According to aides who were present when Trump discussed the issue, but who choose to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, Trump said he was sick of Vance and wanted to fire him. “I wanted him to be my attack dog,” said Trump, “but he appears foolish on television. He dropped the college football trophy. He met with Pope Francis and the next day the pope died. Vance is toxic, and I don’t want him to come near me. He just doesn’t look as good on television as I thought he would.”   read more

White has more than 25 years of experience in the nuclear field, working primarily on projects with complex technical, regulatory, and stakeholder issues. She has worked at a number of contaminated DOE sites, and since June 2017 has been decommissioning lead at Atkins Global. ECA Executive Director Seth Kirshenberg said that White “will bring an in-depth knowledge of the EM program and defense high-level waste issues to the Department.”   read more

Cornstein's chairmanship at TeleHubLink got him into trouble in 2001 when the firm was accused by N.Y. State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer of violating consumer protection laws through a credit card scheme. The charges held up. As for Cornstein’s problem with Spitzer—no worries. Cornstein, a Republican, contributed to Democrat Spitzer’s gubernatorial campaign. The fraud case didn't derail Cornstein’s appointment to the board of the Battery Park City Authority, which was confirmed in 2001.   read more

When someone asked what became of Ayla, director Can Ulkay said, “She’s right here,” and asked her to join him in front of the audience. I have been going to the movies since I was four years old, and I have never witnessed such a dramatic moment. As the audience members collectively gasped in surprise, a shy, elderly woman dressed in traditional Korean clothing walked to center stage.   read more

The winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, The Square is a fascinating compilation of set pieces that are held together through the life of Christian (Claes Bang), the curator of an art museum. The film was originally pitched as a satire of the art world, and this is certainly the crux of the plot. But on a more personal level, the message is that you can be intelligent, handsome, sophisticated and well-respected, and still make really stupid decisions—frequently.   read more

This year a record 92 countries entered films in the foreign language category of the Academy Awards. I saw 90 of these films. Give credit to the Motion Picture Academy for allowing the entry of films that are not allowed to be shown in their country of origin. The two most notable examples come from Venezuela and Syria.   read more

Collie began his career as a teacher, and then served as a legislator, practiced law and served in the diplomatic corps. He was a sought-after expert on Bahamian law in 2007 when the courts were deciding the fate of the daughter of model Anna Nicole Smith, who lived in the Bahamas before dying in a South Florida hotel room. A longtime member of the Free National Movement, Collie was called out of retirement in 2016 to chair the party for the upcoming elections, which his party won decisively.   read more

Weaver had told untruths and made omissions during his testimony to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. And in 2010, the IRS filed two liens against his consulting business because of $120,000 in unpaid back taxes. The Dept of Health and Human Services (HHS) previously said questions about Weaver’s background were “pure character assassination.” But this month, HHS told CNBC simply, “Mr. Weaver is no longer the Administration’s nominee for Director of the Indian Health Service.”   read more

Johnson took over as general manager and CEO of Co-Mo Electric Cooperative in Tipton, Missouri, in 2005. While there, he initiated a project to bring high-speed internet to the rural area. More than 15,000 subscribers in the area now have some of the fastest internet speeds in the country, provided by Co-Mo Connect, a subsidiary of the co-op.   read more

Donald Trump's nominee is an ultra-conservative Roman Catholic politico who, in 2016, called candidate Trump “manifestly unfit to be president of the United States." Cella also leveled criticisms of vulgarity and racism against Trump. Yet a few months later, Cella joined a Catholic advisory panel for the Trump campaign, claiming he had “a sincere change of heart and mind” after Trump pledged to appoint anti-abortion judges. Catholics narrowly supported Hilary Clinton over Trump, 48% to 45%.   read more

Although raised in a Democratic family, Drake, at age 14, volunteered for Republican Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign. She volunteered again in a presidential campaign, 45 years later, as a member of the Palin Truth Squad to counter “false attacks, rumors and smears" against GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin. Drake became a member of Congress in 2004, winning the House seat vacated by Republican Ed Schrock, who had been accused of having solicited sex on a gay phone dating service.   read more

“How stupid can we be? The Gulf Coast is consistently nailed by hurricanes and yet our government insists on an energy strategy that exacerbates these hurricanes,” said Louisiana Bucket Brigade director Anne Rolfes. “Trump's auctioning off this massive amount of our ocean while at the same time proposing to rollback important environmental and safety requirements... [is] disgusting and nothing but a recipe for more devastating oil spills...” said a Center for Biological Diversity attorney.   read more

Trump's nomination of Rettig, a Beverly Hills tax attorney whose wealthy clients have included Michael Jackson and “Girls Gone Wild” creator Joe Francis, breaks a 20-year precedent of IRS leaders having backgrounds in business or management. A defender of Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns during an audit, Rettig also speculated that Trump “likely pays taxes at a lesser rate than many of us” and that he “may be worth far less than the approximately $10 billion he wants us to believe."   read more

Under Harris' watch at Guantánamo in 2006, three prisoners died while in custody. Harris declared the deaths to be suicides, but an investigation by Harper’s magazine cast considerable doubt on that verdict, suggesting the three were killed during torture/interrogation in a secret part of the base. In 2017, Harris took responsibility for a bewildering chain of events that left the mistaken impression that a U.S. aircraft carrier rushed to confront a belligerent North Korea, when it did not.   read more

A one-time intern at the Department of State and in the U.S. Senate while in college, Appleton eventually joined the staff of Rep. Sam Graves (R-Missouri) before joining Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer’s office as a legislative assistant in 2009. He had previously worked as Luetkemeyer’s policy director during his 2008 Congressional campaign. Appleton was promoted to be Luetkemeyer’s chief of staff in 2009. He remained with Luetkemeyer until leaving in August 2017 for HUD.   read more

An oil company geologist, Reilly turned his childhood dream of becoming an astronaut into reality. His first NASA mission was in 1998 when Endeavour visited the Russian space station. His 2001 space trip was more grueling; he flew aboard Atlantis and performed three spacewalks to help install an airlock on the International Space Station. In 2007 he took two spacewalks devoted to station construction . All told, Reilly spent more than 853 hours in space and performed 31 hours of spacewalks.   read more

Brutus successfully advocated for a tougher rape law in Liberia. She also worked as child fighter coordinator at the UN observer mission in Liberia and in the Children Assistance Program as project coordinator for the USAID war affected youth program. Brutus is a founding member and former president of the Association of Female Lawyers of Liberia. The organization was established in 1994 to offer legal defense for vulnerable women and children who may have suffered extended violence.   read more