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Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged disagreements within the State Department over the Biden administration’s approach to the Israel-Hamas war in an email to staff Monday. His message to personnel, sent on the heels of his recent travels, comes amid growing anger and dissent not only from staff at the State Department but within the broader Biden administration. CNN reported last week that hundreds of personnel at the US Agency for International Development signed an open letter calling for a ceasefire, and there are reports of a “dissent memo” inside the State Department. “I know that for many of you,...

Hundreds of American citizens are trapped in the besieged Gaza Strip under constant Israeli bombardment and have received no help in finding ways to escape, according to interviews with individuals on the ground. The State Department says as many as 600 Americans are in the enclave that since Oct. 7 has come under heavy retaliatory airstrikes by Israel after the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which governs Gaza, launched a terror attack against southern Israel that killed at least 1,300 people. “America’s not helping us, Biden’s not helping us, the embassy is not helping us,” Amir Kaoud, a Palestinian-American at the...

President Joe Biden’s approach to the ongoing violence in Israel and Palestine is fueling mounting tensions at the U.S. government agency most involved in foreign policy: the State Department.Officials told HuffPost that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and his most senior advisers are overlooking widespread internal frustration. Some department staff said they feel as if Blinken and his team are uninterested in their own experts’ advice as they focus on supporting Israel’s expanding operation in Gaza, where the Palestinian militant group Hamas is based.“There’s basically a mutiny brewing within State at all levels,” one State Department official said.Since Hamas’ Oct....

A U.S. Department of State office called Global Engagement Center deliberated at length on how to respond to reporters asking about its funding of a group that tries to convince advertisers to shun predominantly conservative publishers, with the goal of starving them out of business. The details that GEC staff discussed, however, are being kept secret and away from the prying eyes of the press and public. Heavily redacted documents were obtained this week by former Education Department lawyer Hans Bader as result of his Freedom of Information Act suit in the District of Columbia federal court against the State...

The Biden administration is out promoting religion through the State Department door to the locals in other countries, on our taxpayer dime. That right there is illegal, because the First Amendment states that there is to be no state sponsorship of anybody's religion. What religion is it? Why, the religion of Democrats, which generally speaking, is atheism. According to Susan Crabtree at RealClearPolitics: "Rep. Mike McCaul, a Texas Republican who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who heads the panel’s human rights subcommittee, are reviving a nearly year-long inquiry into a 2021...

For a long time American officials have advised — and often pressured — Israel to make concessions of various kinds to the Arabs. And, upon reflection, some have regretted their advice, or their wrongheaded comments about Israel’s ongoing campaign of self-defense against terror groups, but that hasn’t stopped the flow of advice and comments from Washington. Here is more about officials who have admitted to making “mistaken” comments to, and advice for, Jerusalem: “Ex-State Department Officials Admit They Were Wrong,” by Stephen M. Flatow, JNS.org, August 1, 2023: …Recall, for example, the infamous episode of Dennis Ross and the terror...

The CIA put four bottles of "vintage wine" and a basket containing wine and cognac given by undisclosed foreign parties to "official use," while destroying other items like wristwatches given as gifts to agency employees. Because the CIA is a clandestine intelligence service, many of the details about gifts given to CIA employees from foreign dignitaries and sources are kept secret. But a foreign gift disclosure document released by the State Department Thursday shows gifts many CIA employees received were destroyed, including watches ranging in value from $500 to $10,000. Gift-giving is a major part of foreign relations, a sign...

A State Department-backed group is severing its connections with a disinformation index group also backed by progressive megadonor George Soros following reports about the group's efforts to muzzle conservative media outlets by blacklisting them with advertisers. The National Endowment for Democracy, a private foundation created by Congress whose funding is part of the State Department budget, said it will no longer provide grants to the Global Disinformation Index, according to The Washington Times. "Recently, we became aware that one of our grantees, the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), was engaged in an initiative, funded by a different donor, that focused on...

The Twitter Files show how the FBI deputized Twitter to conduct illegal censorship of American citizens and undermine the First Amendment. ... Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter last October and the subsequent reporting on the “Twitter Files” by journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and a handful of others beginning in early December is one of the most important news stories of our time. The “Twitter Files” story encompasses, and to a large extent connects, every major political scandal of the Trump-Biden era. Put simply, the “Twitter Files” reveal an unholy alliance between Big Tech and the deep state designed to...

… He still hasn’t identified the source code, the proverbial ghost in the machine, buried deep in the algorithmic code; however, Twitter owner Elon Musk has finally identified the agency within the U.S. government who spearheaded the creation. The “Global Engagement Center” (GEC) of the State Dept. The GEC mission is described as, “To direct, lead, synchronize, integrate, and coordinate U.S. Federal Government efforts to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States, its allies, and partner nations,” (link). However, when...

