Gale Ann Norton (born March 11, 1954) served as the 48th United States Secretary of the Interior from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. She was the first woman to hold the position.

Norton was born in Wichita, Kansas and raised in Wichita and Thornton, Colorado, and graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Denver in 1975 and earned her Juris Doctor degree with honors from that university's College of Law in 1978. She divorced her first husband, Harold Everett Reed, when he was publicly reported as gay by the Denver local gay newspaper, OutFront. She is currently married to John Hughes. In the late 1970s, she was a member of the Libertarian Party and was nearly selected as its national director in 1980. Norton was influenced by the works of novelist Ayn Rand, and has been associated with a number of groups in the "wise use" or "free-market environmentalist" movement, such as the Property and Environmental Research Center [2], of which she is a fellow. She also worked as Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Agriculture and, from 1979 to 1983, as a Senior Attorney for the Mountain States Legal Foundation.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche ( /ˈniːtʃə/;German pronunciation: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈniːtsʃə]; October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) was a German philosopher, poet, cultural critic and classical philologist. He wrote critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and aphorism.

Nietzsche's influence remains substantial within and beyond philosophy, notably in existentialism, nihilism and postmodernism. His style and radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth have resulted in much commentary and interpretation, mostly in the continental tradition. His key ideas include the death of God, the Übermensch, the eternal recurrence, the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy, perspectivism and the will to power. Central to his philosophy is the idea of "life-affirmation", which involves an honest questioning of all doctrines that drain life's expansive energies, however socially prevalent and radical those views might be.

Rachel Anne Maddow (pronounced /ˈmædoʊ/; born April 1, 1973) is an American television host, political commentator, and author. Maddow hosts a nightly television show, The Rachel Maddow Show, on MSNBC. Her syndicated talk radio program of the same name aired on Air America Radio. Maddow is the first openly gay anchor of a prime-time news program in the United States.

Asked about her political views by the Valley Advocate, Maddow replied, "I'm undoubtedly a liberal, which means that I'm in almost total agreement with the Eisenhower-era Republican party platform."

Maddow was born in Castro Valley, California. Her father, Robert B. "Bob" Maddow, is a former United States Air Force captain who resigned his commission the year before her birth and found civilian work as a lawyer for the East Bay Municipal Utility District. Her mother, Elaine Maddow (née Gosse), is a school program administrator from Newfoundland, Canada. She has one older brother, David. Her father is of Russian and Dutch descent and her mother is of English and Irish ancestry. Maddow's mother was raised a strict Roman Catholic, and Maddow herself grew up in a community that her mother has described as "very conservative." Maddow was a competitive athlete and played three sports in high school. Referencing John Hughes films, she describes herself in high school as "a cross between the jock and the antisocial girl."

Italia Federici (born August 12, 1969), the former president of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA). Federici was also a political aide to Secretary of the Interior and CREA co-founder Gale Norton. She pleaded guilty in June 2007 to tax evasion and obstructing the United States Senate investigation into the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal and was sentenced to four years probation.

Federici founded CREA with Norton and Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist, a college friend of Abramoff, in 1997 with money Federici inherited; The organization was also funded by, and supported the goals of, mining and other industries.

Federici introduced Jack Abramoff to Deputy Secretary of the Interior J. Steven Griles in March 2001, just before Griles started at the Department of the Interior. Abramoff donated more than $400,000 to CREA, after which time she allegedly began using her connections with Griles to influence him to make decisions beneficial to Abramoff's tribal benefactors.

Robert Edward 'Bob' Latta (born April 18, 1956) is the U.S. Representative for Ohio's 5th congressional district, serving since 2007. He is a member of the Republican Party. The district, the second-largest in the state, includes most of Toledo's suburbs, including Fremont and Bowling Green.

Born in Bluffton, Ohio, Latta earned his B.A. at Bowling Green State University in 1978 and his J.D. at the University of Toledo College of Law in 1981. His father, Del Latta, represented the 5th from 1959 to 1989 and served as ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee from 1975 to his retirement.

Latta worked as a private practice attorney before entering politics.

Latta served as a Wood County Commissioner from 1991 to 1997. He then represented Ohio's 2nd senate district in the Ohio Senate from 1997 to 2001 and Ohio's 6th house district in the Ohio House of Representatives from 2001 to 2007.

When Del Latta decided to retire from Congress in 1988, Bob Latta ran for the seat. However, he lost by twenty-seven votes to then Ohio State Senate president Paul Gillmor who went on to win the general election.