Trump shake-up takes down Tillerson
March 14, 2018 by admin
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President TrumpDonald John TrumpAccuser says Trump should be afraid of the truth Woman behind pro-Trump Facebook page denies being influenced by Russians Shulkin says he has White House approval to root out ‘subversion’ at VA MORE fired Secretary of State Rex TillersonRex Wayne TillersonFormer WH adviser: Trump will want to rejoin Paris climate pact by 2020 Why the US should lead on protecting Rohingya Muslims ‘Bolivarian Diaspora’ can no longer be ignored MORE on Tuesday in what many at the White House believe could be the first of a new round of high-profile changes within the administration.
White House officials were not sorry to see Tillerson go, viewing him as an ineffective leader who was rarely on the same page as Trump.
In a sign of the bitterness between the White House and Tillerson’s circle, officials joked about fighting for the right to fire one of Tillerson’s top spokesmen, Steven Goldstein, who had issued a statement that differed from the White House account of the secretary’s exit.
Tillerson did not thank the president in his farewell speech and barely mentioned him, underscoring the bad blood.
In his own remarks, Trump said he and Tillerson were never on the same “wavelength” while heaping praise on CIA Director Mike PompeoMichael (Mike) Richard PompeoThe CIA may need to call White House to clarify Russia meddling Intel agencies to brief officials from all 50 states on election threats Russia probe complicating House hearing on threats facing US: report MORE, whom he nominated as the next secretary of State.
Trump signaled that more changes could be on the way.
“I’m really at a point where we’re getting very close to having the Cabinet and other things that I want,” he said.
Veterans Affairs Secretary David ShulkinDavid Jonathon ShulkinShulkin says he has White House approval to root out ‘subversion’ at VA Overnight Energy: Dems ask Pruitt to justify first-class travel | Obama EPA chief says reg rollback won’t stand | Ex-adviser expects Trump to eventually rejoin Paris accord Overnight Defense: First Gitmo transfer under Trump could happen ‘soon’ | White House says Trump has confidence in VA chief | Russia concedes ‘dozens’ of civilians injured in Syria clash MORE could be next on the chopping block. Shulkin has been badly hobbled by an inspector general report that found he misused taxpayer money for lavish vacations. Shulkin has also been clashing with Trump political appointees on his own staff. The New York Times reported on Tuesday evening that Shulkin could be replaced by Energy Secretary Rick PerryJames (Rick) Richard PerryTrump, Pence to address CPAC this week Overnight Energy: EPA penalties for polluters cut in half under Trump | Court orders regulators to implement Obama efficiency rules | Sully weighs in on Pruitt’s first-class travel Energy Department to invest .5M in projects aiming to improve the performance of coal MORE.
National security adviser H.R. McMaster has been on thin ice for some time. Like Tillerson, he has never clicked with the president.
Trump has long expressed his frustration with Attorney General Jeff SessionsJefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsUnder pressure, Trump shifts blame for Russia intrusion Overnight Tech: Judge blocks ATT request for DOJ communications | Facebook VP apologizes for tweets about Mueller probe | Tech wants Treasury to fight EU tax proposal Overnight Regulation: Trump to take steps to ban bump stocks | Trump eases rules on insurance sold outside of ObamaCare | FCC to officially rescind net neutrality Thursday | Obama EPA chief: Reg rollback won’t stand MORE, blaming him for Robert MuellerRobert Swan MuellerSasse: US should applaud choice of Mueller to lead Russia probe MORE’s special counsel investigation and fuming that he has not done enough to investigate Democrats.
And chief of staff John KellyJohn Francis KellyMORE, once viewed as untouchable, has been under fire for his defense of a senior aide who resigned after being accused of domestic abuse by both of his ex-wives. The president is also believed to be frustrated by the narrative in the press that Kelly acts as his minder.
Trump has developed a reputation for venting against those who displease him, allowing them to twist in the wind with their futures in doubt rather than firing them outright.
But some in Trump’s inner circle think the president could use the momentum from Tillerson’s ouster for a purge.
“He needs to spend every day this week cleaning house so that the public and the press are so overwhelmed by the changes that there’s not enough time to absorb them all,” said one top Republican with deep ties to the administration. “That way, three weeks from now, it’s over, the Band-Aid is off and we’re back to focusing on the agenda.”
While the Tillerson news was cheered at the White House, the seemingly constant state of upheaval and turnover in the West Wing has been demoralizing to staff.
On Tuesday, the White House was reeling from the loss of John McEntee, Trump’s personal assistant, who was well-liked in the West Wing and close with the president. McEntee appears to be the latest casualty of Kelly’s enforcement of the security clearances process.
Other recent departures include communications director Hope HicksHope Charlotte HicksJohn Kelly — like this whole White House — is done Mueller interviews former Trump legal spokesman: report Liberals undermine #MeToo with partisan attacks MORE, staff secretary Rob Porter, senior adviser Jared KushnerJared Corey KushnerKushner resisting giving up top access amid scrutiny over security clearances: report Kelly says he has ‘full confidence’ in Kushner on foreign policy White House: Security clearance review won’t affect Kushner MORE’s spokesman Josh Raffel and Kushner’s longtime family friend Reed Cordish. Those departures have left the White House with big shoes to fill in key roles.
