Free Republic

A bitter dispute over forced assignments to Iraq has erupted inside the State Department with diplomats taking decidedly undiplomatic potshots at one another. The latest public salvo came Tuesday with a harshly critical post on the department's official blog in which a foreign service officer in Iraq skewered those who spoke out against the prospect of ordered tours of duty at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and outlying provinces. The message, titled "A Letter From Iraq to My Overwrought Colleagues," accused opponents of being spoiled elitists whose revolt against so-called "directed assignments" is embarrassing. "To my vexed and overwrought colleagues,...

Immigration officials refuse to grant Morristown police officers expanded powers to enforce laws against illegal aliens, in part, because the anticipated caseload increase could choke the system, police say. Morristown City Council member Mel Tucker, who pushed the initiative, is steamed and adds he’s not taking "no" for an answer. The Morristown Police Department approached the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency about having two MPD officers trained to perform certain duties of a federal immigration agent. The so-called 287(g) program would have expanded police powers in two ways, according to Lt. Chris Wisecarver, MPD training officer who was assigned...

Eleven public officials from across New Jersey, including 5 Pleasantville officials, were arrested Thursday in a federal corruption probe, the U.S. Attorney's office said. --snip-- More than 100 public officials in the state have been convicted on federal corruption charges in the last five years. Two other Democratic state senators, Wayne Bryant of Lawnside and Sharpe James of Newark, are among others facing pending corruption charges.

Question: What do IRS employees do when April 15 is nowhere on the horizon? Well, even when they aren't chasing down people who've listed dogs, deceased relatives or garden gnomes as dependents, it looks like their days are well spent. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) has found inappropriate e-mail--chain letters, jokes, and yes, porn--on a whopping 74 percent of IRS employees' computers. The summary of the findings were detailed in a report titled "Inappropriate Use of E-mail and System Configuration Management Weaknesses Are Creating Security Risks." Guess it just goes to show that the tax guys really...

We're grateful to our police officers. We count on them. We're proud of them.  Our state is going broke paying for them.  Same goes for teachers. We wish we could afford them, but we're having trouble.  We're having trouble paying for New Jersey's nearly 500,000 public employees. Especially at their current salaries and fringe benefits. Especially with New Jersey's property taxes among the steepest in the nation and rising.  Especially now that state officials have closed a $4.5 billion budget gap by raising taxes and cutting services while sidestepping the subject of how we compensate unionized public workers.  This isn't...

Staff at a government agency office have been reported leaping naked from filing cabinets and carrying out stomach-churning pranks. Civil servants are said to have had sex in the lavatories, taken drugs, used foul language, brawled in the reception area and held break-dancing contests in working hours. Some of the goings-on at the Rural Payments Agency, a branch of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in Lancaster House, Newcastle upon Tyne, are believed to have been captured on CCTV. One person has already been dismissed and disciplinary proceedings against others are under way. An investigation was begun after...

CUPE's disgraceHow does bashing the Jewish state help Canadian public workers? Martin Peretz and David Sax National Post Wednesday, June 07, 2006 Disbelief seemed the most natural reaction following the anti-Israel resolution passed by the Ontario convention of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) -- the largest provincial block of the largest union in the country -- on May 27. It came on a Saturday, during a sweltering summer weekend, when attentions were focused on baseball games and cottages, and Jewish union members were noticeably absent, celebrating the Sabbath. CUPE's decision, to boycott Israel and implement a divestment...

MADISON, WI (AP) -- The University of Wisconsin System was unaware it employed a total of 40 felons this fall, including two who committed homicides in the 1970s and four child sex offenders, according to an audit released Tuesday.UW System President Kevin Reilly promised a review of all 40 cases cited by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau to determine whether the crimes were related to their employment and the system should dismiss the employees. He said 12 of the employees no longer work for the system and 25 committed the crimes before they were hired. State law prohibits job discrimination...

08/05/2005 -- 18:12(GMT+7) Ha Noi, Aug. 5 (VNA) - Prime Minister Phan Van Khai has directed the State administrative sector to tighten discipline and order and said that fighting bureaucracy, corruption and wastefulness is an urgent task at present. The PM made the instruction at a ceremony held in Ha Noi on August 5 by the Ministry of Internal Affairs to receive the Order of Golden Star and celebrate the State administrative sector's 60th foundation day (August 28). At the presentation ceremony, PM Khai said the ministry should focus its efforts on improving the quality of public employees, and speed...

