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Blinken Backs Down, Gives House GOP Access to Docs on Afghanistan Debacle Under Threat of Contempt

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The Biden Administration has been singing a different tune the past couple of months, when it comes to the debacle of President Joe Biden pulling U.S. servicemembers out of Afghanistan. Readers might remember in March, when Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin testified before the House Armed Services Committee. My colleague Susie Moore wrote:

During the testimony, Austin was questioned by Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) regarding the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in late August of 2021. When asked by Banks whether he had any regrets about the withdrawal, Austin gave a stunning response….

“I don’t have any regrets,” said Austin. When further pressed as to accountability, Austin at first demurred then stated he was not aware of anyone being held to account regarding the withdrawal.

Or pehaps you recall the review the Administration released in April of the departure from Afghanistan, in which they basically blamed former President Donald Trump for their incompetence. RedState’s Mike Miller wrote that “[t]he review repeatedly criticizes the Trump administration for “constraining the conditions” of American withdrawal.” Not even CBS News was buying Team Biden’s whitewash of the debacle.

The Republican-majority House kept pressing the State Department—and Secretary Antony Blinken in particular—to release documents about what really happened in Afghanistan. In an interview six days ago, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) “told Fox News Digital….that he planned to introduce the contempt charge on May 24.”

“I don’t take this lightly because a Secretary of State’s never been held in contempt by Congress before,” McCaul told Fox. “And I think the secretary realizes that and the gravity. They probably prefer not to go down this route as well. But if they do not comply, we’re prepared to move forward next week with a markup for resolution of contempt.”

Now, Blinken has backed down, according to a new report at Fox News:

House Republicans will be able to view documents this week relating to President Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal after months of stonewalling by the State Department.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, will access the documents at the State Department offices this week after threatening to hit Secretary of State Antony Blinken with a contempt of Congress charge. The document, a dissent cable from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, details any misgivings State Department officials there had with Biden’s withdrawal plans.

McCaul had subpoenaed the document multiple times in the early months of this year, but Blinken had failed to provide it. The State Department instead offered a briefing on the document’s contents, a move McCaul accepted while still demanding to see the document itself.

The report continues:

McCaul will visit the department this week to read the document alongside Rep. Greg Meeks, D-N.Y., the ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, according to Punchbowl News.

The pair will view the document in full, but the names of those who contributed to the dissent report will be redacted.

This is wonderful, to see the Republicans displaying a backbone against the ongoing silence by the Biden Administration on critical questions about our national and foreign policies. Let’s hope they keep on this path.

State Dept. Shows It Needs Complete Overhaul With Horrible Response to Mandatory Pronoun Mess

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Time is counting down on Joe Biden dealing with debt negotiations. As I wrote earlier, Biden seemed to have no idea what was going on when he gave his answers to reporters about the debt ceiling while he was at the G7 in Japan, after he had delayed meeting with Republicans for months.

But while the Biden team delayed action on something so important that puts our economy at risk, they were quick to impose a new edict at the State Department when it comes to pronouns, as we reported. Veteran AP reporter Matt Lee exposed that on Thursday when he demanded to know from State Department Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Petal why the State Department emails were suddenly imposing pronouns on everyone in the “from line” on emails.

Lee explained that this was “not an optional thing” and was being imposed on all department emails. He wanted to know “who made this decision” and why it was “mandatory.” Lee was not shy about saying this was “wrong” and whether or not people wanted to use pronouns should be a “choice.”

But Lee also hilariously noted that the woke Biden team appears to have messed things up in imposing the new requirement. People who were women were getting male pronouns, and the reverse, which was “ridiculous,” he said. Patel said he had no idea about what Lee was talking about but said he would check into it.

But if that wasn’t nutty enough and showed how perverse their priorities are, they’ve just added more stupidity to the story.

The State Department sent out an email to employees on Friday saying that they could have free therapy if they felt “hurt or upset” about being misgendered by the Biden administration edict. They were encouraged to contact the “State Department’s Employee Consultation Service if they were upset about the mixup.”

One employee said that the incident was a distraction from their work and “a lot of people here have been triggered today.”

According to the State Department’s Chief information officer Kelly E. Fletcher, “the intent behind this feature is to make our systems more inclusive and provide employees with options. Not to make decisions for them.”

Fletcher said, “I recognize that this error had the opposite effect, and again, I am very sorry.”

The organization is in the process of “testing a new feature that will provide users with the option to include their preferred pronouns in their Global Address List profile. The feature inadvertently went live, and a large number of employees had randomly assigned pronouns added to their profiles,” Fletcher said.

“I deeply regret the confusion and distress this mistake caused our workforce,” Fletcher concluded.

This response is more concerning than the original story. The original story showed how bad the Biden team is, trying to impose their woke edicts on people. But thinking that making this “mandatory” is more “inclusive” is madness. Also, if State Department people get so upset about this misgendering that they’re “triggered” and need therapy, then they probably shouldn’t be working there and representing this country. This news revealing how fragile some of these folks are is truly concerning. We’ve already seen we need to re-evaluate all the FBI leadership, but unfortunately, the whole government — including the State Department — is infected with this madness.

