K4V.net BLOG

Here’s a creative twist on Washington Monument Syndrome –California citizens are now encountering “state and local government officials [who are] increasingly…blaming budget cuts and furloughs when they withhold or delay the release of information requested under the state Public Records Act.” Some examples, care of the Sacramento Bee : • In The Bee ’s investigation of deadly lapses at Sacramento County Child Protective Services, reporters discovered scores of agency employees with criminal records, including a registered sex offender. They requested e-mails for a few administrators to learn whether they knew about that individual’s conviction. The county demanded $7,049 – 53 hours at $133 per hour – to produce the e-mails

Originally posted here: 
Serve the Servants, Especially When They Have Server Issues

Over at the Wall Street Journal, Reason alum Ryan Sager writes about the connection between ease-of-payment and increased levels of taxation. If our priority is to experience as little pain from taxes as possible, we could go down the road California is on with its ReadyReturn program, available to people with income only from wages and only one employer

Read the original:
One Good Reason to Keep Income Tax Returns as Totally Freaking Annoying as Possible.

Last week California state Sen. Roy Ashburn, a Republican who represents Bakersfield, was nabbed for driving under the influence after leaving a gay nightclub in Sacramento. In a Monday morning radio interview, he admitted he is gay.

The rest is here: 
But How Did He Vote on Drunk Driving Legislation?

So, who have been the top two political donors in California over the past decade, accounting for around one-third of all political donations during the period when the Golden State went from the envy of the world to the laughingstock of the nation?

Read more from the original source: 
Ten Years of Union “Ugly” in California

On Feb.

Here is the original:
Matt Welch and Steven Greenhut on Stossel, Talking About Public Sector Unions, Pensions, and California

According to Reason Contributing Editor and certified chart-monster Veronique de Rugy , more than two out of three jobs that Recovery.gov reports as being funded by the stimulus package are through the Department of Education. Her graphic: De Rugy also says that “a third of all union jobs” are now in education

Original post: 
Stimulus: Hot for Teachers

The Sunshine Review, a wiki non-profit that promotes proactive disclosure from state and local governments on their websites, has posted its annual review of 5,000 state, city, county, and school district sites.

View original post here: 
Top Government Websites for Transparency

In 1992, Jim Gray, a conservative judge in conservative Orange County, California, held a press conference during which he recommended that we rethink our drug laws. Back then, it took a great deal of courage to suggest that the war on drugs was a failed policy. Today, more and more Americans are coming to the realization that prohibition’s costs—whether measured in lives and liberties lost or dollars wasted—far exceed any possible or claimed benefits.

View post:
Recently at Reason.tv: Judge Jim Gray on The Six Groups That Benefit From Drug Prohibition

Is marijuana responsible for John Patrick Bedell’s suicidal assault on the Pentagon? Yes, says Washington Post blogger Charles Lane, although his theory of the plant’s criminogenic effects is slightly more sophisticated than Harry Anslinger’s

Read more here: 
Did Marijuana Kill John Patrick Bedell?