Free Republic

SAN FRANCISCO – Gov. Jerry Brown railed Thursday against politicians who doubt climate change, calling them "political lemmings" and the chief obstacle in the fight against global warming. "The main thing we have to deal with in climate change is the skepticism, the denial and the cult-like behavior of the political lemmings that would take us over the cliff," the Democratic governor said at a high-profile conference on climate change at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. At a conference that included Brown's predecessor, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, Brown said climate change has...

The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday morning that proponents of Proposition 8 — the voter initiative in 2008 that amended the state constitution to say “only marriage between a man and a woman” is valid in California — have legal standing to defend the measure in court. That means the matter can proceed to the Ninth District Court of Appeals for a ruling on the merits of the measure. The legal question before the Supreme Court was procedural and unrelated to the substantive question of the constitutional validity of Prop. 8. It only assessed whether proponents of the measure can...

Three wealthy Californians have launched a new effort aimed at helping elect state legislators who demonstrate the "courage" to tackle major issues facing the Golden State. "Govern for California" is backed by Democrat David Crane, who worked as an advisor to former GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican investor Ron Conway, and Greg Penner, a WalMart Board of Directors member who is registered decline-to-state. The group has created a website website to educate voters about the importance and actions of the state's 120 legislators, arguing that the Golden State's governance woes "will never turn around unless the good people of California...

Um, hardy har? Arnold Schwarzenegger recycled an old gag T-shirt while exercising in Santa Monica on Sunday. As the photo (originally at TMZ) shows, the former California governor and actor, 64, donned a shirt that read "I survived Maria" on the back; on the front of the shirt the dates "2007-2010" appear, but "2007" is crossed out, replaced with "1977.

LOS ANGELES (KTLA) -- Arnold Schwarzenegger appears to be using his wardrobe to send a message to estranged wife Maria Shriver. The former governor recently donned a t-shirt that read, "I survived Maria." Schwarzenegger was spotted wearing the shirt during a bike ride Sunday in Santa Monica. The garment was designed by Shriver's staff as a joke and given to Schwarzenegger last November during a farewell party for his staff, TMZ is reporting. The shirt, which originally had the dates 2007-2010 printed on the bottom, was altered to list the dates 1977-2010. Schwarzenegger and Shriver began dating in 1977. The...

Now that the tabloid feeding frenzy has abated somewhat, it's time for a cooler look at the furor over former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's fathering a child by one of his household workers. A few pundits have tried to make the connection between his marital betrayal and his failings as governor, but one has nothing to do with the other. Illicit sex involving political figures is nothing new and, as we know now, was rampant even among the nation's founders. More recently, we have seen scandals involving Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer, Strom Thurmond, Mark Sanford and John Edwards, to name but...

The alleged mother of Arnold Schwarzenegger's lovechild has been named by a U.S. website. Mildred Baena, 50, is said to have fallen pregnant with her son, who is now aged around 14, while working for the former California governor and his wife as a housekeeper. Photos posted online by Baena show her and a young boy. She also claims on a social networking site to be 'single' and dating or searching for a 'serious relationship'. Baena also describes herself as a 'proud parent'. A joint investigation by RadarOnline and Star magazine in the U.S. led to the naming of the...

So this Schwarzenegger spalpeen was born more than 10 years ago, and Maria never had a clue? Arnold apparently took good care of his offspring, at least monetarily, but Maria didn’t catch on. That’s showing her (female) Kennedy roots all right. Paging Rose Kennedy. Just look the other way, like Michael Kennedy with the babysitter. Or Jack with Fiddle and Faddle and Judith Campbell Exner. Or Bobby with Marilyn Monroe . . . Obviously, Schwarzenegger had to overcome any number of handicaps to become a soldier in the Kennedy Crime Family. He’s an Austrian and, much more damning, he’s a...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, separated after the former governor revealed he had fathered a child with a member of their household staff, The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday. The couple announced in a joint statement May 9 that they had separated after 25 years of marriage. The Times reported Tuesday that Shriver moved out of the family's Brentwood mansion earlier this year after Schwarzenegger acknowledged the child is his. "After leaving the governor's office I told my wife about this event, which occurred over a decade ago," Schwarzenegger said in a statement issued...

