FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. Job appeal. Contributor Diana Rodriguez reports, “If the Federal government is serious about improving and expanding a new generation of employees, they will have to do more in terms of recruitment and retention. According to a survey released last month by the Partnership for Public Service, working with the National Association of Colleges and Employers, a mere 2 percent of college students planned to work for the federal government upon graduation, while 6 percent responded more positively by saying federal service was an ideal career choice.”
2. Password management. Contributor John Holst with some practical advice: “For those who don’t know, password managers, like Lastpass and Keepass, are software applications used to store and organize a user’s website passwords and logins. A lot of them are free. My password files and logins are stored by the password manager locally and in the cloud. Reputable password managers protect my information very well, encrypting the data.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. A soldier’s story. WaPo’s Tim Craig reports from Camp Spann, Afghanistan, “In the past, the idea of an amputee returning to combat was virtually unthinkable, even though the occasional soldier remained on active duty after losing part of an arm or a leg. Now, thanks to advances in medical care and sturdier prosthetics, more service members can at least try.”
2. Women in combat. Christian Science Monitors Anna Mulrine reports, “Welcome to one of the most sweeping studies ever undertaken of the latent physical strength of men and women. Here amid the smell of sweat and diesel fuel, US soldiers in fatigues and 70 pounds of body armor are simulating a few of the toughest tasks involved in waging war in the American Army: quickly loading 65-pound antitank rounds into gun barrels, ferrying 80-pound cans of ammunition, scaling six-foot walls, and rescuing fellow soldiers from the turret of a tank.”
3. The cost of people. DefenseNews.Com’s John T. Bennett reports, “The first of several fiscal 2015 Pentagon spending bills began to come into focus last week, signaling something the defense sector has been lacking for years: Stability. But that could change dramatically in 2016. The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) is rejecting personnel-reform plans proposed by the Pentagon, which already has directed expected savings to other things. And that means lawmakers could end up raiding procurement accounts to keep military personnel programs whole, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.”
4. Losing control in Ukraine. WaPo’s Simon Denyer and Anna Nemtsova report from Donetsk, “Divisions deepened in Ukraine’s third-largest city Sunday as pro-Russian militants attacked a police station in Odessa and freed 67 of their allies, while pro-Ukrainian activists gathered with sticks and clubs and vowed to defend the southern city from the kind of takeovers that have occurred in the eastern part of the country. The spread of the violence to Odessa has raised the stakes dramatically in the Ukraine crisis, bringing the conflict between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian forces to the country’s most important port. The failure of the police to prevent the violence has underlined how quickly Ukraine’s security forces are losing control of their country.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Contracting and the “Annoyance Factor.” NextGov.Com’s Joseph Marks reports, “Bidding on a federal contract can be a chaotic process with requirements always changing and deadlines shifting. The federal contracting consultants at GovTribe are bringing some more clarity to that process, if not more calm—and they’re demonstrating the insights that can be culled from open government data at the same time. On Wednesday, GovTribe launched its Purse String Index, a paid tool that ranks the contracting officers at federal agencies based on how frequently they award contracts, how long the procurement process takes, the average dollar value of the contracts they award and their ‘annoyance factor.’”
2. Shipping contract awarded. FederalTimes.Com’s Andy Medici reports, “The General Services Administration has awarded its third-generation domestic delivery blanket purchase agreement to the United Parcel Service (UPS) and Federal Express (FedEx). The strategic sourcing agreement gives agencies low prices for shipping items across the country . . . . The new contract also includes dashboards for agencies to analyze how much they use the service and allow them to figure out how to change behaviors in order to reduce costs . . . .”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Cybersecurity games. DefenseOne.Com contributor Patrick Tucker reports, “350 members of the Truman National Security Project ran a massive simulation on Saturday to see if the United States was capable of passing legislation to fix the nation’s cyber vulnerabilities in the aftermath of a national crisis. In a few rooms at the Washington Plaza hotel, the simulation played out dramatically over the course of four hours. The feel was Washington, D.C., at hyper-speed. Five minutes into the experiment, a poll revealed the president’s approval rating falling to 35 percent, with the public trusting Republicans more than Democrats to handle cybersecurity.”
2. Cyber legislation—yet another try. FederalTimes.Com’s Amber Corrin reports, “Lawmakers on Capitol Hill consistently failed over the past two years to pass cybersecurity legislation, but that won’t stop them from trying again: The latest round of proposed cyber laws emerged earlier this week from the Senate Intelligence Committee. Committee chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), ranking Republican, on April 30 rolled out a proposed bill that would allow companies to share cyber threat information with each other and with the federal government without fear of legal repercussions. Similar legislation passed in the House last year but failed to gain traction in the Senate.”
3. Cyberspace oversight. Also from Amber Corrin, “Congress would get greater oversight authority over Defense Department operations in cyberspace if language that a House Armed Services Committee subcommittee issued makes it into the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act. The language calls on defense leaders to provide further information on numerous cyber activities, including cyber test and training ranges, the cyber workforce and cyber authorities and relationships with other federal organizations.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Shell game: “Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., accused the White House Sunday of misleading the public about the Benghazi terrorist attack merely to bolster President Obama’s re-election chances. Pointing to a newly disclosed email from senior administration official Ben Rhodes, Graham said the White House created a ‘political smoke screen’ on an issue that could damage Obama’s commander-in-chief credentials. . . . House Republican leaders have since announced the formation of a special committee to investigate the administration’s response to the Benghazi strike. Democrats, however, have hinted they won’t participate in the group’s work. But Graham said the White House couldn’t be trusted to tell the truth on Benghazi.”
2. All in good fun: “President Obama mixed self-deprecation with some sharp lines against Republicans at Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington, D.C. But he drew one of his biggest laughs with a reference to supposed tensions between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Biden as the 2016 presidential race looms. Obama mentioned Clinton having to dodge a shoe thrown at her during a recent speech, while video screens showed a photo of Biden holding a sneaker, apparently ready to aim and fire. . . . The dinner, which has drawn some criticism for its show of coziness between journalists and the politicians they cover, helps raise funds for scholarships for aspiring journalists. Celebrities and politicians mingled among the crowd of more than 2,000 people in the ballroom of the Washington Hilton Hotel” Read POTUS’s WHCAD remarks.
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “Ukraine: Lies, propaganda and the West’s agenda.” Aljazeera.Com contributor Alastair Sloan argues, “Washington and Brussels are the heroes of the Ukrainian saga, if you believe the Western media. Russian President Vladimir Putin is cast as the Big Bad Russian Bear, US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are the Democratic A-Team. Russia is supposedly using dirty KGB-inspired tactics: secret agitators backed by masked paratroopers. The West makes the same tired claims to back democracy and freedom and denounces Putin’s foul play.”
2. “Congress’s Chance to Fix Aircraft Carrier Drones.” DefenseOne.Com contributor Shawn Brimley argues, “Send the Navy back to the drawing board, require the secretary of defense to study and then certify the requirements for this critical investment and only then invest what is necessary to ensure that tomorrow’s adversaries fear the U.S. aircraft carrier and the long-range combat strike power it can unleash.”
3. “One Moscow voice for healing in Ukraine.” Christian Science Monitor’s Editorial Board argues that “as any organized religion eventually learns, aligning itself with the power of the state can come at a high price—especially when the state too easily resorts to violence to resolve political disputes. . . . Churches must always remain above a conflict, bringing healing rather than reasons for conflict. In Ukraine, that choice becomes more clear by the day.”
THE FUNNIES
2. St. Putin.
4. Selfies.
