Free Republic

The incident involves the unwitting exposure of "tens of thousands" of Social Security numbers, according to a recent audit by the independent transparency and public-domain group Public.Resource.org. The identifying numbers were on the Internet for less than 24 hours after being discovered, but the damage was done. And unfortunately, the data-breach concerns some of the most sensitive types of transactions: Those made by nonprofit political groups known as 527s.

Oakland’s long-running fight with the federal courts over its Police Department has taken a bizarre turn: The city administrator says the monitor who was sent to the East Bay to evaluate the cops tried to hit on her. Sources tell us the city alerted the federal judge who has ordered police reforms that the city is investigating the matter. They say his monitor, Robert Warshaw — a former police chief and antidrug official in the Clinton administration — made remarks in private conversations with City Administrator Deanna Santana that she took as inappropriate. In one case, Warshaw allegedly took the...

The day began with a drive across the desert, checking the snares he had placed in the sagebrush to catch coyotes. Gary Strader, an employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, stepped out of his truck near a ravine in Nevada and found something he hadn't intended to kill. There, strangled in a neck snare, was one of the most majestic birds in America, a federally protected golden eagle. "I called my supervisor and said, 'I just caught a golden eagle and it's dead,' " said Strader. "He said, 'Did anybody see it?' I said, 'Geez, I don't think so.'...

WASHINGTON -- Federal employees would pay more toward their pensions and new employees would receive less generous retirement benefits under a House Republican plan to pay for highway programs. The proposal, posted online Wednesday by the House Rules Committee, is intended to help make up a shortfall between federal gasoline tax revenues and the $260 billion that Republicans want to spend on highway construction and transit programs over the next four and a half years. Under the proposal, the pension contributions of federal employees would increase a total of 1.5 percent over three years. New employees' retirement benefits would be...

WASHINGTON – The next California wilderness fights will stretch from the desert to the Delta, in a dicey new political environment. This week, the state's two Democratic senators set the stage by introducing wilderness-related bills. Their prospects are unclear, but their ambitions are undeniable. "I've still got 1 million acres to go," Sen. Barbara Boxer said of her aspirations Wednesday.

A legislative budget committee voted unanimously Wednesday to eliminate state agencies altogether, taking dead aim at an administrative layer of gubernatorial bureaucracy that oversees most of the state's departments. The 10-member panel -- six Democrats and four Republicans -- also voted to eliminate the Office of the Secretary of Education, which lawmakers said is unnecessary because the state already has an elected Superintendent of Public Instruction and a State Board of Education. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recommended last month that lawmakers consolidate more than a dozen boards and commissions to save $50 million. Schwarzenegger also began laying off 5,000 rank-and-file state...

Heeding the maxim that there is opportunity in crisis, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has trotted out a new, albeit much smaller, version of his 2004 "blow up the boxes" government reorganization plan.The 2009 version is part of the labyrinthine $40 billion state budget-fixing proposal the administration released Wednesday.Included in the voluminous scheme are 17 proposals to combine, cut or realign various boards, commissions and programs, including: • Consolidating the state Hearing Aid Dispensers Bureau with the Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology Board.• Combining the state boards of geologists and geophysicists into one entity representing the interests of scientific disciplines that begin with...

The Legislative Analyst's Office will release a new report today analyzing the woeful state of California's finances. It will flesh out last week's estimate that the state faces a $27.8 billion deficit over the next 19 months. But a new report from Beacon Economics predicts things will look even glummer in the future: Labor markets are showing increased signs of stress.There is little sign of a recovery in housing, and foreclosure rates are growing worse by the day.Consumer markets have fallen off a cliff.Corporate profits are taking a serious beating. The report commissioned by California Forward, the nonpartisan government reform...

California has two kinds of state employees: Sacramento workers and everyone else. It makes a difference, says Christine Valle, a Southern California state worker. "Having always worked in San Diego, going to Sacramento becomes a trip to a different mental dimension. The thought process is very different, much more self-centered, much more protectionist, much more political in the sense that everyone asks, 'How does this decision or action look?' " Anyone who works in a large organization confronts that question. Bureaucracies, public or private, can be dehumanizing. Huge agencies and businesses often have rigid rules and ruthless politics that can...

California taxpayers could be on the hook for a staggering $388 million because of a state tax collection agency's vigorous pursuit of a former California taxpayer. In a case that one tax expert called "completely unprecedented," jurors in a Clark County, Nevada District trial awarded Las Vegas inventor Gilbert P. Hyatt $250 million in punitive damages Thursday for the "outrageous conduct" of Franchise Tax Board auditors in an investigation that began in 1993. The award was on top of $138.1 million jurors gave Hyatt last week for "invasion of privacy" and "emotional distress." . . . "As far as I...

an Nuys, CA (AP) -- With California facing multibillion dollar deficits and deep budget cuts, the state's elected officials may be in for some belt-tightening of their own. A state commission is considering cutting the pay of the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, legislators and other state elected officials. In most cases, those salaries are the highest in the nation for state elected officials, according to a survey prepared for the commission. "I don't think the people would like to see all the salaries stay the same when some people are out on the streets and jobs have been eliminated,"...

GONZALES, CALIF. -- Melanie Horwath phoned the California Tomato Board with what she assumed was a simple request. She needed promotional materials that her family's tomato packing company could display at a Salinas Valley agricultural event called Taste of the Valley. Do you have posters or recipes? she asked. We don't have that. What kind of promotion do you guys do? We don't do that kind of promotion. That's odd, Horwath thought. Her company paid thousands of dollars a month in mandatory dues to finance the board's research and marketing efforts: its legal purpose. She started digging into the board's...

I remember him coming rushing in from the garden that afternoon, in tears and covered in blood. After running his finger under the tap and seeing how deep the gash was, I decided to take him to our local A&E department at the King George hospital in Goodmayes, Essex. Tony cried all the way there but soon perked up at the sight of the hospital and the doctors. Because his wound was bleeding so heavily, we were rushed straight through to see a doctor and Tony was given a painkilling injection. When the doctors said they wanted to transfer Tony...

Onerous environmental restrictions have swelled the cost of California housing, pushing ownership rates to the second lowest level in the nation, asserted a report released Wednesday by the California Building Industry Association. The Sacramento-based trade group, which represents companies that want to build more houses, has proposed an unsurprising solution: Let companies build more houses. The CBIA is calling on state and local legislators to reform laws that it says make building for-sale units too risky or expensive. Environmental advocates generally support the goal of more housing, but they argue existing regulations are critical to ensure development moves forward in...

Boy, is this gutsy, huh. Conservatism is a paranoid, fearful personal philosophy and embracing it is a sign of emotional weakness. By its very definition, conservatism is opposed to progress. Conservatives believe we ought to "conserve" existing institutions and social norms, speaking from a positions which is always on the verge of being "led astray," and reflecting with an imperfect memory on the topics of fictional "Greatest Generations" and "Golden Ages." Nothing that sets itself against progress can claim to be on the side of good. Accordingly, conservatives, however nice they might otherwise be, for turning their energies against a...