The Senate Armed Services Committee wants to know in detail how the Pentagon plans to convert about 226,000 employees from the National Security Personnel System back to the General Schedule or other pay system. The request for an action plan on conversions is part of the Senate 2011 Defense Authorization Act, which the committee finished marking up today. The bill also: Clarifies that the repeal of NSPS has no effect on the direct hiring authority of defense laboratories, and increases the number of positions for which that authority can be used, Temporarily authorizes overtime pay for Navy civilian employees working…
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Omaha police on May 2 cited a Census specialist for a “failed attempt at public limbo,” which may be the five saddest words I’ve ever read. News station KETV reports that 26-year-old Elliott Bottorf was taking a stroll when he saw a parking gate arm. So he did what comes naturally: try to limbo under it. Unfortunately, Bottorf’s balance wasn’t quite up to snuff and he couldn’t make it. As he fell, he grabbed the $397 arm and it snapped off. He was technically cited for criminal mischief, and not for crimes against the future Olympic sport of limbo. We kid…
The Washington Post’s SpyTalk blog reports today that the CIA’s Iraq Operations Group was mulling some hairbrained schemes for discrediting Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein before the 2003 invasion. Their most outlandish idea was to play the homophobia card and create a phony video that appeared to show Saddam having sex with a teenage boy, two CIA officials told the Post. The Post said that and other psychological operation, or PSYOP, ideas went nowhere, partly because the CIA didn’t have the money and expertise to carry them out and partly because they were, well, stupid. What they should have done was buy a few…
The Office of Personnel Management tends to look askance at agencies’ requests for direct hire authority to fill critical needs. OPM asks for reams of information and has some quite specific guidelines for agencies that want to sidestep the normal federal hiring process. The Homeland Security Department, looking to hire federal employees to fill jobs currently done by contractors as part of the government “insourcing” initiative, is trying to tweak the system a bit in order to fill critical needs, DHS chief human capital officer Jeffrey Neal said yesterday at a congressional hearing. DHS is asking OPM for something it…
Adm. Dennis Blair is officially stepping down as Director of National Intelligence. Here’s the statement he just sent out to the intelligence community: It is with deep regret that I informed the President today that I will step down as Director of National Intelligence effective Friday, May 28th. I have had no greater honor or pleasure than to lead the remarkably talented and patriotic men and women of the Intelligence Community. Every day, you have worked tirelessly to provide intelligence support for two wars and to prevent an attack on our homeland. You are true heroes, just like the members…
Wired Magazine’s Danger Room blog has an interesting post today about the McLean, Va.-based consulting behemoth Booz Allen Hamilton. Danger Room’s editor, Noah Shachtman, essentially accuses Booz Allen executive vice president Mike McConnell of over-hyping cybersecurity threats so his firm can win government contracts to combat the dangers that he invented. Shachtman calls Booz “cyberwar Cassandras.” Now, I can’t speak to the motivations of Mr. McConnell or anyone else at the firm. However, the evidence Shachtman presents on Booz Allen’s supposed recent windfall in government contract spending seems a little thin. Booz Allen has raked in $400 million in deals…
(Technically it was hemp, the other variety of the cannabis sativa plant that can’t get you high. But that distinction is usually lost on all the annoying stoners who love to philosophize in college dorms about how legalizing hemp would renew our nation’s agriculture, fix our tax base, and, like, George Washington totally grew it, too. This one’s for them.) Hemp advocates, who feel that the government has wrongly banned the cultivation of their beloved plant, have a new patron saint: Agriculture Department botanist Lyster Dewey. The Washington Post reports that Dewey tended “Uncle Sam’s hemp farm” on a plot…
The Office of Personnel Management really pulled out all the stops at today’s event announcing President Obama’s reforms to the federal hiring process. Held in an auditorium at OPM’s E Street offices, it had the feel of a campaign event, with U2’s “Beautiful Day” playing on loudspeakers before the event as media, special guests and OPM employees took their seats. Marvin Carraway, one of the Pentagon Force Protection Agency officers credited with stopping a gunman at the Pentagon subway station March 4, was on hand as one example of an exemplary federal employee. He got a standing ovation. OPM director…
Betty White killed on Saturday Night Live this weekend, but it’s a shame they buried this very funny sketch at the end of the show. Something tells me a lot of census takers are going to find themselves in Tina Fey’s shoes (that is to say, they’ll have to deal with downright crazy folks) as they try to survey the last stragglers over the next few weeks. [HTML1]
Defense Secretary Robert Gates delivered a tough message earlier today for his department’s bureaucracy (not to mention its contractors): The spending spree is over. Read an account of his Kansas speech and some of his planned changes at our sister publication, Military Times, here. And the Washington Post’s article has this interesting detail on contracting: Among Gates’s apparent targets for major cuts are the private contractors the Pentagon has hired in large numbers over the past decade to take on administrative tasks that the military used to handle. The defense secretary estimated that this portion of the Pentagon budget has…