Muere Brian Matthew Faughan, alto funcionario de la embajada de Estados Unidos en carretera a Torreón - this local report describes his car as an armored vehicle, but I’d wait for USG confirmation on that. https://t.co/eGtQzTbitU
— TSB (@TweetingTSB) July 10, 2025
Saturday, July 26, 2025
Vice Consul Monterrey Killed in Car Accident, Cause Unknown For the Present
Even Dimly Recalled Memories Can Be Worth Ten Million
President Joe Biden has sold the rights to his memoirs to the Hachette Book Group. The deal amounted to ten million dollars, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.https://t.co/edzOwyfj6M
— Biden Activities Tracker (@BidenActivities) July 24, 2025
Monday, July 14, 2025
We the Living
More than 1,300 employees were forced out of the State Department on Friday, leaving their offices with small boxes of plants and old coffee mugs and taking with them decades of specialized skills and on-the-job training as part of the United States diplomatic corps
The massive overhaul of the federal agency has been in the works for months, with the Trump administration informing Congress in late May that thousands of State Department employees would lose their jobs as part of the largest reorganization of the department in decades.
Still, the details of whose jobs would be cut remained closely held, and many were shocked to find they were a part of the 15% cut to domestic agency staff. Several career employees who unexpectedly found themselves with pink slips told NBC News they were asked to write speeches and prepare talking points for political appointees on critical issues just days before.
“It’s so hard to work somewhere your entire life and then get treated this way,” one veteran civil servant with more than 30 years working at the department told NBC News. “I don’t know how you treat people this way. I really don’t.”
As the termination notices hit inboxes throughout the day, employees could be seen crying in the courtyard and huddling in corners in the hallways, as those who had been laid off lined up to hand in their laptops, phones and diplomatic passports.
“The manner in which things were done … they were not done with dignity. They were not done respectfully. They were not done transparently,” Olga Bashbush, a laid-off foreign service officer with more than 20 years of experience, told NBC News.
A senior State Department official briefing reporters on behalf of the agency ahead of the cuts told reporters Thursday that the restructuring was intended to be “individual agnostic.”
“This is the most complicated personnel reorganization that the federal government has ever undertaken,” the official said. “And it was done so in order to be very focused on looking at the functions that we want to eliminate or consolidate, rather than looking at individuals.”
Friday, July 4, 2025
FBI HQ Relocation: Maryland Edges Out Virginia to Play the Security Card
“I think there are enough Republicans who don’t want to put the safety of the men and women of the FBI at risk,” [Maryland Senator Chris] Van Hollen said. “The reason that the three prior sites were under consideration was because they all met the security and setback requirements to ensure the safety of the men and women at the FBI. It was determined years ago that in order to ensure their safety now into the future, you needed a campus like the CIA has at Langley, like the NSA has out at Fort Meade.”See the WTOP news story here, Maryland delegation vows to fight FBI’s move to new DC location ‘with every tool we have’
Thursday, July 3, 2025
The Soundtrack We Need in Our Border Control War
New FBI HQ: Good Building, Bad Idea
That building cannot met some key security standards that apply to an FBI HQ. Either this idea is a nonstarter or someone will have to approve a waiver. https://t.co/xyS869sl6y
— TSB (@TweetingTSB) July 2, 2025
Friday, June 27, 2025
The Secretary Will Disavow Any Knowledge of Your RIF (Until Monday, Anyway)
New: Widespread RIFs/layoffs could come to the State Department as soon as Friday, though one source notes the department is expected to wait for a Supreme Court ruling on its reorganization plan (which is expected imminently) -https://t.co/Q4oDIFNvTQ
— Shelby Talcott (@ShelbyTalcott) June 25, 2025
Wednesday, June 11, 2025
New OBO Director Comes From 'Bill Clinton, Inc.' What??
James (Jim) has more than three decades of experience leading fiduciary and restructuring matters, as well as providing clients with key litigation support and expert witness testimony. As an advisor, Jim has worked primarily on debtor side assignments.What's up with that? Is Trump putting OBO in receivership? My good friends in OBO didn't do anything to earn that.
