By Rand Paul
Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution
After months of upheaval, the only thing impeding the president of a D.C. youth-corrections officers' union is a board member with a checkered past and an employee relations director who, despite city requirements, does not live in the District.
A small team of lawyers for the D.C. labor-relations office appeared in D.C. Superior Court this week to fend off allegations that the District government is conspiring to interfere in an intra-union dispute over the leadership of a 200-member bargaining unit for youth-corrections officers.

D.C. labor-relations officials insist they have nothing to do with a perplexing intraunion dispute over who has the authority to lead a 200-member union for youth-corrections officers.

Five months after the District opened a $220 million, state-of-the-art forensics laboratory hailed as an experimental transition to independent forensics testing, the crime-scene investigation unit has unraveled as a result of dysfunction and bureaucratic gridlock, according to the Fraternal Order of Police and veteran officers who process crime scenes.

A D.C. Council member on Thursday accused the administration of Mayor Vincent C. Gray of influencing a questionable contract award to overhaul city-owned United Medical Center and of appearing ready to cave to the demands of the large-business community currently objecting to broader efforts to reform the city's minority contracting policies.

The District's top budget minder says the city does not need to raise the "ballpark fee" it imposes on businesses to pay down the massive debt it took to build a home for the Washington Nationals, a long-term endeavor in the nation's capital as other sports-crazed cities grapple with the role of public funds in high-stakes stadium deals.

An arbitrator's ruling that D.C. Fire Chief Kenneth B. Ellerbe unlawfully retaliated against the president of the city firefighters union is "sobering" and "not good for the department," D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson said Wednesday.

Five weeks after he accepted national awards in his role as director of the D.C. Department of the Environment, the agency's former chief Christophe Tulou arrived in a downtown office building for a gathering where there were many familiar faces from the city government and environmental community.

Not long after the sudden firing of the District's top environmental official, Christophe Tulou, last month, employees from the city's Department of Environment were told to report to a hastily arranged meeting at the D.C. government offices on Fourth Street Northwest.

The Fenty administration didn’t do a good job managing school inventory, and that’s something the Gray administration must keep in mind as the mayor and the District’s school, property-management and financial advisers decide how to reconcile the supply of public school buildings with shifting student bodies and the ever-growing demand for choice.

D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray's administration said Friday it had fired the city's environment director, Christophe A.G. Tulou, for what officials termed a "serious breach of protocol" in negotiations over a long-term sewer project.

D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray's administration said Friday it had fired the city's environment director, Christophe A.G. Tulou, for what officials termed a "serious breach of protocol" in negotiations over a long-term sewer project.

The director of a newly created city agency with control over the District's 30-million-square-foot real estate portfolio met privately last week with politically connected lawyers, lobbyists and developers despite D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray's open-government policies and an ethics pledge he imposed on city officials to ensure transparency.

Federal prosecutors provided answers last week to one of the most-pressing questions about D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray's 2010 primary campaign - whether or not staffers paid a minor opponent to stay in the race with the hope he would continue his verbal attacks on incumbent Mayor Adrian M. Fenty.

Federal prosecutors dealt a major blow to D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray on Tuesday by validating high-profile claims by a minor 2010 candidate that Mr. Gray's campaign paid him to bash incumbent Mayor Adrian M. Fenty during the race.