Via Tom Lee: “On OpenCongress, you can now email your representatives and senators just as easily as you would a friend or colleague. We’ve added a new feature to OpenCongress. It’s not flashy. It doesn’t use D3 or integrate with social media. But we still think it’s pretty cool. You might’ve already heard of it. Email. This may not sound… Continue Reading
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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici
DHS Releases Second Quadrennial Homeland Security Review
“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released its second Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR), taking an important foundational step toward one of Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson’s highest priorities: strengthening Departmental unity of effort. The DHS unity of effort initiative is focused on ensuring that the Department invests and operates in a cohesive, unified… Continue Reading
Telling Visual Stories About Data – CBO
Presentation by Peter Fontaine, CBO’s Assistant Director for Budget Analysis, to a Global Network of Parliamentary Budget Offices Community Meeting Sponsored by the World Bank Institute. Peter Fontaine is CBO’s Assistant Director for Budget Analysis: “Last week, I attended a meeting in Ottawa, Ontario, of the Global Network of Parliamentary Budget Offices, which was sponsored… Continue Reading
New GAO Reports – Defense Inventory, Controls Over Processes for Consolidated Financial Statements
DEFENSE INVENTORY: Actions Needed to Improve the Defense Logistics Agency’s Inventory Management, GAO-14-495: Published: Jun 19, 2014. Publicly Released: Jun 19, 2014: “The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) developed and met goals for reducing on-hand inventory and on-order excess inventory (i.e., already purchased items that may be excess due to subsequent changes in the services’ requirements) and has made… Continue Reading
New study finds Internet not responsible for dying newspapers
“[A] recently published study finds that we may be all wrong about the role of the Internet in the decline of newspapers. According to research by University of Chicago Booth School of Business Professor Matthew Gentzkow, assumptions about journalism are based on three false premises. In his new paper, Trading Dollars for Dollars: The Price of Attention Online and Offline, which was published… Continue Reading
Federal Reserve issues FOMC statement
News release, july 18, 2014 – “Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in April indicates that growth in economic activity has rebounded in recent months. Labor market indicators generally showed further improvement. The unemployment rate, though lower, remains elevated. Household spending appears to be rising moderately and business fixed investment resumed its… Continue Reading
Energy sector faces increasing pressures from climate change – new report
World Energy Council – “The energy sector is facing increasing pressures from climate change. All segments of the industry will be affected by the changing global climate and the policy responses to it. So says a briefing published jointly by the World Energy Council (WEC), the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), the… Continue Reading
Dynamic Stalemate: Surveying Syria’s Military Landscape – Brookings
“The Syrian uprising has changed significantly since the first signs of localized armed resistance began emerging in late April 2011. Western states and regional countries opposed to President Assad’s rule failed to manage the formation of an organized and representative political and military opposition body over the past three years. Instead, fragmentation of first the… Continue Reading
GAO – Additional Actions Needed to Improve Reporting on and Planning for the Use of Contract Personnel
Civilian Intelligence Community – GAO-14-692T: Published: Jun 18, 2014. Publicly Released: Jun 18, 2014. “Limitations in the intelligence community’s (IC) inventory of contract personnel hinder the ability to determine the extent to which the eight civilian IC elements—the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), and six components within the Departments of… Continue Reading
New Insights on Childhood Poverty in Virginia
Demographics Research Group, University of Virginia news release – “Child poverty in Virginia is of concern, not only for its current effects, but also for its future consequences. Today’s poor children are likely to have lower educational attainment, lower projected lifetimes earnings, and generally poorer health outcomes as adults—negative outcomes affecting not only these individuals,… Continue Reading
Political Polarization and Personal Life – Pew
How Increasing Ideological Uniformity and Partisan Antipathy Affect Politics, Compromise and Everyday Life,. June 12, 2014 [snipped] “Liberals and conservatives are divided over more than just politics. Those on the opposite ends of the ideological spectrum disagree about everything from the type of community in which they prefer to live to the type of people… Continue Reading
DHS Contract and Grant Spending and the Supporting Industrial Base, 2004-2013
By David J. Berteau, Gregory Sanders, Jesse Ellman, Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 16, 2014 “This report analyzes contracting for products, services, and research development by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its key components. In provides an in-depth look at trends in DHS contracting since the establishment of the agency and provides an initial… Continue Reading
