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A massive $8.4 billion homeowner rescue plan announced Monday by the Bank of America will provide some relief for an estimated 125,000 Californians who are having trouble making payments on sub-prime loans and other risky mortgages from Countrywide Home Loans. Bank of America bought Countrywide for $4 billion July 1 after the Calabasas-based home loan giant, among the largest sub-prime lenders in the state, collapsed under the weight of mounting defaults and foreclosures. The bank's "Home Ownership Retention Program for Countrywide Customers'' was devised by California and 10 other states to settle predatory lending lawsuits filed against Countrywide. The plan...

<p>A founding member of the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois met in New York City tonight with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.</p> <p>Jodie Evans, who co-hosted Obama's first major fundraiser in Hollywood in February 2007 just after Obama announced his candidacy and is a top fundraiser and donor to Obama's campaign, led a delegation of leftist anti-American groups that held a private meeting near the United Nations. The stated purpose of the meeting was to "serve as an opening for diplomatic resolution" to prevent war between Iran and the United States.</p>

California Attorney General Jerry Brown has ordered a crackdown on medical pot clubs that are selling the drug for big profits. The move puts the state a bit more in line with the feds in dealing with the explosion of questionable marijuana dispensaries since the passage of Proposition 215 more than a decade ago.The first target was Today's Health Care club in Northridge (Los Angeles County), which agents from the state Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement raided over the weekend. The club owner and an alleged middleman were booked on drug-dealing charges.Brown said Tuesday he would "not be surprised" to see...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Legal Newsline)--California Attorney General Jerry Brown told Legal Newsline he believes America needs an efficiency expert. In a wide-ranging interview Friday, Brown said the United States must reduce its dependency on foreign oil, which would save billions of dollars through increasing energy efficiencies. "There is massive gain to be realized from efficiency," Brown said in between bites of a lunchtime sandwich on Friday, "but the federal government has been asleep. California has proven you can save billions of dollars. And it's criminal the way the federal government has ignored its leadership in this area."

A ballot label that declares Proposition 8 "eliminates (the) right of same-sex couples to marry" will remain intact after a Sacramento County judge today dismissed a challenge by supporters of the measure. Sponsors of the Nov. 4 ballot measure had argued that Attorney General Jerry Brown's formal title and summary of the measure were prejudicial. But Sacramento County Judge Timothy Frawley disagreed that Brown acted in favor of opponents of the measure when he changed the ballot title -- "Limit on Marriage" -- that was on petitions circulated last year to qualify the ballot measure. "Petitioner has failed to explain...

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - California said Thursday it planned to sue the US government for failing to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from ships, aircraft, construction and agricultural equipment. In the latest legal threat from the state against the Environmental Protection Agency, California's Attorney General Jerry Brown said the body was "wantonly ignoring" its duty to set pollution standards...

Supporters of Proposition 8, the proposed state constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage, said they would file suit today to block a change made by California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown to the language of the measure's ballot title and summary. Petitions circulated to qualify the initiative for the ballot said the measure would amend the state Constitution "to provide that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." In a move made public last week and applauded by same-sex marriage proponents, the attorney general's office changed the language to say that Proposition 8...

Former Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown is waging war on California suburbs because of global warming, says Joel Kotkin, a presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University. Brown is concerned about the alleged environmental damage caused by the suburbs. He wants to compel residents to move to city centers or to high-density developments clustered near mass transit lines: • Brown has threatened to file suit against municipalities that shun high-density housing in favor of building new suburban single-family homes, on the grounds that they will pollute the environment. • He is also backing controversial legislation -- Senate bill 375 --...

When Jerry Brown was serving his first stint as governor 30 years ago – but perhaps not his last – he gained a well-deserved reputation for changing positions as easily as most folks change their socks. The most striking manifestation of Brownian motion was when he denounced Proposition 13, the landmark property tax measure, as "a ripoff" before the 1978 election and then declared himself to be a "born-again tax cutter" afterward and slashed state taxes. Brown shrugged off criticism of his political pirouettes, once saying, "Nothing in life is so rigid that there aren't developments. That's true in politics....

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...

Greens Thwart Gasoline Production By Steven Milloy Four-plus-dollar gasoline is forcing Americans to realize that we need increased domestic oil production to meet our ever-growing demand for affordable fuel. But even if the greens lose the political battle over drilling offshore and in places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, they nevertheless are way ahead of the game as they implement a back-up plan to make sure that not a drop of that oil ever eases our gasoline crunch. The Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, successfully pressured the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to block ConocoPhillips’...

