How many Ambassadors, Foriegn Diplomats, etc., etc., etc., do we have for every country?

Wrong generally means I don’t agree with it, not that it is not Constitutional. In fact, it is the Constitution that gives the President his authority in foreign policy, would you agree?

The issue is the President didn’t dictate the State department to push that agenda the State department was doing their job as ordered by the Sec of State.

Trump was also pushing his own personal agenda via his private lawyer.

You can read the memo’s from the Ukrainian government as they were confused on which of they two agenda were the real one.

The why didn’t The President order his Sec. of State to push the Ukrainian election interference in Ukraine, why did he undermine his own government by sending his Private Lawyer to conduct private business which wouldn’t recorded for official records.

If it was simply a disgruntled official who thought something was “wrong” I would agree with you. But when you have 70 percent of the public and a coterie of officials who have worked for multiple republican and democratic presidents, then it’s pretty plain that the president has taken a seriously wrong turn. Again, we don’t live in a monarchy.

Apparently government officials using WhatsApp for official government business is totally cool.

But her emails and all that.

The secretary of state was listening to the famous/infamous July 25th telephone conversation where the President summarized the information he wanted.

people seem to not grasp this was the issue.

Trump would have been perfectly fine issue his Sec. of State to conduct this business on behalf of the WH but he didn’t he had the Sec. of State conducting normal government policy while at the same time sending his personal lawyer to conduct private business which wouldn’t be recorded for government records.

The Ukrainian government complained a number of times to the State Department about this, as they were unclear which of the two channel where the real one.

Argumentum ad numerum

The Sec. of State never pushed this line of FP with the Ukrainian government, this was all done by Trump private lawyer.

The Ukrainian government openly questioned what was the real official channel of the WH because the two counterpointed each-other.

It’s cool because of her emails.

Well WhatApp doesn’t keep records :smile:

Looks like Obama had them protecting what ever opposition the State Department, Soros NGO’s and Civil Society 2.0 had created against the current leader.

That’s probably why the last Obama Un Ambassador was caught unmasking hundreds of people and Yovonovitch was caught telling the Ukrain Prosecutor who he couldn’t investigate to include telling the State Department to monitor American reporters like John Solomon and Sara Carter.

These people are at a level of treason this country has never seen.

Somebody was asking about pay.

The regular foreign service has nine pay grades and 14 steps within those pay grades.

A brand new Foreign Service Officer, in 2019, starts at Pay Grade 9, Step 1, which currently is $29,350. A Foreign Service Officer can max out at Pay Grade 1, Step 14, which currently is $138,572.

However, most FSO’s will apply for the Senior Foreign Service long before they max out in the lower Foreign Service. Senior Foreign Service Officers must be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate to all four grades in turn, starting with Counselor, Minister-Counselor, Career Minister and Career Ambassador.

Pay is set subjectively by performance and longevity and ranges from $127,914 to $192,300.

However Counselor is capped at $180,438 and Minister Counselor is capped at $189,283. Career Ministers and Career Ambassadors can go all the way to $192,300.

There are locality and hazard pay adjustments available as well.

I should note that the Foreign Service is subject to strict “UP or OUT” provisions. If you are in grade too long, you are subject to mandatory separation or retirement.

So I’m taking it that Always-Trumpers now believe that diplomats are the Deep State?

Veeps have no power. You should know that.

Allan

Depends…had the package been approved by Congress yet?

If it had…Obama could have temporarily held it up, perhaps, but a full hold up would have required Congressional approval…as per the Budget and Impoundment Act.

So maybe Biden ran a good bluff!

Coincidentally to this discussion…WaPo just put an article out showing the administration in August was doing a bunch of after the fact justifications for the aid hold up…leaning towards the “President can do it as long as it’s temporary” justification.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-review-turns-up-emails-showing-extensive-effort-to-justify-trumps-decision-to-block-ukraine-military-aid/2019/11/24/2121cf98-0d57-11ea-bd9d-c628fd48b3a0_story.html

Goose - Gander

I had made this proposal some time back on the old board.

Limit the number of Patronage Ambassadors to a preset number, so that they would, at most, comprise 25% of Ambassadorial appointments over the course of a 4 or 8 year Presidential administration. The remainder would be required to come from the Career Senior Foreign Service.

The glamour posts in Western Europe, the Caribbean, Canada, Australia, would be reserved for patronage. Everything else would be careerist.

Interestingly, patronage in ambassadorships is a uniquely United States practice. Most countries employ 100% career foreign service personnel and most ambassadors to the United States from foreign countries are careerists.

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Please link to the duties of the DoS as outlined in the Constitution.

Thanks!