PrairiePundit

Texas Monthly: Rex Tillerson, who was recently dismissed as President Donald Trump’s secretary of state, is being courted for a new gig closer to home: the top job at the University of Texas System. The Wall Street Journal is reporting, and Texas Monthly has confirmed, that representatives from the University of Texas Board of Regents have approached Tillerson about replacing William McRaven, the retired admiral and current UT chancellor who is leaving in May. Although no formal offer has yet been made, a source close to the search said that there is “heavy interest” in Tillerson, a 1975 graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. “Rex is a solid citizen, very ethical, straightforward, and straight talking,” says Charles Matthews, former general counsel for ExxonMobil and longtime friend of Tillerson’s. “He brings great integrity to whatever he does, and if he were chosen he would be a very, very solid choice.” Tillerson, whose official last day as secretary of state is Marc...

NY Times: U.S. Diplomats, Pushed Out in Droves, Sound the Alarm A State Department exodus marks a new stage in the broken and increasingly contentious relationship between Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and much of his work force. Mr. Tillerson has frozen most hiring and recently offered a buyout in hopes of pushing nearly 2,000 career diplomats and civil servants to leave by October 2018. One of the needed transformations is removing those responsible for Obama's bad foreign policy.  I suspect that those still loyal to Clinton and Kerry would be immediate targets for buyouts.  Anyone who supported the terrible deal with Iran should find another job.   The globalists are probably also not team players on the President's "America First" agenda. While I am not necessarily tied to the America First agenda, the US State Department has been stocked with too many liberals for too long.

Washington Examiner: Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson's reputed friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin is "a completely false narrative" that shouldn't hurt his nomination, according to former Defense Secretary Robert Gates. "I think it's a mistake to think that because Rex Tillerson successfully did business in Russia that he's best friends with Vladimir Putin," Gates told PBS' Charlie Rose on Thursday. "I think that's just a completely false narrative." Gates, who served under President Obama and George W. Bush and is now a partner in a consulting firm that advises ExxonMobil, first recommended Tillerson for the Cabinet position after President-elect Trump failed to settle on a secretary of state nominee. The Exxon Mobil consultant argued that his client's history of negotiating international energy deals and his history with the Boy Scouts of America would render him a tough and capable defender of American inter...