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Old 03-08-2018, 08:04 AM
 
9,742 posts, read 4,479,944 times
Reputation: 3981

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Listener2307 View Post
I support Tillerson. He has an awful lot of experience and knows needless expense when he sees it. And in the Department of State there is a lot.

Ambassadors to the various countries have little to do with US policy. Shirley Temple (Black) was once an Ambassador. Her Story.
I'm sure she was a wise, gracious person who represented our country and our citizens well. But she had nothing to do with world peace.

Who knows? Maybe Tillerson is a savant. But really what is his experience? His whole career is working for Exxon. Anyone who has worked for a large organization can tell you they have bloat.

He is not a person who has been a CEO at multiple companies tasked with reorganizing them.
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Old 03-08-2018, 08:08 AM
 
Location: Tennessee
37,769 posts, read 40,907,997 times
Reputation: 62081
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarallel View Post
How Rex Tillerson Wrecked the State Department
By Dexter Filkins

His tenure may well be regarded as the most consequential in postwar American history: not for what he built but for what he destroyed.
In only ten months, Tillerson, the former C.E.O. of ExxonMobil, has presided over the near-dismantling of America’s diplomatic corps, chasing out hundreds of State Department employees and scaling back the country’s engagement with the world. Most alarming has been the departure of dozens of the foreign service’s most senior officials—men and women who had spent their careers living and working abroad, who speak several languages, and who are experts in their fields.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-...ate-department
This is exactly what I wanted to happen second only to the DOJ lawyers and followed by the EPA.
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Old 03-08-2018, 10:39 AM
 
17,387 posts, read 9,211,900 times
Reputation: 11863
Quote:
Originally Posted by boneyard1962 View Post
The US State Department has been a bloated cow for some time. The waste is massive and blatant.
Not just "bloated" ......... 7,000 employees in the HR Department alone.

They live in the past - processes haven't been updated for 30-50 years. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they don't still have an office of punch card operators at State. Resistance to any "change" or modernization is fierce - particularly by the Unions.

The Back Story on all the Rex Tillerson complaints is that he has ordered that the FOIA Backlog be cleared and FOIA requests be up to date ........ this is actually US Law that the US State Department as ignored for years.

The current backlog was at 13,000 (as of the September 30, 2017 report) & has only been reduced by 13%.
A FOIA request is supposed to be produced within 20 days - each department/agency is required by Law to report their FOIA complete/incompletes by Sept 30 each year. FOIA cases at the State Department were about 29,000 FOIA requests are currently pending at State, up from a little under 22,000 last September, State FOIA official Eric Stein said in a court filing this week. (Politico - June 29, 2016)

Current Law Suits against Department of State over FOIA requests:

55 Suits filed against State in FY 2017
387 Suits filed since 2001
107 Suits still pending
297 Suits closed
74 Suits taking over 24 months
1 Suit taking over 309 months


The State Department (prior to Tillerson) has just ignored the Law. That has "changed" and the Big Wigs at State don't like it at all. Imagine the Court costs in Federal Courts against ignored FOIA Requests under the LAW - Freedom of Information Act.

It's doesn't matter how High UP and important a State Department worker is -- everyone not involved with something important is assigned to clearing the Backlog. They don't like it - particularly since that Backlog involves Hillary Clinton and John Kerry FOIA era requests that they ignored.

The State Department has extended by 90 days a tedious push to clear a public records backlog that has pulled in some longtime employees "against their will." |Politico - January 18, 2018

State staffers were told that Tillerson wanted to clear a backlog of some 13,000 open records requests by the end of 2017. Many State officials called that goal implausible, even with dozens of extra State employees from other departments assigned to expedite the process. They were correct.

“While we have made significant progress, it is clear that we need to keep FOIA Surge resources longer to leverage the training investment and recent acceleration of progress in reducing the FOIA backlog,” Bill Todd, a top human resources official at State, wrote in the email laying out the 90-day extension.

Many of the hundreds of State employees assigned some form of FOIA duty are interns and other lower-level officials. But some have held top diplomatic and other positions and were stunned to be tasked with what are essentially clerical duties.

“The ones who are pulled into it against their will are not happy,” one affected employee said.
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Old 03-08-2018, 10:45 AM
 
Location: San Diego CA
8,435 posts, read 6,820,968 times
Reputation: 16818
There's really nothing surprising about the diminishing power and staff reductions at State. It's all part of the anti globalist posture of Trump and his core supporters that was defined and broadcast during the election. It's all about populism and isolationism from the outside world supposedly to protect the ordinary American worker from the depredations of a world economy that allegedly destroys jobs and cuts wages.

And of course it's all a fraud to concentrate power and wealth into the hands of America's wealthiest and most powerful people. Something like an American oligarchy. Why have a broad based well staffed State Dept when all you need is Tillerson and Kushner concentrating resources on their own business interests and those of their fellow elites. American workers you come last in Trump world.
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Old 03-08-2018, 10:55 AM
 
45,400 posts, read 26,992,566 times
Reputation: 23761
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kibby View Post

The State Department has extended by 90 days a tedious push to clear a public records backlog that has pulled in some longtime employees "against their will." |Politico - January 18, 2018

State staffers were told that Tillerson wanted to clear a backlog of some 13,000 open records requests by the end of 2017. Many State officials called that goal implausible, even with dozens of extra State employees from other departments assigned to expedite the process. They were correct.

“While we have made significant progress, it is clear that we need to keep FOIA Surge resources longer to leverage the training investment and recent acceleration of progress in reducing the FOIA backlog,” Bill Todd, a top human resources official at State, wrote in the email laying out the 90-day extension.

