Slate claims the tension between a president and his secretary of state has never been this bad.

Slate

"President Trump is (reportedly) very angry that his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (reportedly) called him a “f***ing moron.” Now Trump is reportedly weighing whether to replace Tillerson—mere days after undercutting him via pointlessly aggressive tweets about North Korea. Has the relationship between a president and his chief diplomat ever fallen so far, let alone so fast?

ISAAC CHOTINER

Isaac Chotiner is a Slate staff writer.

"To discuss Tillerson’s bizarre tenure, and much else, I spoke by phone recently with Aaron David Miller, the Middle East program director at the Wilson Center who served in the State Department for 25 years and advised secretaries of state of both parties. During the course of our conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, we discussed Tillerson’s mistakes at the State Department, why it’s so disturbing when a president and secretary of state don’t get along, and why Trump will never allow an effective person to run the department.

"Isaac Chotiner: Have you ever seen an equivalent to the Trump-Tillerson relationship among presidents and their secretaries of state?

"Aaron David Miller: No. I worked for half a dozen—Shultz to Powell—and for one of my books I interviewed every living secretary of state, including Alexander Haig. There is no precedent either for this kind of public tension, and no precedent for a secretary feeling compelled to respond to press reports the way Secretary Tillerson did the other day. And there is no precedent for open talk of resignation by a secretary of state, at least in the modern period. That also sets this whole episode apart." . . .

Giving 'Harvey Wallbangers' a whole new meaning

Earl of Taint

 Silvio Canto, Jr. Back in 1982, the Milwaukee Brewers won the A.L. pennant and lost a tough seven-game series to St. Louis.  The Brewers were known for home runs and scoring lots of runs.  They were popularly known as "Harvey's Wallbangers," after a popular mixed drink of the time.

This week, we learned about another Harvey doing a lot of scoring.  He also allegedly "Paid Off Sexual Harassment Cases for Years," according to the New York Times.  By the way, aren't these the same Hollywood characters who brought down Bill O'Reilly for probably doing a lot less?

We are talking about the story of Harvey Weinstein, or the same guy who donated to Mr. and Mrs. Clinton's campaigns, Democrats, and President Obama.

This is from Chris Cillizza:

The initial response from Democratic politicians is to distance themselves from Weinstein by returning donations from him. 

In the wake of Thursday's story, Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts all signaled they will be sending back Weinstein's money or directing it to a charitable cause.

You can expect lots and lots more Democratic politicians and organizations – Weinstein gave heavily to the Democratic National Committee, among others – to follow the lead of that quartet of senators.

And it's hard to see how Obama and the Clintons – Weinstein is a long time pal of Bill and Hillary – can avoid putting out statements condemning him for his behavior. . . . 

Trump: Tillerson could be 'a little bit tougher'

Politico  "President Donald Trump on Saturday said he'd like Secretary of State Rex Tillerson "to be a little bit tougher" at times but insisted the two have a solid relationship. 

"The comments, delivered to reporters as he headed to a fundraiser Saturday, come after Tillerson held an impromptu news conference earlier this week to rebut an NBC report that he was on the verge of resigning over the summer and that he had called Trump a "moron." 

"He did not explicitly deny having used the "moron" term, though a State Department spokeswoman later said he does not use that type of language. 

"Trump on Saturday said he and Tillerson have had some disagreements at times but that they have "a very good relationship." 

"He added, however, that "sometimes I'd like him to be a little bit tougher." 

"The tension between the two men comes at a fraught time, as the U.S. tries to counter North Korea's growing nuclear powers and as Trump considers decertifying the Iran nuclear deal. 

"In his comments on Saturday, Trump also extended praise to his chief of staff, John Kelly, who has also reportedly been frustrated at times with his role.

"The president predicted that Kelly would be in his administration for the "entire remaining seven years" and said he is doing "an incredible job."

Why Is the Mainstream Media Suddenly Interested in Executive Branch Travel Costs?

