot open and flowing. How much did she know about the details?
“But she had no clue what was happening inside her own government.’
Could it be that Trump was keeping her out of the loop because he knew she was not loyal to him and foreign policy.
A leftover of horse buggies and sailing ships. In this modern world of satellite videoconferencing, heads of state can just talk to each other on substantive issues and don't need Ambassadors except to oversee the consular office running visas.
There is a technical term called disintermediation, meaning throwing all the between guys and gals under the bus.
Orange Man is gutting the Federal Workforce! Govies fear those left behind may be relocated to - gasp! - flyover country!
They sound just like country-club Republicans.
I recall reading in early 2018 that scurrying feds were whispering that the FBI was already “gutted” at the lower levels - they said it like it was a bad thing. Only way to drain the swamp is to replace the swamp keepers...they’re skeerd! SKEERD!
Well, there are other uses for Ambassadors as on site representatives of the country which sent them. You cannot always be at the local Veteran’s Day ceremonies, but an Ambassador can. You cannot always be at the funeral of a state leader, but the Ambassador can. There does need to be an onsite rep so the other nation can see some kind of visual proof that we (the USA) cares.
I get so tired of this crap from the media. According to the Constitution, the executive power of the Federal government isn't vested in some nebulous "administration", but in the President himself. Everyone else serves at the pleasure of the President. Theoretically, It was Civil Service laws that caused the downfall of America.
The Guardian is a British paper, in the UK the government has to command the confidence of the House of Commons, they may be a bit confused about how we do things over here.
Every single Ambassador, DCM, Attache and embassy floor sweeper serves at the pleasure of the President
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Perhaps you can answer a question: I’ve always assumed ambassadorships were rewards for fundraising/campaigning. If so it stands to reason they would be highly partisan and also would not survive a change in the Presidency.
Is that true? Do these people have real accomplishments, language fluency, cultural fluency, social connections to the designated post?
State: Ottumwa, Iowa (Radar O’Reilly’s home town! Tom Arnold’s too - that’ll piss him off)
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I’m across the border in WI, but Ottumwa is too close.
Many Ambassadors are career Foreign Service Officers. They have served in most of the positions resident in an Embassy and the State Department feels they can oversee the whole embassy. These positions are usually the Political Officer or Attache, General Service Officer, Consular Officer, Public Affairs Officer, and a few others.
This is not the norm for very large and visible Embassies such as Paris, London or Tokyo, to name a few. The amount of visibility and cost of the Embassy functions is far too great fro a career State employee, so the President usually gives these “rewards” to very well heeled supporters or celebrities who can afford these kind of parties. In those cases, a very capable DCM, Deputy Chief of Mission is assigned to the Embassy, and that person does the heavy lifting for the Embassy duties.
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