Zelenskyy explained, “I told him that if he gave us the weapons we need and stopped supporting Putin, we would let him build Trump-branded hotels and other Trump-branded buildings in Ukraine’s ten largest cities, as well as Trump golf courses in the countryside. He was quite excited.”   read more

The FCC has quietly proposed reshaping a key way rural Americans stay informed – their local TV news – by stripping away most of the remaining regulations protecting local influence over local news broadcasting. Companies like Sinclair can get even bigger, and can centralize the production of what should be local news broadcasts in faraway places, leaving rural residents served by Sinclair to have a harder time finding their own communities represented in broadcast news.   read more

As the executive director of the African Affairs Bureau, Raynor wrote to the State Department inspector general regarding the tragic attack on the State Department compound in Benghazi, Libya. Raynor wrote that a federal law requiring the Department to hire foreign security based on the lowest cost bidder “often results in poorly paid and motivated guards,” which not only raises security risks but also “undercuts our Missions’ broader engagement in championing human rights.”   read more

Njabuliso Busisiwe Sikhulile Gwebu is a sister-in-law of King Mswati, as she is a sister of Queen Inkhosikati LaNgangaza, who is the King’s fourth wife. Gwebu was serving as ambassador and permanent delegate to the U.N. Offices in Geneva, Switzerland, when she was picked for the U.S. post. In addition to the U.S., Gwebu is the accredited, non-resident ambassador to four other Western Hemisphere countries: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, and Venezuela.   read more

Lalla Joumala served for a time as an executive at Bank Al Maghrib, but turned her focus to diplomacy in the late 1990s. She served briefly as an attaché at Morocco’s mission to the UN in New York, and led her country’s delegation to the UN session on HIV/AIDS. Lalla Joumala founded the Moroccan-British Society, promoting improved relations between the two countries, in 2003. She later took over as ambassador to the United Kingdom, where she served until being tapped for the U.S. post.   read more

Presenting his credentials to President Trump in April 2017, Hegbe expressed his country’s desire to work with the U.S. in the context of the African Growth Opportunity Act and the Millennium Challenge Corp, perhaps not knowing that Trump intends to cut foreign aid substantially. Hegbe has served as chargé d’affaires at Togo’s embassy in Washington since 1993, including a stint as interim chief of mission. He also worked for the State Dept’s Foreign Service Institute, where he taught French.   read more

No sooner did Glawe take over as DHS acting undersecretary in January than he found himself forced to defend President Trump’s proposed travel ban on Muslims from seven nations. Then came the leak of a report, created under his direction, from the Office of Intelligence and Analysis that disagreed with the premise of Trump’s travel ban that citizens of the seven countries posed a special threat. Trump officials emphasized that the report was a draft and not final.   read more

In June, shortly after Al-Thani’s arrival in Washington as Qatar's ambassador, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain moved to sever relations with Qatar, supposedly for financing terrorism. President Trump tweeted his support for the action, leaving Al-Thani, whose country hosts the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East, puzzled. “It’s unfortunate to see these tweets,” Al-Thani said. “We have close coordination with the U.S. They know our efforts to combat...terrorism.”   read more

After 10 years as a male model and seven years of law practice, Brown entered politics when he was elected to several city positions in Wrentham, Mass. He later served multiple terms as a Republican in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. In 2010, Brown shocked the political world by winning a special election to fill the remainder of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s unfinished term, after Kennedy died. Brown lasted only two years in the Senate before losing his seat to Elizabeth Warren in 2012.   read more

In 1995, Gingrich became a clerk for the House Agriculture Committee. Two years earlier she had begun an affair with the man who would become her husband. Newt Gingrich remained married to his second wife, Marianne, until 1999. Callista and Newt were married in 2000. Callista continued to work for the Agriculture Committee until 2007, when she became president of Gingrich Productions, the couple’s multimedia production company that has produced films that feature them.   read more

President Trump says the next U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas will be a rich, ultraconservative real estate developer and hotel owner who became a media figure, fathered a large family, and opposes same-sex marriage as an affront to “traditional” marriage but divorced his wife to marry a much younger woman from the former Soviet bloc…just like Trump. This Trump doppelganger is Doug Manchester, who contributed heavily to Trump’s presidential campaign and is now being rewarded with the nomination.   read more

McFarland worked as a Fox News commentator on national security issues for seven years, and claimed on the air that waterboarding is not torture and is worth doing. She advocated U.S. war with Iran and argued that Putin deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. Days after Trump was elected president, she declared she would be a “foot soldier for the Trump revolution.” Though she hadn't worked in government for more than 30 years, Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, chose her as his deputy.   read more

The F-35 program is nearly a decade behind schedule, has failed to meet many of its original requirements and become the most expensive defense program in world history--around $1.5 trillion before its 2070 phase-out. The cost per plane, above $100 million, is twice what was promised. And yet, the U.S. is still throwing money at it, arguing that just because taxpayers have flushed more than $100 billion down the proverbial toilet, we must continue to throw billions more down that same toilet.   read more

At defense contractor Sanders, maker of military electronics, Ashooh became VP of government relations—a lobbyist. Lockheed spun off Sanders to BAE Systems, with Ashooh on board. He was later director of public affairs in BAE’s Electronic Warfare Systems division. Ashooh was a member of the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign and, as a congressional candidate, called for repeal of Obamacare and balancing the budget by eliminating funding for any federal entity that competed with private industry.   read more

Once the Senate confirms President Trump's board nominees, Republicans will control it for the first time since 2007. The likely candidates suggest the board will be much friendlier to business interests under the Trump administration and will probably overturn many Obama-era precedents that favored unions. But it could go further and roll back pro-union decisions dating back decades. This could be devastating to unions and nothing short of the end of the labor movement could be at stake.   read more

Green supported the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, and co-founded the Faith-Based Caucus, which backed relaxing church-state separation so church-affiliated social programs could get federal money. Green supported several bills involving international health that President Trump now wants to cut or eliminate. He has also been president of the USAID-funded IRI, staffed and run mostly by Republicans, and criticized for promoting conservative political goals rather than democracy around the world.   read more

At OPM, Nesterczuk once worked to implement NSPS, a Heritage Foundation-inspired pay-for-performance system making it easier to install political appointees to civil service jobs and circumvent union protections. The president of the National Federation of Federal Employees now says of Nesterczuk: “I sincerely hope [his] nomination [to lead OPM]...is not the start of NSPS 2.0, although I fear it might be. ...I think it’s safe to say we are likely to have some philosophical differences with him.”   read more