Tag Archives: Barack Obama

Denis McDonough, formerly chief of staff to President Obama, has been Senate-confirmed to become secretary of veterans affairs. A Senate meeting on Monday resulted in an 87-7 vote in favor of McDonough. McDonough was the deputy national security adviser during the Obama administration and also served in the former president's transition team.

Tarak Shah, an experienced energy policy expert, and David Huizenga, associate principal deputy administrator for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), have been appointed to serve as DOE's chief of staff and acting secretary, respectively. Both Shah and Huizenga will lead DOE under the Biden-Harris Administration in support of newly inaugurated President Biden, the department said Thursday.

Ajit Pai, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), has said he will step down from his post on Jan. 20th and end his years-long FCC tenure. "I’m also proud of the reforms we have instituted to make the agency more accountable to the American people," Pai highlighted in a letter posted Monday. 

The White House has rescinded an Obama administration policy that requires successor service contractors to offer jobs to their predecessors’ employees first prior to hiring others, Government Executive reported Friday.

BAE Systems announced on Wednesday that the former Under Secretary of the Army and U.S. Representative Patrick Murphy has been appointed to its Board of Directors through April 2022. 

The Department of the Treasury has issued sanctions against North Korean cyber terrorists who have targeted critical infrastructure. These state-sponsored hacking groups, known as Lazarus Group, Andariel and Bluenoroff, have been working with the Reconnaissance General Bureau, a North Korean intelligence agency, the department said Friday.

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Virginia) has introduced a bill that aims to increase the salary of federal employees by up to 3.2 percent in 2018, Government Executive reported Tuesday. Eric Katz writes the Federal Adjustment of Income Rates Act seeks a 2 percent boost to federal workers’ base pay and a 1.2 percent average increase to …

The U.S. and China have agreed to extend a cybersecurity cooperation partnership that was originally forged between the two countries in 2015, MeriTalk reported Tuesday. Both countries aim to further bilateral efforts to address cyber crime, exchange threat information, protect networks. US Attorney General Jeff Sessions; Elaine Duke, acting secretary …

Christopher Krebs, acting undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security‘s cybersecurity and critical infrastructure division, has said that DHS created a task force that will oversee the security of state and local voting systems, Nextgov reported Tuesday. He told the House Homeland Security Committee’s cybersecurity subcomittee during a hearing held …

The White House is reviewing a 2015 export policy that governs the sale of U.S.-built unmanned aerial vehicles to the country’s allies, Defense News reported Thursday. An unnamed government official told Defense News that the review part of the Trump administration’s efforts to update U.S. defense trade policy. “While these …