“It’s one thing when it’s expected, no one will shed a tear over Tillerson,” said one GOP operative with close ties to the White House. “But when it’s unexpected, like with McEntee — the punch that hurts the most is the one you don’t see coming. That’s the kind of thing that shakes people to their core.”
The Hill asked a White House official on Tuesday what other changes were ahead, considering it is still so early in the week.
“I know, it feels like Friday,” the official said.
While Tillerson’s surprise ouster came as good news to the president’s allies, the sudden announcement and ensuing back and forth with the State Department had a whiff of chaos to it.
Trump announced over Twitter that Tillerson would be replaced by Pompeo moments after The Washington Post reported it.
“Rex and I have been talking about this for a long time,” Trump told reporters.
But Goldstein, the State Department spokesman, blasted out an email to reporters saying the move had come as a surprise to Tillerson.
The White House promptly fired Goldstein and scrambled to produce its own version of events.
Officials said Kelly called Tillerson twice between Friday and Sunday to tell him that he would be replaced upon his return from Africa.
“They wanted to let him know once the decision had been made, but waited until he got back to make an announcement,” an administration official said.
Speaker Paul RyanPaul Davis RyanRepublicans are avoiding gun talks as election looms The Hill’s 12:30 Report Flake to try to force vote on DACA stopgap plan MORE (R-Wis.) was informed of the decision on Monday during a conference call with Trump and Kelly.
That message did not trickle down to staff at State, sources tell The Hill, as Tillerson’s chief of staff Margaret Peterlin was pushing to hire new personnel on a conference call with White House officials as recently as Monday, apparently unaware that her boss had effectively been relieved of his duties.
Still, State Department career staff members had for months imagined Tillerson’s tenure would be short-lived and had even been wagering on how quickly it might happen.
In the past year, department staffers described the secretary as remote, secluded, unapproachable and opaque with underlings not in the upper echelons of his team.
“As secretary of State, you usually have a base of support that comes either from the foreign policy establishment, the foreign service crowd, the political crowd or the press,” said the senior Republican. “I’ve never seen someone so brilliantly unite all of those factions against them the way Tillerson did.”
Scott Wong contributed
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Stephen Hawking, physicist who came to symbolize the power of the human mind, dies at 76
March 14, 2018 by admin
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His scientific achievements included breakthroughs in understanding the extreme conditions of black holes, objects so dense that not even light can escape their gravity.
His most famous theoretical breakthrough was to find an exception to this seemingly unforgiving law of physics: black holes are not really black, he realized, but rather can emanate thermal radiation from subatomic processes at their boundary, and can potentially evaporate. Scientists refer to such theoretical emanations as “Hawking radiation.”
This revelation impressed other scientists with the way it took Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which is essential for understanding the gravity of black holes, and connected it to newer theories of quantum mechanics, which cover subatomic processes.
Plus, he threw in a dash of old-fashioned thermodynamics — achieving a kind of physics trifecta.
“Black holes ain’t as black as they are painted,” Dr. Hawking once said in a lecture, characteristically describing complicated physics in ordinary language. “They are not the eternal prisons they were once thought. Things can get out of a black hole, both to the outside, and possibly, to another universe. So, if you feel you are in a black hole, don’t give up. There’s a way out.”
He also hypothesized that miniature black holes, remnants of the big bang, may be strewn through space, though he noted that so far they haven’t be discovered. “This is a pity, because if they had, I would have got a Nobel prize,” he joked.
Early life
Stephen William Hawking was born in Oxford, England, on Jan. 8, 1942 — the 300th anniversary of Galileo’s death, he liked to point out. His father was a physician and specialist in tropical diseases; his mother was active in the Liberal Party.
Both parents were Oxford-educated, and Stephen — the eldest of four siblings — grew up surrounded by books. But he did not show particular academic promise, despite an obvious streak of brilliance that caused his friends to nickname him “Einstein.”
“I always wanted to know how everything worked,” he told Omni magazine. “I would take things apart to see how they worked, but they didn’t often go back together.”
He was a bit lazy, and a bon vivant, as he later would admit. After being admitted to the University of Oxford, he skimped on his studies and enjoyed carousing with fellow members of the Oxford Boat Club, for which he was a tactically savvy coxswain. He graduated in 1962 and did just well enough on his final exam to earn admission to the University of Cambridge to pursue a doctorate.
“Physics was always the most boring subject at school because it was so easy and obvious. Chemistry was much more fun because unexpected things, such as explosions, kept happening,” Dr. Hawking wrote in his memoir. “But physics and astronomy offered the hope of understanding where we came from and why we are here. I wanted to fathom the depths of the Universe.”