WATCH: Biden State Dept. Mandates Pronouns, Gets Nailed Messing up Their Own Woke Rule

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How woke is too woke? On Thursday, even the Biden team got tripped up by their own wokeness.

The State Department Deputy Spokesperson, Vedant Patel was doing a briefing when he got a rather aggrieved question from AP reporter Matt Lee. Lee is an old-school journalist who’s had the same job for about 16 years, and he isn’t shy about asking questions that they may not like. He’s nailed the Biden team on their nonsense in the past.

Lee asked Patel if he knew about the new addition to emails the State Department sends. Patel confessed ignorance. Lee said they included mandatory pronouns now on the emails’ “from” line, and he was not at all happy about it.

“This is not an optional thing,” Lee said. He said he didn’t mind if people used pronouns — if they wanted to — but why was this suddenly being made mandatory? “Who made this decision?” he asked.

Patel claimed that he hadn’t seen this, so he couldn’t speak to what Lee was saying. Lee said it wasn’t just for internal State Department emails. Lee asked Patel if he could look into it.

Lee also hilariously made the point that “at least some of them so far as I’ve been able to tell, are wrong! They’re giving the wrong pronoun! So men are being identified as women and women as men. This has nothing to do with any transgender or anything like that. It’s ridiculous!”

Lee said it should be a choice, not something the State Department imposes on people. “It’s wrong!” he declared.

I think all of us are Matt Lee here, asking them to stop the madness. But good for him for just being straight about this move pushing the crazy.

The State Department has been promoting the “pronoun” thing for a while. Almost two years ago in October 2021, they tweeted about “International Pronouns Day.”

They’re constantly pushing the woke agenda.

That prompted some to ask what is “interphobia,” since it’s hard to even keep up with all the stuff they keep throwing at us. It turns out it’s a fear of intersex people.

It’s pretty hilarious that the Biden team seems to have gotten hoisted on their own petard with all this. They demand that everyone go woke and adopt all this stuff. But then, they commit one of the most egregious sins in “wokeness” — misgendering someone. Don’t they know the trauma they may have caused by this sacrilege? How could they do such a horrible thing? They need to get sent back for re-education immediately, so that they never do such a despicable thing ever again.

But seriously, any foreign governments, looking at us, must be laughing their heads off at all this. Imagine what China must be thinking, when this is our focus, rather than their threatening actions toward its neighbors. But this is the message that the Biden team is sending out to our adversaries around the world. They’re a laughing stock—and that’s not a good look.

LEAKED: Emails Show Biden State Department Sought to Protect China During Spy-Balloon Fiasco

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With so much domestic rancor going on as the next election season heats up, it’s worth remembering that there are serious foreign policy issues to deal with. It’s also worth remembering that the Biden administration is doing its level best to screw every single one of them up.

A new report backed by leaked emails and inside sources is shedding light on a shocking policy Joe Biden is pursuing in regard to China. According to Reuters, during the Chinese spy balloon fiasco that captivated the nation in early 2023, embattled Secretary of State Antony Blinken was actually seeking to protect the communists.

hen an alleged Chinese spy balloon traversed the United States in February, some U.S. officials were confident the incursion would galvanize the U.S. bureaucracy to push forward a slate of actions to counter China.

Instead, the U.S. State Department held back human rights-related sanctions, export controls and other sensitive actions to try to limit damage to the U.S.-China relationship, according to four sources with direct knowledge of U.S. policy, as well as internal emails seen by Reuters.

(…)

Rick Waters, deputy assistant secretary of State for China and Taiwan who leads the China House policy division, said in a Feb. 6 email to staff that has not been previously reported: “Guidance from S (Secretary of State) is to push non-balloon actions to the right so we can focus on symmetric and calibrated response. We can revisit other actions in a few weeks.”

The sources said many measures have yet to be revived. The decision to postpone export licensing rules for telecom equipment maker Huawei and sanctions against Chinese officials for abuses of Uyghurs, has damaged morale at China House, they said.

In other words, instead of punishing China for its insanely provocative violation of US airspace and sovereignty, Blinken had his lackeys pause major human rights and trade measures. That included already planned actions to sanction Chinese tech companies like Huawei and to combat China’s genocide of the Uyghurs.

It gets worse, though. Though the buck stops with Blinken, he apparently farmed out US policy toward China to Wendy Sherman, his second-in-command.

Speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions, they said Blinken had largely delegated China policy duties to Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, the United States’ second ranked diplomat.

Who is Wendy Sherman? She’s the China-loving official who led the lobbying effort against the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act of 2021. So not only is Blinken derelict in his duties by passing off the biggest US foreign policy issue in existence to an underling, but he gave those duties to someone with a long history of being suspiciously soft on the Chinese.

Sherman was also at the forefront of the disastrous withdrawal from Afghinatnsa, infamously proclaiming that the “Taliban seek legitimacy.” If there’s a diplomat with worse instincts, I’m not sure who it would be. Sherman is just terrible and has managed to be on the wrong side of just about every major foreign policy issue she’s been involved with.

But as I’ve speculated in the past, it’d be a mistake to chalk all this up to sheer incompetence. The Biden administration continually operates as if it is bought and paid for by the Chicoms. From COVID to economics, the Chinese are allowed to dominate. It’s long past time for people to start asking why.

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