The largest federal employee union is joining State Department employees and members of Congress in calling for the firing of a Foreign Service officer for allegedly running a website with antisemitic content. The American Federation of Government Employees Local 1534, which represents State Department employees, is calling for the removal of Fritz Berggren, a Foreign Service officer, for running a website that “frequently assails members of the Jewish faith, the LGBTQ+ community, people of color, and argues that the United States should be a ‘Christian nation-state.’” The site features nearly 800 blog posts with titles that include, “Jewish Tactics to...

We have yet to hear a good reason why it’s become so important to the Left (and to the Principled Conservatives™) to bring children and drag queens together. Public schools are now hosting Drag Queen Story Hour, and recently at a family-friendly drag show in Texas, Antifa militants with pride flags and AR-15s stood guard over the performance just in case any crazed right-wingers showed up to cause trouble. Fox News’ Bill Melugin is still watching the border, but he’s reporting Wednesday that the Biden administration’s State Department has awarded a cultural center in Ecuador $20,000 to host “drag theater...

The Biden State Department this month named its first ever special representative for racial equity and justice. The newly minted envoy, Desirée Cormier Smith, once slammed white diplomats for being overly "protective" of the United States and lacking the "empathy" of their minority counterparts. Smith, a self-described "Black activist," made the comments in an October 2020 interview. At the time, Smith served as senior policy adviser for Open Society Foundations, the think tank funded by Democratic billionaire donor George Soros. The State Department on Friday announced Smith’s appointment to the post, which was created to "confront systemic racism and injustice...

Elizabeth Campbell directed a U.N. agency using textbooks that glorified terrorism The Biden administration has hired the former director of a United Nations agency accused of promoting anti-Semitism and terrorism in Palestinian schools to help oversee refugee issues and U.N. reform at the State Department. Elizabeth Campbell was hired as deputy assistant secretary of state at the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration last month, according to reports. From 2017 to 2022, Campbell served as Washington, D.C., director of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), a U.N. agency that runs schools for...

Alongside Poland, Hungary has formed a semi-alliance of conservative central European powers, and has been an example of sorts for Western conservatives. They all should do more.Entrenched leftists within the U.S. State Department are supporting the effort to demote Viktor Orban from prime minister of Hungary, if a report in Financial Times is correct. The Biden administration also left Hungary off its invitation list for a forthcoming international virtual Democracy Summit on Dec. 9 and 10 to which some 100 countries were invited.“Trump and his enablers and those who invaded and attacked our Capitol, they don’t like the world we’re...

The Taliban are carrying out retaliatory killings in spite of their assurances to the contrary. But don’t worry because the United States is “deeply concerned” about it.

The U.S. government is warning American citizens in Ethiopia even more starkly to leave the country now, as the conflict there continues to deteriorate. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is heading to the front lines to lead the federal government's forces, he announced, urging his fellow citizens to join him and "lead the country with a sacrifice."... ... after the unprecedented, chaotic evacuation effort from Afghanistan, the State Department has gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure U.S. citizens in Ethiopia know military flights like those out of Kabul will not be coming to rescue them. "There should be absolutely...

Attorney Ralph Martin confirmed Thursday that his client, DC-based communications executive Charles Dolan, Jr., is the person referred to as “PR Executive-1” in Special Counsel John Durham’s indictment of researcher Igor Danchenko. ... Durham indicted the Russian-born, U.S.-based Danchenko on five counts of lying to the FBI in connection with his role as a major source for Christopher Steele’s fraudulent “Russia dossier” on Donald Trump. The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid the Fusion GPS opposition research firm, which hired Steele, to prepare the dossier and then provided it to the FBI. It became a basis for...

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept 7 (Reuters) - After Fahima, 30, stepped off a plane at Dulles international airport in Virginia on Aug. 26th, she asked an immigration official what would happen to her next. He shrugged, she said, and told her to find a lawyer.... ..."I was a little confused," Fahima said through an interpreter. "I didn't know that we had to talk to a lawyer and do all these things by ourselves. I thought the American government was going to take care of this." The next day, Fahima was picked up at a convention center near the airport by her...

State Department 'will not provide an approval' of charter flights from Afghanistan, leaked email reveals EXCLUSIVE: The State Department refused to grant official approval for private evacuation flights from Afghanistan to land in third countries, even though the department conceded that official authorization would likely be needed for planes to land in those nations, an email reviewed by Fox News shows. Furthermore, the State Department explicitly stated that charter flights, even those containing American citizens, would not be allowed to land at Defense Department (DOD) airbases ... ..."You need to find another destination country, and it can't be the U.S....