Schwarzenegger sours on politics; eyes memoirs, movies?
Memoirs, maybe movies, but no political office.
That’s what the immediate future holds for California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who’s leaving office in January.
After seven years running the most populous state the in country, Schwarzenegger seems to have soured on politics and partisanship.
“Politics destroys everybody,” he said in an “ABC World News” interview on Wednesday. “The more you can take the politics out of things, the more you can accomplish. Because otherwise, it becomes kind of like, ‘I’m representing my party. My party is not happy with this. We’re doing it this way.’”
Schwarzenegger called politicians in Washington “wimps” for not tackling energy and environment policy and he spoke against Proposition 23.
Here’s a video clip from the interview.
If approved, the measure on next Tuesday’s California ballot would scuttle many of the governor’s clean energy and environmental policies. Specifically Proposition 23 would suspend California’s landmark climate change law until the state unemployment rate drops to 5.5 percent or lower for one year.
Lawyer promises new bombshell in Whitman housekeeper flap
The political flap over what California Republican Meg Whitman knew about her former housekeeper’s illegal immigration status — and when she knew it — appears to be heading for a new climax.
The woman’s lawyer says she will release evidence today that Whitman lied when she denied knowing her ex-employee was an undocumented worker. Nicky Diaz, who worked for Whitman from 2000 to 2007, emerged this week to air tearful allegations that the Republican gubernatorial nominee knowingly employed her illegally and treated her poorly.
Whitman supporters say the allegations are a political smear timed to surface in the closing weeks of her campaign against Democratic rival Jerry Brown. Whitman says Diaz is lying and maintains the former housekeeper provided a Social Security card and other documents to show she could work legally in the United States when she was hired. The former eBay executive says she first learned of Diaz’ illegal status in 2009, after she had begun her run for governor, and fired the woman on the spot.
But Diaz’ attorney Gloria Allred, who has been a friend and supporter of Brown, told ABC’s Good Morning America that she will release a 2003 Social Security Administration letter that told Whitman and her husband of a mismatch involving their housekeeper’s Social Security number. “Today, at noon in my office, we are going to produce that letter,” Allred told ABC. “That was a tip-off to her and her husband that she was employing an undocumented worker.” Before Allred appeard on ABC, Whitman herself told the TV network that she never got a letter from the Social Security Administration in 2003 or at any other time. “We never received those letters,” Whitman said. “We had no idea that she was not here legally.” ABC: Absolute, unequivocal denial? Whitman: “Absolute unequivocal denial.” Instead, she suggested Allred was coordinating her activities with Brown. “I wouldn’t be suprised if there was a fair amount of coordination,” Whitman said. “I don’t know. But clearly, she’s a Democrat. She’s contributed to his campaign. They’ve been working together for many years.” Then came Allred’s denial: “No one from Jerry Brown’s campaign has contacted me. I haven’t contacted them. As far as my client goes, Nicky doesn’t know anyone in politics, was not contacted by the Brown campaign. She didn’t contact them. The only person she knows in politics is Meg Whitman.”
Photo credits: Reuters/Mario Anzuoni (Diaz and Allred); Reuters/Lucy Nicholson (Whitman); Reuters/Pool (Brown)
It is when such allegations surface where we see the ugly side and the dishonesty that is rife in politics. With so many testimonies from each side and hidden agendas, it is hard to tell who is telling the truth. In such cases where no significant evidence is available, the prowess of the lawyers from either side will help turn the tide.
California gay marriage ruling has candidates quickly taking sides
With a pair of too-close-to-call political campaigns heating up in California — for governor and for Democrat Barbara Boxer’s U.S. Senate seat – the candidates wasted no time in staking out their positions after a federal judge in San Francisco struck down California’s ban on gay marriages.
In a case that most believe the U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately have to decide, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker on Wednesday ruled that California’s voter-approved Proposition 8 was unconstitutional because it unfairly singled out gay and lesbian couples as being forbidden to legally wed, violating their rights to due process and equal protection under the Constitution.
For Democrat Jerry Brown, who is running against Republican Meg Whitman for governor, the case offered a natural opening: As the state’s attorney general, he has refused to defend Proposition 8 in court, instead filing a brief with the state Supreme Court to overturn it in a move that raised eyebrows among legal scholars but won him support among gay and civil rights rights activists.
