Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) sent messages to all members of Congress terminating their positions, stating “Your performance has not been adequate to justify further employment.” All Democratic and independent members of Congress, as well as two Republicans, found themselves locked out of their offices after everything inside had been confiscated.   read more

In December 2016,Callahan was promoted to deputy director of the Secret Service, and became acting director in March 2017. It didn’t take long for him to encounter controversy. On March 10, 26-year-old Jonathan Tuan-Anh Tran entered the White House grounds and was not detected for 16 minutes. On March 16, it was discovered that an agency laptop was stolen from an agent’s car in New York. The laptop was said to have had security plans for Trump Tower and other sensitive information on it.   read more

Haskell was sent to Tel Aviv as consul in 1996. While there, in 1998, he was involved in the case of an American teen arrested and held by the Israeli government, which charged him of being a member of Hamas. As consul, Haskell monitored the case and urged his release. Haskell returned to Washington in August 2013 for a stint as office director in the Africa Bureau’s Office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, where he was a member of the Ebola communications task force.   read more

It sometimes seems that the differences between the priorities of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party are so great that they can’t agree on anything. Not so. Here are four programs that President Barack Obama’s last budget and President Donald Trump’s first budget proposed for complete elimination.   read more

Appointed Air Force chief of staff in 1990 by then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, McPeak had helped plan the combat phase of the U.S.-led Persian Gulf War. He later criticized the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, calling it "a strategic blunder made worse by slapdash execution. As we have seen, [it] took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan, breathed new life into a moribund al Qaeda, and enhanced Iranian influence in this critical region—all outcomes which damaged both the U.S. and our ally Israel.”   read more

Jarlstrom sued the Portland suburb, claiming it programmed its yellow lights to be so brief that drivers didn’t have time to make it through an intersection before they turned red, putting drivers in danger. After the judge tossed his suit, a state agency launched a two-year investigation of Jarlstrom, then fined him $500 for publicly critiquing the mathematical formulas behind traffic light cameras without an engineering license. Jarlstrom calls that a prohibition on free speech.   read more

From 2007 to 2010, Morrow served as FMS assistant commissioner of federal finance, responsible for managing nearly $3.2 trillion in annual federal revenue collections. From 2010 to 2012, she served as FMS assistant commissioner of payment management and chief disbursing officer, responsible for more than 1.2 billion payments each year, including tax refunds and Social Security, veterans’ benefits, railroad retirement, and civil service retirement payments.   read more

Trump’s numbers at 100 Days—usually one of the high points of a president’s popularity—are closer to those of a failing president than a newly minted one. Hovering around 40%, his approval is comparable to George W. Bush’s right after Hurricane Katrina, Gerald Ford’s during the 1975 recession, and Jimmy Carter’s during the Iran hostage crisis. Those presidents were so weakened by low public support that they failed to win re-election.   read more

In 2014, Wolf campaigned in the contest for the Pennsylvania statehouse. Although a relative unknown, he won a four-way Democratic primary and ended up winning the general election with 54.9% of the vote, turning out deeply unpopular incumbent Tom Corbett (R). Among Wolf’s moves as governor were a ban on fracking in state parks and a moratorium on the death penalty. He has since proposed increased funding for Pennsylvania schools and more support for fighting the opioid epidemic in his state.   read more

In 2004, Shea became assistant secretary for HUD's Policy Development and Research. In 2005, he left to serve as senior advisor to Sen. Elizabeth Dole, who was chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. After the 2006 elections, Shea became VP for government affairs in the Americas for Pitney Bowes. In 2010, he left to start his own firm, Shea Public Strategies LLC. He serves as a consultant to the Bipartisan Policy Center Senior Health and Housing Task Force.   read more

Rogers spent the first 15 years of her career in private law practice and, in 1998, became a Superior Court judge. After eight years on the bench, she became an appeals court judge, serving on the Connecticut Appellate Court until 2007, when she was sworn in as chief justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court. Rogers was appointed to the Federal-State Jurisdiction Committee of the Judicial Conference of the U.S. by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts in 2012.   read more

In 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Timmons-Goodson to the U.S. District Court in eastern North Carolina. She would have been the first African-American to serve in that district, which includes a significant black population. The seat had been vacant since 2006, but Timmons-Goodson’s nomination was blocked by Republican Senator Richard Burr. It was the second time Burr had blocked an Obama nominee for that seat; the first nominee was also a black woman, Jennifer May-Parker.   read more

Gottlieb’s financial disclosure reads like a medical industry Yellow Pages. He has served on the boards of more than a dozen medical companies and has held leadership positions in a number of others. “He’s basically been a shill for pharmaceutical corporations for much of his career,” said Public Citizen director Dr. Michael Carome. Gottlieb’s nomination has been welcomed with delight by Big Pharma, and his ties to the investment world should make him fit right in with the Trump administration.   read more

As a law professor, Davis published in the areas of constitutional law, administrative law, national security law, alternative dispute resolution, and sports law. He's been a mediator/arbitrator with the American Arbitration Association, U.S. Postal Service and U.S. Olympic Committee. He joined the Navy Reserve Intelligence Program in 1988, and was called to active duty in 1999 (Bosnia) and 2001 (post-9/11). Davis is also a founder of the Journal of National Security Law & Policy.   read more

An active Wall Street Democrat, Nides raised more than $100,000 as a Hillary Clinton bundler in 2008, and provided informal advice to her 2016 run. Wikileaks revealed that he had advised Clinton campaign Chair Podesta in 2015 to “pull the official” emails off of Clinton’s private server, exclaiming that “you know as well as I every god damn cabinet officer and WH staff uses there (sic) gmail account!” The Wilson Center, which Nides heads, would be fully defunded under Trump's proposed budget.   read more

“2015 was a deadly year for the Florida black bear. Collisions with vehicles killed at least 169 ... wildlife managers killed at least 108...that were considered nuisances or threats to human safety, at least 9 were killed illegally, and in October hunters killed at least 304 Florida black bears in the first Florida black bear hunt in 20 years,” the petition stated. The 2016 hunt was “voted down due to overwhelming public outcry against the barbaric and unnecessary hunt,” said an advocacy group.   read more

From 2008 to 2009, Novy was program director of the Landscape Architecture Study Abroad program at Rutgers, where he organized and taught a course on Italian gardens and landscapes in Italy. In 2010, he researched the prevalence of environmental chemical biomarkers in humans and helped plan a sustainability-focused garden for the U.S. Botanic Garden. He later developed molecular marker systems to track germplasm resources in a pharmacologically active plant.   read more