Friday Finale & Farewell, Professor
FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. New agility for the federal employee. Contributor Jillian Hamilton reports, “Office of Personnel Management (OPM) plans to make it easier for federal employees to attain career tenure. Federal employees will now achieve career tenure after three total years of credible service instead of after three continuous years of credible service. . . . This policy update gives those with career tenure a higher retention standing during a RIF. Career tenure also gives federal employees lifetime reinstatement eligibility, which means that the individual would not have to compete with the general public for future competitive service appointments and does not need to go through the competitive examining process again.”
2. Mischievous, misleading missileers. Contributor John Holst explains, “In a normal month, every month, Missileers must take at least three tests: weapons system (care and maintenance of the missile ground infrastructure and missiles), codes (to make sure communications between the missile and launch center are secure), and Emergency War Orders (EWO—the Top Secret orders regarding missile launches during war). Since the cheating Missileers were texting answers to each other, classified EWO tests were hopefully not compromised—unless the Missileers just ignored that altogether.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Women stepping up for Afghan National Police. Reuters’ Trust.Org contributors Jessica Donati and Hamid Shalizi report, “An Afghan policewoman took charge of a district in the capital Kabul this week, such an unusual and dangerous appointment in a country where women have few rights that her bosses gave her four bodyguards. Colonel Jamila Bayaaz, who joined the force more than 30 years ago, heads one of Kabul’s busiest shopping districts. Interviewed on Wednesday, Bayaaz said she hoped to inspire other women and improve paltry numbers in police ranks in the post-Taliban era, despite highly publicised recruitment drives.”
2. High confidence – Taliban ready to take charge, again. BBC’s John Simpson reports from Kabul, “As things stand, it’s very hard to believe that the Taliban might make a comeback. Yet their take-over of Kabul in 1996 was completely unexpected, and happened because the government of the time was so corrupt and ineffectual. If the April election is won by a weak figure suspected of corruption, the Taliban’s chances will definitely be boosted.” LongWarJournal.Org’s Bill Roggio reports, “Coalition and Afghan special operations forces targeted a Haqqani Network-linked Taliban leader during a recent raid in the central Afghan province in Parwan. The Taliban commander, who serves as Parwan’s deputy shadow governor, ‘transports weapons, fighters and suicide bombers’ into the province and Kabul. Afghanistan’s president accused the US of killing eight civilians during the raid.”
3. State of the Art Army. WaPo’s Michael E. Ruane reports, “The story goes that Norman Rockwell, seeking authenticity, wanted to rip holes in the soldiers’ shirt. The GI said fine. Rockwell asked to smear mud on his face and hands. Not a problem. But when the artist asked to rub dirt on his machine gun, the soldier refused: No proper gunner could tolerate that. So Rockwell portrayed the GI as tattered and begrimed, but with his big gray Browning machine gun sleek and clean. . . . In all, there are 16,000 pieces of art stored in the Army’s $24 million Museum Support Center, which was created to care for items destined for the museum.”
4. Pentagon sees stability in spending bill. American Forces Press Service’s Jim Garamone reports, “A Pentagon spokesman has praised a budget bill that won final Congressional approval [Thursday] which would fund the government through September, but cautions tough spending decisions remain. The bill provides DOD with necessary funding for critical investments and modernization, an increase in pay and benefits, continued training, equipment maintenance and funding that supports military operations in Afghanistan . . . It alleviates some of the cuts mandated under sequestration. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has worked long and hard with members of Congress on the legislation. . . . The wide ranging spending bill doesn’t solve every problem, but it does provide DOD a measure of stability.”
5. Cease fire, prisoner swaps – Syria’s offer. Aljazeera.Com reports, “Syria’s foreign minister has said he has handed Russia plans for a ceasefire in Aleppo, and was ready to exchange lists with rebel forces on a possible prisoner swap. In a news conference on Friday in Moscow, Walid al-Moualem said he had handed his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, details of the ceasefire, plus plans for a prisoner exchange and the opening of humanitarian corridors in Syria. The offer came hours before the main opposition bloc, the Syrian National Coalition, was due to decide whether it would participate in peace talks scheduled by the UN next week in Geneva.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Executive order minimum wage raise in the works. WaPo contributor Greg Sargent reports, “At his meeting with Democratic Senators [Wednesday evening], President Obama indicated that he is giving serious consideration to executive action designed to raise the minimum wage for employees of federal contractors, according to one Senator who was present. Proponents want to see this executive action happen on the merits — they believe it could impact as many as two million employees of federal contractors, and would help the economy. But they also believe such action could give a boost of momentum to the push for a minimum wage hike for all American workers, which obviously would require Congressional approval, but is currently facing Republican opposition.”
