Won’t the highlight of your day be stopping for fast food after the procedure because you are so hungry after the fasting and the bowel prep?
U.S. Foreign Service (Ret.); former adjunct instructor pol sci, UNLV, UVU. BYU Cougar.
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Won’t the highlight of your day be stopping for fast food after the procedure because you are so hungry after the fasting and the bowel prep?
Would the USG be competing against itself if Boeing and Lockheed or some other contractor were in competition on some platform or weapon?
With an equity stake, would the USG have an incentive to increase costs to DOD to increase profits? Would the ROI go to the Treasury? And reduce the deficit? Or, would there be an incentive to push the contractors to lower prices to save taxpayer dollars in the budget?
I was in a meeting with Embassy colleagues and I was saying how the Ambassador was a stand-up guy, and on and on, until I caught myself, and said, “What am I doing?” And the colleagues said, “Yeah, quit it.” Because fawning and brown-nosing were so uncool.
The whole world used to expect dignity and stability and adulthood in the way the USG communicated.
I used to think the oath would protect us. My Black Republican House member was even on board with the erasure of Black military history at Arlington. His staffer called me and said everyone’s service was of equal value. I said it wasn’t equal until 1948.
When i was a little kid, my dad would say something was two bits, or four bits, took me a long time to figure out how much that meant.
Ok, more clarity on this. The 55 million are the individuals globally who have a valid visa (visas can be valid for a number of years, permitting multiple entries), not people currently in the U.S. on visas.
I’m not sure I understand the 55 million number. It implies that about 1 in 6 in the U.S. are here on non-immigrant visas (visitors, students, etc.) Not sure I’m getting the calculation here. Even counting years of overstays, not sure it’s 55 million.
My mom said my dad was annoyed she voted for Eisenhower and not Adlai Stevenson, but he recognized she had the right to vote.
Location note, there is no Henderson County in NV. Henderson is in Clark County, next door to Las Vegas. There is a detention center in Henderson.
You’re so funny! 😂 Welcome to the colonies.
Yes, that too! I forgot the meeting was on the base. They could have done all the admin stuff there. I’m mystified.
I was career State Dept. This is the reason an official USG delegation sets up a control room in the hotel for all the admin work - computers, printers, shredders, etc., staffed 24/7. This is amateur hour.
Yeah, it’s sad. There were some Covid anti-maskers in my ward.
He doesn’t seem to be thinking of this: “If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.” (Which we all forget sometimes.)
The President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was a heart surgeon in his career. He told the 17 million church members to get vaccinated.
Go Cougs!
Now, you know not all the FBI SA’s are LDS, just some 😂😇.
Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. (Matthew 25:40)
Yes, of course, not good for the birds. Not minimizing that. But, you’d drive by on the Eastshore and it seemed like it was just a little bit of iconoclastic free expression we could see going to and fro in our lives.
Do you miss at all the wood sculptures on the mud flats?
Big time. Unauthorized disclosure of classified information.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:La...
Jackie Robinson 😢
Did a notarial for Carrie Lee Fisher at U.S. Embassy Rome.
I’m in Eagle Mountain, a Cougar alum. 😂😬 I’m thinking about Kalani and Aaron Roderick and what in the world are they going to do for a QB.
Embassies send draft reports to the Dept about TIP in their countries. In the early 2000’s, I drafted a report on the Eastern Caribbean. I didn’t think there was much TIP in the small islands, until an NGO told me that poor parents sometimes pimped out their daughters. USG should lead on this issue
Yeah, Deronda was good
You pass the written and oral exams, the physical, the background check, take the A-100 course, and two overseas tours on probation. Trying to get good quality to rep U.S. to the world. Non-partisan. I never ever knew my colleagues’ political parties.
He was referring to the effort to rescue the U.S. Embassy Teheran staffers held hostage by the Iranians in 1979. There were mechanical and weather issues that grounded some helos and one helo crashed into an aircraft. The mission was aborted.
They could call it a Roger Maris diploma, because of the asterisk, except he hit more home runs than the Babe, not fewer. 😂 So, not really deficient. But, the principle is sound.
