White House proposes drastic cuts to State Department and funding for UN, NATO and other groups

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House’s Office of Management and Budget has proposed gutting the State Department’s budget by almost 50%, closing a number of overseas diplomatic missions, slashing the number of diplomatic staff, and eliminating funding for nearly all international organizations, including the United Nations, many of its agencies and for NATO headquarters, officials said. The proposal, which was presented to the State Department last week and is still in a highly preliminary phase, is not expected to pass muster with either the department’s leadership or Congress, which will…

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Justice Department false-claims cases continue at a brisk pace

The government’s pursuit of false-claims cases never takes a break. So far this year, recoveries have totaled just under $ 500 million and they appear to be on pace for a full-year-yield of around $ 2 billion. For more on the trends, and some of the more remarkable settlements,  Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke to attorney Jonathan Phillips, a Partner at Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher. Interview Transcript:  Tom Temin And you have done a pretty comprehensive tracking of everything going on in, I should say, not just whistleblower cases,…

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‘Gender-Affirming’ Surgery Leaves People Lonelier and Depressed, Study by Transgender Surgery Department Chairman Finds

The head of a facility that carries out so-called “gender-affirming care” has published a study confirming that transgender surgeries do not improve mental health and make people feel lonelier than those who avoided surgical intervention altogether. “In our study, the level of life satisfaction in transgender people was not increased in transgender people who had undergone gender-affirming surgery as compared to those who were unoperated,” says a study published Tuesday in BMC Public Health, a peer-reviewed scientific journal. “[O]ur data indicate that transgender and gender-diverse people, who have undergone gender reassignment surgery…

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State Department Partners With Left-Leaning Media in Propaganda Push, Documents Reveal

A State Department agency with a mission of combating disinformation abroad has helped shape coverage by—and in some cases subsidized—U.S. news outlets, according to records obtained by a conservative legal organization.  America First Legal says that over 600 pages of documents obtained in a public records lawsuit show the State Department’s Global Engagement Center worked with privately owned media organizations to tout government propaganda.  Among those named in the documents are The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, and PolitiFact.  PolitiFact’s parent organization,…

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State Department Emails Reveal Diplomats’ Concern About China’s ‘Invasive’ Swab Testing

Emails recently obtained by Judicial Watch show how U.S. officials scrambled over reports that the Chinese government was requiring anal swab tests to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The communications were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the U.S. Department of State. “It took six months and a federal lawsuit to confirm that our embassy in Beijing was concerned about the Chinese government’s invasive anal swab and other COVID testing of our diplomatic personnel—at that as many as two people were asked to submit to a test,” Judicial Watch…

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