there were additional resignations in the prior few days.
“Other senior career diplomats to have left the State Department since Trump’s election include Victoria Nuland, the former assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, and Gregory Starr, the assistant secretary for diplomatic security. Starr retired on Inauguration Day as did Lydia Muniz, a non-career political appointee who had run Overseas Building Operations.”
That’s in 6 days. That’s so far, and so far it’s unprecedented.
Oh thank you for that sweet detour down memory lane.
Here’s a sonic treat whippersnappers.
Oh, it’s not that serious-- they won’t run out for a good 7 weeks at that rate.
In addition to the bullshit up until the election and given what we have seen in earnest over the past few days I am going with outright lies from the administration. I will be filtering the noise to the best of my ability but, I am not trusting Trump and his clown associates with my life and well being and neither should you or anyone else.
Noisy times indeed.
And i’m definitely not saying you should. I’m only saying that, if one is known to be a liar, one of the best ways of tricking people is to throw in the occasional truth or near-truth.
The world needs good truth filters right now,
A good reference is “How to Spot Truth in the Sea of Lies, Rumors and Myths on the Internet” via LifeHacker.
There’s also the distinct possibility that it could have been worse without them.
The Trump Circus wanted to get the overseas fixes in before the Feds could be in a position to monitor and have some semblance of ‘control’ over anything
Scott Adams is a self-absorbed idiot. He considers himself and Trump to be “great communicators.” He’s also the guy who adopted online sock puppets to defend himself against people who think he’s an idiot, so he should be showing up here pretty soon.
“Any implication that that these four people quit is wrong,” one senior State Department official said. “These people are loyal to the secretary, the President and to the State Department. There is just not any attempt here to dis the President. People are not quitting and running away in disgust. This is the White House cleaning house.”
Kind of a glaring contradiction in that quote; “these are great staff members, and loyal. Therefore you’ll understand why we’re getting rid of them, since those are clearly not the qualities we want.”
It is just odd that CNN and Wapo framed the story in completely different terms.
You mean one reported what an anonymous official said, and the other reported what those who resigned had said?
What could ever have led to that? I wonder?
Maybe unnamed officials don’t have quite the clout they had, say, last week?
Don’t you have to be treated nicely to succumb to Stockholm Syndrome?
#He put us first!
That’s as good as it gets. It all expectation management and diminishing returns from here out.
The Wapo article primarily relied on information from David Wade and Richard Boucher. Neither are among the people who resigned/were fired
It should not come as a shock that Patrick Kennedy’s resignation was accepted.
Although to be fair, these are the same “experienced” operators who’ve gotten us involved in bombing and shooting up almost every stinking country they can think of.
Also the same experts who were taking marching orders from a connected, inexperienced toady like Sidney Blumenthal.
If them choosing to slink off with their poor, bruised egos means we can stop being the world police, and stop treating everything like a target, I can live with that.
Had no idea. Damn.
I will find another truth filter. Removed from post. I hate sock puppets anyway.
To be fair and accurate, those who resigned were members of the permanent bureaucracy. Their role is to take orders from the political appointees at the top of the org chart if they decide to stay. They don’t make high-level policy decisions.
Patrick Kennedy worked in senior State Dept. positions under the Clinton, Bush Jr, and Obama administrations, all of which had very different agendas. Now consider that he thinks the current administration is even more distasteful and dangerous in its foreign policy goals than any of those others.
The simple-minded might think that the administration’s brain-dead “America First” isolationism is going to keep us out of military adventurism that’s been the norm. I’d be generous enough to allow a very slight possibility of that happening despite the strong influence of the military-industrial complex and the proclivities of other sovereign states and terrorist groups to start trouble.
That small chance of “peace in our time”, however, goes right out the window when the Commander in Chief is a thin-skinned narcissist who over-reacts to every perceived slight, who’s been calling for a military spending increase at the expense of a balanced budget (and who, it’s worth noting, reinstated the bust of Churchill in the Oval Office instead of getting a Chamberlain or Lindbergh one).
He won’t go up against his Russian mancrush, but there are plenty of other state and non-state actors who are lining up to test his willingness to respond (or be “proactive”!). Do you think the clowns in his administration (connected, inexperienced toadies who do make high-level decisions), now lacking the backstop of a State Dept. with full institutional memory, will be able to handle the next “Missiles of October” crisis? America’s Atomic Scientists don’t.
If you’ve been paying attention over the past 8 years, you’ll have noticed that our days of being the world police were coming to an end, anyhow. Truly being a global or regional policeman involves putting lots of boots on the ground and carrier groups in faraway oceans, and after the Iraq debacle there’s little appetite in this country for that (it’s one of the many reasons Hillary Clinton didn’t have support from progressives). But sure, you keep believing that someone who wants to expand the size of the most powerful navy on the globe and who wants to increase the size of the regular army and talks casually about using nukes is all about peace.
Frankly, factually, no. These are at best the managers of those people. But really you’re describing their actual jobs as 180 degrees from what they are. I suspect to express a partisan POV to an audience you’ve no respect for.
RTFA. [quote=“laynesk, post:98, topic:93700”]
If them choosing to slink off with their poor, bruised egos…
[/quote]
It will be so nice when it’s not you. 10/10 for projection.
