Tillerson to abolish most special envoys, including climate

Associated Press ^ | Aug 28, 2017 8:45 PM EDT | Josh Lederman

[Olog-hai]

Most of the United States’ special envoys will be abolished and their responsibilities reassigned as part of the State Department overhaul, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told Congress on Monday, including envoys for climate change and the Iran deal.

Special envoys for Afghanistan-Pakistan, disability rights and closing the Guantanamo Bay detention center will be eliminated under the plan. But President Donald Trump’s administration plans to keep envoys for religious freedom, fighting anti-Semitism and LGBT rights, despite speculation from critics that it would seek to downgrade those priorities.

Lawmakers of both parties, think tanks and even the diplomats’ association have long called for absorbing some of the countless U.S. envoys and special representatives into related offices, to help reduce redundancies across the State Department’s notoriously unwieldy bureaucracy. But the idea has attracted new scrutiny amid the Trump administration’s plans to drastically cut the State Department’s budget and concerns that Trump was eschewing the promotion of American values overseas. …

[Fai Mao]

This sounds like a positive move

[DesertRhino]

Sounds like a good move. Most of these organizations just have their hand out.

[vette6387]

How about we get rid of that “special envoy” to the United Nations along with her entourage and her budget. Now yer talking a serious cutback.

[Nifster]

Getting rid of stupid jobs is a good thing

[TauntedTiger]

What happened to all of the czars Obama created?

[BigEdLB]

Obama’s Czars? Trump Romanoved them?

[TauntedTiger]

What are the names of these Obama czars so we can celebrate their accomplishments?

[Salamander]

Bolsheviks ate ‘em.

[BlessedBeGod]

Screw LGBT rights.

[PGalt]

DEFUND/DISMANTLE socialist envoys/collectives, foreign and domestic. HOORAY administration. HOORAY T., Rex.

live - free - republic.

[Eleutheria5]

Good.

[SaraJohnson]

They are subversive for cultures and nations.

[Doctor DNA]

Department of Redundancy Department will be reassessed.

[olezip]

But President Donald Trump’s administration plans to keep envoys for religious freedom, fighting anti-Semitism and LGBT rights, despite speculation from critics that it would seek to downgrade those priorities.

Nice to see adult supervision and common sense being applied.

Maybe some of the critics will begin to use common sense, too.

[Candor7]

I have been lobbying for years for a Special Envoy to pour my beer, shine my shoes!

[kearnyirish2]

Definitely; unless this country dramatically reduces the number of people working for this government, the Dems will always start out with 47% of the vote in national elections.

[Chode]

WINNING!!!

[dp0622]

You approve of keeping envoys for LGBT rights?

[NorthMountain]

It’s a lukewarm positive move ... keeping a “special envoy” for faggotry is leaving a swamp monster in place.