A newly revealed memo from a former aide to Bill Clinton details substantial overlap between donors to the nonprofit Clinton Foundation and the former president's personal financial activities, a $30 million-plus enterprise described in the memo as "Bill Clinton, Inc."
Money managers UBS and Barclays, mining giant BHP, and the for-profit educational company Laureate International Universities each made substantial payments to Bill Clinton for speeches or "advisory services," while also contributing to the Clinton Foundation.
Most of these payments were brokered by Doug Band, who served as a personal aide to Bill Clinton during his White House years, and later as a chief fundraiser for the Clinton Foundation.
- Snip -
[Teneo founder] Band's memo also documents the interlocking relationship between the Clinton Foundation's corporate contributors, Teneo clients and Bill Clinton's personal wealth.
- Snip -
Band estimated that he'd helped to secure work for the former president that yielded more than $30 million in personal profit between when Clinton left office in 2001 and when the memo was drafted in 2011, with another $66 million in the pipeline at the time.
That is a very strange background for a Trump Admin official. We'll see more from him soon, so we can hope for the best, but prepare for the worse.
Saturday, June 7, 2025
The Fortress Embassy That's Coming to Your Neighborhood
🚨#BREAKING: Protesters and rioters are now using hammers to break apart cement blocks near the Los Angeles detention center where ICE is holding over 40 undocumented immigrants. Tear gas and flash bangs are now being deployed by riot police video by @AnthonyCabassa_ pic.twitter.com/sYuJIraE9Y
— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) June 7, 2025
Back in the long-ago year of 1995 the U.S. government took a good look at the vulnerability of civilian federal office buildings to physical attack. (Read the report here.) In brief, the task force that researched and prepared the report recommended that the USG adopt a set of physical security standards that were closely modeled on the standards the State Department had created ten years earlier for overseas embassies.
Only, the overseas standards were thought to not be pertinent in all respects to the domestic threat environment, especially not to the threat of mob violence. After all, we'd had a large vehicle-borne bomb in the Oklahoma City attack, and that certainly looked exactly like overseas terrorism, but we hadn't had large mobs or other civil disturbances against domestic federal buildings in a very long time. [Pro Tip: look up the history of the 1919 General Steel Strike and the declaration of martial law in Gary, Indiana.]
So there was no need for our modern domestic building standards to require perimeter walls, forced-entry resistance, safe havens, or other such counter-mob defenses. That was just reasonable risk management.
Well, that reasoning was also from a very long time ago, and it no longer seems to apply to our new domestic threat environment. For instance, the ongoing riots against immigration enforcement in Los Angeles.
Speaking of which, check out that video above of a protestor banging away with a hand tool at concrete anti-ram bollards - which are a countermeasure against vehicle threats - in front of an ICE detention center.
Why was he doing that, you may wonder? Maybe because he wanted to create a pile of concrete shards that his fellow protestors could fling at the detention center. Or, just as likely, for no good reason at all but simply because it was a riot and he wanted to do something mindless and destructive.
Whatever his reason, he kind of perfectly exemplifies the contemporary threat to domestic federal civilian buildings, and it is something that our current facility security standards do not begin to counter adequately.
My prediction: you may expect to see hasty walls and fences going up around your local government buildings in the short term, and proposals for costly forced-entry facade upgrades in the mid and long term.
Saturday, May 17, 2025
Will the FBI Really, at Long Last, Vacate Washington's Ministry of Fear HQ? Maybe.
Friday, May 9, 2025
Illegal Alien and Bunny Torturer Could Bring America Together
Can we all agree that this one needs to be deported? https://t.co/c7fWAdlDjD
— TSB (@TweetingTSB) May 9, 2025
Saturday, May 3, 2025
Did the U.S. Institute of Peace Have a Secret Escape Route?
Conspiracy theorists have stumbled upon a good one here. https://t.co/0DDmGMHF6M
— TSB (@TweetingTSB) May 3, 2025
Who owns that property at the other end of USIP's odd enclosed walkway, and what did that property used to be used for?
It's a strange Washington DC tale that connects not just two buildings but the founder of modern oceanography, the location of scientific timekeeping, World War II history, and the Cold War.
I'm waiting anxiously to see what the conspiracy freaks will make of it all.
