Many Feds Face Furloughs Twice
Lawmakers Push Retroactive Furlough Pay
How Long Has the Shutdown Lasted?
In Focus: Who Faces Furloughs?
No TSP Contributions During a Shutdown
How Contractors Might Weather a Shutdown
AUTHOR ARCHIVES
A September to Surrender: Syria and Summers Spell Second-Term Slump
September 18, 2013 A commander in chief speaks intimately to America, constitutionally to Congress, and authoritatively to the world when he deploys the bullet, bayonet, B-52, or Tomahawk missile. Presidents don’t do pinpricks, either. Every military maneuver—real or feigned, decisive or disastrous—echoes like a drum. The vibrations change the rhythm of domestic politics. ...
Putin Has the Upper Hand on Syria
September 11, 2013 Vladimir Putin wants to keep Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in power. The best way to do that is to preserve Assad’s maximum military advantage over rebel forces. It would also suit Putin to enhance Assad’s legitimacy on the world stage. The deal offered by the Russian president and rapidly endorsed ...
Analysis: Government’s Vast Lockers of Data Threaten Basic Individual Freedoms
June 12, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
I’m going to try to tie together strands of information NSA-style and see if a pattern emerges. I will be looking for signs that America’s historic definition and understanding of privacy are being eroded. I will also try to understand if that erosion could fundamentally alter an individual American’s relationship ...
Analysis: How We Could Do More for Our Vets
May 29, 2013 I spent several hours on Memorial Day at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall. There is nothing notable or exceptional about my presence. I was too young to serve, and no name close to me is there for the etching, tears, or swollen sense of loss. Two cousins of mine (their ...
Analysis: Obama Appears at a Loss to Define the Way Forward in Syria
May 1, 2013 President Obama did not start the Syrian crisis, and the blood-soaked civil war has never lent itself to easy choices. In fact, the choices have always been among the hardest any U.S. president has faced in the region. Syria is more than a country, and its civil war is more ...
Analysis: Living With the Nuances, Ironies, and Flexibility of Sequestration
March 6, 2013 I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for the Twitpic Sequester Olympics. Brad Woodhouse, communications director for the Democratic National Committee, got the games going late Tuesday with a picture from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport and a long line of weary travelers. The Twitpic, shot by Jim Neal, a ...
Analysis: Hysteria over fiscal cliff may spur deal
November 29, 2012 If there is one redeeming feature of the otherwise gutless and indolent sequestration process, it is the underappreciated component of hysteria. Already, local news stations are running “fiscal cliff” countdown clocks. Fevered curiosity over the ebb and flow of cliff negotiations is rising and may soon creep near the Kardashian ...
Obama counters Boehner's opening bid on fiscal cliff
November 9, 2012 Wedged between standing ovations from supporters fore and aft, President Obama on Friday steered the good ship reelection straight toward the rocks of Speaker John Boehner’s refusal to raise income-tax rates on wealthy Americans. “We have to combine spending cuts with revenue,” Obama said from the East Room in his ...
Romney campaign denies acting rashly on Libyan situation
September 12, 2012 Caught up in the middle of a roiling and deadly foreign policy crisis, Mitt Romney’s campaign denies it acted rashly in condemning the Obama administration’s reaction to fatal assaults against U.S. diplomats in Libya and a violent raid against the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. Senior Romney advisers, who declined to ...
Decision to move Obama's speech inside sparks scramble
September 6, 2012 The game was called on account of thunderstorms. Or at least a 30-to-40 percent chance of them. The decision to relocate President Obama’s acceptance speech tonight from Bank of America Stadium to the Time Warner Cable Arena left thousands of would-be attendees frustrated and hunting for other venues to watch ...
