State Dept. Was Granted $120 Million to Fight Russian Meddling. It Has Spent $0. - Polidicks

[QUOTE]WASHINGTON — As Russia’s virtual war against the United States [URL="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/us/politics/russia-sees-midterm-elections-as-chance-to-sow-fresh-discord-intelligence-chiefs-warn.html?ref=topics"]continues unabated[/URL] with the midterm elections approaching, the State Department has yet to spend any of the $120 million it has been allocated since late 2016 to counter foreign efforts to meddle in elections or sow distrust in democracy. As a result, not one of the 23 analysts working in the department’s Global Engagement Center — which has been tasked with countering Moscow’s disinformation campaign — speaks Russian, and a department hiring freeze has hindered efforts to recruit the computer experts needed to track the Russian efforts. The delay is just one symptom of the largely passive response to the Russian interference by President Trump, who has made little if any public effort to [URL="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/us/politics/trump-russia.html"]rally the nation to confront Moscow[/URL] and defend democratic institutions. More broadly, the funding lag reflects a deep lack of confidence by Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson in his department’s ability to execute its historically wide-ranging mission and spend its money wisely. Mr. Tillerson has voiced skepticism that the United States is even capable of doing anything to counter the Russian threat. “If it’s their intention to interfere, they’re going to find ways to do that,” Mr. Tillerson said in an interview last month with Fox News. “And we can take steps we can take, but this is something that once they decide they are going to do it, it’s very difficult to pre-empt it.” The United States spends billions of dollars on secret cybercapabilities, but these weapons have proved [URL="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/world/middleeast/isis-cyber.html"]largely ineffective against Russian efforts[/URL] on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere that simply amplify or distort divisive but genuine voices in the United States and elsewhere. The role for the Global Engagement Center would be to assess Russian efforts and then set about amplifying a different set of voices to counter them, perhaps creating a network of anti-propaganda projects dispersed around the world, experts said. “There are now thousands of former Russian journalists who have been exiled or fired who are doing counter-Russian stuff in exile who we could help,” said Richard Stengel, who as the under secretary for public diplomacy in the Obama administration had oversight of the Global Engagement Center. Concerted campaigns to highlight the roles of Russian troll farms or Russian mercenaries in Ukraine and Syria could have a profound effect, Mr. Stengel said. At the end of the Obama administration, Congress directed the Pentagon to send $60 million to the State Department so it could coordinate governmentwide efforts, including those by the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security, to counter anti-democratic propaganda by Russia and China. This messaging effort is separate from other potential government actions like cyberattacks. Mr. Tillerson spent seven months trying to decide whether to spend any of the money. The State Department finally sent a request to the Defense Department on Sept. 18 to transfer the funds, but with just days left in the fiscal year, Pentagon officials decided that the State Department had lost its shot at the money. With another $60 million available for the next fiscal year, the two departments dickered for another five months over how much the State Department could have. After The New York Times, following a [URL="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/02/tillerson-isis-russia-propaganda-241218"]report on the issue by Politico[/URL] in August, began asking about the delayed money, the State Department announced on Monday that the Pentagon [URL="https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2018/02/278851.htm"]had agreed to transfer $40 million[/URL] for the effort, just a third of what was originally intended. State Department officials say they expect to receive the money in April. In the meantime, Steve Goldstein, the under secretary for public diplomacy, said he would contribute $1 million from his own budget to “kick-start the initiative quickly.” “This funding is critical to ensuring that we continue an aggressive response to malign influence and disinformation,” Mr. Goldstein said. [/QUOTE] [URL]https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/04/world/europe/state-department-russia-global-engagement-center.html[/URL]

I'm calling it now: Black Box programs. Anything that the government can swindle money away from, or seemingly vanishes into thin air, usually goes into black boxes.

[QUOTE]Mr. Tillerson has voiced skepticism that the United States is even capable of doing anything to counter the Russian threat.[/QUOTE] well I guess we should just lie down and take it

I wonder if in the future we'll see the times when trump almost fired Mueller like the time that soviet sub captain saw that the US launched missiles and didn't retaliate because he correctly thought it was a computer error, and averted nuclear war.

[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;53177544]I'm calling it now: Black Box programs. Anything that the government can swindle money away from, or seemingly vanishes into thin air, usually goes into black boxes.[/QUOTE] Except the first line of the story says it hasn't actually spent any of the money? The State Department's sitting on the account without doing anything about it because this administration is, [B]curiously enough[/B], one giant limp dick when it comes to taking action against Russia. This isn't a "money disappears from State Department budget for no reason, audit please" story, this is a "we paid you to do something and you're not even [I]misusing[/I] the money, why are you ignoring Russia???" situation. [QUOTE]Mr. Tillerson spent seven months trying to decide whether to spend any of the money.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;53177573]Except the first line of the story says it hasn't actually spent any of the money? The State Department's sitting on the account without doing anything about it because this administration is, [B]curiously enough[/B], one giant limp dick when it comes to taking action against Russia. This isn't a "money disappears from State Department budget for no reason, audit please" story, this is a "we paid you to do something and you're not even [I]misusing[/I] the money, why are you ignoring Russia???" situation.[/QUOTE] That's pretty funny that they're so incompetent that they can't even use the money, but also terrifying that these are the people in charge of us.

