11 months after being found in violation of the Federal Hatch Act, Lurita Doan’s reign as Administrator of the General Services Administration ended last night when the White House forced her to resign. “I would rather get fired for something I believe in and a cause I was willing to fight for, rather than to believe in nothing worth being fired for,” Doan said to Government Executive’s Dan Freidman and Robert Brosky.

It’s not clear what Doan was referring to, though she has waged a near-constant personnel battle with the GSA’s inspector general’s office. The independent office of special counsel determined last May that Doan doesn’t believe in the Hatch Act, which protects government employees from having to participate in the party politics espoused by their bosses.  At a luncheon with White House GOP political operative Scott Jennings, Doan asked her employees, “How can we help our candidates?”

That such a move didn’t get Doan fired sooner is one of the great mysteries of the Bush administration. That the White House finally decided to take such action now is another mystery. Read Freidman and Brosky here.  MB

The House Judiciary Committee should immediately subpoena David Addington, John Ashcroft, and John Yoo.  These citizens recently advised the Congress through legal counsel that they will not respond to Congress’s invitation to testify about secrecy and torture in the Bush administration.  Thus the Vice President, through his intellectual Cerburus (Vice Presidential Chief of Staff Addington) is thumbing his nose at the Constitution, the separation of powers, and basic democratic values.  As long as he is allowed to do this, former officials such as Ashcroft, Yoo, Harriet Miers and others will avoid their own civic and constitutional responsibilities.  If the House does not act decisively, the repercussions for Congress’s investigative powers may be fundamental and long-lasting. (more…)

A U.S. district judge in California ruled yesterday that the Bush administration has until May 15 to decide whether or not to put the polar bear on the endangered species list. The Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin notes that the decision goes against the wishes of Interior Dept. Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, who wanted to hold off making a decision until June 30.

But Kempthorne was originally supposed to decide in January and his delay led to three environmental groups suing him. Kassie Siegel, the lead petitioner in getting the Dept. to look at the animal’s status, called the judge’s ruling “a huge victory for the polar bear.”  Maybe a victory in the fight against bureaucratic inaction as well.  Read Eilperin here.  MB

And pretty soon you’re talking about real money.  If Pentagon overspending and misspending weren’t so good for so many people, Scot Paltrow’s piece in Conde Nast Portfolio would be ringing alarm bells all over the country.  Turns out that the Defense Department’s accounting system is so outdated, cobbled together, and unreliable that it’s not a system at all.  Tracking payments to contractors, military services or the many subdepartments within DoD is practically impossible.  In fact, as Paltrow writes, after a transaction — say, in the millions of dollars — is entered into Defense’s Indiana-based financial records system, "any ability to reliably trace it disappears."  The agency, together with Congress, has been working to fix this problem since the era of $640 toilet seats — in 1985.  Now the losses are in the trillions.  Read Paltrow here.  ЕH

The Department of Homeland Security has given Boeing billions of dollars to construct a border security program. But the Government Accountability Office concluded in February that the 28-mile “virtual fence” built by Boeing, in Arizona, did not meet the contract’s requirements and shouldn’t be replicated elsewhere.

Now, the Wall Street Journal’s August Cole reports, it’s back to the drawing board for both the agency and contractor.  A DHS Inspectors General report says that Boeing’s overall border work could cost three times as much its original estimate.  But, at least publicly, DHS seems unwilling—or unable—to sever its ties with the mega-contractor.  Read Cole here.  MB

Since November, House leaders John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) have relentlessly admonished the Food and Drug Administration for not fulfilling its regulatory mission.

Yesterday the lawmakers held a hearing that focused on the agency’s current inability to inspect imported drugs. The Wall Street Journal’s Corey Boles reports that the FDA’s Janet Woodcock thinks that $250 million would be enough money for the agency to inspect every foreign drug manufacturer. Dingell and Stupak propose $300 million. The current money allocated for foreign inspectors is $10 million.  Read Boles here. MB

USA Today’s Tom Vanden Brook reports that last month they were 11 attacks in Iraq from Predator drones, the Air Force’s unmanned surveillance and attack vehicles. This is more than double the previous month and shows growing confidence within the Pentagon about the new technology. The drones can be piloted remotely from the U.S. and they have been used as part of the counterinsurgency mission in Baghdad’s green zone. However, the Pentagon’s hope that drones can come close to replacing withdrawn troop brigades seems a little too blue-sky for even the most optimistic observers.  Read Vanden Brook here.  MB

Another day means another story of the FDA under fire for not regulating a dangerous drug, chemical compound, or scientific experiment. The Washington Post’s Rob Stein reports that the agency approved experiments with artificial blood substitutes despite National Institutes of Health studies showing the substitutes nearly triple the risk of heart attacks.

Some of the blood substitutes the FDA administered were to unconscious patients whose families didn’t give consent. The FDA argues that injecting the artificial blood had to be done immediately and in some cases could have saved the patient’s life.  Read Stein here.  MB

John Conyers, D-Mi. and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, keeps trying. The Washington Post’s Carrie Johnson reports that Conyers has threatened to subpoena John Ashcroft, John Yoo and David Addington if they won’t testify to the committee about White House torture policies.

Ashcroft and Yoo were leading the Justice Dept. when memos authorizing “harsh interrogation tactics” were given to the CIA and military officials at Guantanamo Bay. Yoo and Ashcroft are out of government now, but Addington continues on Vice President Cheney’s staff.  Ashcroft cited a heavy workload in his new lobbying job as a reason for not testifying. Read Johnson here.  MB

The New York Times’ Kevin Sack reports on a collateral effect of the growing recession —more people without health insurance. There has been a 1.1 percent rise since last year in the unemployed, which roughly translates into more than a million more adults and children losing health care coverage.

If all the uninsured turn to federally-funded health care programs, like Medicaid and the states’ child health insurance programs, the cost for the Dept. of Health and Human Services would be $3.4 billion. But if government takes on more debt to pay for health care, it may be better than the alternative:  many of the unemployed have stopped bothering to seek medical care.  Read Sack here.  MB