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Veteran U.S. diplomats baffled after mass layoffs at State Department
NBC News | Comcast ^ | July 12, 2025 | By Abigail Williams (D-NBC)

Posted on 07/13/2025 6:44:46 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer

More than 1,300 employees were forced out of the State Department on Friday, leaving their offices with small boxes of plants and old coffee mugs and taking with them decades of specialized skills and on-the-job training as part of the United States diplomatic corps.

“It’s so hard to work somewhere your entire life and then get treated this way,” one veteran civil servant with more than 30 years working at the department told NBC News. “I don’t know how you treat people this way. I really don’t.”

Michael Duffin, a civil service employee with the department since 2013, spent nine years as a policy adviser with the counterterrorism bureau developing some of the first programs to counter white supremacy and other forms of violent extremism.

“Our entire office is just ... gone,” said a senior civil service officer from the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor standing in front of the department late Friday as fired employees left the building.

A group of women laid off from the State Department’s Office of Science and Technology Cooperation walked out wearing T-shirts over their office clothes with the message, “Science is Diplomacy. Diplomacy is Science.” The women cried and hugged each other as they exited the building in front of the gathered crowd.

(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: governmentworkers; journalism; media; press
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1 posted on 07/13/2025 6:44:46 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

they can find new employment in the dreaded private sector


2 posted on 07/13/2025 6:46:45 AM PDT by bobcat62
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Get rid of this idiot too.


3 posted on 07/13/2025 6:47:02 AM PDT by Singermom
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Boo hoo hoo. A department that just about DOUBLED in size since 2008 experienced a small reduction in force. Let’s all cry like little bitches about it.

Welcome to the private sector snowflakes. It happens to us all the time and always has. Get used to it. This was just a small taste of the mass firings that need to happen at Foggy Bottom.


4 posted on 07/13/2025 6:47:26 AM PDT by FLT-bird
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Welcome to the real world.

Happens all the time in non-government jobs.

Sympathy meter pegged at ZERO.


5 posted on 07/13/2025 6:47:35 AM PDT by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus….)
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To: bobcat62

...once they learn some useful skills.


6 posted on 07/13/2025 6:47:51 AM PDT by Mr. Lucky
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

The state department was packed with liberal left leaning dishonest Democrats that subverted our foreign policy for years. This house cleaning was needed and I have little to no sympathy for them.


7 posted on 07/13/2025 6:48:17 AM PDT by vetvetdoug
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Good riddance. Now they can do their pron surfing perpetual coffee breaks at home.


8 posted on 07/13/2025 6:48:33 AM PDT by Seruzawa ("The Political left is the Garden of Eden of incompetence" - Marx the Smarter (Groucho))
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTmfwklFM-M


9 posted on 07/13/2025 6:48:36 AM PDT by BipolarBob (I tried pushing the envelope but it remained stationery.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

“Baffled”!!!!

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!


10 posted on 07/13/2025 6:48:36 AM PDT by Uncle Miltie (Nitzy, now with 88% plausibly anti-Semitic posts!)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Hopefully, the people being tossed out are the RAT spies, leakers, resisters and obstructionists imbedded in the government by the interns that ran the Joe Pedo administration and had control of his “autopen”.


11 posted on 07/13/2025 6:49:27 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (If you have asylum in the U.S. and you go home to visit family, is it like violating a Protect Order)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

With all the problem the State Department has caused in the world, we do not need the 80,000 employees they have.

A mere 1,300 laid off is nothing.


12 posted on 07/13/2025 6:50:27 AM PDT by CodeToad
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

*** “Science is Diplomacy. Diplomacy is Science.” ***

Hmmmm…certainly don’t need these types in our government offices.


13 posted on 07/13/2025 6:50:48 AM PDT by FamiliarFace (I got my own way of livin' But everything gets done With a southern accent Where I come from. TPetty)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

“ 30 years working at the department”

I never worked more than 8 years doing anything. My average stint was 4 years.

I had 9 different employers and way more job functions over a 38 year career.

Good to see a few Federales getting a reality check.


14 posted on 07/13/2025 6:51:01 AM PDT by Uncle Miltie (Nitzy, now with 88% plausibly anti-Semitic posts!)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Welcome to the real world, produce or perish…….


15 posted on 07/13/2025 6:51:07 AM PDT by Lockbox (politicians, they all seemed like game show host to me.... Sting)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

every single time anyone is cut, or funding is cut etc we need to state over and over and over, we must cut in order to save Social Security.


16 posted on 07/13/2025 6:51:31 AM PDT by TexasFreeper2009
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

“ the counterterrorism bureau developing some of the first programs to counter white supremacy”

Delicious.


17 posted on 07/13/2025 6:51:58 AM PDT by Uncle Miltie (Nitzy, now with 88% plausibly anti-Semitic posts!)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

“Science is Diplomacy. Diplomacy is Science.”

Words mean things.

Science is not Diplomacy.

Freaking loons.

Good riddance!


18 posted on 07/13/2025 6:53:16 AM PDT by Uncle Miltie (Nitzy, now with 88% plausibly anti-Semitic posts!)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Sonds like getting rid of ;eftist deadwood. I mean since when should we be concerned wiyh “White Supremacy” Wehave more than enough crazy Iranians and other world wide caliphatists ,the Russians , Norkies and the Chinese to battle , as well as the nullification left here at home.

Send that deadwood to where they can grow into more useful citizens..


19 posted on 07/13/2025 6:53:18 AM PDT by Candor7 (Ask not for whom the Trump Trolls,He trolls for thee!<img src="" width=500</img><a href="">tag</a>) )
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To: FamiliarFace
the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor


20 posted on 07/13/2025 6:55:12 AM PDT by DoodleBob (Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s²)
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