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Tough Times Ahead at Foggy Bottom?
If you had “State Department” on your DOGE bingo card as the next agency teed up, mark yourself a winner. But are tough times ahead for Foggy Bottom?
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on April 22 unveiled the beginnings of a reorganization of the State Department, calling the diplomatic agency “bloated, bureaucratic” and “beholden to radical political ideology.” But to some critics, it looks like a good start but has much further to go to create lasting progress in line with the Trump administration’s view of the changing U.S. role in the world. Among other things, the reorganization does not address any cuts to embassies and consulates abroad, the meat and potatoes of the State Department. One Foreign Service officer said the plan moved a lot of pieces around, but outside of the sleepy democracy and human rights division being gutted, most of the changes were not significant. “I wouldn’t call these sweeping reforms… yet,” the employee said.
The most drastic but still ho-hum change is the elimination of the Office of the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights. Some elements of the office, including the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor and one for refugees, would be folded into an office for foreign assistance and humanitarian aid, according to a reorganization chart posted on the State Department website. Rubio wrote the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor became a “platform for left-wing activists to wage vendettas” against conservative leaders, including in Poland, Hungary, and Brazil, and to promote an arms embargo against Israel. Rubio also accused the Bureau for Population, Refugees, and Migration of sending millions of taxpayer dollars to non-government groups to promote mass migration, including “the invasion on our southern border.”
Rubio’s plan calls for reducing the total number of domestic State Department offices from 734 to 602, a drop of 17 percent, some 700 positions, though a detailed list has not been published. Rubio also instructed senior officials to reduce the number of U.S.-based employees overall by 15 percent in other individual domestic offices by July. Some once high-profile offices, such as the Iraq war-era Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, which aimed unsuccessfully to anticipate and prevent global conflict, will be closed. A new Bureau of Emerging Threats will be created focusing on cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.
Rubio said the State Department’s size and costs had “soared” over the past 15 years. So future unspecified plans are to combine overlapping offices and eliminate some programs not mandated by Congress. “Region-specific functions will be consolidated to increase functionality, redundant offices will be removed, and non-statutory programs that are misaligned with America’s core national interests will cease to exist,” said Rubio, though he did not give any specifics. In an email to staff, Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau said implementation would be led by an internal working group that would come up with “thoughtful plans” aiming to adopt the changes by July 1.
Rubio’s plan is not much more than a good start. An earlier draft memo memo (called “fake news” by Rubio, likely written as a trial balloon by outgoing Pete Marocco, who left the State Department after having overseen the elimination of USAID) called for the Trump administration to cut some 48 percent of the State Department’s funding next fiscal year, mostly from its external programs. The draft proposed eliminating almost all funding for international organizations like the United Nations and NATO, ending the budget for international peacekeeping operations, and curtailing all of the department’s educational and cultural exchanges, like the Fulbright Program. It would also have cut funding for humanitarian assistance and global health programs by more than 50 percent. Many of those changes would have been drastic and unlikely to survive Congressional scrutiny; going forward, Rubio still needs to show his hand on low bang-for-the-buck international organization funding and post-WWII soft power programs. No more efforts to promote LGBT rights abroad, or right the world’s ills by pouring taxpayer money over them (though to be fair, Rubio did already cut State’s Office of Global Women’s Issues and its Diversity and Inclusion Office.) This reorganization should be a new day for diplomacy, but — so far — it is not.
There has been some deeper progress, and thus cause for optimism. Even before the budget memo described above reached the White House, the State Department placed all full-time staff from its “censorship office” on administrative leave as the agency moves to shut down the group altogether. Originally founded by Barack Obama and known formally then as the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Hub, the office within the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy supposedly monitors, flags, and counters content deemed “foreign disinformation.” R/FIMI was created out of the ruins of the closure of its Obama predecessor in December 2024 following a series of First Amendment lawsuits discovered the Center was demanding from social media the censorship of American conservative voices. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg described instances when government officials would “scream” and “curse” at Meta employees, threatening repercussions if certain content wasn’t removed.
The Center was also used as a cut-out to fund The Global Disinformation Index, a British organization with two affiliated U.S. nonprofits, to feed blacklists to online ad companies with the intent of defunding and shutting down websites peddling “disinformation,” the Washington Examiner reported. This same “disinformation” group received $330,000 from two State Department-backed entities tied to the Center.
With its State Department funding (the first State Department-backed group supporting GDI was the National Endowment for Democracy) GDI identified the 10 “riskiest” news outlets for disinformation to include The American Conservative. You be the judge of the validity of that use of taxpayer money, and the direction United States diplomacy was headed.
There’s more to come at State (the layoffs planned for July 1 should be transitionary) and reason to call all this a good start — if Rubio follows through and if his domestic cuts are met with similar reshaping abroad.
Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
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Rich Bauer said...
1Why anyone would believe anything that now vomits out of little Marco’s mouth is a mystery.
Not so long ago little Marco made what amounted to his most comprehensive — and scathing — critique of Trump yet, declaring it “time to pull off his mask so that people can see what we are dealing with here.”
“He is a con artist,” Rubio said. “He runs on this idea he is fighting for the little guy, but he has spent his entire career sticking it to the little guy — his entire career.”
Rubio’s full-throated offensive came the morning after he and Ted Cruz teamed up against Trump at the 10th Republican debate in Houston. Rubio specifically pounced on Trump’s hiring of foreign workers and his now-defunct Trump University, both examples Rubio cited here as he argued the billionaire is doing a “con job” on voters. And now little Marco doesnt squeak when Donnie D humiliates him by assigning Stevie Witkoff to do all the heavy work in Russia. Cant con a con.