. . . Full circle: He's won't say anything officially, but behind the scenes, Jerry Brown is definitely laying tracks for a return trip to his old job as governor of California. "I feel great," Brown told us this past week as he headed for the gym. "I'm in the zone."And indeed, in the weeks since the state Democratic Party convention in San Jose, where he publicly toyed with the idea of an unprecedented third term, the 70-year-old governor-turned-Oakland-mayor-turned-attorney general has been meeting with Democratic insiders, labor leaders and longtime supporters to go over what it would take to run...

State Attorney General Jerry Brown waxed nostalgic about his former days as governor on Saturday and strongly suggested that he might run again - just as soon as he is done suing President Bush over global warming. In a speech to more than 1,000 activists at a state Democratic Party convention, Brown, 69, hyped his current legal battle to uphold California's global warming fight and enforce tough auto emissions standards. "I've had to sue Bush about five times," he said, because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency "is blocking the will of the people of California." He stirred speculation of another...

Congressman Dennis Kucinich says he will introduce articles of impeachment against President Bush for deceiving the American nation. The Democrat said Wednesday that he would introduce the articles on January 28, the day US President George W. Bush is scheduled to deliver his State of the Union speech. "We already know the State of the Union," Kucinich said. "It's a lie!" "[The] Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003," the 61-year-old congressman quoted the Center for Public Integrity's...

OAKLAND, Calif. - Nearly four decades after entering California politics, Jerry Brown has reinvented himself yet again, this time as a carbon-fighting attorney general. The former governor, presidential candidate and Oakland mayor has emerged as a major player in the national debate on global warming, less than a year after taking office as the state's top law enforcement official. Brown has used threats, petitions, negotiated deals and a series of lawsuits to pressure automakers, county governments and the Bush administration to curb greenhouse-gas emissions. "It is the most important environmental issue facing the state and the world, and that's why...

California on Thursday said it was suing the United States government to secure approval for the state's tough new proposals aimed at slashing vehicle greenhouse gas emissions. At a news conference in the state capital Sacramento, Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Edmund Brown said the lawsuit had been filed over the failure of the US Environmental Protection Agency to greenlight California's standards. California passed legislation in 2002 requiring automakers to reduce vehicle emissions 30 percent by 2016. As many as 16 other US states have reportedly indicated they will adopt California's emissions levels. However, for the law to...

A Laguna Beach investment firm filed a lawsuit against Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu on Friday, claiming he defrauded investors out of at least $23 million and required them to donate to Democratic candidates. According to the lawsuit filed by Briar Wood Investments, Hsu persuaded the company's operator to do business with him by taking him to star-studded Democratic Party events. There, the 56-year-old Hong Kong native was praised by New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown and others, the lawsuit said. As a condition of doing business with the fundraiser, Hsu directed investors to make contributions...

When California Attorney General Bill Lockyer sued the six major auto manufacturers a year ago, claiming that they were liable for adverse consequences of global warming, it was widely seen as an election year stunt. Lockyer, who was being forced out of the attorney generalship by term limits and running for state treasurer, filed the suit just 48 days before the election but insisted that it was a serious effort to make automakers pay for producing cars that generated greenhouse gases that could damage California. Many others, however, questioned whether there was any legal basis in federal law for the...

San Francisco (AP) -- A federal judge on Monday tossed out a lawsuit filed by California that sought to hold the world's six largest automakers accountable for their contribution to global warming. In its lawsuit filed last year, California blamed the auto industry for millions of dollars it expects to spend on repairing damage from global-warming induced floods and other natural disasters. But District Judge Martin Jenkins in San Francisco handed California Attorney General Jerry Brown's environmental crusade a stinging rebuke when he ruled it was impossible to determine to what extent automakers are responsible for global-warming damages in California....

ConocoPhillips will pay state $10 million to offset emissions from the expansion of its Rodeo plant SACRAMENTO -- Attorney General Jerry Brown and ConocoPhillips officials said Tuesday that they had agreed to a precedent-setting global warming reduction plan to offset greenhouse gases that would result from expanding an East Bay oil refinery. Brown said that under the pact, which involves the company's Rodeo plant in Contra Costa County, "ConocoPhillips becomes the first oil company in America to offset greenhouse gas emissions from a refinery expansion project." The oil company will pay about $10 million -- roughly half the amount discussed...

Do homosexual couples suffer any "constitutional injury" from being legally ineligible to obtain marriage licenses? California Attorney General Jerry Brown, in briefs filed with the state Supreme Court on Aug. 17, argues that marriage is a "constitutionally insignificant label" because, he says, same-sex domestic partners do not “lack” any benefit which would be supplied by legal marriage. Same-sex marriage advocate Geoff Kors of Equality California indicated to the Aug. 23 Bay Area Reporter that such objections are remarkably weak and obviously conflict with the state's stance in another court case. "The state and attorney general took the position in the...

