The next CIA director?

Sen. Tom Cotton (R- Ark.) speaks in the Roosevelt Room on Aug. 2, during unveiling of immigration legislation. Trump is standing next to Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.). (AP's Evan Vucci)

Axios told us about internal administration conversations about sliding CIA Director Mike Pompeo over to replace SecState Rex Tillerson, whenever he heads back to Texas.

Now they're hearing about a top possibility for the next chess move: Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) was considered for CIA director (and SecDef) during the transition, and is a candidate for CIA again:

• Why he's being considered: Cotton is one of the few senators with an easy relationship with Trump, talking to him a few times a week, giving him advice about top jobs (that Trump has taken), and planting the seed for the Iran policy announced Friday.
• Who he is: Cotton, 40, is a "double Harvard" (undergraduate and law); served in the Army's 101st Airborne, with combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan (Bronze Star); then was a McKinsey & Co. consultant and served a term in the House.
  

Why it matters: MSNBC and conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt — who talks frequently to Cotton on and off the air, and first floated the idea of Cotton for CIA — told me that Pompeo, Cotton, SecDef Mattis and Chief of Staff Kelly would be "a quartet of serious intellectuals and warriors in the 'big four' jobs." And you could add National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster as a fifth.

• Hewitt says both Cotton and Pompeo "like and listen to the president" and "accept his realism in foreign affairs."
• A longtime friend of Cotton, asked if he'd take the CIA job, said: "This guy quit his fancy law firm to serve his country in the wake of 9/11. He does his duty when the country calls."
• Fun fact: Cotton is interesting enough that Jeffrey Toobin has been working on a New Yorker profile, including D.C. interviews and a trip to Cotton's parents' cattle farm in Yell County, Ark.

Be smart: The Tillerson situation doesn't seem tenable to insiders: Pressed by CNN's Jake Tapper yesterday, he again refused to say he hadn't called Trump a moron. Trump treats people like comfort food — he likes advisers he's used to, and vice versa. Pompeo and Cotton fit the bill. 

P.S. Top of the new in-box ... Cyber-arms race with North Korea, per N.Y. Times lead story: "At a recent meeting of American strategists, ... some participants expressed concerns that the escalating cyberwar could actually tempt the North to use its weapons — both nuclear and cyber— very quickly in any conflict, for fear that the United States has secret ways to shut the country down."

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White Supremacists From Charlottesville Chased Away

Charlottesville white nationalist -- via Twitter

White supremacists who attended the violent Charlottesville rally were chased out of a courthouse this week after being found guilty of failure to disperse from the demonstration. Counter-protesters charged Nathan Damigo, Evan McLaren and JonPaul Struys as they left Charlottesville General District Court on October 13, chasing them into a parking garage where the three men…

Undoing Obamacare

President Trump signed an executive order on health care in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Thursday. Doug Mills/The New York Tim

President Trump signed an executive order on health care in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Thursday. Doug Mills/The New York Tim

President Trump signed an executive order on health care in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Thursday. Doug Mills/The New York Tim

President Trump signed an executive order on health care in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Thursday. Doug Mills/The New York Tim

President Trump signed an executive order on health care in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Thursday. Doug Mills/The New York Tim

• In a pair of announcements, President Trump said that subsidies to health insurance companies that help pay out-of-pocket costs of low-income people will be cut, while sales of cheaper policies with fewer benefits and fewer protections for consumers will be permitted. A backlash against Mr. Trump — including from fellow Republicans — was brewing as lawmakers voiced concern over how ending the subsidies would affect their constituents.

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Trump staff in crisis

The biggest threat to the Trump presidency, the markets and our ability to deal with future crises is the coming staff exodus. We cannot stress enough how many essential staff and officials want out — if not this quarter, then soon after the new year:

• Watch for Gary Cohn to bolt after tax reform, which we think slips into Q1 of 2018.
• Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's situation is untenable: We hear he's likely to leave by the new year. Many insiders think U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley will replace him. Then Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell may take Haley's job in New York. Another possible successor in case of a Rexit: CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
• Chief of Staff John Kelly is the one to watch closest. He doesn't get enough credit for the discipline he has enforced inside the White House. He bristles at the boss's loose, erratic ways, though. The average tenure of a COS who likes his job is roughly a year. A weak chief of staff replacing Kelly would be hugely problematic.

