Posted on 07/17/2017 1:14:06 PM PDT by Oatka
The State Department is has long been compromised — State Department careerists work for the countries they are assigned to, not to America, and that’s the problem. The State Department is the problem. We need patriots and freedom lovers in state craft, not Muslim Brotherhood lackeys.
President Trump is attempting to overhaul the State Department and leave his “America First” stamp on the cumbersome bureaucracy — a move that is reportedly making former officials very nervous.
Trump’s war on the State Department
The Hill, July 2017:
President Trump is seeking to radically remodel the State Department in an unprecedented way, according to former officials from administrations of both political parties.
The administration’s efforts, which include a proposed budget cut of nearly 30 percent, a hiring freeze and a potential reshuffling of offices within the State Department, have left scores of positions unfilled, demoralizing the staff that remain.
Past GOP presidents have also sought to cut the State Department down to size, and even current employees have acknowledged bureaucratic problems at Foggy Bottom.
But some former officials describe Trump’s efforts as something unseen before — a war of sorts on the State Department that if carried out would leave it hobbling.
“My suspicion is that within the White House, particularly amongst the nationalist faction … that this seems to actually be a concerted effort to diminish the role of the State Department in U.S. foreign policy and hamper its abilities to pursue policies that would be considered overly globalist,” said Stewart Patrick, who served on the policy planning staff at the State Department in the George W. Bush administration.
“They also don’t see much use, frankly, in diplomacy,” said Patrick, now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The White House, which has sought to promote an “America First” policy at home and abroad, isn’t worried about been perceived as taking unprecedented steps at the State Department.
"The president was elected to shake up Washington, not continue business as usual,” a White House official said. “He’s promised to spend more at home and less abroad, and his budget reflects that.”
At the same time, they reject the idea that diplomacy has been sidelined.
“The president has used diplomacy with China to bring unprecedented pressure on North Korea and its nuclear program. The president has used diplomacy to get NATO members to contribute more to defense,” the official said. “The idea that diplomacy has taken a backseat just does not square with reality.”
Trump is now on a trip to Paris, where he will attend the Bastille Day parade. He held a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday.
The Trump administration’s efforts to remake the State Department include a March 13 executive order that set forth a branch-wide reorganization review that could result in a reshuffling or elimination of agencies and offices.
The administration is mulling a proposal that would relocate the State Department’s bureaus of Consular Affairs and Population, Refugees, and Migration to the Department of Homeland Security, according to CNN.
There is also the possibility of a merger between the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), an independent agency that receives guidance from the secretary of State.
Trump’s budget proposes steep cuts to foreign aid, which has sparked concerns among lawmakers.
“My one sense is that the knives are out for USAID in the White House,” said Gordon Adams, a senior White House official for national security and foreign policy budgets during the Clinton administration.
Did I ?
There’s a group photo. Lemme see
Can’t find
Fire anyone who looks nervous.
[ “Nervous”? I hope they are terrified. ]
Amen.
Department of Swamp.
Who knew nerveless communists could get nervous?
I can picture the one in question. It’s from when President-elect Trump made his first visit to the White House. Rows of faces among the colonnade ranging from angry to grim to grieving.
The State Department has been populated by "One-Worlders" for a century, at least. At this point, it would be difficult to find any of their employees who REALLY represent the USA first! It will REALLY be a DEEP SWAMP to drain!!!
You want help? I’m retired DoS. If you lack a four year degree it may still be possible, but unlikely. I wrote Trump and never heard a peep from his team... to clear the swamp at Foggy Bottom.
The State Department is authorized manning of 15,000 foreign service officers/specialists - all US Citizens. The rest of the work force is augmented with a similar number of Fed Govt GS employees, and about 50,000 foreign service nationals that staff most overseas missions. D0S currently has just under 18,000 officers/specialists on its rolls which is “unauthorized by congress”. Maybe, but I cannot prove it, the overage has to do with personnel from another agency serving in undeclared and sometimes declared positions....
Cute, but those mentioned peoples only make up about 5-8% of the hiring in the past 9 years. Obama put gays at the top of the list for priority hires.
I want to be one of the team to send out all the layoff notices...
Heh.
I like the way Douglas Adams said it:
The history of every major civilization passes through three distinct and recognizable phases: survival, inquiry, and sophistication, also known as the "How", "Why", and "Where" phases. For example, the first phase may be characterized by the question, "How shall we eat?", the second by the question "Why do we eat?", and the third by the question, "Where shall we have lunch?"
The history of warfare is similarly divided, although here the phases are Retribution, Anticipation, and Diplomacy. Thus:
There was a time when the US State Dept. was an American institution. That time is almost beyond the reach of living memory.
The Snake Department has been nothing but a den of anti-American vipers since 1914, Woodrow Wilson made sure of that.
The misnomer of Foggy Bottom would be better renamed Communist Corruption Central.
- "Diplomacy" has no real value in the context of what much of the State Dept practices. Example: it matters not that scores of diplomats are smiling at the elbow of "Palestinian" or Muslim liars, who tell them what they want to hear. The DOS at that point is nothing but an agency collaborating with Evil.
- The DOS believes it is the intellectual superior to every other agency, and the rest are grunts and apes. But when their world of chocolate rainbows and unicorns falls apart, they whine to the agencies like the Dept of Defense to come in an save them.
- Far too many State Dept employees lack the personal integrity or constitution to withstand the temptation to "go native" and serve the interests of the foreign nation to which they are assigned, rather than the United States of America.
- The agency is infested with actual Marxists, militant homosexuals, and hard core leftists, and there is nothing that can be done to rectify this situation except mass firings.
Bye bye globalist DFs.
I’ve got a ton of degrees, and professional experience. It’s really that I can’t afford the pay cut with the family, and our situation in life....alas.
From the volume of comments, evidently a lot of people missed that one.
Duplicates are not a crime against humanity.
I worked with a guy who was a co-pilot flying DC-3s during the Vietnam War - his passport was full of those accordion-like extension pages as he had been all over SE Asia.
Thinking that might come in handy, he got the idea to join the State Dept and went to their office to sign up. He filled out the form and gave it to the guy, who took one look and said "You don't follow directions very well, do you?"
He asked the guy what he meant and the guy says "The directions say to put an 'X' in the box and you put a checkmark." He was told to stuff it as the co-pilot didn't want to work in such a chickenshit outfit.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.