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

Marks founded six businesses, including a banana plantation, a real estate development firm, a transportation company, and a venture capital operation. Her biggest success came in 1997, when she founded Paymaster (Jamaica) Ltd, the country’s first consolidated bill payment agency. It became a big success, with more than 1.4 million customers and more than $40 billion in annual transactions. She later sold 80% of her ownership in the company, but remained its chairman.   read more

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has given the U.S. three months to respond to charges of abuse of human rights, from the family of a San Diego man who was beaten to death by Border Patrol agents in 2010. It is the first time the commission has taken up a claim for extrajudicial killing, torture and obstruction of justice in the U.S. Border watchers consider it a major test of the Trump administration’s stand on immigration, crime and law enforcement.   read more

The appointment of McCance-Katz by President Trump drew criticism from Republican Rep. Tim Murphy: “While she was serving at SAMHSA, there were questionable hiring practices...an anti-medical approach to serious mental illness and substance abuse treatment and...the continued upward rise of suicide and substance abuse deaths.” McCance-Katz praised Trump’s election in a November article for National Review, calling it “an exciting turn of events for people afflicted with mental illness.”   read more

Don Benton, a former Washington state senator, chaired Trump’s presidential campaign in the Pacific Northwest. Trump first rewarded Benton with a job in the EPA, but he quickly wore out his welcome. So in April 2017, with little fanfare, Trump made Benton, whose company sells sales motivation programs but who never served in the military, director of the Selective Service System. Like Trump, Benton has a talent for sucking money out of campaigns--including Trump's--and into his businesses.   read more

Kaplan wrote in a 2010 article that the U.S. should block Chinese-made computers as long as Beijing prohibits U.S. websites such as Google and YouTube from operating there. During the 2016 presidential campaign Kaplan supported “pausing all international trade negotiations for one year, while the U.S. undertakes a top-to-bottom review of the effect of international trade agreements on U.S. manufacturing,” as well as promoting “Made in America” purchases by the Dept of Defense.   read more

Walther served on the executive board of the ABA Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative, which oversees the ABA’s political programs in more than 21 countries. In 1998, he led the election recount team for Sen. Harry Reid after his 428-win over Republican John Ensign. The following year, Reid offered to recommend Walther to be a candidate for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but Walther declined. However, several years later, when Reid recommended him for the FEC, Walther accepted.   read more

In Scott Garrett, President Donald Trump has once again chosen someone to lead an agency whose existence he opposes. Garrett was considered one of the most conservative members of Congress, voting against extending unemployment benefits, raising minimum wage and prohibiting price gouging by oil companies. He opposed reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act because he didn’t believe that ballots should be printed in languages other than English.   read more

Starting as an administrative assistant and rising to associate director, Ryan became executive director when MAAB was re-named and re-organized in 1987. Ryan left MAAB in July 2002 to start her own accessibility consulting firm, Deborah A. Ryan & Associates, which she has owned and operated ever since. Ryan’s firm specializes in compliance with accessibility requirements created under Massachusetts law and federal laws such as the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, and the Fair Housing Act.   read more

With the election of Trump and naming Scott Pruitt as EPA chief, the agency’s position on chlorpyrifos changed. In March 2017, it denied the 2007 petition requesting a ban of the pesticide. Trump has reportedly enjoyed an increasingly close friendship with Dow CEO Andrew Liveris. Dow contributed $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee, then wrote to Trump cabinet members asking them to set aside studies that found a certain class of pesticides to be harmful to an array of endangered wildlife.   read more

A former U.S. naval officer who worked on nuclear-powered submarines, Sullivan began his political career in 2008, running as a Republican for an Eastern Connecticut congressional seat. He called for an end to the Iraq War, but opposed setting a date for U.S. troop withdrawal. He also called for increased spending for renewable energy and nuclear power. He later ran for state senate, calling for budget cuts and privatizing some social service programs, but lost to 84-year-old Edith Prague.   read more

Giancarlo moved into the trading world in 2000 as executive vice president and counsel for Fenics Software (later GFI), which made derivatives trading programs. While still at GFI in 2011, Giancarlo testified to the House Financial Services Committee urging a go-slow approach to regulating derivatives trading. In 2015, Giancarlo wrote a paper criticizing some of the CFTC’s reforms. His nomination to chair CFTC was warmly greeted by the investment industry, which is hoping for less regulation.   read more

As Alabama attorney general, Pryor backed efforts to establish the Alabama Sentencing Commission as a way to reform criminal sentences. Reliably conservative, Pryor called Roe v. Wade “the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history,” and in a brief to the Supreme Court warned that if it recognized a constitutional right to homosexual sex, it would “logically extend” to activities like “prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, incest and pedophilia.”   read more

Mainzer's first job after grad school was at Enron, the power trading company that spectacularly collapsed in 2001. He then went to work for BPA, taking over as acting administrator/CEO in 2013 after then-administrator Bill Drummond was embroiled in a controversy involving failure to give proper preference to veterans in hiring and retaliating against BPA whistleblowers. Mainzer was named administrator and CEO in January 2014 and is credited with restoring employees’ confidence in the agency.   read more

Lewis made his name in managing ship production. As the Aegis program executive officer, Lewis led the delivery of seven Arleigh Burke class of guided missile ships and procured another 10 ships. As executive officer, Ships, he directed the delivery of 18 ships and procurement of another 51 ships. In 2003, Lewis wrote an article for the Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute decrying the time it took—more than a decade in some cases—to bring a new class of warship from conception to deployment.   read more

Kelley’s first stint at Arlington National Cemetery came in June 2012 as its chief of standards and evaluation and director of accountability. A year later, she was made director of enterprise management at the Army’s Information Technology Agency. In January 2014, Kelley was promoted to chief of staff of headquarters services in the Office of the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Army. She held that position until moving back to Arlington National Cemetery as its superintendent.   read more

Tenn. State Sen. Mark Green—President Donald Trump’s second choice to serve as Secretary of the Army—has bowed out in the wake of bipartisan criticism of controversial statements regarding gays, transgender persons, Muslims, Latinos, birth control, and evolution. Green, who recently said “transgender is a disease,” has been a vocal opponent of gay Americans. He has publicly rejected the scientific theory of evolution in favor of a religious belief that God created everything without evolution.   read more