Government Executive - Authors - Eric Randall

Hillary Clinton's secret weapon: Eyewear?

Eric Randall, The Wire — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 16:28:25 -0400

Once again Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has grabbed headlines and been declared "tres cool," this time, because she wore some purple wing-tipped Mardi Gras sunglasses while swearing in Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Michael Hammer. But we've spotted a pattern: Eyewear, it seems, is her secret weapon. Clinton's non-foreign policy related media profile has spiked several times since her launch to hipness this year with the Texts from Hillary meme, and as we pondered this, we noticed that glasses have been at the center of nearly all these scandals/memes/spurts of attention, a fact for which we shouldn't be that surprised. But first, let us briefly explain the eyeglasses that helped drive the stories.

The Mardi Gras glasses:

This is the most immediate and obvious case for our eyewear thesis: there is no story without those crazy sunglasses. (Well, she was wearing some Mardi Gras beads as well, and we guess those contributed.) As you can see below, in her remarks, Clinton reasoned that purple is the favorite color of new Assistant Secretary Hammer, and Hammer's family had come dutifully dressed in it, so she needed to get "appropriately attired." She then put on the glasses, even wearing them as she administered an oath. Thus can we, the media, note that she is "funky," "sassy," and even "funny," according to Glen Beck's website The Blaze (while they poll their readers on whether she's disrespecting the Constitution.) Clinton must realize at this point that her media presence is so flammable that even a simple prop one might purchase at the dollar store will reignite talk of her hipness.

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Read more at The Atlantic Wire.

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What if Mitt Romney visited Solyndra and no one noticed?

Eric Randall, The Wire — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 16:09:29 -0400

Mitt Romney had a decent shot at owning the news cycle Thursday when he hosted a press conference in front of Solyndra, every conservative's favorite (Obama) mistake. Talk about bad timing.

The photo op that arose from it made for some good optics, and we hadn't talked about Obama's investments in green energy, some of which go to companies whose ideas fail, in, oh, months (the news that federally subsidized Solyndra filed for bankruptcy happened months ago.) And yet, the moment went awry thanks to John Edwards.

Federal court rules against DOMA in same-sex government benefits case

Eric Randall, The Wire — Thu, 31 May 2012 14:26:41 -0400

A Federal Appeals court in Massachusetts ruled Thursday that the Defense of Marriage Act violates the Constitution by denying federal benefits to same-sex couples and though it's a narrow ruling, it's still a victory for same-sex marriage advocates as the case makes its way ever-closer to the Supreme Court.

Read the rest at The Atlantic Wire.

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Huge round of arrests for $450 million in Medicare fraud

Eric Randall, The Wire — Wed, 02 May 2012 15:43:07 -0400

CNN reports that the government has arrested 100 people in another huge health care fraud bust, and based on previous instances of this kind, there are bound to be some scandalous details forthcoming.

The group is charged with defrauding Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs for a combined $450 million, according to CNN's Terry Frieden, and Attorney General Eric Holder and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are going to give details at a press conference later today. This case seems similar to last year's bust, in which the government arrested 111 people in one fell swoop for $225 million worth of fraud.

Read the full story at The Atlantic Wire.

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Photo: GSA exec in hot water

Eric Randall, The Wire — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:05:17 -0400

General Services Administration regional commissioner Jeffrey Neely had a rough Monday as he very publicly invoked his 5th Amendment rights during a Congressional hearing into his agency's spending scandal, and photos of he and his wife doing all that aforementioned spending leaked around the internet, thanks to ABC News' Jake Tapper.

Neely's wife posted photos of their trip to the Las Vegas M Hotel in 2009 on her Google+ account. The trip was one of eight pre-conference "scouting" forays the agency apparently required just to make sure they weren't, you know, wasting $800,000 of taxpayers' money on hotel with small tubs or bad views. Judging from Neely's contented smile in the hotel tub, they weren't. (Insert your own "in hot water joke" here.)

Allegations that Neely took an iPod and other gadgets from a GSA building were reported Friday.

Read the rest at The Atlantic Wire.

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Republicans concede a payroll tax break extension without spending cuts

Eric Randall, The Wire — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:48:00 -0500

House Republicans will agree to extend the payroll tax cut for another 10 months without making up for the lost revenue with budget cuts, as they'd previously demanded, reports Bloomberg. We noted this morning that some kind of compromise on the extension seemed likely, with Rep. Paul Ryan giving signs to ABC's This Week that the two parties might actually agree to something. Bloomberg reports that the fact that the Republicans came to the Democrats on this -- though Democrats haven't yet agreed to it -- seems to indicate that they learned their lesson after battling against a two-month extension in December:

The Republican proposal reflects the desire to avoid being blamed for an impasse, as they were for a breakdown in talks that almost caused the tax break to expire at the end of December, said one of the staffers, a Republican leadership aide who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The compromise is bound to annoy budget hawks, but it'll likely have its cheerleaders too. Former vice chairman of the Fed Alan Blinder, for instance, wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Monday that the cut should be extended without spending reductions:

Continuing both policies through the end of this year should be a no-brainer ... Democrats want to cover the cost of the extensions by imposing a surtax on incomes over $1 million and eliminating some corporate tax subsidies. Republicans want to cover the costs by extending the pay freeze on federal workers, trimming some pension benefits, and raising Medicare premiums paid by wealthier seniors.

Here's a suggested compromise: Don't pay for it at all, at least not now. Raising other taxes or cutting other benefits would negate much of the stimulative impact of the payroll tax cut and the unemployment benefits.

Democrats apparently haven't yet given up on their "millionaire's tax" and accepted the offer, but if they do, it'll be the rare example of a high-profile but low conflict compromise in D.C.

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