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
They're Leaving On a Jet Plane, In Increasing Numbers
https://t.co/c9v1f384l4
— FOX21 News (@FOX21News) April 27, 2025
Video courtesy: @DEAROCKYMTNDiv pic.twitter.com/NcCtwk8V9m
Saturday, April 26, 2025
The Real Reorg - Which Posts Should Be Closed?
“Neither does [reorganization] involve rhetoric that accuses our diplomats of being ineffective, lacking accountability and concern for American interests.” The problem is, of course, that the voters are not of one mind about what those interests are. https://t.co/jpXJtL4UZj
— TSB (@TweetingTSB) April 24, 2025
Tuesday, April 22, 2025
The Real Reorg Chart is Released
Contrary to yesterday’s panic-mongering faux leaks, it appears that AF, INL, and Policy Planning are still with us. https://t.co/oa8q4ipA4u
— TSB (@TweetingTSB) April 22, 2025
Wednesday, April 16, 2025
Out: Embassy in a Box. In: FLEX
Good detail here, given the limitations of secondary reporting. https://t.co/Jto6pl0l0B
— TSB (@TweetingTSB) April 16, 2025
Tuesday, April 15, 2025
Annnd, Away We Go! State Budget Cuts On the Table
Up to 30+ posts would be closed, $$ to multinationals, NGOs such as the East-West Center, UN peacekeeping, and INL zeroed out, migration and refugee programs cut in half. We’ll see how much Congress shares the enthusiasm. https://t.co/FiYgrC62JI
— TSB (@TweetingTSB) April 14, 2025
There's still a world of politics and process between an unofficial budget proposal and an actual congressional appropriation, so don't everyone take a deferred retirement just yet.
Friday, April 11, 2025
Last Stand at U.S. Institute of Peace (Includes a Gun Safe and the Car Left Behind)
SCOTUS to POTUS: Bring Me the Head of Abrego Garcia
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
DSS Investigates a Human Smuggling Network
DSS flexes that new(ish) illegal alien bustin’ value. https://t.co/nQYJuRd4WQ
— TSB (@TweetingTSB) April 9, 2025
Tuesday, April 1, 2025
What Goes Around Comes Around and Burns You Down (A Story of the Japanese Empire and Harvard's Chemistry Department)
In 1967, in the midst of the Vietnam War, Harvard University English professor Neil Rudenstine intervened in a protest on campus, where a recruiter from Dow Chemical Company, which made napalm, had been surrounded by students upset about U.S. attacks on Vietnamese civilians. He helped defuse the tension by negotiating with students to release the recruiter.Well, that immediately made me think about the history of napalm, which by a great irony was the brainchild of Harvard itself when it was doing war work for the USG in 1942. True story, which you can read all about in this Harvard Crimson article.
Great Foreign Service Is Just a Short Walk Across the Border
Saturday, March 29, 2025
DOGE Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, The View From State
Everything is in flux at present and no one should make any decisions based on this or any other article. But what is clear is that this time Trump means business. Unlike the small-scale RIF which took place at State during the Clinton administration, this time it’s for real, a seemingly determined effort to downsize the State Department both at home and abroad while at the same time likely increasing the authority of political appointees. It is both a paradigm shift and a power shift away from a more-or-less independent State Department (and other agencies) toward a concentration of power higher in the executive branch.
The Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration is bound to take most of the hit, but there will probably be some effect on every office that isn't doing public safety, law enforcement, or immigration enforcement.
If you aren't in one of those functional areas, brace for impact.
Is the 'Coalition of the Willing' Willing to Be Killed In Nasty Ways?
NATO Plans Switch From Sexy to Sensible - They are “trying to re-dimension what they were doing to something that could be more sensible… with the situation on the ground and the U.S administration as it is, it's not very sexy." https://t.co/TqdxKgmrje
— TSB (@TweetingTSB) March 27, 2025
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in late February that the U.K. would be "ready and willing" to deploy British troops in Ukraine as part of a potential peace deal.
Saturday, March 22, 2025
Can This Odd Couple Share a Presidential Ticket Without Driving Each Other Crazy?
