Sputnik — Choice of Tillerson for US Secretary of State Important for Whole World - OPEC

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump’s transition team confirmed his intention to nominate Tillerson, who heads the ExxonMobil oil company, for the post of US secretary of state. 

"There’s no doubt that the choice of Rex Tillerson is a very important one," 
[OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Sanusi] Barkindo said at a forum in Washington, DC. "It’s not only important for the United States, but I think is important for the global community because of what he’s bringing on board as an accomplished oil technocrat who rose to became a very successful CEO for what is probably the world’s largest listed oil and gas company…" Barkindo noted that there is a very thin line between oil, geopolitics and diplomacy, and added he looks forward to continuing to interact with Tillerson in his new role.

"It's about the oil, stupid." Now that it's on the table, we can leave aside all the BS and get down to business.

Sputnik International
Choice of Tillerson for US Secretary of State Important for Whole World - OPEC

McConnell Gives Strong Support for Tillerson as Next Secretary of State

Zero Hedge — The Narrative Changes: Republicans "Pour Cold Water" On Trump's Massive Stimulus, Will Block Tax Cuts

Republican lawmakers warned "that there could be a major obstacle to enacting President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda: the national debt."

“I was disappointed that it wasn’t brought up in the campaign — anybody’s campaign really — it really wasn’t mentioned,” Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said of deficits and debt. “So I’m very concerned about it. It’s going to be tough to address if there’s no push from outside of the Congress,” he added. “I’m very concerned about it. It’s the biggest problem we face, by far.”

“We did not hear anything about entitlement reform from either of the candidates, and that’s a serious issue,” said Michael Sargent, a research associate at The Heritage Foundation. “You cannot address the growth in spending without addressing entitlement issues.”...

As Bloomberg explains, Trump’s race to enact the biggest tax cuts since the 1980s went under a caution flag Monday when during a news conference, "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned he considers current levels of U.S. debt “dangerous” and said he wants any tax overhaul to avoid adding to the deficit."…

“What I hope we will clearly avoid, and I’m confident we will, is a trillion-dollar stimulus,” he said. “Take you back to 2009. We borrowed $1 trillion and nobody could find that it did much of anything. So we need to do this carefully and correctly and the issue of how to pay for it needs to be dealt with responsibly.”

Then there is the debt limit, which will need to rise next year to avoid defaulting on government obligations; McConnell said he wasn’t sure if that would be paired with any deficit-reduction measures next year as it was in 2011, when Republicans held the debt limit hostage and extracted more than $2 trillion in deficit cuts over a decade from President Barack Obama.

House Speaker Paul Ryan has also said he wants tax changes to be deficit-neutral, indicating that Republicans will assume positive macroeconomic benefits from tax cuts to ease the projected budgetary hit - a process known as dynamic scoring that is popular on the right.…

Finally, even if all the changes are implemented immediately, and the GOP rolls over, virtually none of Trump's stimulus package will generate any impact on the economy until some time in 2018 as Goldman calculated last week.…

Trumponimics DOA?

Zero Hedge
The Narrative Changes: Republicans "Pour Cold Water" On Trump's Massive Stimulus, Will Block Tax Cuts
Tyler Durden

Reuters — Senate Republicans vow to preemptively block any Supreme Court nominee from Obama

Chairman Chuck Grassley and the rest of the committee’s Republicans sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saying they will not hold hearings on a nominee to replace conservative Justice Antonin Scalia until the next president takes office in January. Scalia died on Feb. 13.

McConnell afterward said the Republican-led Senate, which must confirm any nominee, will refuse to consider any Obama selection to replace Scalia. McConnell said he was not inclined even to meet with whomever Obama picks.…

Raw Story
Senate Republicans vow to preemptively block any Supreme Court nominee from Obama
Reuters

The GOP powers that be have handed President Obama and the Democrats an opportunity to turn this on them politically. It's a move to harden the base, but the Democrats will use it to nudge the center toward them.

Unfortunately, the courts have become hopelessly politicized and the Constitution should be amended to reflect this by limited terms for judges and justices who should stand periodically in elections like other political officials.

See also

McConnell's desire to preempt any Obama nominee is motivated by the fear that, when confronted by a nominee, his GOP colleagues will confront a Catch-22 in which, regardless of what they say or do, the GOP's prospects for maintaining control of the Senate in 2017 will be worsened.

VOX
The game theory behind Mitch McConnell's Supreme Court strategy
John Patty and Tom Clark

Here was my prediction on the debt ceiling back in November. Let's see what happens.

Back on November 7th of last year, right after the midterm elections, I made the prediction that the Republicans won't raise the debt ceiling. Rather, they'd come up with some cockamamie scheme to "deal" with it with spending cuts.

So, here's what I said will happen.

My podcast for Monday, March 9

Here's today's podcast. McConnell, GOP, debt ceiling, stocks, economy.

Jay Riestenberg — Seven Disturbing Quotes From the Koch Summit Speeches

Today, The Nation and The Huffington Post published speeches from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and three other GOP Senate candidates, Rep. Tom Cotton (AR), state Sen. Joni Ernst (IA), and Rep. Cory Gardner (CO), at a secretive donor summit hosted in June by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch.

The candidates make the case for overturning Citizens United and getting big money out of politics better than we ever could.

Truthout | Op-Ed

Seven Disturbing Quotes From the Koch Summit Speeches

Jay Riestenberg, Common Cause

The Huffington Post — Hot Mic Catches Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell Discussing Their Actual Government Shutdown Concerns —

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) were caught on a hot mic Wednesday discussing talking-points for the shutdown by local news station WPSD 6.

"I just did CNN and I just go over and over again 'We're willing to compromise. We're willing to negotiate.' I think... I don't think they poll tested we won't negotiate. I think it's awful for [Democrats] to say that over and over again," Paul said.

"Yeah, I do too and I, and I just came back from that two hour meeting with them and that, and that was basically the same view privately as it was publicly," McConnell agreed.

Paul added, "I think if we keep saying, 'We wanted to defund it. We fought for that and that we're willing to compromise on this', I think they can't, we're gonna, I think... well, I know we don't want to be here, but we're gonna win this, I think."

The Huffington Post

Hot Mic Catches Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell Discussing Their Actual Government Shutdown Concerns