Federal Eye

President Obama left Thursday for Asia -- but he isn't the only government official headed there.

Several Cabinet secretaries and other top administration officials will be along for at least part of the ride. The president is scheduled to arrive in Japan on Friday and then plans to go to the APEC Conference in Singapore on Saturday. From there, he's scheduled to go to China on Sunday and will arrive in South Korea next Wednesday before returning home.

Here's a breakdown of the packed schedules for members of his Cabinet:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton: She started at the APEC ministerial meetings then flew to Manila Thursday for a two-day visit before going back to the APEC meetings. Clinton will also travel with Obama to China and South Korea.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner: He's already been to Japan and told Asian leaders in Singapore on Thursday that the Obama administration is committed to a strong dollar. He'll join Obama at the APEC meetings in Singapore.

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke: He'll join Clinton in Singapore for the APEC Conference's ministerial meetings. He, too, will travel to Beijing with Obama. Locke, the nation's first Chinese American governor (in Washington state), is a bit of a rock star in China and has close relations with several government and business leaders there.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu: He is visiting India to discuss clean energy efforts before joining Obama in China as part of the official White House delegation. Chu and Locke went to China last month to sort out some details before Obama's arrival.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk: Will attend the APEC meetings and speak at its CEO summit on Saturday in place of Obama. He also will travel with the president to China.

Follow President Obama's schedule with The Post's POTUS Tracker

Tammy Duckworth, assistant secretary of veterans affairs, lost both legs while serving in Iraq in 2004. (Pierre Kattar/Post)

Veterans Affairs Assistant Secretary Tammy Duckworth and 22 former military crewmates watched as President Obama departed the White House Thursday morning on Marine One en route to Asia, according to a White House pool report.

Duckworth and her military buddies are meeting today in Washington to mark her fifth "alive day," or the fifth anniversary of the day she lost her legs during the Iraq war.

As The Eye reported in Wednesday's Post, Duckworth lost her legs on Nov. 12, 2004 when the Army Black Hawk helicopter she was co-piloting was attacked over Baghdad. Her co-pilot successfully landed the plane and she was pulled to safety by him and other crewmates.

Though the group normally meets in St. Louis, Duckworth will instead lead them today on a tour of the White House and U.S. Capitol.

"After all, they defended all this; they might as well see it firsthand," she told The Eye during a recent interview.

"The anniversary of my shootdown, the anniversary of the day I was gravely injured and lost my legs could be a really depressing day," Duckworth said in that interview. "It could be a day that I just stayed under the covers and cried and felt sorry for myself. Or it could be a day that I look at as, you know what? I'm alive. This is my second birthday. My buddies saved me.

"So I use it as a day to honor my buddies. It's a celebration that, you know what, each one of us struggled as hard as we could and we're here together because we stuck together. For me personally, it's a day of thanks to everyone who was there along the way to save my life," she said.

Duckworth still serves as a Major in the Illinois National Guard and is training with small aircraft to earn a new pilot's license.

Happy Thursday! Here's a report worth a moment of your time: At least nine states could soon face economic and fiscal hardship nearly as daunting as California, according to a Pew Center on the States report released Wednesday.

Though the Golden State has suffered from a mix of high number of home foreclosures, sharply declining tax revenue and unemployment levels higher than the national average, other states face similar issues and some localized concerns.

Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin are on watch for serious budgetary problems, the report said.

Part of the problem, as economists, state leaders and other observers have already warned, is that states' fiscal situations will worsen before the national economy starts to recover, and that it will take the states longer to recover from "The Great Recession." But most of all, the temporary relief provided by the economic stimulus program starts to dry up late next year, meaning the states will have to make up the difference.

Localized concerns include Nevada's dependency on the slumping casino industry and Michigan's ties to the auto industry, laws that require state governments to give surpluses back to residents, and other laws requiring two-thirds of the state legislature to approve tax increases. All of these localized issues have helped contribute to the downfall, which the study's authors say could continue for at least another five years.

Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

• Cabinet and Staff News: Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry resists an increase in troops in Afghanistan. Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's husband dies. Former ambassador and current adviser to the Kurds stands to reap big oil profits. Peter Orszag says the deficit has to be cut to 3 percent of economic growth. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and his department come up with a scoring system for school funding.

By The Post's Frank Ahrens in his blog, The Ticker:

The first thing we need to do is try to get a handle on unemployment among veterans. The Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) breaks down joblessness among veterans into eras, based on the wars they served in.

As of last month, the overall rate of unemployment for all vets was 8.1 percent, according to the BLS -- actually lower than the national unemployment rate.

But that number is skewed by older veterans who are entrenched in the labor force. The numbers for younger vets is higher.

Breaking down the BLS data:

-- Unemployment among vets of WWII, Korea and Vietnam: 7.6 percent, up from 4 percent in October 2008.

-- Unemployment among vets of Gulf War I (1990-91): 6.1 percent, up from 5.2 percent this time last year.

-- Unemployment among vets of Gulf War II (post-2001 conflicts): 11.6 percent, up from 8 percent this time last year.

Continue reading at The Ticker >>>

By Ed O'Keefe and Paul Kane

Updated 5:35 p.m. ET

Congress will move next year to repeal the military's "don't ask don't tell" policy that prohibits openly gay people from serving in uniform, according to a Democratic lawmaker.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.)

In an interview with The Advocate, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), says both houses of Congress will include the repeal in their versions of the Defense authorization bill, the massive spending package that funds the Pentagon.

Frank, who is gay, said he has consulted with the White House, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders on the strategy. He also suggested that President Obama could stop discharges by executive order the moment the law changes.

“Once the bill is passed, even if it hasn’t yet taken effect at that point, the president could justify a stop-loss order because it would no longer be the law -- it’s just a matter of time,” Frank told The Advocate.

Senior Democratic aides said Pelosi has not formally decided on how to repeal the law but considers the defense authorization legislation the likely vehicle because that's where most Pentagon policy decisions are made.

Without endorsing a method or timing, Pelosi's office said the speaker remains committed to the effort. "One legislative way or another, this policy, which is unfair to patriotic Americans who serve our country and strengthen our national security, must be changed," Drew Hammill, Pelosi's spokesman, said.

Frank also admitted that passage of the repeal may be difficult in the Senate, where supporters will need 60 votes to end debate and get a vote. It's also unclear how politically vulnerable lawmakers will vote on an issue that is still opposed by many Americans, especially if negotiations on the bill drag into next fall.

Frank's comment come a month after President Obama told a Human Rights Campaign dinner that, "I will end 'don't ask, don't tell.' " The president did not provide any specifics on his plans to do so at the time, but Frank's remarks seem to indicate at least one path forward.

The Post's Debbie Cenziper reports:

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, worried about widespread lapses in oversight of the District's AIDS program, is threatening to cut off $12.2 million in federal funding next year if the problems are not fixed.

Assistant Secretary Mercedes Márquez said HUD will send a letter to the city this week stipulating that no new AIDS housing money will be awarded unless the D.C. Department of Health's HIV/AIDS administration makes the changes that HUD has been demanding for years.

Márquez also wrote last week to D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), saying she was "deeply concerned" about a recent Washington Post series that found the HIV/AIDS administration has paid more than $25 million to nonprofit groups that delivered substandard care or failed to account for their spending.

Many were housing groups funded with HUD money, including one that received more than $400,000 to renovate a job training center that three years later has never opened. Márquez said the city potentially violated more than 60 HUD requirements.

Continue reading this story >>>

The Eye profiles Veterans Affairs Assistant Secretary Tammy Duckworth -- an Iraq veteran and double amputee -- in Wednesday's Post, noting that she "has moved from the battlefields of Iraq to the halls of power in Washington, becoming part of a team headed by VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki, a former Army chief of staff, and Deputy Secretary W. Scott Gould, a Navy veteran, that is trying to overhaul an agency that's been called moribund and out of touch."

"More than 24 million U.S. veterans are alive today, according to VA. Of those, about 1.5 million served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Duckworth, 41, knows that her age, gender and injuries set her apart from most of the veterans she meets. But part of her job is connecting older veterans with younger ones, traveling at least twice a week to visit VA facilities and speak before veterans."