A May Day-Decembrist ticket! (Obscure reference maybe, but it amuses me.) https://t.co/hHos0h5ihI
— TSB (@TweetingTSB) March 22, 2025
Well, the Decembrist part is definitely obscure, as well as not really the best historical fit for Comrade 'honeymoon in the USSR' Sanders, but you get the idea.
Is this just the ticket to revive the political fortunes of the Democratic Party, which are currently at a historically low 29 percent favorability rating?
I wouldn't care to speculate about that except to note that young men are probably going to remain alienated from the AOC-and-Bernie appeal.
Wednesday, March 12, 2025
Is NATO Eager For WWIII? Most Unlikely.
An anonymous Western official offered another option, saying the [French and UK] forces could launch direct, immediate strikes on Russian targets if a cease-fire is violated.Wow. French and UK troops going toe-to-toe with the Rooskies? All the way up to nuclear combat? That's a hell of a prospect.
The following morning, Sunday 13 June, [U.S. General] Clark arrived at [UK General] Jackson's HQ in Skopje. It was pointed out to Clark that the isolated Russians could not be reinforced by air and that, in light of how vital Russian support had been to get a peace agreement, antagonising them would only be counterproductive. Clark refused to accept this and continued to order that the runway be blocked, claiming to be supported by the NATO Secretary-General.
When again directly ordered to block the runway, Jackson suggested that British tanks and armoured cars would be more suitable, in the knowledge that this would almost certainly be vetoed by the British government. Clark agreed. Jackson was ready to resign rather than follow Clark's order. The British Ministry of Defence authorised British force commander Richard Dannatt to use 4 Armoured Brigade to isolate the airfield but not to block the runways. Clark's orders were not carried out, and the United States instead requested neighbouring states not to allow Russia to use their airspace to ferry in reinforcements. Russia was forced to call off the reinforcements after Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania refused requests by Russia to use their airspace.“I’m not going to start World War Three for you,” Newsweek reported Jackson as telling Clark. And okay, probably discretion was the better part of valor that day.
Friday, February 28, 2025
DOGE Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
So far DOGE has been snapping at the heels of us feds, coming for probationary employees and the more easily intimidated of the geezers who were on the verge of retirement anyway. (The dismantling of USAID was an exception to this rule.)
But the rumors today are that the Trump Administration is planning a second Reduction In Force pass aimed at tenured employees. That will largely depend on the reorganization plans that all departments are to file by the middle of next month. The TechyBoyz of DOGE will scrub those plans on high alert for signs of redundancy or duplicated efforts, even among those functions which have a statutory basis.
But exactly how good are those Boyz? They've stepped on their dicks a few times already, you know.
They sent that What Did You Do Last Week email to legislative and judicial employees, as well as the intended targets in the executive branch of government. Apparently they need to ask Grok to read the Constitution for them and explain that thing called "separation of powers."
They also made the rookie mistake of not considering out-of-office and automatic replies to that omnibus Reply to This if You Want to Retire Now email. What do you suppose that some people who do not want to retire now have been receiving a welcome to the deferred retirement program anyway based on their auto replies. Ooops.
And those are just minor mistakes compared to the absurdity of the premise that someone, somewhere, was going to read 2.4 million emails, or even scan them for key words. That's not going to happen.
Maybe the TechyBoyz have some super-tricky algorithm that will do that DOGE work for them? They better hope people will believe they do, otherwise they're just IT guys in tee shirts.
I say, take heart, and don't give in to exaggerated fears. But also update that resume and, if the worst comes, remember that the world always needs substitute teachers.
He's So Sly, There's No Telling Where the Money Went
Madame Ambassador Markarova, It Must Be Five O'Clock Somewhere
Don’t look so down, it’ll be Wheels Up in no time. https://t.co/OKVter0eRW
— TSB (@TweetingTSB) February 28, 2025
Saturday, February 15, 2025
Stick a Fork in It, the Retirement Buyout Offer is Over
The figure — 3.75 percent of the nation’s 2 million federal employees — falls short of the projected 5 percent to 10 percent of federal employees the White House expected to take the deal.Add to that the normal annual attrition of federal employees, which IIRC is just under six percent, and you almost get to the ten percent reduction target by the end of the fiscal year.
