Imagine that China’s dictator, Xi Jinping, sends one million Chinese troops to invade the United States. Fighting breaks out all over the U.S. as U.S. troops and civilians battle against the Chinese invaders. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, are killed. Meanwhile, China has taken over Florida and declared it an overseas province of China, with Chinese nationals taking over control of the Florida government.   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

Kangas worked for the State of Michigan for over 20 years in different positions, including 9 years as a combat medic in the Michigan Army National Guard; service as Trauma Coordinator, where he led efforts to create Michigan’s first statewide all-inclusive trauma system; and as Regional Healthcare Administrator for the Michigan Department of Corrections. He also served a one year stint in Iraq as an advisor to a Provisional Reconstruction Team for the State Department in 2007-2008.   read more

Nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2015, Lee--a first-generation Chinese-American, engineer and attorney--became the first woman to be USPTO director. But she was in something of a limbo after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president. It took a Freedom of Information Act request to confirm in March 2017 that she still was in charge of the USPTO. She abruptly resigned her post on June 6, 2017.   read more

Beginning in 1994, Posset served as head of the ceremonial service in Benin's State Protocol Directorate, coordinating all of the official ceremonies of the president and was named the president’s head of protocol in 1996. The next year, he was made first counselor in Benin’s embassy in Ghana. When he went to Washington in June 2011, in addition to his other duties, Posset was Benin’s representative to the Organization of American States, where it has observer status.   read more

President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate accord claiming the pact would prevent our nation from further developing its fossil fuel reserves. Yet tens of thousands of Americans die annually from air pollution generated by burning of fossil fuels. Between 7,500 and 52,000 Americans meet early deaths due to power plant emissions. That’s huge. An analysis of switching from coal to natural gas found it would save tens of thousands of lives and tens of billions of dollars each year.   read more

Citing “great concern” about the North Korean missile threat, the Missile Defense Agency asked the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday to approve its $7.9-billion budget request. It includes $1.5 billion for the $40-billion ground-based defense system that successfully destroyed a mock ICBM above the Pacific Ocean last week. Despite the program's 40% success rate, agency director Syring said the test showed the American people "that we can defend them 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”   read more

In 2006, Viana became an administrator at Eno Valley Elementary School in Durham, North Carolina, where he established a district-wide parent advisement committee to help ensure that low-income Latino children met academic standards. After two years in Durham, Viana moved on to the North Carolina Dept of Public Instruction, serving eight years as an administrator of the state’s Migrant Education Program, which helps migrant students learn despite the huge obstacles that migratory labor entails.   read more