Source Axios
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Republican Party in a Free fall

Registered voters are increasingly turning away from the Republican Party and looking to the Democrats to solve America's biggest problems, according to a new poll.

A Suffolk University-USA Today survey released Thursday shows that 62 percent of respondents now have an unfavorable view of the GOP, a 7-point jump in unpopularity for the party since the same poll in June. Just under half, 48 percent, feel the same way about the Democrats.

The poll found that 43 percent of voters look to congressional Democrats to protect families when it comes to health care, compared to 15 percent who trust President Trump on health care and less than 10 percent who say the Republican Party should lead the way.

MORE......

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House LGBT Caucus Denounces Department of Justice “License to Discriminate” Guidance

 The Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus expressed outrage over President Donald Trump's Department of Justice guidance declaring a policy that government agencies, private businesses, and other entities have a right to discriminate against LGBT people.

“This guidance is a clear attack on the rights of LGBT community and may allow federal employees, contractors, grantees and other businesses to deny employment or services to LGBT people,” said LGBT Equality Caucus Executive Director Roddy Flynn. “Though its obvious intent is obscured by flowery language of ‘religious liberty,’ this guidance is as broad as it is menacing.  It portends to give a widespread, state-sanctioned, tax-payer funded license to discriminate to anyone who claims a religious motivation for wanting to discriminate.”

“Yesterday, the Trump Administration falsely argued that civil rights laws do not protect transgender Americans from employment discrimination,” said Flynn.  “Today, they are attempting to undermine every pro-equality law on the books.  Any last vestiges of hope that this President would be any kind of protector or friend to the LGBT community are long gone.”

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Welcome to Rex Tillerson's life. No wonder he doesn't feel very diplomatic

You headed one of America's couple largest companies and the biggest of the energy "supermajors":

• You were unusually imperious, even for a corporate big shot — waited on hand and foot by lackeys who stroked and coddled you for decades.
• You had a corporate dining room, so you never had to see the rabble.
• You presided over one of the most hierarchical of the world's corporate cultures, reflecting the tone set by John D. Rockefeller.
• You flew private all over the globe. You got briefing books, had your own foreign policy, and a security detail.

You were Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon.

Now you're Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State to Donald Trump. Your life blows:

• Your boss doesn't love you, and doesn't even think he needs someone in your job — he likes doing it himself and thinks he should.
• You don't think much of your boss, and neither do your friends.
• You're supposed to cut your budget: always a thankless job — but one that, in this case, may not even be a good idea.
• Morale in your building is terrible, and no one thinks you have juice.
• You treat everyone dismissively — media, colleagues, counterparts — with predictable results.
• Yes, you called your boss a "moron" during a meeting at the Pentagon. It could have been worse.
• You didn't even bother to deny it, although finally, your spokesperson did. Everyone in the West Wing thinks/knows you said it.
• Some people who were in the room tattled to the press. So now you have to go out and say your boss is a genius — as if you were being forced to apologize to a sibling.
• And now you're trapped. The new regime downtown wants stability. Expectations were that you'd be gone by Thanksgiving, but now that's stretched into 2018.
• On top of it all, after a perfect career, your last public act is already an obvious failure — and you have to keep doing it.

Welcome to Rex Tillerson's life. No wonder he doesn't feel very diplomatic.

Source: Axios
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Equality PAC Endorses Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (AZ-Sen.) and Angie Craig (MN-02)

 Equality PAC, the political action committee founded by leaders of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus, announced the endorsement of Rep. Kyrsten Sinema in her campaign to represent Arizona in the U.S. Senate.

"Rep. Sinema has been a champion of equality in the U.S. House, and we need her voice in the Senate to ensure all Americans have equal protection under the law," said Equality PAC Chair Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA).  "All who have served with her have seen Kyrsten work across the aisle and develop common sense solutions for our nation.  Her leadership as a Co-Chair of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus will surely be missed, but our nation will have a safer and more secure future with Kyrsten Sinema in the United States Senate.

Equality PAC to also announced the endorsement of Angie Craig's congressional campaign to represent Minnesota's 2nd Congressional District. 

