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Conan O'Brien Wants to Talk About Your Pension

February 20, 2013 The White House Correspondents Association announced Wednesday that Conan O'Brien would be the speaker at its annual dinner in April. The late-night funnyman is clearly excited about the gig, but perhaps not for the reason you might think -- at least judging from the tweet he sent out after the ...

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GSA Chief: Streamlining Offices Key to Improving Agency

February 19, 2013 The ongoing process of consolidating functional offices at the General Services Administration is critical to cutting costs and delivering better service to other federal agencies, GSA's administrator said Tuesday In a blog post, Dan Tangherlini said an ongoing "top to bottom" review of agency operations has led to decisions to ...

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Who's More Friendly, TSA or the Postal Service?

February 13, 2013 Who's better at taking care of their customers, the screeners at the Transportation Security Administration or the employees of the U.S. Postal Service? While given these agencies' overall level of popularity, many Americans doubtless would say "neither," Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., has an opinion. Fox Nation reports that in the ...

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State of the Union: In Defense of Government and its Employees

February 12, 2013 10:16 p.m. That's a wrap. Final thoughts: This was, by the standards of recent history, a clarion call for activist government, and a strong defense of the people who work in it -- at least in the national security arena. And it included a direct acknowledgment that threatening to shut ...

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Senate Panel Backs Hagel Nomination on Party-Line Vote

February 12, 2013 The Senate Armed Services Committee voted Tuesday to approve the nomination of Chuck Hagel to head the Defense Department on a 14-11 vote. All of the 14 votes for Hagel came from Democrats; all opposed to the nominee were Republicans. Republicans have indicated they may try to block Hagel's nomination ...

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Defense Extends Benefits to Same-Sex Domestic Partners of Service Members

February 11, 2013 Defense Secretary Leon Panetta formally extended a set of military benefits to same-sex partners of service members Monday. "Discrimination based on sexual orientation no longer has a place in the military," Panetta wrote in a memo to senior military leaders. "Today, our military leaders are ensuring that all America's sons ...

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What's Really To Blame for the Postal Service's Woes

February 11, 2013 Over at our (big) sister site, The Atlantic, James Fallows has been on a tear lately with a series of posts about the Postal Service's decision to end Saturday mail delivery. Two items stand out. In the first, Fallows refers to a piece by John Tierney in Salon making the ...

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8 Ways to Solve the Postal Service's Budget Problems

February 7, 2013 With the Postal Service poised to end Saturday delivery in the name of cost-cutting, The Onion has come up with a list of other ideas to address USPS's budget woes. Unfortunately, because it's The Onion, they're not exactly serious. Unless you think any of the following proposals might actually work: ...

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Pentagon to Propose 1 Percent Pay Raise for Troops

February 7, 2013 The Defense Department will request a 1 percent pay increase for members of the uniformed military for 2014, the Pentagon announced Wednesday. Military service members received a 1.7 percent increase for 2013. "The proposal provides a pay raise for U.S. forces in an era of slowing defense spending," said Defense ...

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Even with furloughs, Army may not be able to make payroll under sequester

February 6, 2013 Even if the Army furloughs every one of its more than 250,000 civilian employees for the maximum of 22 days this year, the service may fall short of meeting budget sequestration targets, briefing documents show. The documents, obtained by AOL Defense, show Army leaders believe that unless Congress grants them ...