House VA Committee leader demands ‘airtight case’ for VA IT employees getting pay boost

A top Republican on the House VA Committee is scrutinizing the number of the employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs who are receiving a pay raise meant for hard-to-keep IT and cyber experts. The VA implemented a Special Salary Rate last summer, giving more than 7,000 employees in its Office of Information Technology (OIT) a substantial boost in pay. The SSR resulted in a 17% average pay increase for VA tech and cyber workers in 2210-classified positions. VA OIT has over 7,500 employees in these positions, and they account…

Read More...

Kamala Harris’s Lucky Break

Updated at 9:30 a.m. ET on August 2, 2024 Until two weeks ago, to observe Vice President Kamala Harris was to be entertained and a little bewildered. “I love Venn diagrams!” she once told an interviewer, giggling. “It’s just somethin’ about those three circles!” She likes yellow school buses too, and her mother’s old saying about the coconut tree. She has often reached for lofty rhetoric only to come away with elegant platitudes: “What can be, unburdened by what has been”; “It’s time for us to do what we have…

Read More...

Secret Service Whistleblowers Say Acting Chief Cut Security Assets

Just days after Ronald Rowe, acting director of the Secret Service, denied playing a direct role in rejecting repeated requests for added security measures and assets to protect former President Donald Trump, whistleblowers came forward to refute those claims. The whistleblowers also blamed Rowe for some security failures that led to the July 13 assassination attempt that nearly killed Trump and left rallygoer Corey Comperatore dead and two other attendees wounded. Other Secret Service whistleblowers are coming forward, citing more systemic problems with the vaunted agency whose primary job is…

Read More...

Recap: MoveOn for Kamala Harris National Organizing Call

The political world has transformed in the past week. But one thing that has remained the same is the commitment of millions of MoveOn members to elect progressive leadership and defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans this November.  Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, longtime friend of MoveOn, joined us on July 28 to discuss this historic moment in time, MoveOn’s plan, and how MoveOn members can and will make the difference over the next 96 days before the election.  More than 30,000 people have watched Nancy Pelosi speaking to MoveOn…

Read More...

After August recess, Congress still has a full agenda

Congress managed to take care of all the spending bills it needed to before heading out the door for August recess. Lots is still on the agenda, though, for when it returns — including a local matter concerning Reagan International Airport. Plus, there’s been some rare bipartisanship as members share in the one thing they can still always agree on: dressing down a federal official. For more on this, Federal News Network executive producer Eric White spoke to WTOP Capitol Hill correspondent Mitchell Miller on the Federal Drive with Tom…

Read More...