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maria Shriver split over baby he fathered with member of household staff By Michael Sheridan DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Tuesday, May 17th 2011, 5:57 AM Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver announced their split in early May after having been together for 25 years. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver announced their split in early May after having been together for 25 years. The marriage between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver was terminated because he fathered a child with a member of his household staff, it was revealed Tuesday. The former Governor of California and his wife announced their separation...

Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, separated after she learned he had fathered a child more than a decade ago — before his first run for office — with a longtime member of their household staff. Shriver moved out of the family's Brentwood mansion earlier this year, after Schwarzenegger acknowledged the paternity. The staff member worked for the family for 20 years, retiring in January.

"Unfortunately, partisan politics has immobilized Washington," New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg told Time magazine in 2007. Bloomberg, according to Michael Grunwald's cover story, was the diminutive half of a dynamic duo revolutionizing American politics. The other partner: California's then still shiny governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Together, they were "The New Action Heroes" who, according to Grunwald, were "doing big things that Washington has failed to do." The article was mostly a clever way to slap George W. Bush. But there are still important lessons to be learned, particularly as the Big Apple remains immobilized not from partisan politics but by...

The name of Sen. Jenny Oropeza, who died last night, will remain on the Nov. 2 ballot as a candidate for re-election to the 28th Senate District, election officials said this morning The 53-year-old Long Beach Democrat died 12 days before the election. Her name is already on the ballot -- some of which have already been cast by absentee voters -- and state law prevents calling a special election to fill a vacant office within 68 days of an election. Oropeza was expected to win re-election in the district, where Democrats have a 20-plus point registration advantage.... If Oropeza...

Democratic Sen. Jenny Oropeza has died following a prolonged illness. She was 53. Oropeza had been largely absent from the Senate since her office announced in May that she had been diagnosed with a blood clot in her abdomen. The Long Beach Democrat, first elected to the Senate in 2006, had battled liver cancer and a tumor during her time in the Assembly. Her own battle with cancer inspired her to become a champion of cancer prevention in the Legislature.

"I endorse Gov @charliecristfl for Senate. Great leader, works with both parties, and our country needs someone like him in DC right now."

Arnold Schwarzengger inspected the foundations of Russia’s planned Silicon Valley on Monday, and heaped praise on everything from the ruling tandem to the president’s driving. In return he was jokingly invited to take up the role of Moscow mayor when his gubernatorial term ends early next year as Dmitry Medvedev kept up the old pals patter perfected on his trip to California this summer.

Forget a war victory over Georgia or the reset with the Obama administration. The greatest foreign policy coup Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has pulled off in his nearly three years in power has been the rapprochement between Russia and… California. For the Kremlin’s closest ally abroad is neither Obama nor Hugo Chavez, but Arnold Schwarzenegger. Dima made friends with Arnie back in June, when he stopped by California looking for tips on his pet project - recreating the Silicon Valley outside Moscow at a place called Skolkovo. Now Schwarzenegger is in Moscow for a return visit to lecture about the...

SHANGHAI — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is engaging in a little window-shopping of China's new high-speed train lines while peddling Californian exports and tourism in the world's second-largest economy. His own state budget $19 billion in the red, Schwarzenegger says he is hoping for some "creative financing" from Asia to help lower costs and get California's proposed high-speed rail lines up and running. Industry experts say cash-rich China may be best placed to help with funding, and less risk averse than others whose banks are still recovering from the financial crisis. That could prove a key competitive advantage as it goes...

Arnold should have landed: I could have explained our multi billion dollar state surplus & US energy security efforts. What's he been up to?

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) was thinking of "Saturday Night Live" on Thursday night as a plane ferrying him to Asia passed over southern Alaska. "Over Anchorage, AK.," he tweeted. "Looking everywhere but can't see Russia from here. Will keep you updated as search continues."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has approved six contracts his administration negotiated with labor unions that include pay cuts and changes to state pensions. Schwarzenegger on Monday signed bills authorizing the contracts for 37,000 employees. The deals have varying provisions, including greater employee pension contributions, one day a month of unpaid leave and requiring employees to work an extra five years to qualify for full benefits. Schwarzenegger is seeking broad pension reform and rewarded the unions that reached the deals by exempting them from his most recent furlough order.

