Mullen Signals Sea Change
Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the graduating class of the Army War College to accept responsibility, listen to their subordinates, and broaden their horizons. He also signaled a radical transformation of the way the Defense Department does business. The chairman also called on a national discourse on defense. “Quite frankly, I don’t believe ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on June 9, 2008 10:41
Sarasota County: Smokers Need Not Apply
Sarasota County, Florida, has made the decision that it will no longer hire smokers.Citing the burden they place on taxpayers who pay for government workers' health insurance, Sarasota County officials announced Monday that they no longer will hire smokers. [...] Sarasota County Administrator Jim Ley said the hiring ban came out of "a five- or six-year strategy to produce a healthier work ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on May 21, 2008 15:50
Girl Scout Sells 17,328 Boxes of Cookies
Jennifer Sharpe, a 15-year-old Dearborn, Michigan Girl Scout, sold 17,328 boxes of cookies by "setting up shop on a street corner." This achievement may or may not be a national record because nobody's actually keeping score, but we know nobody sold more this year. Regardless, it required a near-obsessive dedication and, as usual, quite a contribution from the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on May 15, 2008 15:41
Top Expert on Al Qaeda Victim of Budget Cuts
Marc Lynch extols the work of Radio Free Europe analyst Daniel Kimmage "on al-Qaeda's internet operations, including his definitive study of Iraqi insurgent media (with Kathleen Ridolfo) and his more recent report on al-Qaeda's internet media production network. There are very few people inside or outside the government who have worked harder or thought more deeply about how jihadists ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on May 9, 2008 10:38
Hundreds of Laptops Missing at State Department
The State Department's computer security team has lost 400-odd laptop computers, CQ's Jeff Stein reports. Hundreds of employee laptops are unaccounted for at the U.S. Department of State, which conducts delicate, often secret, diplomatic relations with foreign countries, an internal audit has found. As many as 400 of the unaccounted for laptops belong to the department’s Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program, according to officials ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on May 5, 2008 14:22
Air Marshals On No-Fly List
Some federal air marshals are being repeatedly delayed -- or denied -- boarding on flights because their name is on a terrorist watch list, Audrey Hudson reports. False identifications based on a terrorist no-fly list have for years prevented some federal air marshals from boarding flights they are assigned to protect, according to officials with the agency, which is finally taking ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on May 1, 2008 06:35
Government Hiring Boom
The private sector might be shedding jobs but government is hiring at all levels. Governments added 76,800 jobs in the first three months of 2008, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. That's the biggest jump in first-quarter hiring since a boom in 2002 that followed the 9/11 terrorist attacks. By contrast, private companies collectively shed 286,000 workers in the first three months ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on April 30, 2008 09:44
U.S. Kills Jihadists with Stroke of Pen, Creating Violent Extremists as Byproduct
The war against Jihadists and Islamo-Fascists has been won; each and every last one of these vermin has been eradicated courtesy of the United States Government. Unfortunately, the victory is quite literally in name only. The Bush administration has launched a new front in the war on terrorism, this time targeting language. Federal agencies, including the State Department, the Department ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on April 25, 2008 15:59
Pentagon Budget: SNAFU
The Defense Department has only a vague idea of where much of it money goes: Since 2004, the Pentagon has spent roughly $16 billion annually to maintain and modernize the military's business systems, but most are as unreliable as ever—even as the surge in defense spending is creating more room for error. The basic defense budget for 2007 was $439.3 billion, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on April 15, 2008 12:52
American Airlines Cancelations Unnecessary
Last week’s American Airlines debacle was the result of bureaucratic arrogance and inflexibility, not the public interest, Melanie Scarborough argues in the Washington Examiner. The Federal Aviation Administration forced the airline to ground a fleet of planes - canceling thousands of flights and stranding a quarter of a million passengers - because not all the wire bundles in the planes’ ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on April 14, 2008 11:13
U.S. Intelligence Agencies Rethink Classification Policy
The United States government is thinking about coming up with a coherent system for dealing with classified information. Steven Aftergood has details. U.S. intelligence agencies have embarked upon a process to develop a uniform classification policy and a single classification guide that could be used by the entire U.S. intelligence community, according to a newly obtained report (pdf) from the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on April 10, 2008 12:38
American Soldiers’ Views are Illegal?
"Surprising Political Endorsements By U.S. Troops" - ABC News Why not "Government Employees Cannot Participate in Partisan Political Activity"? Or how about government employees are not allowed to state who they support politically? How about government employees are NOT allowed to vote? How about UNION government employees are not allowed to vote? Though the military is not supposed to engage ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on April 8, 2008 05:26
Some States Balk At Real ID
Michael Cutler is incredulous that so many state governors are challenging the Real ID Act. It is impossible for me to understand how anyone who is concerned about the security of our nation in this perilous age would oppose the implementation of the Real ID Act. The seven years since the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the three years ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on March 27, 2008 11:59
Marine One Revamp Overbudget, Behind Schedule
Enhanced presidential helicopters ordered six years ago have not yet been delivered and they will cost more than twice the winning bid, WaPo's Peter Baker reports on page 1. A year after Sept. 11, 2001, the White House set out to build a fleet of state-of-the-art Marine One helicopters for the al-Qaeda age that would be safer, more powerful and ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on March 17, 2008 07:51
University Administrators Outnumber Faculty
For the first time in history, administrators outnumber faculty among the full-time employees of America's colleges and universities. In the fall of 2006, for which data were released Tuesday, 48.6 percent of professional, full-time jobs in higher education were held by faculty members. Faculty jobs remain the majority among full-time positions at two-year colleges and in public higher education, but because ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on March 13, 2008 07:28
