Free Republic

On Monday, the Heritage Foundation announced that its current president, Kay Coles James, will resign later this year. Executive Vice President Dr. Kim R. Holmes, who rejoined the Heritage Foundation when James took over in 2018, will resign next month. “When we came on board as the executive leadership team three years ago, we set several goals and told Heritage’s board of trustees that we would serve for three to five years to see them through,” James said in a statement. “We accomplished everything we set out to do. Now it’s time to let someone else take the reins.” Under...

Democrats are moving a step beyond national debate over defunding the police, questioning whether crime is a bad thing at all. During the past month, three leading Democrats have all issued statements blessing criminal acts. As some Seattle residents illegally seized several city blocks in June and christened the area the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, the Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan did not initially intervene. Instead, Durkan said CHAZ was “patriotic” and that it could turn into “a summer of love.” “Burning, rioting, and looting are criminal acts and should never be justified or excused,” said Heritage Foundation President Kay James....

Federal Hiring Of Nation's Military Veterans Increases By Gerry J. GilmoreAmerican Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, Jan. 14, 2004 – Hiring of military veterans across the federal civilian work force increased in fiscal 2002, the government's director of personnel recently reported. In fact, hiring of veterans in the federal work force was up more than 19 percent over the previous fiscal year, Kay Coles James, director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, noted in her agency's most recent annual report to Congress, dated Sept. 30. In a Jan. 5 OPM news release, James asserted that the employment of veterans...

OPM Delivers Toys to Children of TR SailorsStory Number: NNS031224-09Release Date: 12/24/2003 12:20:00 PMBy Journalist 2nd Class Andre McIntyre, Naval Reserve Mobile Public Affairs Det. 206, NorfolkNORFOLK (NNS) -- Twenty-five employees of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) traveled from their headquarters in Washington to the hangar bay of USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) Dec. 13 to deliver roughly 1,300 toys to children of Sailors assigned to the aircraft carrier. For the last two years, OPM has provided more than 1,600 toys for this event. OPM adopted the carrier shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, when the ship and...

President Grants Extra Time Off for War on Terror Returnees American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, Nov. 20, 2003 -- Federal employees returning from Guard and Reserve duty in the terror war are receiving an extra five days' "uncharged" civilian leave. President Bush directed the move in a Nov. 14 memorandum issued to the heads of all executive departments and agencies. "As we welcome home returning federal civil servants who were called to active duty in the continuing global war on terrorism," the president wrote, "we recognize the contributions they have made in the defense of freedom. "Whether they served...

House votes for Defense personnel overhaul By Shawn Zeller szeller@govexec.com Legislation granting Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authority to set up new rules governing hiring, pay and promotions of civilian employees cleared a major hurdle on Friday when House legislators passed the fiscal 2004 defense authorization bill. The Senate is expected to follow suit next week. With the Homeland Security Department also set to put in place a new personnel system, the authorization bill's approval leaves less than a quarter of government workers under the current civil service system, and more agencies are expected to request new personnel flexibilities shortly....

Are the 180,000 civil service employees at the Department of Homeland Security facing dramatic changes in how they are paid, promoted and disciplined? Or will they end up in a personnel system not that much different from their current ones? The first glimpse of possible answers will begin to play out today as Bush administration officials and federal union leaders start sorting through 52 options affecting pay rates, job classifications, performance appraisals, disciplinary actions, appeal rights and labor/management relations. (snip) The meetings grew out of a directive from Congress that the department, a mega-merger of 22 agencies, consult with employee...

WASHINGTON – The era of terror has spawned a new "status symbol" in the nation's capital: bodyguards. If you don't have them, you're not considered important, say career federal employees who find the post-Sept. 11 trend both amusing and disturbing. Even the low-profile director of the relatively small, 3,600-employee Office of Personnel Management now has a protective detail. Interior Secretary Gale Norton, moreover, is protected by a phalanx of guards armed with MP-5 submachine guns, a weapon used by the president's Secret Service detail. "It's crazy," said a veteran U.S. official now involved in homeland security. In the past, protective...