Tillerson out.

Pompeo replaces Tillerson.

The Trump circus rolls on.  Well, unser Führer did say at the Republican Party rally in Cleveland that he alone could solve our problems.

I hope they don't let people in the White House order the big boxes of business cards... 

Tillerson had to stay in the job for at least a year so that he would not have to pay any capital gains tax on his Exxon stock, which he had to sell. He managed to stay for the year. 

Same with Gary Cohen, who had to sell his Goldman Sachs stock. 

And the Magical Mystery tour continues.............don't like the music on this one

Pompeo has been named  to replace Tillerson.  Interesting take on Pompeo by Jim Cramer on CNBC. Tillerson represented the business community, Pompeo represents the intelligence community. Trump is concerned with theft of intellectual property by China, and Pompeo is better equipped to handle it (although that wasn't the main reason for Tillerson's departure.) 

Larry Kudlow is expected to be named as Gary Cohen's replacement. 

cramer said:

Pompeo has been named  to replace Tillerson.  Interesting take on Pompeo by Jim Cramer on CNBC. Tillerson represented the business community, Pompeo represents the intelligence community. Trump is concerned with theft of intellectual property by China, and Pompeo is better equipped to handle it (although that wasn't the main reason for Tillerson's departure.) 

Larry Kudlow is expected to be named as Gary Cohen's replacement. 

Intellectual property protection is just a fraction of what the DoS has to worry about.  And if Trump is concerned with theft of intellectual property by China, he certainly doesn't show it.  It doesn't garner sound bites the way tariffs on Al and Fe do.

And for Director of the CIA:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gina_Haspel

The baseball season is about to start, so Gary also needs to get back to the SNY broadcast booth.

cramer said:

Tillerson had to stay in the job for at least a year so that he would not have to pay any capital gains tax on his Exxon stock, which he had to sell. He managed to stay for the year. 

Same with Gary Cohen, who had to sell his Goldman Sachs stock. 

cramer said:

Larry Kudlow is expected to be named as Gary Cohen's replacement. 

holy jeebus.  Larry Kudlow is an idiot.  But he's a celebrity, so of course Trump will choose him.  

Doesn't our country at least deserve basic competence from the people who fill these roles?

Unless you really do mean Gary Cohen and not Gary Cohn.  In which case I can live with Kudlow, Keith and Ronnie this summer.

Kudlow has only one answer to any problem - tax cuts.  He carries the torch for Reaganomics.  Trump doesn't have to appoint him, just play a random tape from his radio show.

ml1 said:

cramer said:

Larry Kudlow is expected to be named as Gary Cohen's replacement. 

holy jeebus.  Larry Kudlow is an idiot.  But he's a celebrity, so of course Trump will choose him.  

Doesn't our country at least deserve basic competence from the people who fill these roles?

ml1 said:

The baseball season is about to start, so Gary also needs to get back to the SNY broadcast booth.

cramer said:

Tillerson had to stay in the job for at least a year so that he would not have to pay any capital gains tax on his Exxon stock, which he had to sell. He managed to stay for the year. 

Same with Gary Cohen, who had to sell his Goldman Sachs stock. 

Oops. Cohn.  (My godfather was a Cohen - that's getting into the weeds.)

The presidential definition of “soon” becomes clearer. Trump tweet, 12/1/17:

The media has been speculating that I fired Rex Tillerson or that he would be leaving soon - FAKE NEWS! He’s not leaving and while we disagree on certain subjects, (I call the final shots) we work well together and America is highly respected again!

nice catch

DaveSchmidt said:

The presidential definition of “soon” becomes clearer. Trump tweet, 12/1/17:

The media has been speculating that I fired Rex Tillerson or that he would be leaving soon - FAKE NEWS! He’s not leaving and while we disagree on certain subjects, (I call the final shots) we work well together and America is highly respected again!

LOST said:

And for Director of the CIA:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gina_Haspel

Wow, when this is one of the first things Wikipedia says about you.........

Haspel ran a "black site" CIA prison located in Thailand in 2002.^[5][6] The site was codenamed "Cat’s Eye" and held suspected al Qaeda members Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Abu Zubaydah for a time. The Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture specifies that during their detention at the site they were waterboarded and interrogated using no longer authorized methods.^[7][8] Declassified CIA cables specify that Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in a month, was sleep deprived, kept in a "large box", had his head slammed against a wall and he lost his left eye. Zubaydah was deemed, by the CIA interrogators, to not be in possession of any useful intelligence (Interrogation of Abu Zubaydah).^[9]

I suppose it could be worse.  It could be professional hack and perennial incompetent Stephen Moore.

South_Mountaineer said:

Kudlow has only one answer to any problem - tax cuts.  He carries the torch for Reaganomics.  Trump doesn't have to appoint him, just play a random tape from his radio show.

We have one person making decisions alone at whim. Trump. The only role of any staff is to immediately fall in line and not show any deviation or disagreement. No wonder he clearly has a hard on for Kim Jung Il. Trump would probably like to dispatch those who do not agree with him by anti aircraft gun too. 

ml1 said:

Doesn't our country at least deserve basic competence from the people who fill these roles?

Not when it elected Trump President. Of course Hillary got a lot more votes. 

LOST said:

ml1 said:

Doesn't our country at least deserve basic competence from the people who fill these roles?

Not when it elected Trump President. Of course Hillary got a lot more votes. 

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” — H. L. Mencken

tjohn said:

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” — H. L. Mencken

Mencken came to that conclusion for different reasons, however. His moron was a “right-thinker” who won office because he had no ideas, said nothing offensive, was an unoriginal conformist. Here’s the passage that preceded the quotation above:

In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by the force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

Don't worry, he has at least a dozen other pithy quotes that fit our situation.

tjohn said:

The Trump circus rolls on.  

These port-a-potty fires are hard to put out.

So it kind of looks like he broke up with him on a post it.

Did Rex actually find out on this morning's tweet?

I was told that Tillerson crossed the red line when he publicly agreed with the Brits on Russia's latest state sponsored terrorism.

Our future State Department new leadership will now be more helpful in justifying the dilution of Russian sanctions. Just need to get congress aboard.

As for the CIA torture lady. An insider who with her cohorts knows pretty well the "leanings" of others. I expect those who are not everything on the board with Trump employees, those not constantly cheering Trump, will be further sidelined or motivated to retire.

Visual learner here. I need some kind of a side by side comparison of the players and their Obama era counterparts. The wall behind Rachel Maddow with just the list of names is officially too long to remember and too small to read.

Where's Ross Perot and the pie charts?

And now his Deputy is out!

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/13/politics/goldstein-tillerson-fired/index.html

Next?  McMaster?

cramer said:

Next?  McMaster?

I had my heart set on Trump.

If someone who reported to me called me a moron, I'd fired him too.  Of course, Tillerson was right.  But even that didn't get him fired; it was daring to call out Russia on the poisoning.  Now THAT crossed a line!

Trump said he was going to hire "the best people".  Now that they have all resigned or been fired what are we left with?