Report: Government spends billions more hiring contractors over public workers
As Washington's use of private contractors grows, the government is paying those contractors billions more than it would pay their government workers to do the same job, according to a new study released Tuesday.. In an attempt to verify frequently made claims that the government can save money by outsourcing its work, the nonprofit Project On Government Oversight (POGO) compared the total annual compensation for federal (and private sector) employees with federal contractor billing rates. The group found that in 33 of the 35 occupational categories it reviewed, federal government employees were less expensive than contractors. On average, the federal...
Published on Sunday 5th of February 2012 10:14:11 PM
Treason at the State Department: A Whistleblower's Story
The UK’s Sunday Times recently broke the story of an FBI whistleblower kept from speaking publicly about a State Department official suspected of selling nuclear secrets. Annie Jacobsen digs a bit deeper into this shadowy tale and wonders why American media outlets have greeted the revelations with stunning silence. Two weeks ago, the London Sunday Times broke an exclusive story about FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. For five years, the U.S. government has prevented Edmonds from speaking publicly on what she knows, claiming State Secrets Privilege. The Times got the exclusive on the story, eerily titled “For Sale: West’s Deadly Nuclear...
Published on Sunday 5th of February 2012 10:14:11 PM
Watchdog: Firm nearly detonated nuke bomb (1.2 megaton bomb near Amarillo)
WASHINGTON — An accident that occurred as a decades-old nuclear warhead was being dismantled at the government's Pantex facility near Amarillo, Texas, could have caused the device to detonate, a nonprofit organization charged Thursday. The Project on Government Oversight said the "near miss" event, which led the Energy Department to fine the plant's operator $110,000, was due partly to requirements that technicians at the plant work up to 72 hours per week. The Pantex plant, 17 miles northeast of Amarillo, is the country's only factory for assembly and disassembly of nuclear weapons. The organization said it was told by unidentified...
Published on Sunday 5th of February 2012 10:14:11 PM
Recent White House missteps create rift with GOP legislators
Tensions between Republican lawmakers and the White House have reached an all-time high, say Republicans on Capitol Hill. President Bush's sagging poll numbers, the administration's handling of the Dubai port deal and lingering bad memories of Harriet Miers' failed Supreme Court nomination have left a broad spectrum of Republicans on Capitol Hill with little good will toward the White House. "I was offended," Sen. Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican, said of Mr. Bush's threat last week to veto legislation aimed at stopping the transfer of port operations to a company owned by the United Arab Emirates. He said Mr. Bush "threatened...
Published on Sunday 5th of February 2012 10:14:11 PM
Access to Memos Is Affirmed
The Justice Department has backed away from a court battle over its authority to classify and restrict the discussion of information it has already released, handing a local advocacy group a victory by granting it explicit permission to publish letters written by two senators that contain the contested information. The case was considered a potential test of limits to the government's power to restrict access to information in the public domain on national security grounds. Former attorney general John D. Ashcroft had strongly defended the practice in this case by likening it to putting "spilt milk" back in a jar...
Published on Sunday 5th of February 2012 10:14:11 PM
Controversy Surrounds Army's Stryker
The U.S. Army's newest armored vehicle, the Stryker, is plagued with problems and fraught with dangers for crewmen, say military watchdogs and other organizations who have examined the wheeled vehicle's performance record. Also, critics and analysts have questioned the Defense Department's procurement of the vehicle as well as the Pentagon's decision to build it, adding the military has ignored warnings about the Stryker's perceived vulnerability and overall survivability in combat. According to an analysis by the Project On Government Oversight, or POGO, one of the Pentagon's own testing officials sent the defense agency a letter warning the $3 million-per-copy Stryker...
Published on Sunday 5th of February 2012 10:14:11 PM
POGO: Standing in the way of transformation
There is an organization attempting to stand in the way of the transformation of the US military into a more efficient, more effective, high technology force. That organization is the so-called Project On Government Oversight—POGO for short. Consider that the San Francisco Bay Area Progressive Directory lists POGO’s web site as a favorite web site. Hmmm. If the San Francisco Bay Area Progressive Directory likes POGO, something must be rotten.
Published on Sunday 5th of February 2012 10:14:11 PM
Nuclear Security in State of Unreadiness
Underequipped, undermanned and underpaid, security guards at three of four nuclear reactors surveyed by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a nonprofit public-interest group, say that they lack confidence in the ability of their own forces to repel a terrorist attack. Low morale frequently was cited as a serious problem by the more than 20 security guards interviewed who protect 24 nuclear reactors at 13 plants. More than one-half of the guards interviewed told POGO that post-Sept. 11 requirements by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that protective-force numbers be increased to more than the five to 10 security guards formerly...
Published on Sunday 5th of February 2012 10:14:11 PM
Share this!