Dow DuPont Announces New CEO Will Be Out Executive Jim Fitterling

Jim Fitterling

DowDuPont, the world’s largest chemical company, announced on Monday that its openly gay COO Jim Fitterling would become the company’s chief executive officer.

The company completed its merger of Dow Chemical and DuPont last August with plans to split into three separate publicly-traded companies: specialty products, agriculture and materials science.

Fitterling will lead the materials sciences company to be named simply “Dow.”

“I am very excited and humbled to lead Dow into its next phase of growth,” said Fitterling in a statement.

Fitterling as spent his entire professional life at Dow starting there in 1984. He came out professionally in 2014.

Since coming out, he has become involved in LGBTQ business events like PIMCO Pride, Out Leadership’s “Out on the Street” summit, and delivered the keynote speech at Linked-In’s gathering of 100 LGBT leaders.

Fitterling joins a very exclusive group of LGBTQ CEOs of Fortune 500 companies: Qantas Airline’s Alan Joyce, Tim Cook at Apple, and Inga Beales, CEO of Lloyd’s of London.

Trump Aide Fired For “Serious Financial Crimes” Investigation, Immediately Hired By 2020 Trump Campaign

More news coming out of the dumpster fire that is the Trump Administration – Trump’s personal assistant, Johnny McEntee, was quietly fired on Monday from the White House.

After months of issues with his background security check, he was let go and escorted from the White House yesterday.

According to CNN, McEntee’s security clearance hit a snag “because he is currently under investigation by the Department of Homeland Security for serious financial crimes.”

But remember, according to Trump this White House has “no Chaos, only great Energy!”

Now, where do you get a job when you’re being investigated for “serious financial crimes?”

He was immediately hired today by the Trump 2020 reelection campaign.

See CNN’s report below.

Report: Trump Adviser Roger Stone Bragged He Knew About WikiLeaks Hack In Advance

Roger Stone

Longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone has vehemently denied having any contact with WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange or prior notice of the document dumps by WikiLeaks that occurred during the 2016 presidential election.

Today, The Washington Post is reporting that Stone told two friends, Sam Nunberg and another associate, that he had learned from Julian Assange that Wikileaks had obtained emails that would torment the Clinton campaign months before the email hack was made public.

In the spring of 2016, longtime political operative Roger Stone had a phone conversation that would later seem prophetic, according to the person on the other end of the line.

Stone, an informal adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump, said he had learned from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that his organization had obtained emails that would torment senior Democrats such as John Podesta, then campaign chairman for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

The conversation occurred before it was publicly known that hackers had obtained the emails of Podesta and of the Democratic National Committee, documents that WikiLeaks released in late July and October. The U.S. intelligence community later concluded the hackers were working for Russia.

The person, who spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing federal investigation into Russian campaign interference, is one of two Stone associates who say Stone claimed to have had contact with Assange in 2016.

The second, former Trump adviser Sam Nunberg, said in an interview Monday that Stone told him that he had met with Assange — a conversation Nunberg said investigators for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III recently asked him to describe.

Meanwhile, the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee announced it was closing it’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election just yesterday.

Hmm…

Trump Fires Secretary Of State Tillerson Via Twitter

Donald Trump has fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson this morning and, according to reports, Tillerson found out when he saw the president’s tweet announcing the news.

Tillerson and Trump have often found themselves on opposing sides of foreign policy over the past year.

Just yesterday, NBC News reported that Tillerson had called the poisoning of an ex-Russian spy and his daughter with a military-grade nerve agent in the U.K. “a really egregious act” that appears to have “clearly” come from Russia.

Trump said he wouldn’t condemn Russia until after reviewing the facts.

Donald Trump must have gotten a call from his boss Vladimir Putin in Moscow and been told to fire Tillerson.

Of course, you may recall that back in October of 2017 the story broke that Tillerson had called Trump “a moron.”

Moral of the story? You can call the president a moron and keep your job; blame Russia for poisoning an ex-spy and you’re out.

As had been rumored for months, CIA Director Mike Pompeo will become the new Secretary of State, and his Deputy Director of the CIA, Gina Haspel, will take the reins at CIA.

Stormy Daniels Offers To Give Hush Money Back To Donald Trump

Stormy Daniels

From NBC News:

Adult film star Stormy Daniels is offering to give back the $130,000 she was paid for her silence so she can speak freely about President Donald Trump and release any text messages, photos and videos she might have.

The actress, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, made the offer Monday in a letter to Trump’s private attorney Michael Cohen, who brokered a nondisclosure agreement with her shortly before the 2016 presidential election.

The letter, which was first reported by the New York Times, says the money would be wired to an account designated by Trump by Friday. In return, Clifford would be allowed to “speak openly and freely about her prior relationship with the president and the attempts to silence her and use and publish and text messages, photos and videos relating to the president that she may have in her possession, all without fear of retribution or legal liability,” the letter says.

