Free Republic

We're astounded by the increased brazenness of public employee organizations, which continue to push for salary and benefit packages that are so far in excess of what most private sector employees are earning that it's downright unfair to the average taxpayer. Orange County recently approved a dramatic pension spike for county employees, a sweetheart deal that immediately spikes pensions for all employees, with longtime employees receiving a windfall without having to pay much, if anything, into the plan. We can thank union-friendly Supervisors Bill Campbell, Tom Wilson and Jim Silva for that taxpayer-funded liability. Now, the Orange County Managers Association...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Two former FBI managers were hired as government contractors after their retirements, despite criticism of both men in an inspector general's report on FBI discipline. One ex-official, Joseph Wolfinger, is senior vice president and general manager of a Virginia firm that is conducting counter-intelligence training for FBI agents. The contract, which began earlier this year, is worth up to $410,000 if continued for five years, the bureau said. The other, Charles Mathews, former special agent in charge of the Portland, Ore., office, was hired to teach counter-intelligence training to Indonesian police. The FBI said Mathews received...

In a major shake-up of the space shuttle program, NASA yesterday announced the transfer or replacement of three top managers who participated in key decisions that led up to the Feb. 1 destruction of Columbia. Linda Ham, who headed the mission management team during the flight, and Ralph R. Roe Jr., manager of the vehicle engineering office, both at Johnson Space Center in Houston, were among those replaced by shuttle program manager William Parsons, who assumed his own post only last month. Ham and Roe were key players in decisions that have been targeted for criticism by investigators. These included...

<p>The governor of Massachusetts recently rocked that state's higher education community with a brash cost-cutting proposal: dismantle the University of Massachusetts system's Office of the President and save millions each year.</p> <p>That radical plan demonstrates just how far some leaders are willing to go to combat the debilitating budget deficits inundating nearly every level of government across the country.</p>

<p>One by one, the managers at the heart of the scandal at Los Alamos National Laboratory told a congressional committee Wednesday that they had not covered up wrongdoing at the lab.</p> <p>And they bristled at the notion that a culture of thievery festers at the 60-year-old nuclear weapons lab, which the University of California has managed since the dawn of the Atomic Age.</p>