Wow.

FBI agents on Tuesday raided the offices of Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch, who oversees protection for federal whistleblowers. The agents seized computers and shut down email service as part of an obstruction of justice probe, NPR has exclusively learned.

The head administrator for EPA's Midwest Region, Mary Gade, resigned last week amid a political firestorm. Aides to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson "told her to quit or be fired by June 1," according to the Chicago Tribune.

WaPo published an op-ed Monday in which former senior Department of Defense officials Dov S. Zakheim and Lt. Gen. Ronald T. Kadish (Ret.) note a recent GAO report that finds massive cost and schedule overruns in weapons acquisitions by the Pentagon. The report implicates a degradation of competition between contracting firms resulting in, according to Zajheim and Kadish (ZK, hereafter), "a kind of 'design bureau' competition, similar to what the Soviet Union used." After complaining about an Air Force tanker project won by EADS, a European defense contractor, ZK conclude that what's really needed to curtail waste, fraud, and abuse in military contracting is increased competition in the defense market spurred by an increase in domestic defense firms. Without really explaining why, they also claim that "[m]ore regulations and bureaucratic restrictions on contractors are not the answer." Although the consolidations helped contractors survive the spending cuts, they now threaten to undermine the industry. That's because many in Congress and at the Pentagon want to impose stricter oversight and controls on weapons manufacturing and development while simultaneously demanding more competition -- driving the system to an immature and evolving "globalized" marketplace. Here's the thing though: Better oversight and better procurement practices may not "fix the problem," but because of the nature of the defense "market," it may be the government's only tool to increase acquisition value.