Free Republic

Hackers working on behalf of the Chinese government broke into the computer networks of at least six state governments in the United States in the last year, according to a report released Tuesday by a private cybersecurity firm. The report from Mandiant does not identify the compromised states or offer a motive for the intrusions, which began last May. But the Chinese group believed responsible for the breaches, APT41, is known to launch hacking operations both for old-fashioned espionage purposes and for financial gain. The same hacking group, APT41, was implicated in a 2020 Justice Department indictment that accused Chinese...

Earlier today the Kersten Institute for Governance and Public Policy highlighted an updated pension study, released by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, which revealed some fairly startling realities about California's public pension underfunding levels. After averaging $77,700 per household in 2014, the amount of public pension underfunding for the state of California jumped to a staggering $92,748 per household in 2015. But don't worry, we're sure pension managers can grow their way out of the problem...hedge fund returns have been stellar recently, right? Stanford University’s pension tracker database pegs the market value of California’s total pension debt at...

State governments lack transparency and accountability to citizens, and remain at high risk for corruption, according to a new study of all 50 statehouses. Not a single state received an A in the State Integrity Investigation ranking, a product of the Center for Public Integrity, Public Radio International and Global Integrity. … Only five states got rankings of B, led by a surprising recipient: New Jersey. It got a B-plus, with an overall score of 87 out of a possible 100. Despite — or perhaps because of — recent corruption scandals, New Jersey got the top ranking because of steps...

Democrats run Obama's home state of Illinois. That state's response to the profoundly serious economic problems facing so many states has been a massive increase in taxes. Republicans in neighboring states have an opportunity to showcase at the state level how their party would handle our nation's economic crisis. The landslide last November gave Republicans complete control of five state governments in the Great Lakes Region: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Republicans in those states not only control the governorships and both houses of the state legislatures, but the state legislative majorities are big, and Republicans won many secondary...

California drivers can't line up to renew their licenses Friday. Wisconsin natives can't order copies of their birth certificates. Georgia consumers will have to postpone registering complaints with state watchdogs. And stranded motorists in Maryland may have to wait a little longer for highway-department help.