Free Republic

Exxon Mobil Corp. Chief Executive Rex Tillerson has emerged as the leading candidate to become President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of state, according to two transition officials, marking the latest twist in a multiweek search for a top diplomat. Mr. Tillerson moved ahead of other candidates, including 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who have had multiple conversations with Mr. Trump about the job. Mr. Tillerson is viewed by some of Mr. Trump’s advisers as a mold-breaking pick who would bring an executive’s experience to the diplomatic role, said a person involved in the process. Messrs. Trump and Tillerson...

From Facebook, from someone I trust: "Senator John Thune just confirmed on Fox News that Republicans will stick with the nuclear option, instituted by Reid and the Democrats to get their more controversial appointments through. In other words, there will be very little chance any of Trump's cabinet appointments can be stopped."

Full Title: John Kelly, Trump’s Homeland Security pick, gave a remarkable speech 4 days after his son died serving in Afghanistan On Veterans Day in 2010, inside an unremarkable hotel ballroom in St. Louis, Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, delivered what the Washington Post described as “a passionate and at times angry speech about the military’s sacrifices and its troops’ growing sense of isolation from society.” That he was able to speak at all was remarkable. Four days earlier, Kelly’s 29-year-old son, Marine 1st Lt. Robert Michael Kelly, stepped on a land mine while leading a patrol in southern Afghanistan....

BREAKING: Trump to interview former Ford CEO Alan Mulally for secretary of state

President-elect Donald J. Trump is expected to name as his Labor Secretary fast food executive Andy Puzder, who stands diametrically opposed to Trump’s signature issues on trade and immigration — which won him the election. Puzder is the chief executive of CKE Restaurants, which includes Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s. Advocates for American wage-earners say that Puzder as Secretary of Labor is alarming because he will be in charge of enacting policies that directly impact American workers, whom Puzder believes are “unwilling” to do certain jobs. Puzder has suggested that available U.S. jobs should instead be filled by imported foreign labor....

Per Stuart Varney on Fox Business. Will add links when it hits the news.

Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison is speaking out about Donald Trump’s cabinet selections. Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus say the president-elect’s picks are more committed to serving his brand and their own wallets than they are to serving the American people. According to the caucus, many of Trump’s appointments have attempted to destroy the agencies they are now expected to lead. “We are disturbed by not just one pick here or one pick there, but the sum total of all represent a very disturbing trend,” Ellison said. The 5th District congressman is leading the charge against Trump’s cabinet picks while...

A surprising result in light of Bloomberg’s poll yesterday showing Trump’s favorable rating climbing to 50/43. Pew’s numbers are very, very different: They have his rating at a dismal 37/58, which is hard to believe after his big Carrier win. Of the last three presidents before him, none took office with favorability lower than 60 percent. That was Dubya, coming off his loss of the national popular vote and the controversial Supreme Court decision on the Florida recount.There’s buzz among political nerds on social media this afternoon specifically for the poor ratings his transition has received, with just 41...

By the end of the campaign, they had fought together in places like Nasiriyah, Al Kut, and eventually Baghdad. The division they were in — along with the US Army and UK armored elements — carried out one of the most aggressive, high-speed attacks in history, and 1st Marine Division's ground march was the longest in the history of the Marine Corps, for which it earned the Presidential Unit Citation.

As reported in Frontrunning, President-elect Donald Trump will nominate Iowa Governor Terry Branstad as the next U.S. ambassador to China, choosing a longstanding friend of Beijing after rattling the world's second-largest economy by speaking to Taiwan's president. Earlier in Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang called Branstad an "old friend" of China when asked about a report on the appointment, although he added Beijing would work with any U.S. ambassador.The appointment of Branstad will likely ease trade tensions between the two countries, the world's two biggest agricultural producers, diplomats and trade experts said according to Reuters. It also suggests...

Rex Tillerson, Exxon Mobile’s XOM 0.51% CEO, is in the running for a new job: Donald Trump’s Secretary of State. The Wall Street Journal, citing an unnamed transition adviser, reports that the energy executive is set to set to meet with Trump for an interview this week. Tillerson’s interview comes after Trump aides said the President-elect had settled on four finalists. But Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said Sunday that “there’s not a finite list of candidates,” adding that there’s “more than four.” Most notably, Trump is considering 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and former New York City Mayor Rudy...