I’m boomer, and that is so true for me, too. Papier-mâché things in the classroom from the teacher seemed so important!
So interesting you say that. I knew a Senate staffer who was on a Codel to the Soviet Union. After, Sen. Hayakawa said it was a sh…y country run by sh…y people.
The editorial was also good for upholding peaceful assembly, petition for redress, representative gov’t and social currency of kindness and compassion.
Yeah, during Dem Administrations he always goes on about over-reach and states’ rights. I wrote him that it was state governments who did not protect us (Missouri, Illinois.). Something happened; now he’s just lost, and for a bad cause.
There were “thousands” in Provo alone.
Est. 4500 in downtown Provo No Kings this morning. People gathered on plaza and steps outside City Hall and police HQ, as well as across and along 1st South. Very few police attending; they handed out water. Peaceful.
I was a third string walk-on TE on the 1972 BYU frosh. 3rd string was scout team against varsity defense. I came across the middle on a pass route and a guy later drafted by the Lions hit me in a way I’m still not sure what happened except I went airborne and upside down. Didn’t know where I was.
Did you also have to learn The Hokey Pokey?
😂And in the 90’s, we had to use those clunky STU-III’s … “Going secure.”
Honored to meet Sally Ride when I was assigned to U.S. Embassy Rome and she visited in 1984.
Shirley Temple Jim Nabors Willie Mays John Glenn Coretta Scott King
“…weird mix of capitulation & desperation holding up an extremely narcissistic authoritarianism.” I’m so heartsick you have to compose a sentence like that about a country we’ve loved, despite its flaws, because it felt like we kept working to achieve its promise and our ideals.
I’m just so surprised about all the capitulations. Guys like Rubio and Graham et al, and Columbia and the law firm, and WaPo. It’s like they want the fed money, or power, or access, more than freedom. Democratic values, rule of law, separation of powers - didn’t it ever mean anything to them?
Yeah, this is so bad. I don’t know what’s happening on the Hill. Principles just sold.
Read the room Chuck, you’ve killed us.
3/13/25 5:00 pm MDT. You just tanked the country. You think he’s not operating as if he already declared a state of emergency? You just threw away Article I. Did I waste my 24 years under the flag for you to surrender to a tyrant?
If he thinks asylum-seekers are from emptied insane asylums, who’s going to try to explain sovereignty to him? Or pact sunt servanda?
I feel the same way after 24 years in the Foreign Service. Went head to head with the Soviets in the UN and in arms control talks. Evacuated from State Dept on 9/11. Back to work on 9/12, with combat air patrols over DC.
Finally; they all should do this.
In third grade, my teacher wrote on my little essay, “redundant”, next to my sentence, “We frequently go there a lot.” 😂. I never was in the Department of Redundancy Department after that. 😂
I’m sorry you ever have to listen to that voice.
I ditched the Post this week
We had a sexual harassment training film in the U.S. State Dept, in which senior Dept officials were the actors. It was weird/funny to see them misbehaving in the film.
Just canceled my digital subscription.
I left X (Twitter) today. I just don’t want to give it any support.
Thank you, Kai. The oaths we took are for life.
When I was at USUN I had an American colleague working in the UN Secretariat, former FSO, assigned to Embassy Pretoria during apartheid. He did not have it easy.
I was Foreign Service 24 years and in DC or overseas all we ever thought about was advancing U.S. interests and values and always thinking about the taxpayer. We never even knew any of our colleagues’ parties. Spending was carefully monitored by Congress, OMB, and political appointees.
They’re all on diplomatic visas. I don’t think a country would declare them persona non grata and expel them. And the U.S. military is not going in another country and round them up. They all should receive travel orders from Washington with fiscal data that allows Embassies to pay their air fare.
You can watch on MHZ Choice, a streaming service, $7.99/month, foreign tv shows.
Not sure what it means, “asked to leave the Foreign Service/Department.” If they’re tenured, and not at the up and out point, how can they be asked to leave? They can be reassigned or take a downward assignment. Like the NIV line in Manila or something. Not sure how they can be outright fired.