“This has never been about the money,” Clifford’s lawyer, Michael Avenatti, told NBC News on Monday. “It has always been about Ms. Clifford being allowed to tell the truth. The American people should be permitted to judge for themselves who is shooting straight with them and who is misleading them. Our offer seeks to allow this to happen.”

This is all kind of ingenious on Avenatti’s part. If Trump has nothing to hide, why not let Daniels tell her side of whatever story there is?

Avenatti recently tweeted a photo of himself with his client and Anderson Cooper. Cooper has recently interviewed Daniels and there are reports Michael Cohen may seek to block the airing of the interview.

Stormy teased on Twitter that she’d like to deliver the cash herself “gangsta style” in a private jet:

House Intelligence Committee Calls It Quits On Russian Interference Investigation

Donald Trump

The New York Times is reporting the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee has decided to end it’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election after concluding that Russia did meddle but did not favor Donald Trump.

According to the Republican committee chairman, there was no evidence found of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian actors.

Even as the special counsel expands his inquiry and pursues criminal charges against at least four Trump associates, House Intelligence Committee Republicans said Monday they have found no evidence of collusion between Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia to sway the 2016 election.

Representative K. Michael Conaway of Texas, who is leading the investigation, said committee Republicans agreed with the conclusions of American intelligence agencies that Russia had interfered with the election, but they broke with the agencies on one crucial point: that the Russians had favored Mr. Trump’s candidacy.

“The bottom line: The Russians did commit active measures against our election in ’16, and we think they will do that in the future,” Mr. Conaway said. But, he added, “We disagree with the narrative that they were trying to help Trump.”

Democrats on the committee say there are still witnesses to be called and evidence requested that hasn’t been delivered to the committee.

There are reports that the ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, was not informed of the decision to end the investigation before Conway announced his decision to the press.

Expect the Democrats to issue their own report on the committee’s findings.

Even though the House committee calls their investigation to conclude, the Senate Intelligence Committee will continue their investigation in addition to the special counsel.

Just Because…

Apparently, the world-famous Chippendales are about to shoot their latest calendar this week here in Las Vegas and I’m seeing several of the guys on Facebook checking in prep for the shoot.

Billy Jeffrey, fresh and sweaty from the gym, is looking waaaaaay ripped for his close-up.

Just to let you know some people don’t need their abs and biceps Photoshopped… 🙂

Ellen DeGeneres Asks @TheKalenAllen To Review #FashionWeek

Kalen Allen reviews Fashion Week

Ellen DeGeneres asked Kalen Allen to offer up his review of Fashion Week.

If you’ve seen any of his “recipe video” reviews, you know what to expect 🙂

For the uninitiated, here’s Kalen’s video review of a cornbread recipe:

G.I. Joe Busts A Super-Gay Move In MoneySupermarket Ad Spot

MoneySuperMarket’s new commercial features a G.I Joe lookalike that is so thrilled to save money, he busts a move with his military buddies to CeCe Peniston’s “Finally.”

The voiceover refers to the bearded action figure as “ActionMan” but we all know who they mean.

This isn’t MoneySuperMarket’s first trip to the audaciously gay commercial rodeo.

Back in 2015, MoneySupermarket gave us “Dave,” a high heel-wearing businessman sashaying to work in a suit, tie and denim shorts. The video garnered over 25 million views and delivered a 20% boost in revenue.

Watch the “men” strut their stuff below.

(h/t NewNowNext)

Pennsylvania: Final Poll Shows Democrat Leads 51/45 In Special Election Tomorrow

In the final poll before tomorrow’s special election for Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District, the data looks promising for Democrat Conor Lamb over Republican Rick Saccone.

According to Monmouth University polling:

• If turnout mirrors recent special elections that have shown a Democratic surge, Lamb holds a 51% to 45% lead over Saccone.

• Using a historical midterm lower turnout model, Lamb also has a 2-point edge 49% to 47% margin.

• Using a higher turnout model, like those in a presidential election year Lamb leads with a 51% to 44% advantage.

• Lamb rates a 53% favorable and 33% unfavorable rating from likely voters in the district.

• Saccone has a lower favorable rating at 47% favorable and higher unfavorable at 43%.

• More self-identified Democrats (95%) support Lamb, while only 88% of self-identified Republicans support Saccone.

• Independents prefer Lamb by a 51% to 45% margin.

Super-smart statistician Nate Silver notes that a race this close is a very bad sign for Republicans since Donald Trump won this district by 20 points in 2016, and Mitt Romney won it by 17 points in 2012.

All of that being said – if you are in the 18th Congressional District get out and vote tomorrow!