<p>The Associated Press Jul. 20, 2010 SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday appointed actress Geena Davis to a California commission established to promote women's equality.</p> <p>Schwarzenegger named the 54-year-old actress to the Commission on the Status of Women. The nonpartisan panel advocates for women and girls in areas such as education and access to health care.</p>

As oil spewed Friday from a blown out well in the Gulf of Mexico and spread into Louisiana's sensitive wetlands and rich fishing grounds, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration defended a plan to allow new drilling off California's Central Coast. A spokesman for Schwarzenegger said the proposed Tranquillon Ridge project off Santa Barbara County is attractive because the oil company behind the project has agreed to end drilling off the coast in exchange for a permit to do so for the next 14 years. By contrast, the Obama administration on Friday announced it was putting new federal drilling on hold until...

(04-29) 18:43 PDT Burbank, Calif. (AP) -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would love to run for president — if he could. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/04/29/entertainment/e184301D13.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0mXwI7Nwc

Sacramento, Calif. (AP) -- Former lawmaker Abel Maldonado has been sworn in as California's lieutenant governor, becoming the only Hispanic in statewide office.

The state Senate this afternoon voted 25-7 to confirm Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger’s nomination of state Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, as lieutenant governor; the governor will swear him into office tomorrow. As I’d said Friday on KQED Channel 9’s “This Week in Northern California,” don’t mistake this for an instance of politics being put aside. Democrats supported Maldonado only because they want him out of the Senate so they can try to win his 15th State Senate District seat, and only now because confirming him earlier wouldn’t have allowed the SD-15 special election to be consolidated with November’s general election,...

Maldonado gets the OK as lieutenant governor The Senate voted 25-7 this afternoon to confirm Sen. Abel Maldonado's lieutenant governor nomination, clearing the way for the embattled pick to finally fill the vacant post. (SNIP) UPDATE 2:43 p.m.: The governor's office says Maldonado will be sworn in tomorrow in Sacramento.

His time as California governor is winding down. He still has acting to fall back on.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. /California Newswire/ — Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today announced he will host the 2010 Summit on Health, Nutrition and Obesity: Action for Healthy Living on Wednesday, February 24, 2010. President Bill Clinton, founder of the William J. Clinton Foundation and the Governor’s co-lead in the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, will also participate. “We have made significant strides in promoting healthy eating and active living since my first Summit in 2005, but there remains action that can be done to promote a healthier California for all,” said Governor Schwarzenegger. “I am convening the 2010 Summit on Health, Nutrition and...

Here is video of Arnold Schwarzenegger on "Meet the Press" saying that Obama is "doing everything that he can" to keep America safe...(Video)Schwarzenegger said that he thinks "Democrats a lot of times get the rap that they're not strong on security and those kind of things." Schwarzenegger called the attempted terrorist attack over Christmas "an unfortunate situation" and said it was "a total failure in the communication within the departments." He said "it's not like the President has done something wrong...what it has to do with is simply they didn't connect the dots within the agencies, within the airport authorities,...

Leadership: Alaska's ex-governor asks a question we'd like answered: Why is California's current governor pushing the same policies in Copenhagen that helped drive his state into record deficits and unemployment? The movie series that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a household name involved cyborgs traveling through time to alternately try to destroy or save one John Connor, who would grow up to be the leader of the resistance against a race of machines that ruled the planet. Prominent in the series was his tough cookie of a mom, Sarah Connor. Another Sarah has taken the lead in another resistance against another group...

Video: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger bashes Sarah Palin for picking the economy over the environment. "The biggest jog creation is in green technology...people don't believe in fixing the envoronment or in global wrming...they are living in the stone age". He's talking about yesterday's USA poll which says that 7 out of 10 Americans believe that fixing the economy should be a higher priority than fixing the environment. Pesky humans may be able to "fix" the economy (except for California) but "fixing" the environment is an entirely different matter! How does one fix that which God created?

ON MAY 19th Californians will go to the polls to vote on six ballot measures that are as important as they are confusing. If these measures fail, America’s biggest state will enter a full-blown financial crisis that will require excruciating cuts in public services. If the measures succeed, the crisis will be only a little less acute. Recent polls suggest that voters are planning to vote most of them down.