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Says Marriage Could be Eliminated in Future SACRAMENTO, August 27, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In legal briefs submitted to the California Supreme Court, which is considering whether to license "same-sex marriages" next year, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown both stated that a future Legislature could abolish marriage and yank marriage rights from a married husband and wife. A group hoping to place a question on the 2008 ballot to defend traditional marriage suggests that the briefs are evidence of the urgent need for the ballot initiative. In the Governor's brief, filed by his team...

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown filed legal briefs saying the California Legislature can eliminate marriage rights and get rid of marriage. In legal briefs submitted to the California Supreme Court, which is considering whether to license "same-sex marriages" next year, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown both stated that a future Legislature could abolish marriage and yank marriage rights from a married husband and wife. It was revealed today that Attorney General Jerry Brown [see PDF of AG Jerry Brown's 8/17 brief ] and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger [See PDF of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's 8/17 brief ] said the...

Attorney general says state's biggest problem is global warming. In reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Jerry Brown says, the state "should go about it in a very deliberate way, but involving as many people as possible at every level or we're never going to get there." Riding high on a global warming action plan he wants to take statewide, California Attorney General Jerry Brown said Wednesday he's thinking about running for governor when the job opens up again in 2010. "The thought has certainly crossed my mind, but I haven't really come to any conclusion," Brown said over coffee in a...

California Attorney General Jerry Brown settled his global warming lawsuit Tuesday against San Bernardino County, working out an agreement on what had been a stumbling block to obtaining a deal on the state budget. Under the terms of the deal announced by Brown in a Los Angeles news conference, the fast-growing county in the heart of the Inland Empire of Southern California will amend its general plan within 30 months to include a greenhouse gas reduction policy. The process will include an inventory of all "known, or reasonably discoverable, sources of greenhouse gases" in the county. In addition, the county...

California has more than 36 million residents and is expected by some projections to have 60 million by 2050. People keep moving here, and yet the state government is doing everything it can to make it harder to build the homes necessary to house everyone. It's already incredibly costly and difficult to get government approvals to build housing developments, as cities micromanage pretty much everything a builder does. People will need to live somewhere. If other counties embrace Marin's overall approach toward development, the newcomers will have nowhere to live – even as Marin officials bask in their moral superiority....

As the stalemate over the budget continues into its seventh week, taxpayers are troubled over mischaracterizations in the mainstream media about who is responsible. The negative attention is focused on Senate Republicans who are being portrayed as the obstructionists. But viewed fairly, their position is both reasonable and mainstream. They want to see a balanced budget -- rather than saddle future generations with a massive debt load – and they want to ensure that the $42 billion dollars of bond financing for infrastructure just passed by voters last November is actually spent on infrastructure. Moreover, the position which these Senators...

Hyperbole in Sacramento is distorting an entirely reasonable argument. Sen. Bob Dutton, R-Rancho Cucamonga, believes the government shouldn't be allowed to sue to force compliance with rules that don't yet exist. After all, how can anyone comply with rules that don't exist? How would anyone know whether he or she is breaking the law? Nevertheless, Attorney General Jerry Brown is on a Kafkaesque mission. He already has sued the county of San Bernardino, hinted at doing the same to several other local government agencies and has succeeded in inhibiting two Northern California refineries from moving ahead with expansion plans. Brown's...

A few months ago, the smart money was that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa would be the likely Democratic candidate for governor in 2010 and probably would become the first Latino governor in more than a century. That, however, was before he admitted to having an affair with a local television anchorwoman -- an admission that may lead to a very messy divorce case. Infidelity per se may no longer be a barrier to higher office, but the situation has generated some sharp criticism of Villaraigosa's judgment -- enough that his gubernatorial ascension is no longer the semi-sure thing it...

In San Francisco, even the state's top lawman is not immune to getting his car broken into - even when it's parked next to City Hall. Just ask Attorney General Jerry Brown, who had his official state car broken into while it was left briefly in front of the State Building at Civic Center. "Right across from City Hall, in plain view of the mayor's office," Brown said. "He could have seen it from his office window." Brown said he and his driver hadn't been in the building more than 10 minutes when they came back to find someone had...

California's top law officer -- Attorney General Jerry Brown -- has raised $86,500 since January to fight an election-year lawsuit accusing him of failing to qualify for the statewide office he now holds. According to state disclosure forms filed Monday, Brown tapped three wealthy business executives -- including the president of Whole Foods -- who gave a combined $45,000 to Brown's Public Integrity Legal Defense Fund. The remaining cash was raised from various interest groups such as dentists, correctional officers and the Indian tribe that owns Thunder Valley Casino near Lincoln. Brown, a Democrat, is the latest politician to open...

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State sues S.B. County over global warming Ryan Orr April 13, 2007 - 11:04PM SAN BERNARDINO — Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. filed a lawsuit Friday against the county of San Bernardino’s recently-updated general plan because it did not properly address global warming. The lawsuit came just two days after a similar lawsuit was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, the San Bernardino Audubon Society and the Sierra Club. Brown filed the lawsuit under the California Environmental Quality Act on the basis that San Bernardino County failed to evaluate and disclose the impending impacts of the plan on...