Posted on Mon, Feb. 07, 2005 Staff exodus pinches countiesBy Peter FelsenfeldCONTRA COSTA TIMES A wave of retirements sweeping through California counties has administrators statewide scrambling to replace highly experienced top managers.The departures involve a concentration of employees who entered the public-sector work force en masse during rapid government expansion in the early 1970s.Those workers are now in their mid- to late 50s and often occupy leadership positions. Many have accumulated enough years of service to take advantage of enhanced pension benefits that allow public employees to retire at ever-younger ages.Add everything together and the results aren't hard to...

January 25, 2005 -- A former Republican legislator who's looking to challenge Mayor Bloomberg claims Hizzoner's aides tried to buy him off with a six-figure job. "There's no question in my mind the offer was made so I wouldn't run," said Tom Ognibene, a former Queens city councilman who's threatening to enter a Republican primary against Bloomberg. Bill Cunningham, the mayor's communication director, said a meeting this month between Ognibene and two Bloomberg aides was routine and scheduled before Ognibene hinted he might run.

Carolina Journal Exclusives School of the Arts Audit Detailed Investigation finds "wilful, deliberate, and intentional" violations of state law RALEIGH - High-level administrators at the North Carolina School of the Arts engaged in "willful, deliberate, and intentional" violations of state law in what State Auditor Ralph Campbell described as "similar to the debacle at Enron." Campbell said the findings at the NCSA were as serious as any his office had uncovered previously. Among the findings of the State Auditor's Investigative Audit Division were: state and NCSA-affiliated foundation funds used to make car lease payments and country club dues for NCSA...

President Bush exercised an escape clause in federal pay law yesterday that allows him to stick to his proposed 2 percent pay raise for civilian employees next year rather than agree to a formula that would trigger an increase of about 15 percent. In a letter to congressional leaders, Bush said the larger increase "would threaten our efforts against terrorism or force deep cuts in discretionary spending or federal employment to stay within budget." Presidents have routinely used a loophole in the 1990 Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act, which was designed to close a "pay gap" between federal and private...

A curious thing happens when conservatives are elected president of the United States — particularly if they have the temerity to govern as conservatives: Non-trivial numbers of federal civil servants oppose the president's agenda and work to scupper it through quiet obstructionism, anonymous but highly critical press leaks and, on occasion, public disagreements over policy and programs.

"[President] Bush is demanding -- and the House has approved -- powers to rearrange the federal bureaucracy in ways not seen since Congress passed the Pendleton Act in 1883...If Senate Democrats go along, Bush could get rid of the 15-grade structure of the federal personnel system, in which promotions are based more on seniority than performance. Light suspects Bush would use a merit-based system. Once that was implemented at the Homeland Security Department, a domino effect that could release all 1.8 million federal workers from [the cumbersome and self-perpetuating bureaucracy of] government personnel rules."

To start the ball rolling: 1. Allow politicans running for office to promise whatever they think will help get them elected but require that if elected or re-elected any vote contrary to their campaign promises constitute their automatic resignation effective immediately and permanently. Examples: Campaign promises not to vote to raise taxes, not to vote for gun control laws, not to vote for any restrictions of freedom of speech or other civil liberties, not to vote for _________________. 2. Make it a felony with forfeiture of all pay and benefits otherwise due, for all government employees, past or present, from...

Navy draws criticism over beating deaths of deer on baseBy SCOTT HARPER, The Virginian-Pilot© April 18, 2002 VIRGINIA BEACH -- Animal-rights activists and wildlife rescuers are criticizing the Navy over an incident this month at Oceana Naval Air Station, where staff destroyed two badly injured deer by beating them with a shovel and cutting their throats. The Navy is defending the actions of two base workers, saying they used ``the best available, immediate means to end these animals' suffering at that particular time and place,'' Capt. C.A. Silvers, Oceana's commanding officer, said in a letter to one animal group. ``While...