Many of the hundreds of State employees assigned some form of FOIA duty are interns and other lower-level officials. But some have held top diplomatic and other positions and were stunned to be tasked with what are essentially clerical duties.

“The ones who are pulled into it against their will are not happy,” one affected employee said.
I am all for this. This is great.

This is the kind of the stuff the real world does that government just thumbs its nose at as being beneath them to do.

Oh... and don't let us be late with government paperwork, especially if you are not on their good side.
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Old 03-08-2018, 11:10 AM
 
17,387 posts, read 9,211,900 times
Reputation: 11863
Quote:
Originally Posted by DRob4JC View Post
From the article...

Tillerson said in September that making the State Department more efficient is “the most important thing” he can do during his time in office, and has proposed cutting thousands of jobs to achieve that end.


That was his PROPOSAL.

However...

Democratic members of the House Foreign Relations Committee sent a letter to Tillerson earlier in November expressing concern over “the intentional hollowing-out of our senior diplomatic ranks and the entire State Department with no clear goal.” Since January, the letter states, more than 100 senior foreign service officers have left the agency and the number of career ambassadors has decreased by 60 percent.


And we have read about some of the ambassadors that have chosen to leave. That's voluntary.

Also...

Tillerson is offering $25,000 buyouts to encourage around 2,000 diplomats to leave the department by October of next year.


This is a designed effort to reduce a likely bloated government agency. And again - the desire to take the offer is voluntary.

I don't see anything in the article that even resembles a "wrecking" of the department. Are they being downsized... yes. The question is will they be able to do their job function with a smaller footprint?

Look... the private sector has to downsize all of the time. It's about time the government does some downsizing. It also reduces operating costs, which helps debt and deficits.

Tell me how they are being wrecked - other than you don't like the people in charge?


Start with the fact that the US State Department has 75,000 Employees. He isn't "firing anyone", he is offering buyouts to those that volunteer to leave and he is not replacing those who leave with new hires for the most part. This is a department that lives in the past - some of these "experienced diplomats" are in their 80's and have been pursuing the same 'diplomacy' since the Carter Administration. He is going to drag them into the Modern Age while they are kicking and screaming - The US State Department is a Mess.


Tillerson Fills In Some Details of the State Department’s Unfolding ‘Redesign’ |GovExec |November 29, 2017


[i][color=purple]Taking offense at accusations that he is “hollowing out” the State Department, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday praised the career employees he said are running the controversial “redesign” of his agency, fleshing out his team’s plan for new efficiencies and promising to modernize aging information technology.

“I read these articles that there’s this hollowing out. I take offense to that” on behalf of the many acting officials, “because the people that are serving in those roles are doing extraordinary work,” Tillerson said in a speech to a packed room at the Wilson Center in Washington.

Contrary to some complaints in the diplomatic community, “We have the exact same number of Foreign Service officers today—we’re off by 10—that we had at this time in 2016,” he said. “There is a hiring freeze that I’ve kept in place, because as we redesign the organization, we’re probably going to have people that need to be redeployed to other assignments. I don’t want to have a layoff,” Tillerson added. “I don’t want to have to fire a bunch of people. So I said, ‘Let’s manage some of our staffing targets with just normal attrition.’ ”

The Hiring Freeze was put in place by Obama - Tillerson & Trump have left it mostly in place.


It's a HOOT to read that Rex Tillerson "knows nothing" about Diplomacy or Foreign Affairs -- this is a Man who was the Head of the Largest company in the world and HE worked all over the world. Exxon had roughly the same number of Employees at the US State Department. One of the things that has these "elite" State Department Envoys and long timers knickers in a perpetual twist is that Tillerson doesn't NEED them to tell him about Foreign Leaders - he knows them personally and has dealt with them for years. He doesn't NEED them to tell him what their names are, how to pronounce their names or even who their Ministers are -- he knows all that. Like Tillerson said in Saudi Arabia last year .....

"It isn't my first sword dance" - which is only done with High Level guests/dignitaries.
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Old 03-08-2018, 04:55 PM
 
Location: SE Asia
16,236 posts, read 5,857,787 times
Reputation: 9117
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ringo1 View Post
Yes. Better we should pay for Trump's jaunts to Mar a Lago and golf trips.
Yes every solution is an either or approach?
How about every Department be held accountable for their waste and excesses? What makes the State department so special that they be allowed to treat themselves like royalty? Flying first glass instead of coach. Only a difference measured in thousands a ticket. They enjoy some hefty perks...
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Old 03-08-2018, 04:59 PM
 
Location: 500 miles from home
33,942 posts, read 22,466,189 times
Reputation: 25806
Quote:
Originally Posted by boneyard1962 View Post
Yes every solution is an either or approach?
How about every Department be held accountable for their waste and excesses? What makes the State department so special that they be allowed to treat themselves like royalty? Flying first glass instead of coach. Only a difference measured in thousands a ticket. They enjoy some hefty perks...
When I see you spotlight how much taxpayer money is going to shuttle Donnie and his entourage to/from the 'winter white house' every week-end or to one of his golf courses or following his adult children to Jamaica or wherever - THEN I'll take you seriously.
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Old 03-08-2018, 05:01 PM
 
17,433 posts, read 13,206,904 times
Reputation: 32789
Quote:
Originally Posted by boneyard1962 View Post
The US State Department has been a bloated cow for some time. The waste is massive and blatant.
Amen. Too many disgruntled career employees
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