Free Republic

Regents scrap meaningless Principles Against Intolerance and form a committee to rework the language. Shana Tova! Great start to the new year! After hearing from dozens of students, faculty, alumni and Jewish groups yesterday at the meeting, and more than 3,000 University of California (UC) stakeholders over the past six months, the UC Board of Regents publicly acknowledged our concerns about antisemitism on UC campuses and promised to address them. In a huge victory for AMCHA-led coalition efforts: The Regents – for the first time – publicly acknowledged the necessity of addressing the problem of antisemitism on UC campuses. The...

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today announced the following appointments: (snip) Bonnie Reiss, 52, of Malibu, has been appointed to the University of California Board of Regents. Since September 2007, she has served as operating advisor to Pegasus Capital Advisors, a private equity firm based in New York. Reiss also currently serves on the board for the Women's Conference, Afterschool All-Stars and the California Dream Team. She previously served as senior advisor to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger from 2003 to 2007, where she advised the Governor on all major policy initiatives including education, the environment and children's issues. From 1994 to 2003, she...

Bonnie Reiss never intended to come to Sacramento. But on the night of October 7, 2003, when Arnold Schwarzenegger won the recall election, Reiss remembers sitting on the terrace of the presidential suite in the Century Plaza Hotel after the crowd had gone home. On the terrace with her were two other people: Maria Shriver and the new governor-elect. It was there that Reiss had her "epiphany moment." "I thought because of his fame, because he's not obligated to the party or party politics, there's an opportunity to maybe be something kind of different. I also know that throughout history,...

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver today welcomed Mexico President Vicente Fox and his wife, Marta Sahagún de Fox, to California. The President's visit to the Golden State is the last leg of a three-state visit to the United States. The Governor and President met in private for ten minutes in the Governor's office and a larger meeting was held immediately afterward that included advisors to both the Governor and President. The leaders discussed a variety of issues, including ways to increase the already robust business between California and its largest export trading partner. California exported $17.7 billion...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has reappointed to the state Board of Education a top political officer of the California Teachers Association, a union which continues to call for the governor's head. Schwarzenegger's office said the reappointment of Joe Nunez, 53, of Stockton was neither an election-year olive branch to the union nor politically motivated in any other way. "Mr. Nunez has more than three decades of experience in education," Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Sabrina Demayo Lockhart said. "The governor is always looking for the most qualified folks... We highly regard each appointment that we make, we look for people who are highly qualified...

SACRAMENTO - Two newspapers and a free speech group sued Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to obtain appointment calendars and other records that would show who met with two of his top aides while the governor was considering the fate of hundreds of bills last year. The lawsuit by the California First Amendment Coalition, the San Jose Mercury News and the San Diego Daily Transcript on Monday seeks to force Schwarzenegger to reveal whom from outside the governor's office met with, or spoke to, Patricia Clarey and Bonnie Reiss from Aug. 27 to Sept. 30, 2004. Clarey is Schwarzenegger's chief of staff...

Given the polarized tenor of politics these days, you would think that being a Democrat, or even an independent, in the inner sanctum of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Republican administration would feel like sneaking behind enemy lines in war or, worse, working for the other side. But a funny thing keeps happening as California moves closer to the Nov. 8 special election and Democrats seek to characterize Schwarzenegger as a right-wing partisan trying to impose the Bush agenda on the Golden State. The more Democrats accuse the governor of veering to the right, the more he keeps hiring, and promoting, Democrats...

<p>A top political adviser to Arnold Schwarzenegger serves on the board of directors of a company that owns two Nevada casinos and has interests in two Southern California card clubs that compete with casinos run by California Indian tribes.</p> <p>Schwarzenegger has made attacking tribes and their political influence a major tenet of his campaign, prompting the actor's top Republican opponent in the recall election and a tribal gaming group to raise conflict-of-interest questions about Schwarzenegger Friday. At issue is Bonnie Reiss, a longtime Schwarzenegger ally who has taken an increasingly public role in his bid to be governor.</p>

"We're all Keynesians now," declared President Richard M. Nixon when he surrendered his fiscal policies to liberal orthodoxy. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger did much the same with his recent executive order calling for draconian cuts in the emission of "greenhouse gases" linked to global warming. "The debate is over," he claimed. The issue of global warming, though presented as a matter of scientific certainty, is actually highly controverted. Although the planet almost certainly is warming, how much of that is due to humanity - which contributes only about 0.3 percent of total greenhouse gases - remains in dispute. --snip-- Kyoto's original...

Campaign advisor Bonnie Reiss has long promoted liberal environmentalism through the entertainment industry. Another key Arnold Schwarzenegger gubernatorial campaign aide has emerged as a possible embarrassment to the actor as he tries to solidify support within the GOP base. Long-time Schwarzenegger friend and political co-worker Democrat Bonnie Reiss, who joined his campaign last month, has long been an influential, highly effective leader of Hollywood’s left-wing environmentalists, working with Norman Lear before forming her own organization promoting a broadly anti-market, anti-private property political agenda. Reiss’s activism may embarrass Schwarzenegger, already at odds with many Republicans over his support of abortion and...