Happy to defend the Obama admin’s outrageous expenses, they now attack the Trump admin

. . . "The leftist media has set up a rubric of which Saul Alinsky would be proud: we’ll do what we like, but you, you we’ll hold to your own standards. We are seeing this in spades right now as the leftist media runs wild with the travel costs of Trump administration officials.

"They are pointing out that Price and others are misusing their position to waste taxpayer dollars on military or private travel that cannot be justified.  While they are quite right to point this out, they are also revealing their extreme political bias by daring the right to defend government’s fiscal irresponsibility.

"Where was all this outrage when then-president Obama and wife Michelle took separate planes, replete with Secret Service details, to the same destination on the same day?

"This happened a lot, yet we heard next to nothing from the leftist media.

"While not an exhaustive list, same day separate flights for the Obamas include:

• Hey, let’s hit LA.  On separate planes, on the same day . . . at enormous taxpayer expense.
• How about heading to California?  On separate planes on the same day . . . at enormous taxpayer expense.
• And then there’s Hawaii, what president doesn’t need two separate planes (one for himself and one for his wife and the family dog) replete with top Secret Service protection to go to Hawaii for the holidays?
• What about Michelle Obama’s outlandishly expensive trip to Africa, with hairdresser and makeup artist in tow?
• But it wasn’t just the Obamas’ travel (and lavish entertainment) at our expense that was ignored by the now suddenly and rabidly fiscal hawk media.  They also ignored the same sort of travel by Obama admin officials that Price briefly enjoyed.
• Obama officials frequently took pricey non-commercial flights . . . to wherever, for whatever. . . .

 Obamas take shopping trip to New York  "President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama landed in New York Saturday afternoon, and after taking a helicopter from JFK into Manhattan, drove up the West Side Highway, where the northbound lanes were shut down by police for their visit, past Ground Zero, into the Village for dinner at the Village's Blue Hill restaurant. From there, they went north to Times Square, where they went to to see a production of "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" at the Belasco Theater on West 44 Street." . . .

None of your business  . . . "There was, of course, an ironic element of the trip. In February, Obama scolded corporate executives (while also costing Las Vegas some $130 million) when he said: “You can’t get corporate jets. You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas, or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers’ dime.”

Dr. Seuss museum mural to be replaced amid claims of a racist depiction

Fox News, among many others.

Below:  "Children listen to tennis star Serena Williams read Dr. Seuss books to children during "Read Across America Day" to commemorate the 50th birthday of the "Cat In The Hat" character at the New York Public Library in New York, March 2, 2007. Recently, the Dr. Seuss museum in Massachusetts agreed to remove a mural after complaints of racism."

. . . "The mural, located in the author’s hometown of Springfield, features illustrations from the author's first children's book, "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street."

"Three children's authors declined an invitation to the museum's inaugural Children's Literature Festival, which was set for Oct. 14 before being canceled. After the museum offered to take down the mural, the authors said they would attend, but the museum has not said if the festival is back on.

"Authors Mo Willems, Mike Curato and Lisa Yee signed a letter and posted it to social media explaining why they take issue with the mural's depiction.

" 'We recently learned that a key component of this institution honoring Dr. Seuss features a mural depicting a scene from his first book, 'And to Think That I Saw It on Mullberry Street,' and within the selected art is a jarring racial stereotype of a Chinese man, who is depicted with chopsticks, a pointed hat and slanted slit eyes," the complaint reads. "We find this caricature of 'the Chinaman' deeply hurtful, and we have concerns about children's exposure to it.' "  . . .

Harvey Weinstein and the Death of 'Feminism'

Roger L. Simon

"You don't need the Harvey Weinstein scandal to know that Hollywood is the world's capital of do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do hypocrisy.  You only need to be breathing.