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Trump Admin Springs US Citizen Prisoner From Russia
13 years early on his 14 year sentence. https://t.co/a81wtExvia
— TSB (@TweetingTSB) February 11, 2025
Mr. Fogel is breathing the sweet air of freedom tonight, plus all the weed he wants.
Friday, February 7, 2025
Disaster Assistance Response Team Employee Misses Opportunity To Make the Case For USAID Funding
An American aid worker describes the implosion of the humanitarian mission to support rape and famine victims in Sudanhttps://t.co/EMzWQT89ti
— Rolling Stone Politics (@RSPolitics) February 7, 2025
What is your role with USAID? I work on the Disaster Assistance Response Team for the Sudan Complex Emergency, [funding] partners like WFP, UNICEF, and other international NGOs. I work with impressive, dedicated, honest people who want the same thing: to help alleviate suffering from the most vulnerable. We just found out we have all been terminated; for me, in less than 30 days.
What does that mean for your work? Though we were treated poorly during this, we aren't the real casualties of this political war. The programs we delivered saved lives by providing food and nutrition to SAM (severe acute malnutrition) children, and clean water and health needs for women in Sudan who were raped or impregnated by soldiers and gangs. All down the drain. We have abandoned all of it, as of now. Our NGO partners have laid people off and aid is no longer getting to those most vulnerable. It's a horrible feeling to let all that go. I feel empty and angry, sad, unvalued, confused. It hurts.
Sunday, February 2, 2025
Will U.S. Security Sub-Contractors Man a Gaza Checkpoint??
WASHINGTON (Reuters) A small U.S. security firm is hiring nearly 100 U.S. special forces veterans to help run a checkpoint in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas truce, according to a company spokesperson and a recruitment email seen by Reuters, introducing armed American contractors into the heart of one of the world's most violent conflict zones.UG Solutions - a low-profile company founded in 2023 and based in Davidson, North Carolina - is offering a daily rate starting at $1,100 with a $10,000 advance to veterans it hires, the email said. They will staff the checkpoint at a key intersection in Gaza's interior, said the spokesperson, who confirmed the authenticity of the email.Some people have been recruited and are already at the checkpoint, said the spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity. He did not say how many contractors were already in Gaza.-- snip--Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel on Tuesday told reporters, without naming UG Solutions or the United States, that Israel had demanded that the deal include the use of a private security firm, working with "an Egyptian security company or forces" to help maintain security and humanitarian aid flows in Gaza.But, she said, it remained to be seen if the arrangement "actually works."--snip--A separate source familiar with the deal said Israel and unnamed "Arab countries" that worked on the agreement are funding the consortium. The U.S. government had no direct involvement in the decision to include a security company in the ceasefire deal or in the awarding of the contract, the source said.
About Those "Military Aged Males" Who Crossed Our Border: Hell No, They Won't Go! Or Will They?
A top government accountability group will send a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the U.S. Selective Service System (SSS) for data on illegal immigrants who did not register for the draft and therefore committed a felony.By law, all U.S. males aged 18-26 must register with the SSS under penalty of felony conviction and $250,000 fine under the Military Selective Service Act of 1917, Howell’s group noted in their filing.Additionally, the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 makes failure to register with the SSS a deportable offense, and the SSS website clearly states undocumented aliens are required to sign up for the draft, Howell noted.-- snip --In a Thursday interview, Howell and attorney Kyle Brosnan said SSS registration has been flat during the Biden administration as far as it relates to the obvious uptick in "military-aged males" crossing the border and being "caught-and-released" by federal immigration authorities."The absence of such a surge indicates that there is widespread criminal non-compliance by such aliens," they wrote in their FOIA request. "There should be a large increase in [SSS registration] with 10 million illegals that have come over the border in the last four years."
Well, well, well. When the Biden administration was processing and releasing all those male border crossers over the last four years, did it register them with Selective Service?
Rhetorical question, of course.
But if it did not, then what is there to stop the new administration from charging them with a serious crime and expediting their deportation?
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
SecState Rubio Sends an ALDAC and a Shot Across the Bows
The State Department will no longer undertake any activities that facilitate or encourage mass migration … [Western Hemisphere priorities will become] stopping illegal and destabilizing migration, and negotiating the repatriation of illegal immigrants.