2. Due Feb 3, small business Advanced Weather Processing System bids. FederalTimes.Com’s Michael Hardy reports, “A small business might be able to provide operations and maintenance services for the Advanced Weather Processing System, the ‘cornerstone IT system’ that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service use to gather, analyze and disseminate weather data. NOAA filed a request for information on Jan. 16 to gather more understanding of the capabilities that small businesses could bring to the challenge. NWS meteorologists and other scientists use AWIPS around the clock, every day of the year, according to the document.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. NSA reform speech tonight – “No Win” situation. Christian Science Monitor’s Peter Grier reports, “President Obama is scheduled to announce National Security Agency reforms in a speech at the Justice Department Friday. While the White House has yet to announce the specifics of Obama’s proposal, here’s a prediction almost guaranteed to come true: afterwards, somebody is going to be angry. By “somebody,” we mean one side or the other in the ongoing debate as to whether NSA surveillance has gone too far, of course. The reason for this is that the NSA and its possible overreach is just the sort of security issue the president cannot win.” DefenseOne.Com reports, “Despite a push from Democratic and Republican lawmakers for new reforms of the intelligence community ahead of President Obama’s highly anticipated speech Friday, Intelligence Committee leaders in both the House and Senate are signaling little interest in such legislation.”
2. Turf fights defeated Joint Health Record. NextGov.Com’s Bob Brewin reports, “Robert Gates failed to overcome the turf wars have prevented development of an integrated electronic health record to serve both the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments . . . Gates said he and VA Secretary Eric Shinseki agreed on the need for a joint record, but faced bureaucratic pushback. ‘At the end of the day, Shinseki and I simply could not get the technical people to abandon their turf consciousness and their insistence on owning their own system and not combining the two’ . . . . Gates told [John] Stewart he wanted to outsource development of the joint health record to the private sector because ‘when the government tries to build something really big and really complicated, especially in the technical world, it almost always fails.’”
3. NSA collecting your texting – LOL 😉. Guardian’s James Ball reports, “The National Security Agency has collected almost 200 million text messages a day from across the globe, using them to extract data including location, contact networks and credit card details, according to top-secret documents. . . . The NSA has made extensive use of its vast text message database to extract information on people’s travel plans, contact books, financial transactions and more – including of individuals under no suspicion of illegal activity.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Bill to Barak: “The Senate resoundingly approved a massive spending bill Jan. 16, sending the legislation to President Obama for his signature and assuring federal agencies of their budgets for the rest of fiscal 2014. ‘We’re a little late, but we have gotten the job done,’ Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., said shortly before the 72-26 vote. The House approved the measure Jan. 15; final passage in the Senate came less than three full days after the measure was introduced.”
2. The pen is the sword: “President Barack Obama has told Senate Democrats he plans to use his executive authority to act in 2014 when Congress stands in his way. Obama met with senators from his own party Wednesday at the White House. The White House says Obama and Democrats discussed proposals to raise the minimum wage and efforts to pass a comprehensive immigration overhaul. Education initiatives and jobs measures were also on the agenda. The White House says Obama wants to work with Congress to make progress, but will also act on his own to get things done.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “Obama’s NSA Speech: Just What Eisenhower Warned About?” NPR.Org’s Mark Memmott suggests, “President Obama will announce the changes he does and does not want to see in the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs. His speech will come after more than six months’ worth of debate about the NSA’s programs and how they do or don’t trample on civil liberties. The debate has been sparked by the leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Obama is expected to endorse some, but not all, of an independent panel’s recommendations about scaling back NSA’s efforts.”
2. “Ike’s Warning Of Military Expansion, 50 Years Later.” NPR.Org Staff remembers, “On Jan. 17, 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower gave the nation a dire warning about what he described as a threat to democratic government. He called it the military-industrial complex, a formidable union of defense contractors and the armed forces.”
3. “We need real protection from the NSA.” USAToday.Com contributors Ed Loomis, et. al. argue, “Wake up, America. While we’ve been paying attention to other things, our intelligence agencies have been tearing holes into the Bill of Rights. On Friday, President Obama is expected to issue new guidelines that purport to rein in these abuses, but leaked details leave little reason for hope that his proposals will go far enough. What America needs is a U-turn before we lose our freedom and our country.”
4. “Aiding Egypt’s Faux-Democracy.” USNews.Com contributor Pat Garofalo argues, “Repellent as Morsi’s government turned out to be, the coup seems to have put Egypt back on a road towards a ‘democracy’ that is not controlled by the voters, but rather by entrenched military and police interests. Egyptians, understandably weary from years of political and economic turmoil and without meaningful political opposition, are voting for a constitution that keeps the military free from civilian control and enshrines some of the same abuses present during the reign of former dictator Hosni Mubarak. Sure, votes have been cast, but that’s only democracy in the loosest sense of the word.”
THE FUNNIES
1. California hello.
2. A good cat.
3. Pretty punny.
