Republicans pummel State Department with investigations

[Anonymous]

Key ambassadorships and top military promotions are languishing in the Senate thanks to Republicans, but House Republicans have prioritized wasting time and taxpayer money on partisan investigations of the Department of State.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/04/republicans-state-department-investigations-00156077

House Republicans have launched more than 30 investigations into the State Department since taking power in 2023, an unusually high number that is fueling partisan tensions, a POLITICO review of records and other information has found.

Republicans say the probes are meant to hold a wayward Biden administration accountable. Democrats call it politically motivated harassment.

Democratic lawmakers and State Department officials say this particular chapter of the growing partisan rancor on Capitol Hill is affecting U.S. foreign policy: It distracts U.S. diplomats from their jobs when they need to be focused on crises in places such as Ukraine and the Middle East.

“The department will continue to respond to congressional oversight, but the reality is global threats and foreign policy challenges do not cease when we are responding to document requests,” State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said in a statement.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee is the main flashpoint.

It has opened at least 19 of the probes, according to statistics laid out at the March hearing. At that point, State Department officials had spent some 50,000 staff hours responding to the HFAC probes, producing more than 24,000 pages of documents and more than 100 hours of testimony.

House Democrats argue several of the probes have nothing to do with serious national security matters or preventing waste, fraud and abuse. Instead, many seem designed to highlight policy differences.

Others, they say, are designed to stoke culture wars to rev up the Republican base ahead of November’s presidential election.

[Anonymous]

Given how this administration likes to create groups and offices for its questionable activities, I am all for close scrutiny of all departments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Given how this administration likes to create groups and offices for its questionable activities, I am all for close scrutiny of all departments.

Great! I hope it will continue into Republican administrations. Lord knows there's more grift and incompetence there usually.

[Anonymous]

Good move for Republicans!
High time to hold Democrats accountable.

[Anonymous]

Just like Warren Jeffs and similar people, Republicans are usually trying to “bleed the beast” of the government, to weaken it by attacking it and siphoning off money. Wasting staff time is one of these ways. Look at the goobers applauding this. They want to make sure that there are as few guardrails as possible so that the runway has been cleared for Project 2025.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just like Warren Jeffs and similar people, Republicans are usually trying to “bleed the beast” of the government, to weaken it by attacking it and siphoning off money. Wasting staff time is one of these ways. Look at the goobers applauding this. They want to make sure that there are as few guardrails as possible so that the runway has been cleared for Project 2025.

Exactly.
What’s amazing is how the people applauding this don’t understand that it will actually negatively impact them too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Good move for Republicans!
High time to hold Democrats accountable.

[Anonymous]

Ineffective foreign policy and State Department is why the world is in the mess it is in today. It is about as effective as the Department of Education at this point.

[Anonymous]

I can't claim to be impressed by the Biden Administration's State Department and the attitudes of many (most?) of the younger state officials. The US's job is NOT to promote trans rights overseas, ok? State definitely has a strong left wing bias that is out of touch with how most of the world operates. They've shown themselves clueless for decades about places like Ukraine and the record in non-western countries is pretty bad, showing no real interest in understanding local cultures and traditions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just like Warren Jeffs and similar people, Republicans are usually trying to “bleed the beast” of the government, to weaken it by attacking it and siphoning off money. Wasting staff time is one of these ways. Look at the goobers applauding this. They want to make sure that there are as few guardrails as possible so that the runway has been cleared for Project 2025.

Exactly.
What’s amazing is how the people applauding this don’t understand that it will actually negatively impact them too.

Yup. When the next Benghazi occurs and our staff overseas gets killed, people will wonder why State wasn't on top of the situation. State officials were too busy spending hundreds of hours responding to frivolous document requests about how a program that supports religious freedom abroad, happens to protect the rights of atheists not to be persecuted too. Oh the horror!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't claim to be impressed by the Biden Administration's State Department and the attitudes of many (most?) of the younger state officials. The US's job is NOT to promote trans rights overseas, ok? State definitely has a strong left wing bias that is out of touch with how most of the world operates. They've shown themselves clueless for decades about places like Ukraine and the record in non-western countries is pretty bad, showing no real interest in understanding local cultures and traditions.

Agree. Dem here and glad to see Congressional oversight. State is a disaster and routinely ignores laws and congressional mandates.

[Anonymous]

God help us if we can’t have Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg passing gas in the Australian embassy leather loveseat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just like Warren Jeffs and similar people, Republicans are usually trying to “bleed the beast” of the government, to weaken it by attacking it and siphoning off money. Wasting staff time is one of these ways. Look at the goobers applauding this. They want to make sure that there are as few guardrails as possible so that the runway has been cleared for Project 2025.

Exactly.
What’s amazing is how the people applauding this don’t understand that it will actually negatively impact them too.

Yup, when State's budget is cut and they're hamstrung responding to partisan investigations, they're not doing their actual job of keeping us safe from foreign threats and managing our alliances abroad. But that doesn't matter to Republicans who get aroused by anything that allows them to stir up a culture war in an election year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:God help us if we can’t have Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg passing gas in the Australian embassy leather loveseat.

Seems to me it should all be on zoom. Close down the embassies and restore social security. Social security and defense are the top two priorities cut all else by 25-50 percent to fund those and balance the budget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just like Warren Jeffs and similar people, Republicans are usually trying to “bleed the beast” of the government, to weaken it by attacking it and siphoning off money. Wasting staff time is one of these ways. Look at the goobers applauding this. They want to make sure that there are as few guardrails as possible so that the runway has been cleared for Project 2025.

Exactly.
What’s amazing is how the people applauding this don’t understand that it will actually negatively impact them too.

There were “good” Germans, too, who thought that solving “Germany’s problems” would work out well for all. Too many stupid people think that fascism will be gentle and good and just get rid of those problem people.