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Some public records of new state Attorney General Jerry Brown's eight years as Oakland mayor are missing and others were apparently improperly destroyed, raising questions about whether the state's top law-enforcement official has violated California's public records law. Two former Brown aides said they removed records from the office late last year. One of them, Gil Duran, said he consulted Michelle Abney, the public records coordinator in the city attorney's office, before doing so. But Abney's boss, Mark Morodomi, the assistant city attorney in charge of records access, said no permission was granted and no such conversation ever took place....

The Shill Media are offering up the usual pabulum about presidential contenders, disgorging reportage about the vapid and venal that's more soap opera than scoop. With mock surprise they speak of the presidential aspirations of Rudy, Lady Macbeth and Brokeback Obama, as they treat platitudes and political sloganeering as if they were less empty than the minds that regurgitate them. But amidst the din of this much-ado — about-nothing quest for copy, the media have missed — perhaps quite conveniently — the only truly scintillating story of the 2008 election. Radio talk show host Michael Savage is mulling a run...

Judge tosses suit against Jerry Brown Greg Lucas, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau Saturday, February 10, 2007 (02-10) 04:00 PST Sacramento -- A Superior Court judge tossed out a lawsuit Friday claiming Jerry Brown was not qualified to serve as state attorney general because he had not practiced law for all of the five years prior to his election in November. Superior Court Judge Gail Ohanesian rejected the lawsuit, saying that while Brown had chosen to let his membership in the State Bar of California be "inactive" from 1997 through April 2003, he was still eligible to practice law and had been...

Vowing to enforce California's laws with "the utmost common sense,'' former governor and Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown was sworn in Monday as the state's 31st attorney general. "I see that the law is not a game, it's not a business, it's a calling," Brown said. "And I see the calling as the chief law enforcement officer as a sacred trust." In a pointedly brief 10-minute address, Brown said his top priority in his new job will be "to use full resources of the Department of Justice to help local law enforcement ... to deter crime, to apprehend criminals and make...

Attorney General-elect Jerry Brown said Wednesday that he will appoint his wife, Anne Gust, as his unpaid special counsel, giving her a "broad mandate" in a new post that will be part of a significant reorganization of the state attorney general's office. "It will be a very important and high-level role very close to the policy and administrative processes," said Brown, who was in Washington, D.C., to attend House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi's inauguration. "It is a broad title and she certainly will have a broad mandate because her experience is very broad." This will not be the first time Brown...

Effort to halt oath of office hinges on legal inactivity of attorney general-elect A group of Republican activists has revamped its lawsuit challenging outgoing Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown's eligibility to serve as state attorney general. The amended complaint filed Wednesday in Sacramento County Superior Court seeks to prevent Brown, 68, from taking the office to which 56 percent of voters elected him Nov. 7. While the original lawsuit, filed Oct. 19, named local voter registrars as defendants in an attempt to get Brown booted from the ballot, the new complaint names Secretary of State Bruce McPherson and state Controller Steve...

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California Attorney General-Elect Jerry Brown said yesterday he is looking forward to working with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to create regulations for the enforcement of California’s new Global Warming legislation. Brown, who defeated state Sen. Chuck Poochigian, R-Fresno, by a decisive margin in Tuesday’s election, told the MetNews he wants regulations that are “practical, defendable and effective.” Noting that the California Department of Justice--which the attorney general heads--has sent six officers to Oakland to help with its crime problem Brown said he is also looking forward to expanding the program to help other cities in need. Poochigian focused on Oakland crime...

LOS ANGELES - Democrat John Garamendi won a close race for lieutenant governor, as Republicans faltered in their efforts to win statewide offices and gain power in Sacramento. Garamendi, who currently serves as insurance commissioner, edged out conservative Republican state Sen. Tom McClintock, an anti-tax ideologue, in Tuesday's election. Democrats also won races for California attorney general, treasurer and controller. "The conclusion to be drawn here is that California is still a true progressive state even though it has a nominally Republican governor," Garamendi said. With 93 percent of precincts reporting, Democratic state Sen. Debra Bowen had a slim lead...

OAKLAND — Political and social activists, historians and educators from the United States and around the world are gathering in the Bay Area this weekend to discuss reparations for slavery of African people and colonialism in Africa. "The wealth of the West is built on slavery of African people," said Penny Hess, chairwoman of the African People Solidarity Committee. "White people need to recognize it and support (reparations)." Hess is one of nine speakers during the two-day event set for Saturday in Oakland and Sunday in San Francisco. The event celebrates African People Solidarity Day and calls for the white...