The man who says he left Austria because he couldn’t stand socialism has no problem with it here. The man who preached self-reliance doesn’t worry about responsible homeowners being forced to bail out others. The man who rode to the California governor’s mansion by bashing Gray Davis over the car tax and promising to repeal it . . . just pushed through a budget nearly doubling the tax. Schwarzenegger’s weakness and hypocrisy was evident today on This Week. George Stephanopoulos opened the interview by playing a clip of a photo-op Schwarzenegger staged when first running for governor, having a huge...

It is now official. With a cast including Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Dolph Lundgren, Forest Whitaker and The Stath, Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables was sure to one of the best action films ever made. But now, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed on to join the testosterone party, which seals the deal - that this will be the biggest and best movie to hit our screens in 2010.

Schwarzenegger could learn from Obama's share-the-pain message George Skelton, Capitol Journal January 22, 2009 From Sacramento -- I hope Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger listened closely from his choice seat. Because President Obama's inaugural address was a stark reminder of what has been missing from political discourse in California: the notion of individual sacrifice for the common good. Not just share-the-wealth sacrifice. But share-the-pain across the entire economic spectrum -- the pain of sharply reduced public services for the poor, higher taxes for the rich and both afflictions for the middle-class. It's the only cure for a sick state government before it...

Though NewsBusters is normally in the business of critiquing the liberal media, not praising the conservative, I want to ensure that as many of our readers as possible have the pleasure and benefit of reading Mark Steyn's recent column: We're in the fast lane to Bailoutistan. With its mordant, don't-know-whether-to-laugh-or-cry take on our current fix, it's my nominee for best column of the year. I urge you to read it all, and marvel at its insight and wit. Let me tempt you with a few morsels.

The Heritage Foundation issued a harsh rebuttal to Barack Obama’s latest climate change comments, blasting the president-elect for recycling problematic climate change rhetoric from the campaign trail. The Washington think tank also criticized Obama’s plans to address global warming, calling the proposals “fear mongering” based on tainted data. The Heritage Foundation’s statement came in response to comments made at the Global Climate Summit, a meeting arranged by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in Los Angeles earlier this week. More than 600 global climate-change experts convened at the summit to try to break gridlock on environmental issues ahead of next month’s United...

SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed during private budget negotiations over the weekend to close the state's $15.2-billion deficit with a temporary one-cent hike in the state sales tax, to take effect immediately, according to Democratic and Republican legislative sources. The proposal, floated in meetings with legislative leaders and their staff, hinges on lawmakers agreeing to spending restraints to control the growth of government and give governors authority to cut programs whenever the state falls into the red. Lawmakers and staffers close to budget negotiations said the governor, who has repeatedly vowed never to raise taxes, would not support the...

Former South Bay lawmaker considers run at governorship SACRAMENTO - Former South Bay Republican congressman Tom Campbell - a fiscal conservative, social moderate and respected academic who twice before unsuccessfully sought statewide office, is eyeing a possible run in 2010 to replace Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Campbell, 55, filed papers last week to form an "exploratory committee" for governor, which allows him to begin raising money for a potential bid. He joins two other GOP moderates from Silicon Valley - state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and former eBay chief Meg Whitman - among Republicans who have expressed interest in running. On...

A celebrated green economy produces pollution elsewhere, ongoing power shortages, and business-crippling costs. Rancho Seco was once a nuclear plant generating over 900 megawatts of electricity; today, its solar panels produce just 4.In January 2007, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger stood before the California legislature in Sacramento and delivered his fourth State of the State address since his improbable 2003 election. It was a rhetorical tour de force that would win him widespread acclaim. “California has the ideas of Athens and the power of Sparta,” said Schwarzenegger. “Not only can we lead California into the future; we can show the nation and...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, responding to the mother of a Republican state legislator, said Wednesday it would be a "big mistake" to blame illegal immigrants for the state's looming $8 billion budget problem. The Republican governor was in San Luis Obispo to pitch his budget proposal to local officials and business leaders when he was asked by Diane Blakeslee, mother of Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee, R-San Luis Obispo, how the state should handle fiscal burdens created by illegal immigrants. "There is, you know, always a time like this where you start pointing the finger at various different elements of what creates the...

