How is it that civil service rules magically make it next to impossible to fire people at NOAA and not at GSA? Is there a different set of rules at GSA?
What about our scandal? That is basically what U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, in a letter last weekend, wants President Barack Obama to tell him at long last. Why do the GSA and Secret Service get all the attention?
It did not escape Brown's attention that when the scandal in the General Services Administration broke two weeks ago, the GSA administrator fell through a trap door, two senior agency staffers were fired and four GSA managers were suspended.
Thus ended a multi-year tradition at GSA of throwing elaborate conventions in Las Vegas on the taxpayers' credit card, with $7 shrimp and $45 breakfasts. Darn. It's no fun at GSA anymore.
But who is taking the fall at NOAA for the scandal in the fisheries law enforcement office? Why is Lubchenco still running NOAA? Who at the Commerce Department has lost their job over malicious prosecutions, a luxury fishing boat for booze cruises, destruction of evidence, and a slush fund filled with the proceeds of obscenely inflated fines against fishermen?