TRUMP REGIME

Axio - U.S. government lawyers are clamoring for jobs at corporate law firms "in anticipation of vast cuts to the administrative state under Donald Trump," the Financial Times' Joe Miller reports. Most political appointees leave whenever the White House changes parties. But this time, "the attempted exodus from government is now extending to career civil servants ... [L]awyers expect whole teams to be culled and regulations to be slashed."

Hundreds of employees from the Justice Department, the SEC and the FTC have applied to big law firms, the FT found. One top New York firm has been "deluged" by résumés, including from lawyers with decades of government experience. Keep reading

CNN - Donald Trump has selected billionaire Massad Boulos to serve as his senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs — the second time in as many days the president-elect has chosen a family member for a key post. Boulos is the father-in-law  of the president-elect’s daughter Tiffany and was heavily involved in campaigning for Trump in Muslim American communities in battleground 
states.  

MSNBC - Last month, the House passed a bill that would give the Treasury Department nearly unfettered ability to snatch the tax-exempt status of nonprofits, based on little more than whatever the incumbent administration considers “support” for terrorism. If the Senate passes a version of the bill, this power will soon be in the hands of President-elect Donald Trump, who repeatedly mused on the campaign trail about exacting vengeance on his political opponents. 

On the surface, the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act (H.R. 9495) appears to safeguard the country against groups hostile to American interests. But civil rights and women’s health groups rightfully fear the incoming Trump administration will use it to retaliate against organizations that are critical of its policies. 

Civil rights and women’s health groups rightfully fear the incoming Trump administration will use it to retaliate against organizations that are critical of its policies.

While votes largely fell along party lines, 15 congressional Democrats broke from their party to support the bill, including Reps. Tom Suozzi of New York, Colin Allred of Texas and former DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida. Even more Democrats had initially expressed support for the bill, but withdrew their endorsements after outcry from organizations like the NAACP, AFL-CIO, United Auto Workers and Planned Parenthood sent a letter to Congress voicing strong opposition. Even Amnesty International raised concerns that H.R. 9495 would harm organizations that document human rights abuses globally. 

Newsweek -  Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, who served as national security adviser during President-elect Donald Trump's first term, said on Sunday that some Republicans, including former Representative Tulsi Gabbard, need to "disabuse themselves" of their "strange affection" for Russian President Vladimir Putin. "There's some people in the Republican Party these days which kind of tend to parrot Vladimir Putin's talking points," McMaster said on CBS News' Face the Nation on Sunday, adding that "they've got to disabuse themselves of this strange affection" for the Russian leader. McMaster served as national security adviser for just over a year during Trump's first administration from February 2017 to April 2018. McMaster mentioned Gabbard specifically, who Trump named to be his director of national intelligence (DNI).  

Mother Jones -  What do anti-vaxxers and abortion opponents have in common? They both see an ally in David Weldon, who is now President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The physician and ex-Florida congressman‘s track record includes introducing legislation that would have stripped the CDC of its authority to conduct research on vaccine safety and instead given it to an independent agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. Weldon has also promoted the unfounded theory that vaccines lead to childhood autism—a false claim boosted infamously in the past by Trump’s pick for HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. And on abortion, Weldon is responsible for an eponymous federal law that prohibits HHS from funding any entities that “discriminate” against health care providers, hospitals, or insurance plans who opt out of providing abortion care—which the Trump administration “weaponized” to enact its anti-abortion agenda during his first term, according to the National Women’s Law Center. Weldon introduced the amendment in the House in 2004, and it has been passed as part of the HHS spending bill every year since 2005.