What’s interesting in the news today?
Open Thread, you decide.
Here’s a few to start off with.
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Another day, more govt. incompetence, as well as waste, fraud, and abuse.
First we go to NASA. Chinese hackers aren’t the only intruders into our govt’s secrets.
“Officials at NASA’s Langley Research Center permitted a contractor to hire a Chinese national affiliated with an organization designated by U.S. national security agencies as an “entity of concern,” and then allowed the individual access to classified information, according to Rep. Frank Wolf.
The as-yet unidentified individual was permitted to take that information back home to China, according to Wolf, the Virginia Republican who is chairman of a House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees NASA.
Wolf said during a Capitol Hill news conference today that “at least several dozen other Chinese nationals,” are employed at Langley, and he charged that they are employed in a manner to “circumvent” congressional bans on Chinese involvement at NASA facilities.”
Meanwhile, the TSA has embarrassed itself again. Funny too, for once they didn’t thoroughly grope someone, and this time they actually should have. They were probably too busy with old ladies and handicapped people.
From TheNYPost
“An undercover TSA inspector with an improvised explosive device stuffed in his pants got past two security screenings at Newark Airport — including a pat-down — and was cleared to get on board a commercial flight, sources told The Post yesterday.
The breach took place Feb. 25, when the Transportation Security Administration’s special operations team — the agency’s version of internal affairs — staged a mock intrusion at the airport.
“This episode once again demonstrates how Newark Airport is the Ground Zero of TSA failures,” a source said.”
And govt. employed tax delinquents have increased 11.5%. These are the 2011 numbers, the most current available.
From Bloomberg
“The number of tax-delinquent federal workers and retirees increased by 11.5 percent in 2011, according to Internal Revenue Service data.
The delinquency rate rose to 3.2 percent from 2.9 percent the previous year. The 311,566 delinquent taxpayers owe a total of $3.5 billion in federal taxes, according to the IRS data released today.”
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Our govt. loves to say they support the troops. Their treatment of vets says otherwise. They deserve better. And they deserve a country that honors the commitments and benefits promised to them. First the news of the Tri-Care changes coming to military retirees and their families October 1st.
““If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” That was the promise Barack Obama made in 2009, selling his health reform plan that became the Affordable Care Act.
It turns out that’s not even true for federal TRICARE beneficiaries.
If you live more than 40 miles from a military installation, chances are you are no longer welcome with TRICARE Prime. Pentagon officials have announced that most of these retired and surviving widow(ers) will be booted from TRICARE Prime as of October 1.”
More from ArmyTimes
Now we find out the Army is eliminating tuition assistance as well.
From Stripes.com
“The Army announced Friday it is suspending its tuition assistance program for soldiers newly enrolling in classes due to sequestration and other budgetary pressures.
“This suspension is necessary given the significant budget execution challenges caused by the combined effects of a possible year-long continuing resolution and sequestration,” Paul Prince, an army personnel spokesman at the Pentagon, wrote in an email to Stars and Stripes. “The Army understands the impacts of this action and will re-evaluate should the budgetary situation improve.”
The Army’s announcement follows a similar move by the Marine Corps.”
But probably the lowest of all, the disrespect from our elected officials, ‘cuz you know, they might have PTSD or something. I cannot express my displeasure with this woman strongly enough.
From RealClearPolitics
“SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN: If I understand this, this adds an exemption of retired military. As I understand our bill, no issue has arose in this regard during the 10 years the expired ban was in effect and what we did in the other bill was exempt possession by the United States or a department or agency of the United States. So that included active military.
The problem with expanding this is that, you know, with the advent of PTSD, which I think is a new phenomenon as a product of the Iraq War, it’s not clear how the seller or transferrer of a firearm covered by this bill would verify that an individual was a member, or a veteran, and that there was no impairment of that individual with respect to having a weapon like this.
So, you know, I would be happy to sit down with you again and see if we could work something out but I think we have to– if you’re going to do this, find a way that veterans who are incapacitated for one reason or another mentally don’t have access to this kind of weapon.”
And in other military news, the Air Force has scrubbed their drone numbers.
From TheAirForceTimes
“As scrutiny and debate over the use of remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) by the American military increased last month, the Air Force reversed a policy of sharing the number of airstrikes launched from RPAs in Afghanistan and quietly scrubbed those statistics from previous releases kept on their website.”
“The Air Force maintained that policy for the statistics reports for November, December and January. But the February numbers, released March 7, contained empty space where the box of RPA statistics had previously been.”
“Additionally, monthly reports hosted on the Air Force website have had the RPA data removed — and recently.”
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Wandering Views 