Stevenson’s army, September 3

Senate Intelligence Chairman Rubio says his panel will get in person briefings, contrary to earlier DNI announcement.
I agree with Norm Ornstein’s call for keeping the Senate filibuster but requiring 40 members to show up to keep one going.  I’d also end filibusters on the motion to proceed.
I also agree with Dan Drezner’s conclusion that Pompeo rather than Tillerson has been the worst ever Secretary of State.
Profiles of 2 presidential advisors that have no legal authority, but are powerful because they have the evident backing of the president: Navarro and Atlas.
On the other hand, the president once again issued a press release disguised  as a legal order telling OMB to stop funding Democrat-run cities.  If you read the actual document, it just says  to see if any current law lets the agency do this sort of thing.
And Facebook says it won’t allow any new political ads in the week before the elections.

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).