By Masha Gessen @ News Desk @ NewYorker.com, Oct. 20

Lede: The chief of staff sees his role as controlling Trump. If the President obeys him, then the President cannot be criticized.

Both political parties may be doomed

By David von Drehle @ WashingtonPost.com, Oct. 20

[....] The truth is, both parties are in crisis — and may be headed for worse [....]

[....] For generations, the major parties have served as rival department stores anchoring opposite ends of America’s political shopping mall. They chose which products to offer and favored certain ones with their most prominent displays. They marshaled big budgets for advertising and thus loomed over the boutiques and specialty stores — the greens, the libertarians and so on — serving smaller clienteles.

By Melissa Quinn @ WashingtonExaminer.com, Oct. 19

Posted because it's an innovative approach to questions. Looks from this that is 22% of Republicans that are the hardcore fans, but a disturbingly high number of Republicans, 79%, are overall still okay with him as president. Still, 42% of the population is a pretty damn high number for rating a president "worst in history" even though it's not been a full year:

video with recording @ link to judge for yourself

By Max Greenwood @ TheHill.com, Oct. 20

The widow of an Army staff sergeant who was killed in Afghanistan earlier this year shared her call with President Trump days after her husband's death with The Washington Post.

A flurry of House GOP retirements could make the speaker's job even harder.

By Rachel Bade @ Politico.com, 10/19/2017 06:20 PM EDT

Paul Ryan’s governing caucus is dwindling.

A number of the speaker's closest comrades in the House have called it quits in recent weeks because they're tired of President Donald Trump's antics, depressed over the GOP's dearth of legislative accomplishments this year or have personal reasons. Whatever the causes, the departures are certain to make Ryan's job as House speaker harder, depriving him of loyal lieutenants in a conference already riven by ideological and stylistic divisions [....]

By Maya Salam @ NYTimes.com, Oct. 19

For the first time in its 64-year history, Playboy magazine will feature a transgender Playmate, a decision that Cooper Hefner, a top executive at the magazine, said on Thursday was in keeping with its founding mission of embracing changing attitudes about sex.