Then came what he later referred to as “that terrible thing.” He’d noticed at Oxford that he’d become increasingly clumsy and would sometimes stumble and fall for no obvious reason. Tests revealed motor neuron disease; he could not expect to live more than a couple of years.
After a period of despondency in which he holed up in his room and listened to Wagner, he attended a New Year’s Eve party at which he met a young student named Jane Wilde. Their courtship spurred his will to live. They married in 1965.
“We had this very strong sense at the time that our generation lived anyway under this most awful nuclear cloud — that with a four-minute warning the world itself could likely end,” Jane Hawking later told the British newspaper the Observer. “That made us feel above all that we had to do our bit, that we had to follow an idealistic course in life. That may seem naive now, but that was exactly the spirit in which Stephen and I set out in the Sixties — to make the most of whatever gifts were given us.”
They would have three children before his condition deteriorated to near-complete paralysis.
He received a doctorate in 1966 and became a postgraduate research physicist at Cambridge, where he hoped to study under the celeberated astrophysicist Fred Hoyle. Instead, he was assigned to Dennis Sciama — a disappointment, at first.
But, as he later wrote, “This turned out to be a good thing. Hoyle was abroad a lot and I wouldn’t have seen much of him. Sciama on the other hand was there, and was always stimulating.”
A few years later, while on the staff of the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, he formed a close collaboration with Cambridge colleague Roger Penrose. They developed a theorem that the universe has not always existed.
The two showed that if the theory of relativity is true, the universe must have sprung into existence, out of what appeared to be nothing, at a specific moment in the past and from a place where gravity became so strong that space and time are curved beyond recognition — what is known as a “singularity.”
At the remarkably young age of 32, Dr. Hawking was named a fellow of the Royal Society. He received the Albert Einstein Award, the most prestigious in theoretical physics. He joined the Cambridge faculty in 1973 as a research assistant in the department of applied mathematics and theoretical physics; he was promoted to professor of gravitational physics in 1977.
Early fame
While at Cambridge, Dr. Hawking began to question the big-bang theory, which by then most people had accepted.
Perhaps, he suggested, there was never a start and would be no end, but just change — a constant transition of one “universe” giving way to another through glitches in space-time. All the while, Dr. Hawking was digging into exploding black holes, string theory and the birth of black holes in our galaxy.
Dr. Hawking was known to weigh in rather playfully on grand cosmological questions. He once suggested that if the universe stopped expanding and began to contract, time would run backward. He later said that he’d changed his mind on that.
He gained headlines when he declared that humans should colonize other worlds to hedge their bets against the possible destruction of this one.
In an updated, illustrated (easier to handle) version of “A Brief History of Time,” he added a chapter on wormholes — back-alley cosmic tunnels that might conceivably let someone travel back in time. Prancing on the edge of the plausible, he nonetheless stuck to what science can tell us.
“He thought about the deep and important questions in novel ways,” said David Spergel, Princeton University’s chairman of astrophysics. “Hawking’s important contribution was identifying new ways to answer those questions and formulating mathematically sophisticated ways of connecting general relativity and quantum mechanics.”
Dr. Hawking had sought to come up with a so-called Theory of Everything that would essentially put an end to theoretical physics by answering all the outstanding questions. But whether such a theory can ever be found is unclear.
Dr. Hawking said our universe might not be the only one there is — that many more may be popping into existence all around us. He suggested that “cosmic wormholes” briefly link those universes to ours and that subatomic particles may travel from one universe to another through them, accounting for some of the strange behavior of particles that physicists observe.
The power of Dr. Hawking’s celebrity was measured at times by the tabloid coverage he drew for his complicated personal life. His wife Jane spent hours every day bathing, washing and feeding Dr. Hawking, who required constant nursing care. He developed pneumonia in 1985 on a trip to Geneva, and Jane battled doctors who wanted to turn off his life support.
But the marriage grew strained, in part because of her Christian faith and his adamant atheism, and in part because of what she called his remote and stoic temperament. She described him as an “all-powerful emperor” who seemed blind to how demanding his illness became for her as she also took care of their young children. He refused measures that would have made life easier for her, and she felt it was “too cruel” to coerce him to see it her way.
They grew apart and, in 1990, just shy of their 25th wedding anniversary, separated when Dr. Hawking left Jane for his nurse, Elaine Mason. He married Elaine five years later after his divorce from Jane became final. Dr. Hawking called his second marriage, which also ended in divorce, “passionate and tempestuous.”
Survivors include his children, Lucy, Robert and Tim.
Dr. Hawking’s offices were filled with photographs of him standing with admirers ranging from popes (he was a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences) to the late Soviet physicist and human rights campaigner Andrei Sakharov.
The theoretical physicist once described his heroes as “Galileo, Einstein, Darwin and Marilyn Monroe.” The last was of particular appeal to the scientist who hung posters of her and collected Monroe-related bric a brac.
“My daughter and secretary gave me posters of her, my son gave me a Marilyn bag and my wife a Marilyn towel,” he once said. “I suppose you could say she was a model of the universe.”
Boyce Rensberger is a former Washington Post science writer and editor.
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