In the video above, watch Duckworth defend the Obama administration's veterans record and explain how she plans to celebrate her fifth "alive day" on Thursday.

(Video by Ed O'Keefe and Pierre Kattar)

Most importantly, November 11 is Veterans Day, but it's also the one-year anniversary of The Federal Eye's launch, which came as Washington shifted focus from the 2008 presidential campaign to the Bush-Obama presidential transition.

Much has happened in the last year, including security breaches, turf wars, Michelle Obama's visits to federal agencies, workplace shenanigans, and the trials and tribulations at the Post Office, amid many, many other developments. We've profiled government printers, federal law enforcement officers, government meteorologists and panda keepers.

Ask any reporter who's covered the federal government, and they'll tell you that the nuance, history and differing agendas make the beat a difficult one. But The Eye has enjoyed explaining it all to his loyal readers and is most proud to know that The Federal Eye has built a stable, growing audience that puts it among the most popular washingtonpost.com blogs.

Thank you for continuing to read and react and for making The Federal Eye part of your busy day. Here's to much, much more!

Happy Wednesday! There are roughly 24 million military veterans alive today, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Of those, roughly 1.5 million have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Thirty-three percent of all living veterans served during the Vietnam era, while 5.2 million served during the Gulf War period, which VA says started in Aug. 1990 and continues today. About 2.6 million served in World War II, 2.8 million in the Korean War and another 6 million served in peacetime.

Despite the large number of older veterans, President Obama paid special tribute to current service members and more recent veterans during his speech Tuesday at a memorial service at Fort Hood:

"This generation of soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen have volunteered in a time of certain danger," Obama said, noting later that "They have served tour after tour of duty in distant, different and difficult places. They have stood watch in blinding deserts and on snowy mountains. They have extended the opportunity of self-government to peoples that have suffered tyranny and war. They are man and woman; white, black, and brown; of all faiths and stations -- all Americans, serving together to protect our people, while giving others half a world away the chance to lead a better life."

"It will be said of this generation that they believed under the most trying of tests; that they persevered not just when it was easy, but when it was hard; and that they paid the price and bore the burden to secure this nation, and stood up for the values that live in the hearts of all free peoples," Obama said.

With that in mind, The Post has several stories today about veterans young and old:

• 'She is the face of the new generation': Yours truly reports on Veterans Affairs Assistant Secretary Tammy Duckworth and her work to reshape the department.

• In Congress, injured vets signing on for duty: News of a fellowship program on Capitol Hill for returning wounded veterans.

• A World War II veteran's last battle: A soldier seeks further recognition for his lieutenant.

• The quiet homefront heroics of a military spouse: Columnist John Kelly writes today that there's life. There's married life. And then there's married military life.

• Columnist Courtland Milloy writes today that concerns about how we protect our soldiers at home and abroad won't be allayed by a pat on the back.

For the growing list of those killed while in uniform, visit The Post's Faces of the Fallen.

Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

Veterans Day Events: President Obama will speak following an official remembrance at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Vice President Biden will host a luncheon for veterans at his official residence. The National Park Service will hold a ceremony at 1 p.m. at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

• More Nominees Announced: Obama has tapped Erin C. Conaton to serve as undersecretary of the Air Force; Cynthia Attwood to serve as a member of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission; Sandford Blitz to serve as a co-chair of the Northern Border Regional Commission; and Douglas A. Criscitello to serve as chief financial officer at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Track all of Obama's nominees with The Post's Head Count.

The Post's Al Kamen and Mary Beth Sheridan report:

Under Secretary of Agriculture for Research, Education and Economics Rajiv Shah, is going to be named to head the Agency for International Development, sources familiar with the choice said Tuesday.

Shah, 36, is a medical doctor who worked for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and before that was a health care policy adviser on Al Gore's presidential campaign. He was confirmed by the Senate in May for his current position, which oversees food safety issues, energy and climate, agricultural productivity and global food security.

His selection ends a long search to find someone to head the beleaguered agency, which dispenses billions of dollars in aid each year to developing countries.

Continue reading this story >>>