Conservative Christian leaders are outraged at the California appeals court decision last week rejecting a parent's right to educate their children at home. “What has occurred is another egregious decision handed down by a California appeals court that strikes at the very heart and soul of families and their children," said Focus on the Family founder and chairman Dr. James Dobson, in a broadcast Friday. "How dare these judges have the audacity to label tens of thousands of parents criminals – the equivalent to drug dealers or pickpockets – because they want to raise and educate their children according to...

Conservative, conservative, conservative. That was the word Mike Huckabee used again and again with reporters to emphasize his credibility as a contender for the Republican nomination... “There has been somewhat of - almost a national media spin that this race is a two-man race,” said Huckabee... “Last night, the CNN debate was very frustrating for me. There seemed to be an unequal level of time that was allocated, and if people look at the delegate count, one has to have 1,191 delegates in order to be the nominee. So far, no one has even broken a hundred; there’s only 8%...

On Monday, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's "universal" health-care plan was shot down by a committee in the state's Senate, 7-1. The most vociferous opponents were not fiscal conservatives, but labor unions that launched a last-minute revolt against its most crucial feature: an individual mandate that would have forced everyone to buy coverage. This defeat has national political implications. Hillary Clinton, for example, has denounced Barack Obama for refusing to include an individual mandate in his health-care plan. Yet many California unions argued that a mandate would force uninsured, middle-income working families to divert money from more pressing needs toward coverage...

1. BILL CLINTON Former US president The 42nd president of the United States is now auditioning for the role of what his Scottish friends term “First Laddie”. Having been impeached for lying about his sexual misdeeds during the Lewinsky scandal, blamed by some for failing to kill Osama bin Laden and having left office in 2001 amid accusations of corruption in granting last-minute pardons, Clinton, 61, has made a remarkable comeback. Perhaps everything Hillary Clinton knows about politics, bar self-discipline, she has learnt from him. A peerless tactician, huge intellect and natural communicator, Bill Clinton was one of the great...

 XXV BORDER GOVERNORS CONFERENCESEPTEMBER 27 & 28, 2007PUERTO PEÑASCO, SONORA JOINT DECLARATIONPREAMBLEThe Governors of the states of Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas, of the United States of America, and the states of Baja California, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Nuevo Leon, Sonora and Tamaulipas, of the United Mexican States, meeting in the City of Puerto Peñasco, Sonora on the 27th and 28th of September, 2007, having analyzed, within the framework of the XXV U.S.–Mexico Border Governors Conference, issues relating to Water, Agriculture and Livestock, Science and Technology, Logistics and International Crossings, Economic Development, Education, Energy, the Environment, Health, Border Safety, Tourism and...

"Everything is on the table," said Governor Schwarzenegger yesterday, when asked whether he would support a statewide sales tax, in this case, as part of a massive government intervention into health care in California. The Governor said that he could support placing a tax hike on the ballot on which Californians can vote. Presumably the Republican Governor, after negotiating such a "deal" for California taxpayers, would then advocate its passage as well. Shame on Arnold Schwarzenegger. I don't know how to sugar coat this, so I will just say it like it is -- he lied. He lied to me,...

(AP) INDIAN WELLS, Calif. -- Governor Schwarzenegger warns the Republican party must move back to the political center or risk losing voter support. Schwarzenegger spoke Friday night at the California GOP party convention in Indian Wells. He says the state party’s percentage of voter registration has been shrinking, and to reverse it the party must tackle issues with broad public appeal, like climate change and building highways, railroads and tunnels. He recently proposed distilling the state GOP platform into as little as a single page focusing on lowering taxes, limiting the size of government and building a strong national defense....

Sacramento, CA (LifeNews.com) -- California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is coming under fire today from pro-life advocates there because of his desire to weaken the Republican Party's pro-life stance. He is asking for a new state Republican platform that removes any mention of abortion. Schwarzenegger says he prefers to focus other political issues where Republicans have more consensus, even though recent polls show Republicans are pro-life by more than a three-to-one margin.The current state platform calls for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that ushered in an era of virtually unlimited abortions.The governor is calling himself...