Revolting At State

I don't know what this means but it looks like T Rex is losing the house:

State Dept revolt: Tillerson accused of violating U.S. law on child soldiers

OK, Tillerson is not recruiting child soldiers. He is declining to include Iraq, Afghanistan and Myanmar on the bad actors list of countries that use child soldiers.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of about a dozen U.S. State Department officials have taken the unusual step of formally accusing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of violating a federal law designed to stop foreign militaries from enlisting child soldiers, according to internal government documents reviewed by Reuters.

A confidential State Department “dissent” memo not previously reported said Tillerson breached the Child Soldiers Prevention Act when he decided in June to exclude Iraq, Myanmar, and Afghanistan from a U.S. list of offenders in the use of child soldiers. This was despite the department publicly acknowledging that children were being conscripted in those countries. [tmsnrt.rs/2jJ7pav]

Keeping the countries off the annual list makes it easier to provide them with U.S. military assistance. Iraq and Afghanistan are close allies in the fight against Islamist militants, while Myanmar is an emerging ally to offset China’s influence in Southeast Asia.

So wait, haven't we been providing military support to Iraq and Afghanistan for years? Well, yes - under Obama the countries would be listed and then granted a waiver.

Documents reviewed by Reuters also show Tillerson’s decision was at odds with a unanimous recommendation by the heads of the State Department’s regional bureaus overseeing embassies in the Middle East and Asia, the U.S. envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, the department’s human rights office and its own in-house lawyers. [tmsnrt.rs/2Ah6tB4] “Beyond contravening U.S. law, this decision risks marring the credibility of a broad range of State Department reports and analyses and has weakened one of the U.S. government's primary diplomatic tools to deter governmental armed forces and government-supported armed groups from recruiting and using children in combat and support roles around the world,” said the July 28 memo.

There may be a good reason for Tillerson to handle it this way but I am not coming up with it.  

Comments

[Old Lurker]

Rocco. I just hope he STARTS.

[daddy on iPad]

As Mark Twain told us, "There is no distinctly American criminal class - except Congress."Q

[JimNorCal]

Tax bill boiled down.
The corp tax cut is the big item for revving up the economy. But mid-class has something too-- doubling of the std deduction.
http://donsurber.blogspot.com/2017/11/trump-tax-cut-explained-in-two.html#more

Walt Hickey of the liberal 538 web site explained this:
Right now you can either itemize deductions ... or just take the standard deduction. ... In 2015, 69 percent of households took the standard deduction, so right off the bat, those households would benefit by being able to write off twice as much money. ...

So nearly 7 out of 10 taxpayers will immediately see their taxes drop as they can double their tax deductions.

[Beasts of England]

Thoughts and prayers for you and your family, Miss Marple. Please let us know if there's anything we can do to help. Everything happens for a reason, although we rarely see the better side of the lesson when the trials are upon us. Peace be with you.

[JimNorCal]

Call me cynical but I'm doubting that a soda tax is anything more than an excuse with such a poorly run city.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2017/11/21/more-than-300-cook-county-workers-laid-off/

(CBS) – Cook County board meetings are usually dry and filled with policy and procedure details.

On Tuesday, that was not the case. There were tears and real emotion.

CBS 2’s Roseanne Tellez introduces us to some of the people who got the most unwelcome news, days before Thanksgiving.

Some county employees begged for their jobs.

Cook County commissioners who supported a penny-an-ounce sweetened beverage tax say they warned of the cost of repealing it: a budget amendment filled with pain.

“It has actual layoffs of human beings who have jobs and who have families,” Commissioner Larry Suffredin (13th District) said.

[Jack is Back (Again)!]

Back from school and our pre-Thanksgiving mass.

All of sudden we are contemplating going to the Holy Land during mid winter break in February. Why?

Because Mrs. JiB's 91 to be 92 y.o. father is a Knight in the Equestrian Knights of the Holy Sepulchre and wants to make a visit to Jerusalem before he passes. Gets to wear his white cape and insignia as he enters the re-opened tomb of Jesus.

No horse but he his allowed to ride a horse into church:) The trouble is that if he goes and we go, then everyone in the family will want to go and having that possee for a long week may be a little to restrictive.

[daddy on iPad]

Who is more insane, Kathy Griffin or "Earth 2" Hillary Clinton?

[daddy on iPad]

It's too bad that Leeann Tweedie didn't just reach up and grab that crash ax on the wall above her head and bury it in the skull of that leering Neanderthal. That would have been a picture worth looking at.

[JimNorCal]

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