"Angie Craig is a fighter who will be a champion for working families in Minnesota," said Takano.  "Angie overcame hardship and economic challenges to become a successful business executive.  When anti-equality forces sought to tear her family apart, she fought in court for years to keep her son.  Angie's tireless energy and fighting spirit will make her a leader in Congress against the disastrous Trump agenda."

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Report: Russian Facebook Ads Targeted Michigan, Wisconsin

Facebook ads concocted by Russians reportedly targeted Michigan and Wisconsin during the 2016 election. President Trump unexpectedly—and narrowly—defeated Hillary Clinton in both states. According to CNN, the ads were “highly sophisticated in their targeting of key demographic groups,” and included anti-Muslim themes. Facebook turned over 3,000 Russian propaganda ads to the congressional committees investigating Russian election meddling. Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC) and Mark Warner (D-VA), the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, are holding a press conference to give an update on the investigation.















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The Secret History of Donald Trump: An Indictment of His Business Practices and Creative Accounting

Also see our post:

New Explosive Documentary On Trump Mob Ties and money laundering - Video-Series

David Cay Boyle Johnston (born December 24, 1948) is an American investigative journalist and author, a specialist in economics and tax issues, and winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting. About the book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/161... From 2009 to 2014 he was a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer who taught the tax, property, and regulatory law of the ancient world at Syracuse University College of Law and the Whitman School of Management. From July 2011 until September 2012 he was a columnist for Reuters, writing, and producing video commentaries, on worldwide issues of tax, accounting, economics, public finance and business. Johnston is the board president of Investigative Reporters and Editors. He has also written for Al Jazeera English and America in recent years. Johnston covered "student radicals, black politics and development" at the San Jose Mercury News from 1968 to 1973.[3] Although he "earned enough credits for at least one master’s degree," his formal educational credentials are limited to a "night high school diploma" as he "skipped most general education requirements in favor of upper division and graduate study at seven schools," including San Francisco State University (1972), the University of Chicago (where he studied under a five-month fellowship in 1973) and Michigan State University (1973-1975).[4][3] At Michigan State, he wrote an internal textbook (A Guide to Public Records) for the University's journalism department.[4] From 1973 to 1976, he was an investigative reporter at the Detroit Free Press in its Lansing bureau. In 1976, he joined the Los Angeles Times, where he remained until 1988. Johnston subsequently worked as a reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer from 1988 to 1995. He joined The New York Times in February 1995. As a reporter Johnston investigated Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) political spying and other abuses, the hotelier Barron Hilton, misuse of charitable funds at United Way, news manipulation at WJIM-TV in Lansing, Michigan, and Donald Trump's financial dealings. Johnston has been critical of news media coverage of the 2008 $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. In a letter to American journalist and blogger Jim Romenesko, Johnston wrote, "In covering the proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street don't repeat the failed lapdog practices that so damaged our reputations in the rush to war in Iraq and the adoption of the Patriot Act. Don't assume that Congress must act instantly, as so many news stories state as if it was an immutable fact. Don't assume there is a case just because officials say there is." Johnston has been cited favorably by Glenn Greenwald as well as other bailout critics. Johnston is the author of best-selling books on tax and economic policy. Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With The Bill, is about hidden subsidies, rigged markets, and corporate socialism. It follows his earlier book Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich—and Cheat Everybody Else, a New York Times bestseller[16] on the U.S. tax system that won the Investigative Reporters and Editors 2003 Book of the Year award. Johnston's first book, the 1992 Temples of Chance: How America Inc. Bought Out Murder Inc. to Win Control of the Casino Business is an account of how the junk-bond kings usurped mob control of the casino industry in the 1980s. The book discusses corruption in the industry and the role of the federal and state governments in that corruption. In 2014 Cay Johnston released Divided: The Perils of Our Growing Inequality. Cay Johnston shows most Americans, in inflation-adjusted terms, are now back to the average income of 1966. Post-recession (from 2009 to 2011) the top 1 percent of households took in 121% of the income gains while the bottom 99% saw their income actually fall. In 2016, Johnston released The Making of Donald Trump, a journalistic account of the rise of businessperson-turned-presidential candidate Donald Trump, with Melville House Publishing.[17] At the time he wrote the book, Johnston had known Trump for 28 years. The book soon became a New York Times bestseller. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_C...




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