Nb. The American Conservative should not have been cited as a risky news outlet. News is not its business model any more than Tucker is a journalist.
04/29/25 8:53 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
2Understanding American Voter Vengeance
Unless you have been caught in the Faux News Echo Chamber, you are very aware Prezidunce Donnie’s approval rating 39% is drifting into syphilis terrority. By next month when the Trumpie tariff makes Walmart stores look like they are going out-of-business, the dimwit’s approval ratings will cross the line of no return for the Repuglican Party. American voters dont like being made to look like fools and will react with a vengeance. Unless the DumboDems run a transgender meth addict in 2028, the White House will be returned to a white man like Gov Newsom to clean up the mess of another Repug frat house.
Consider what happened to Ford’s 37% approval rating after he pardoned Tricky Dick. There may be a difference in Dem and Repug hearts and mind values, but they are very much alike when it comes to voting their spleens. Voters never blame themselves for the idiots they put in charge.
Voter Vengeance is already threatening Donnie Dimwit. What to do, what to do? Dimwit already gave the mob a pound of flesh. Take a walk, Walz. Heggie, dont get too comfortable. When Dimwit has to humiliate himself negotiating badly with China, you can bet more heads will be cut off.
Speaking of brain dead Repugs, Donnie D’s favorite US attorney Ed the Toad Martin has long been a controversial figure, from his involvement in the MAGA “Stop the Steal” movement, to appearing on Russian state media “more than 150 times,” and also backing a Nazi-sympathizing white supremacist. But even this idiot wont be saved.
Eventually, the Wall Street oilygarchs will fear the voter vengeance affecting their bottom lines. Elongo Musk has already been kicked out of Dogeville. Eyeliner Vance the Pope Killer will be sent packing to Ohio.
As for Donnie Dimwit, his brain is now operating like a five year old. If he lasts another three years, his mush brain will not even remember to whom he is married. And Vengefull Melania wont remind him.
05/1/25 12:34 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
3“There’s more to come at State (the layoffs planned for July 1 should be transitionary) and reason to call all this a good start — if Rubio follows through and if his domestic cuts are met with similar reshaping abroad.”
Little Marco just eliminated his Sec State position. He accepted the higher profile job some dumbshit got fired for leaking Tip Top Secret Pentagon plans.
Nobody at State will miss him.
05/2/25 11:44 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
4Tough Times Ahead for the MAGA Cult
MAGA is headed for a bad end, as all cults end. Donnie Dementia’s stench just killed MAGA-lite candidates’chances in Canada and Australia. Eyeliner Vance the Pope KILLER has been getting the side-eye for his proNazi stand in Germany. (Was it his idea to photoshop Donnie D as a pope? )
There’s more to come (the Dems have planned nationwide protests for INDEPENDENCE DAY in July), more reasons to call all this a good start. If DD follows through with his CONSTITUTION violations, the MAGA CULT will met with SUPREME CONDEMNATION. MAGA will regret drinking the Dementia KOOL-Aid. And MAGA thought State’s USAid was the problem.
05/3/25 3:38 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
5Tough Times ahead at Langley, Va?
The Trump administration plans to significantly shrink the workforce of the Central Intelligence Agency and other U.S. intelligence agencies, with the aim of cutting thousands of employees.
The administration’s cost-cutting approach at the CIA and other intelligence agencies suggests a more calibrated effort than its strategy at other federal departments, with some agencies — such as the U.S. Agency for International Development — essentially dismantled.
Old Chinese saying: When one door closes another door opens.
China is hiring.
05/3/25 7:39 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
6Donnie’s Dementia of the Day
“Your secretary of state says everyone who’s here, citizens and noncitizens, deserve due process,” Welker pressed. “Do you agree, Mr. President?”
I don’t know,” Trump opined. “I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know.”
“Don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States, Mr. President?” Welker asked.
“I don’t know,” Trump answered. “I have to respond by saying again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me…”
Like the Bondi Bimbo?
05/4/25 10:28 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
7“Joe Biden Doesnt Know if He’ll uphold the Constitution”
Just imagine if Joe said he dont know. Imagine what Faux News and the UnAmerican haha Conservative would say. Nothing, you say? Well, that was their response when Donnie Dementia vomited it out on NBC. Of course, DD dont know. He never read the Constitution. The guy is a functional illiterate.
But the voters know. Imagine if the 44% of Independents who voted for DD in 2024 say “No” in 2028.
Oh Canada, we now know MAGA is all for show.
05/4/25 7:05 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
8Donnie Dementia’s pope photoshop has angered many Catholics. DD says he is puzzled why they cant take a joke. He has a point. An ass leads the MAGA Cult and the whole world is laughing at it.
05/5/25 3:26 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
9Tough Times ahead for RazPutin? Back to the Future for Nukes
Mike Pence warned Donnie Dementia that his downlow lover RazPutin only respects power, and giving an inch to this dick will only encourage Raz to want it all. So if power is the only thing Raz respects, then it is Back to the Future: DD should return the nukes to Ukraine.
Putin’s violations of the Minsk agreements were built upon his disregard of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which security assurances were provided by the U.S., U.K., France, and Russia when Ukraine gave up any claim to the nuclear weapons left on its soil after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Donnie Dementia cant walk the walk on his big beautiful military parade…cause he still has those darn bonespurs that kept him. from fighting for his country in Nam. DD failed to start a second Civil War on Jan 6. So it is time to show the world DD aint no coward like they all say he is. DD, be a man and show Raz what a real power can do. MAGA, make America a Graveyard Again.
05/6/25 10:14 AM | Comment Link