Another ‘red flag’ for GOP voters? Hollywood ‘green’ activist is top Schwarzenegger aide Campaign advisor Bonnie Reiss has long promoted liberal environmentalism through the entertainment industry. By Frank Duclos (Freelance writer Frank Duclos contributes regularly to CPR Online.) Another key Arnold Schwarzenegger gubernatorial campaign aide has emerged as a possible embarrassment to the actor as he tries to solidify support within the GOP base. Long-time Schwarzenegger friend and political co-worker Democrat Bonnie Reiss, who joined his campaign last month, has long been an influential, highly effective leader of Hollywood’s left-wing environmentalists, working with Norman Lear before forming her own organization...

SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reached across party lines Thursday to name seven new members of the state Board of Education - including Jeannine Martineau, the immediate past president of the California School Boards Association, and Reed Hastings, the board's 2003 president and a longtime supporter of former Gov. Gray Davis. "For children to learn, one of the components they need are dedicated public servants to find creative ways to ensure our children are prepared for their futures," said Schwarzenegger in a statement. "I am confident these members will work tirelessly to guarantee our children have every opportunity to be...

<p>She is nearly always at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's side, a dark-haired wire of energy who, like the governor, arrived in Sacramento by way of Hollywood.</p> <p>Officially, Bonnie Reiss is a senior adviser. In truth, the former entertainment lawyer, accountant and producer is one of the governor's most trusted aides and one of his wife's closest friends.</p>

<p>Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger filled out a big chunk of his senior staff today with a selection of conservative, liberal and bipartisan figures – a pattern that we can probably expect to see a lot of from this point forward. The most eye-popping appointment was Bonnie Reiss as senior adviser to the governor. Reiss is a friend and associate of Schwarzenegger for nearly 25 years. She is also a Democrat who first came into the Schwarzenegger orbit while working for Teddy Kennedy in the late 1970s, when the new governor and his future wife, Maria Shriver, were dating. Reiss, a former entertainment lawyer, was an environmental activist who formed a group to encourage Hollywood stars to promote environmental causes through their television shows. She later ran Schwarzenegger's private charity focused on inner-city after-school programs. Officially, Reiss will focus on retaining California’s entertainment industry and on children’s issues. But she will also be a sounding board for Schwarzenegger, an anchor from his former life as he enters a world filled with advisers and associates with whom he has little history and about whom he knows little. She was a key figure in the campaign and has been at his side throughout the transition.</p>

<p>Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger filled out a big chunk of his senior staff today with a selection of conservative, liberal and bipartisan figures – a pattern that we can probably expect to see a lot of from this point forward. The most eye-popping appointment was Bonnie Reiss as senior adviser to the governor. Reiss is a friend and associate of Schwarzenegger for nearly 25 years. She is also a Democrat who first came into the Schwarzenegger orbit while working for Teddy Kennedy in the late 1970s, when the new governor and his future wife, Maria Shriver, were dating. Reiss, a former entertainment lawyer, was an environmental activist who formed a group to encourage Hollywood stars to promote environmental causes through their television shows. She later ran Schwarzenegger's private charity focused on inner-city after-school programs. Officially, Reiss will focus on retaining California’s entertainment industry and on children’s issues. But she will also be a sounding board for Schwarzenegger, an anchor from his former life as he enters a world filled with advisers and associates with whom he has little history and about whom he knows little. She was a key figure in the campaign and has been at his side throughout the transition.</p>

Republicans gather this weekend in Los Angeles for the country club coronation of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Will any notice that the former Mr. Universe emperor still has no clothes on? The more one examines the Schwarzenegger campaign, the more nakedly liberal it appears. It appears that the circle of liberal advisers around Schwarzenegger is not contracting but growing wider by the day. Robert Kennedy Jr., a wild-eyed left-wing environmentalist, is "advising him on strategy," reported the Los Angeles Times this week in a piece entitled "Schwarzenegger is the GOP's Green Candidate." Even the Times can put two and two together, observing...

Republicans gather this weekend in Los Angeles for the country club coronation of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Will any notice that the former Mr. Universe emperor still has no clothes on? The more one examines the Schwarzenegger campaign, the more nakedly liberal it appears. It appears that the circle of liberal advisers around Schwarzenegger is not contracting but growing wider by the day. Robert Kennedy Jr., a wild-eyed left-wing environmentalist, is "advising him on strategy," reported the Los Angeles Times this week in a piece entitled "Schwarzenegger is the GOP's Green Candidate." Even the Times can put two and two together, observing...