So basically this chucklefuck is going, "Russia's gonna do what they're gonna do, not much point in trying to stop it if we don't see it coming to block it." But without a cent of this money spent, they didn't even seem to check for Russian meddling and then try to block access afterwards? It's like leaving your back patio door unlocked, and when a neighbor comes in one day and takes your food while you're at work, you damn well notice but just don't even bother to tell them to fuck off or lock the door.

I hope Mueller goes after Tillerson for this.

[QUOTE=Lambeth;53177559]well I guess we should just lie down and take it[/QUOTE] I mean people will just break the law, why bother enforcing it at all anyway?

Again: the GOP is actively hoping that Russia will continue to attack us, because the war on our democracy is benefiting the party that fears our democracy. Every single congressman complicit in this invitation for further attacks is an enemy of the United States, and deserves nothing short of prison. Please, to all right-leaning voters here and elsewhere, take a step back and realize that this is FAR past simple partisanship. The GOP is allowing a hostile foreign nation to attack our social, economic, and political stability in order to seize more power for themselves. Everything that America is supposed to value and represent is at risk. This isn't about Democrats vs Republicans anymore; it's about the rule and preservation of Constitutional Law versus forces that seek to actively destroy it in everything but name. Believe whatever policy you like, but if you have any respect at all for the rule of law and the Constitutional responsibilities and oaths of our government, do not let your representatives get away with selling out our sovereignty. History will look back at this period and either recognize it as a testament to the strength of our nation in overcoming the greatest threat we've ever faced, or as the years in which America abandoned its philosophy, gave up the fight, and fell to corruption.

This is just blatant dereliction of duty, if not outright treason.

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;53177573]Except the first line of the story says it hasn't actually spent any of the money? The State Department's sitting on the account without doing anything about it because this administration is, [B]curiously enough[/B], one giant limp dick when it comes to taking action against Russia. This isn't a "money disappears from State Department budget for no reason, audit please" story, this is a "we paid you to do something and you're not even [I]misusing[/I] the money, why are you ignoring Russia???" situation.[/QUOTE] i think by "black box" he meant the money went towards completely clandestine and deniable projects, absurd as that is

[QUOTE=Cone;53178626]i think by "black box" he meant the money went towards completely clandestine and deniable projects, absurd as that is[/QUOTE] I'm aware of what he meant. It's absurd because it has nothing to do with the story. The money [I]isn't[/I] being spent and [I]that's why it's a news story.[/I] This isn't a story of money disappearing into a mystery hole when the State Department tried to access it, the story is [B][U]the State Department was allocated a bunch of money to combat Russia [I]AND IT ISN'T SPENDING ANY OF IT OR DOING ANYTHING ABOUT RUSSIA[/I][/U][/B]. The State Department is ignoring the Russian threat despite the allocation of funding and the directive to do it. Rex Tillerson isn't directing the money to go to black projects, he is doing [I]nothing[/I] with the money because he thinks it's not even worth fighting Russia's efforts. He didn't even ask for the money to be transferred to the State Department's accounts until so close to the end of the fiscal year that it was too late. I know the US government tends to lose track of trillions of dollars and a good portion of that probably goes into black projects that never show up on ledgers and thus the unaccountability, but that's not even slightly related to this story of the State Department failing to take on a task it was assigned and funded. The only mention of a black box is JoeSkylynx inventing an explanation for what he [I]thinks[/I] this news story is about.

2018 is going to be the year of the :thinking: emoji at the rate this shit is being turned out

[QUOTE=EXPLOOOSIONS!;53179072]2018 is going to be the year of the :thinking: emoji at the rate this shit is being turned out[/QUOTE] I've been in an endless state of :thinking: ever since Wikileaks dumped Podesta's emails an [URL="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/dec/18/john-podesta/its-true-wikileaks-dumped-podesta-emails-hour-afte/"]hour after Trump's Hollywood Access tape aired[/URL].

[QUOTE=Lambeth;53177559]well I guess we should just lie down and take it[/QUOTE] Typical GOP politics. "Well it's not a problem for ME so how bad can it be?!" [editline]5th March 2018[/editline] [QUOTE=Spacewolf;53177662]I mean people will just break the law, why bother enforcing it at all anyway?[/QUOTE] That awkward moment when you realize the GOP are kinda-sorta advocating anarchy.