"From jetting the globe more frequently in private planes than most people go to the supermarket while inveighing against global warming to living in thirty million dollar homes and sending your kids to posh private schools while assailing school choice for the masses to, yes, making movies about sexual assault while assaulting females for decades in the privacy of their offices and swank hotel rooms, Hollywood has done it all!

"And indeed it has been this way for decades and everybody who lives and works here knows it.  The casting couch never went away.  It just moved off the studio lot, for the most part, and went underground, sort of.

"Anyone who takes seriously anything said about politics by Hollywood types -- and that includes those tedious and increasingly unfunny individuals known as late-night talk show hosts -- ought to have his/her proverbial head examined." . . .

10 Noteworthy Twitter Reactions to the Harvey Weinstein Sexual Harassment Bombshell

"Where is Feminist Hillary Clinton's Condemnation of Creep Harvey Weinstein?"  . . . "She's silent, just as she was when Bill Clinton was accused of doing the same thing. After all, it's the politically expedient thing to do. 

Harvey Weinstein’s Money Shouldn’t Buy Democrats’ Silence  . . . "Among his biggest beneficiaries are President Barack Obama, whose daughter was an intern with Mr. Weinstein’s company this year. At a career workshop for high schoolers at the White House, where Mr. Weinstein was a guest several times, Michelle Obama called him “a wonderful human being . . ."

NY Daily News

Weinstein, Las Vegas and the venality of the left  "Is there anything that more elegantly epitomizes the obscene hypocrisy of the Democrat elites  -- and their slavish servility to the Hollywood left and its money -- than their unconditional worship of sexual predator Harvey Weinstein?  If all reports are true, his depravity has been a known fact for decades.  Still, Democrats like the Clintons, Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, and a host of others gladly took hundreds of thousands of dollars of his money and kept their mouths shut.  These supposed champions of women are nothing but sanctimonious frauds." . . .

. . . "Trump won because a majority of people in between the coasts are sick to death of these self-appointed betters assuming for themselves a different set of rules, a different, more permissive lifestyle, than they decree the rest of us must live by." . . . "This bunch is a blight upon American culture, academia and politics.  They must be defeated."

Late Night Hosts Who Savaged Trump and O'Reilly Were Silent on Harvey Weinstein As Scandal Exploded

Charlie Spiering notes that Weinstein was a frequent visitor to Obama:

'They're coming out with their hands up – full scale surrender': US General says ISIS fighters in Iraq are giving up after not being fed or paid

UK Daily Mail  . . .  "ISIS' fierce reputation rested partly on the willingness of hardcore militants to fight to the last man, and the militants rarely surrendered.

"But many of the fanatical foreign fighters who initially provided the leadership have been killed and those remaining on the battlefield are conscripts, who often lack the will to fight." . . .

. . . "'They're coming out with their hands up, putting their weapons down – full scale surrender,' Funk said. 'It's a growing trend.'

"'What we are hearing (from those who surrendered) is, 'Our leaders have abandoned us, we haven't been fed, we haven't been paid,' Funk said.

"Last week ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi released an audio exhorting his fighters to continue the battle. 'I don't think he's having much of an effect,' Funk said. The day after the audio was released, several hundred fighters surrendered.

"Fighters who surrendered or are captured are held by Iraqi or Kurdish forces.

"ISIS swept into Iraq from Syria in 2014, capturing large swaths of territory. From a mosque in Mosul, al-Baghdadi announced the establishment of the group's so-called caliphate.

"Today, as few as 3,000 militants might remain in Iraq in Syria, down from estimates up to 30,000, though officials caution that the numbers aren't a good measure of the group's strength." . . .

Hollywood Reporter: Weinstein Sure Puts The Obamas, Clintons In A Pickle, Eh?

Speaking of which, when will Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama step up and denounce their bundler and benefactor? The silence thus far is deafening.

