Let's talk about Trump dropping America's Voice and congress ignoring his requests.... - Belle of the Ranch

[TexasTowelie]

Well, howdy there Internet people. It's Belle again. So, today we're going to talk about Trump dropping America's Voice and Congress ignoring his requests

When it comes to the developing situation in Iran the Trump administration is trying to reach out to those in the streets and fan the flames of discontent in the country. A longtime goal of the West has been to realign the government in the country and it certainly appears as though the Trump administration is no different and wants the Iranian people to decide on a new government.

Trump himself took to social media to try to give directives to Iranians saying “Iranian patriots keep protesting, take over your institutions, save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have canceled all meetings with Iranian officials until the senseless killing of protesters stops. Help is on its way.”

Of course, the problem for Trump is that the government in Iran has shut down the Internet. So, it's unclear how many people will receive his message. If only the US had some method of reaching out effectively to people in other countries like that. Oh, that's right. It did. Trump has been trying to curtail it.

Kari Lake is running what's left of the US Agency for Global Media. Now, she's described the effort to get information into Iran. "We're working to get more of it in. We're hiring contractors to up our coverage and add more additional hours to coverage.”

Hiring contractors. That means after their cuts, they don't have enough people. Let's be clear as we talked about when he started tearing down this particular Chesterton's fence, these entities are like well-trained nurses. They're not paid for what they do every day. They're paid for what they can do during a crisis. For those organizations to be effective, they have to be fully funded and staffed before the crisis begins. These entities need an audience before any crisis arises. It can't come late to the party. Besides, when it's only in operation during times of crisis, it's more easily seen as simply a tool of US foreign policy, which make no mistake about it, that's what it is.

Well, it seems like lawmakers in both parties understand this and that Republicans are willing to push Trump a little further into lame duck status by simply ignoring his desire to defund the agency. Trump requested an anemic $153 million to “support the orderly shutdown of USA AGM operations.” The bipartisan bill released on Sunday will instead provide more than four times that amount, $643 million. That's a pretty big single-fingered salute from Congress aimed at the White House.

As far as the situation in Iran, at time of recording, it's deteriorating quickly. Reports suggest the amount of people lost numbers in the thousands with some estimates breaking 10,000. At this point, it appears that the West is taking the approach of hoping for a change of government and hoping to pick up the pieces afterward. There yet again doesn't seem to be a workable transition, though some are pushing the former Shah's son forward as a potential leader. We'll continue to provide updates on this as we can.

Anyway, it's just a thought. Y'all have a good day.