Free Republic

The past few weeks have been a wakeup call to those Republicans, and especially those conservatives, who got stars in their eyes and supported movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger for governor during the historic Gray Davis recall campaign. On the heels of a decisive defeat in the recent special election for his reform ballot initiatives, the Terminator is acting like he wants to terminate his alliance with the Republican Party. Since he has failed to even slow the nonstop spending of the California Legislature, Arnold's false reading of the election-results tea leaves has now led him to join the Democrat Party...

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 3 - California has become the first state to ban a powerful .50-caliber long-range rifle that gun control advocates portray as a military firearm that could easily fall into the hands of terrorists bent on assassination or shooting down an airplane. Under the ban, which was signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in September and took effect on Jan. 1, it is now illegal to manufacture, sell, distribute or import a weapon known as the .50-caliber BMG, or Browning machine gun rifle, a single-shot weapon widely used not only by law enforcement officers and the military...

It is generally agreed on Wall Street that states should keep the share of their budget that goes to paying down debt to below 6%. California was at less than 3.4% last year. Next year, it will be at 6.4%. Assuming the state stops borrowing now and doesn't authorize any more bonds for anything — an unlikely scenario — the number is projected to grow to 7.5% by 2009. ... Assemblyman Keith Richman (R-Northridge) described those accounting shifts to a group of business leaders at a recent economic conference at UCLA this way: "If you used them in your own...