In another outstanding piece of investigative journalism, the Daily Show’s Jason Jones uncovers the vast conspiracy linking the U.S. Postal Service, the Catholic Church, and Reservoir Dogs star Harvey Keitel. Read between the lines, people. [HTML1]
Monthly Archives: March, 2010
UPDATE: The White House has formally announced Harding’s selection. From President Obama’s statement: I am confident that Bob’s talent and expertise will make him a tremendous asset in our ongoing efforts to bolster security and screening measures at our airports. I can think of no one more qualified than Bob to take on this important job, and I look forward to working with him in the months and years ahead. ORIGINAL POST: CNN and other news organizations are reporting that the White House is going to tap retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Harding to head the Transportation Security Administration. Under…
FBI employees now scattered in four locations in the Phoenix area will move into a new 200,000-square-foot office building about two years from now. The General Services Administration announced Wednesday it has selected the Phoenix office of construction firm Ryan Companies to build the $62 million facility. The building will be owned by Ryan and leased to GSA for use by the FBI under a 20-year lease. Many companies apparently competed for the build-to-suit lease project, indicating the high level of interest in government projects in a time of economic uncertainty in the construction industry. John Strittmatter, president of Ryan’s…
Here’s a story crying out for the sound of a sad trombone. The Federal Aviation Administration yesterday suspended an air traffic controller at JFK Airport and his supervisor for allowing two children visiting the airport’s tower last month to direct at least five planes. The FAA has suspended all unofficial visits to towers and radar rooms while the incident is being investigated, and Administrator Randy Babbitt stressed that “this lapse in judgment not only violated FAA’s own policies, but common sense standards … [and] does not reflect the true caliber of our workforce.” And in case anyone thought otherwise, the National Air Traffic Controllers…
Roughly 2,000 Transportation Department employees who had been furloughed earlier this week were ordered to return to work Wednesday morning. The order came late Tuesday night after Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., relented and allowed a vote on a bill that would extend unemployment benefits and provide transportation funding. Bunning objected that the bill would add $10 billion to the deficit and wanted Congress to find a way to pay it, and began blocking it Feb. 25. The blockage meant Transportation didn’t have the funds to pay employees at the Federal Highway Administration, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, National Highway Traffic…
The White House has declassified much of a cybersecurity initiative developed during the George W. Bush administration. The release of Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative’s 12 key goals is part of the Obama administration’s quest for transparency, said Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt in a March 2 White House blog post announcing the declassification. Bush created the initiative in 2008 and few details were available about it before the March 2 release. Schmidt wrote: We will not defeat our cyber adversaries because they are weakening, we will defeat them by becoming collectively stronger, through stronger technology, a stronger cadre of security professionals,…
Most federal employees who have a work-issued smartphone have a BlackBerry. If you’re eligible to receive a work phone, do you want to trade your BlackBerry in for an iPhone but can’t because agencies don’t issue iPhones because of security concerns? I’m writing a story about the iPhone and the government market, and I’d like to hear from federal employees who wish they could use an iPhone at work. Please e-mail me at rneal@federaltimes.com, and as always, we don’t publish any e-mails or information without first getting your permission.
The federal government is borrowing too much and costs too much to run. If it were a private company, it would have cut employee salaries a long time ago to make ends meet, say two economists in a column for Forbes magazine. And that’s what the federal government needs to do to show it’s serious about fiscal responsibility and reducing the deficit, write economists Robert Stein and Brian Wesbury. If private companies operated like the federal government, creditors and analysts would have serious concerns about the companies’ fiscal health and reconsider doing business with them, they write. And with unemployment…
A senator has placed a secret hold on the confirmation of a gay woman and other nominees to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, apparently in violation of a 2007 law that cracked down on such anonymous holds, Keen News Service reports. Many conservative groups have oppposed the nomination of Georgetown University law professor Chai Feldblum as an EEOC commissioner because she is gay. Nevertheless, Feldblum’s nomination was reported out of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in December along with three other EEOC nominations, clearing the way for a vote by the full Senate. Since then, however, an unnamed senator has…
Last week I wrote about a video contest being sponsored by the General Services Administration, which is offering $2,500 to the person who best extols the virtues of the government’s information portal, www.usa.gov, through a 30- to 90-second video. Not to be outdone, the Environmental Protection Agency is also getting into the act. EPA yesterday launched a contest seeking videos that raise awareness about environmental justice, which EPA defines as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and…