That’ll be … difficult to do since they can’t control which nominations reach the floor and foolishly farted away their power to filibuster nominees three years ago.The left is anxious, though, and wants to see some fight in their team so Schumer and his caucus are stuck with slowdown tactics. “They’ve been rewarded for stealing a Supreme Court justice. We’re going to help them confirm their nominees, many of whom are disqualified?” fumed Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). “It’s not obstruction, it’s not partisan, it’s just a duty to find out what they’d do in these jobs.”…Democrats could conceivably force...

Many critical issues tied to fundamental bureaucratic reform and redirection of federal policies await the Trump/Pence cabinet. But one cabinet pick, often forgotten and vital to redirecting national policy at a time of crisis, is the so-called “Drug Czar.” Formally, this post is known as the White House Director of the Office of National Drug Control (ONDCP). This position has never been more important, nor has any president been better positioned to shape the future with such an appointment. Opiate addiction has skyrocketed, leading to a breathtaking loss of 47,055 lives last year. Deaths by synthetic drugs quintupled in some...

AP: Huntsman among secretary of State possibilities © Getty President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly open to expanding his short list of candidates for secretary of State to include former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman. Huntsman was one of the possibilities reported by The Associated Press on Saturday night, citing a source close to the Trump transition. Huntsman, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, previously served as ambassador to China and speaks Mandarin.

When Donald Trump was elected president three weeks ago, many Democrats -- and even some Republicans -- openly fretted about whom he would pick to be in his Cabinet. Would he appoint only loyalists who affirmed his views? People with zero experience? People no one had ever heard of? With the announcement Thursday of Gen. James Mattis as his pick for secretary of defense, Trump continues to demonstrate that those early worries were way off base. In fact, Trump's Cabinet choices -- and some of his potential choices -- reflect a political savviness that many people haven't been willing to...

Most building contractors have a goal of finishing their projects in the time specified, with the money budgeted. The closer you get to doing both, the more profitable and the more successful your company will be. The sad truth is, most building companies have a hard time hitting those two very important goals. Why? Because it's extremely difficult. Most construction projects have complexity that is hard to comprehend; the efforts of scheduling, price change, human error, and the cycles it takes to be on time and under budget are mind-boggling. It's not normal for construction companies of all sizes to...

Limp-fisted Democratic Party opponents have not done it. Term limits he himself championed when first elected to Congress in 1988 have not done it. (He has been reelected every two years since.) And too-close associations with slimeballs like Mike Carona, Dave Garofalo, Jack Abramoff, Jeffrey Ray Nielsen, Joseph Medawar and even his felony fraudster wife Rhonda have not done it. No, the only way the Orange County congressional delegation is finally going to rid itself of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Havana) is if Donald Trump nominates him for Secretary of State. Years ago, working at a daily newspaper, it was revealed...

WELCOME TO THE TRUMP FAMILY TRAIN We are in the fourth week since the election until the Inauguration The first THANK YOU rally last night in Cinti revealed another packed house of enthusiastic Americans supporting Donald J. Trump as he reviewed the election, shared more of his vision and made on appointment announcement (that is a secret) of Mad Dog Mattis. We are all anticipating this week will reveal the new SOS plus other key announcements.

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen retired Marine Gen. James N. Mattis to be secretary of defense, nominating a former senior military officer who led operations across the Middle East to run the Pentagon less than four years after he hung up his uniform, according to people familiar with the decision.

Senate Democrats are making it clear that Sen. Jeff Sessions will not have an easy time being confirmed as President-elect Donald J. Trump’s first attorney general. In a letter addressed to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Democrats on the committee pushed for extensive confirmation hearings, indicating that they plan resistance, despite the fact that they referred to him as “a colleague” with whom they “have a personal and cordial relationship.” The senators also requested that Grassley allow for outside witnesses to testify on Sessions’ track record on immigration, civil and voting rights, women’s rights, and government oversight due...