President Trump issued an executive order eliminating “DEIA” requirements, programs, and offices throughout the government. This order will be faithfully executed and observed in both letter and spirit.
[E]liminating our focus on political and cultural causes that are divisive at home and deeply unpopular abroad.
[S]upport and defend Americans’ rights to free speech, terminating any programs that in any way lead to censoring the American people.
[D]o away with climate policies that weaken America … [and support] a return to American energy dominance.You can't fault the man for either directness or promptness.
Unfinished Business With Jordan and Justice - Will Trump Make Extradition Great Again?
A year ago, the Conference of Presidents which speaks for America's major Jewish groups wrote an emphatic letter to Sec of State Antony Blinken. He didn't answer. This week, the COP renewed its call, this time to the Trump Administration. It concerns Jordan, justice, the… https://t.co/U7sOYMRbhA pic.twitter.com/SenocSHePC
— Arnold Roth (@arnoldroth) January 21, 2025
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
Vehicle Ramming Attacks in Public Spaces: Isn't Anyone Serious About Defense?
"New Orleans resembles Genoa or Marseilles, or Beirut or the Egyptian Alexandria more than it does New York, although all seaports resemble one another more than they can resemble any place in the interior. Like Havana and Port-au-Prince, New Orleans is within the orbit of a Hellenistic world that never touched the North Atlantic. The Mediterranean, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico form a homogeneous, though interrupted, sea." A. J. Liebling, THE EARL OF LOUISIANADid you ever read Confederacy of Dunces? That above quote is from the foreword. Totally true. New Orleans is the only place in North America - which includes Mexico, don't forget - where I've ever felt I needed a visa.
A set of security barriers that were installed in 2017 to prevent terrorist attacks along Bourbon Street were being replaced when a driver barreled down the city’s most famous thoroughfare hours into the New Year on Wednesday, killing 10 and injuring dozens.The removable stainless-steel bollards are designed to be securely locked at each crosswalk along Bourbon Street between Canal and St. Ann streets, according to Mayor LaToya Cantrell's administration. The attack occurred near the intersection of Bourbon and Iberville streets.New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said the suspect drove “at a very fast pace” down Bourbon Street about 3:15 a.m., striking dozens, and then shot at first responders after crashing. Two officers were struck and are in stable condition. The suspect, too, was shot and has died. The FBI is investigating the incident as a terrorist attack.The bollard project began in November and was scheduled to last three months. It involves removing and replacing sections of road to take out the existing bollards. A city press release on Tuesday night noted the project was ongoing, but did not provide details of work done thus far.The old barriers never worked too well, said Bob Simms, who until recently oversaw security initiatives for the French Quarter Management District.'They were very ineffective. The track was always full of crap; beads and doubloons and God knows what else. Not the best idea,” Simms said. “Eventually everybody realized the need to replace them. They’re in the process of doing that, but the new ones are not yet operational.”Simms said the old barrier at the crosswalk of Canal and Bourbon streets was removed a few weeks ago. Equipment for a replacement is in place, he said."They're doing it in time for the Super Bowl," Simms said. "It's ironic in a way."-- snip --Simms said preventing the kind of carnage that took place early Wednesday was "exactly what [the bollards were] built for."The bollards were put in place before NBA All-Star Game in 2017. The plan was partly a reaction to the July 2016 mass murder in Nice, France, when a terrorist used a truck as a weapon to plow into a Bastille Day crowd, killing 86 and injuring hundreds more. A few months later a copycat killed 12 shoppers in a Berlin Christmas market.
“The problem in the most recent case [in Germany] is that the perpetrator used a lane reserved for ambulances,” said Nicolas Stockhammer, a professor of security studies at Danube University in Krems, Austria. “He approached the area through a side where there was no protection.”
The city of New Orleans was upgrading security bollards along a section of Bourbon Street in the area where the attack occurred, according to its website. The city’s police superintendent said at a news conference that the perpetrator “went around our barricades” to conduct the attack.So, it appears that our best intellectual talent in security studies and our foremost municipal police leaderships are capable of appreciating the threat of vehicle ramming attacks.