Hot Air

. . . "Give the Hollywood Reporter credit for laying this at the feet of the people who most benefit from Hollywood’s political activism, and the crony relationship the Clintons and Obama enjoy with industry leaders. With the New York Times blowing the lid off of Weinstein’s track record, now people have come forward to call his behavior an “open secret” in Hollywood. If so, it’s tough to believe that the Clintons were never warned about it or found evidence for it in their dealings with Weinstein over the last 25 years. (One clear indication that Obama didn’t know: he allowed his daughter Malia to intern with Weinstein.)

"While we’re giving THR credit, let’s note that not everyone in the entertainment industry showed the same testicular fortitude. Grabien surveyed last night’s talk shows and came up empty for Weinstein references, save one:

One might think that after one of the biggest names in Hollywood — someone whose made a name for himself working alongside progressive and feminist causes — was shockingly revealed as having covered up decades of sexual abuse, America’s late-night hosts would have a field day.

Instead, Jimmy Fallon, Trevor Noah, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, and Stephen Colbert came up … dry.

The only mention of Harvey Weinstein on all of the late-night shows combined came on “The Daily Show,” during a segment on Cam Newton. The “joke,” featured above, was literally nothing more than Noah pretending to be Cam Newton and saying to reporters at a press conference “Look, Harvey Weinstein!”

How Leftism Can Ruin a Once-Proud School District (UPDATED)

In education-speak, this means that Edina children will now be instructed that their personal, cultural “identity” is irrevocably tied to their skin color. This directly rejects the colorblind vision that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. pioneered, and that the vast majority of Americans share.

Power Line

"Edina is one of the Twin Cities’ wealthiest suburbs. For decades, its public schools have been viewed as among the nation’s finest. But no longer: a leftist political agenda now dominates the Edina school system, and quality of instruction has slipped badly. Edina is not alone. What has happened there is going on in public schools across the country. Edina’s experience should be a warning to all of us.

"Kathy Kersten is a Senior Fellow at Center of the American Experiment, the organization I run. Her column in today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune is titled “Racial identity policies are ruining Edina’s fabled schools.” The column is drawn from Kathy’s much longer article in the current issue of Thinking Minnesota, the Center’s quarterly magazine, but it also includes some new material.

"Kathy’s Star Tribune article describes the obsessions with race and liberal politics that pervade the Edina public school system. A few excerpts:

The “All for All” plan mandates sweeping change to how education is delivered in Edina. For example, it dictates that, from now on, the district will hire “racially conscious teachers and administrators.” It also declares that students must “acquire an awareness of their own cultural identity and value racial, cultural and ethnic diversities.” . . .

UPDATE: FBI Warns Of More Violence From ‘Black Identity Extremist’ Groups  . . . "The Bureau cited examples like Micah Johnson, the black man who opened fired on Dallas Police officers last July. Johnson reportedly expressed a desire to kill “white police officers” out of anger over police brutality against black Americans. The FBI believes that Johnson’s actions were influenced over anger from the BIE movement, the report said." . . .

Stop the Leftist Hate!

The Old Jarhead

Trump vs TV ...um, suits

Oh, boy. It's really going to start now.

Trump wages war on 'unfunny' late night hosts who he says are conspiring with Democrats to constantly make fun of him - and is immediately mocked by Seth Myers

The Hill
. . . "Trump’s tweets came about an hour after Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” aired a segment accusing late night comedians like Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel of “[taking] a hard turn to the left.”

"In recent weeks Kimmel has delivered emotional monologues against the Graham-Cassidy bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare as well as lawmakers’ responses to the mass shooting at a Las Vegas music festival.

Kimmel became the public face of opposition against the Graham-Cassidy bill after he slammed Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) for failing his own “Jimmy Kimmel test” for healthcare bills.

"Cassidy said the "Jimmy Kimmel test" meant he would only support a bill that would make sure that a child like Kimmel’s, who was born with congenital heart disease, would not lack affordable health coverage." 

Sec Interior, James Watt; Yasser Arafat of the PLO;