“In striking down Proposition 8, Judge Walker came to the same conclusion I did when I declined to defend it,” Brown said in a written statement that was released by his office about half an hour after Walker’s ruling became public. “Proposition 8 violates the equal protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution by taking away the right of same-sex couples to marry, without a sufficient governmental interest.”
As a former eBay CEO and political novice, Whitman has so far had no public role in the fight over gay marriage in California, but her campaign office issued a statement reflecting her position on the hot-button issue: “Meg supported Proposition 8 and believes marriage is between a man and a woman. Meg also strongly supports California’s civil union laws. Today’s ruling is the first step in a process that will continue.”
For her part Boxer, a powerful liberal voice in the Senate who is facing the toughest re-election fight of her political career against Republican businesswoman Carly Fiorina, voiced full approval. “This historic decision is a step forward in the march toward equal rights and reflects a growing legal consensus that marriage equality is protected by the U.S. Constitution,” Boxer said through her office.
Fiorina, the conservative former Hewlett-Packard CEO who trails Boxer by only five points in her first run for political office, not surprisingly took the opposite side, suggesting that Walker had no business overturning the will over the voters.
It is really sad to see all of the hurt emotions that surround this issue. On the gay side, I have never witnessed any gay man or woman that intentionally disrepected the moral integrity or spiritual significance of a marriage between a man and a woman. Most gay men and women only want validity for marriage equility in legal rights more than touching at the heart of any of the sensitive moral issues posed by the fundamentalist churches.
On the conservative side, I have never heard a Christian confront the issues as a direct or living Word from God. Most arguments stem from an expression of personal interpretation of “law” that the New Testament, in its pure essence, may challenge. Living in legalism is very similar to the problem that put Jesus on the cross. To put it in simpler terms, “What is God really saying …” The Bible points back to a Living God with a Living Opinion and expectation… The law is only a guide to show a need to go there..
California city’s mess a golden opportunity for Jerry Brown?
Democrat Jerry Brown has taken some heat, even within his own party, for his seemingly minimalist campaign for California governor — which so far has involved few rallies, speeches or even TV commercials — and which some say has allowed Republican Meg Whitman to make critical inroads with Latinos and other voting blocs in a race with national political implications.
Meanwhile supporters are quick to point out that Brown, the state’s attorney general, must husband his resources against Whitman, a billionaire who is largely bankrolling her own campaign — and can’t possibly hope to match the former eBay CEO ad for ad all the way until the November election.
But political experts say a scandal involving the the massive salaries being paid to local officials in the small Los Angeles suburb of Bell, California — while potentially bad news for state and even local taxpayers – may have given Brown just the shot in the arm he needs.
The furor involves revelations first reported in the Los Angeles Times that some officials in Bell are earning inexplicably large salaries and pensions. City Manager Robert Rizzo, who was earning nearly $800,000 a year and stands to collect more than $30 million in pension payments over the course of his lifetime, according to some calculations, resigned last week amid the public uproar.
The story has touched a nerve in California, a state facing a budget shortfall in the tens of billions of dollars, and suddenly Brown, in his role as attorney general, is everywhere: announcing investigations, issuing subpoenas and holding standing-room-only press conferences that appear on the local news in Los Angeles — the state’s largest media market.
“How lucky can you get?” said USC political analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, who attended Brown’s latest press conference in Los Angeles on Monday. “Jerry Brown is going to get a lot of mileage out of the problems in Bell and other California cities. This is a matter of luck and timing for Jerry Brown, but politics is a matter of luck and timing.”
And Bebitch Jeffe pointed out that, as attorney general, Brown is expected to pursue such matters aggressively. His nightly appearances on the local news don’t cost him a dime, but potentially worth the equivalent of millions in paid advertising if the scandal drags on for months. Whitman, on the other hand, can do little but stand by and watch. As a former Silicon Valley CEO, she has no real standing to launch an investigation of her own.
Schwarzenegger swears F-word in veto letter ‘wild coincidence’
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger swears that the profanity spelled out when looking at his veto letter a certain way was pure coincidence.
The Republican governor was in Washington for an event with Vice President Joe Biden to praise the economic stimulus package as having successfully created jobs. He spoke afterward with reporters in front of the White House West Wing to tout it some more.
One question was about the veto letter he sent to members of the California State Assembly. Upon closer inspection, the first letters on each line in the second and third paragraphs spell out an epithet using the four-letter F-word that is usually hurled in anger.
“That was a total coincidence. It was a wild coincidence,” Schwarzenegger said without a smile.
Newspapers and blogs have made a lot of fun, calling it the “F-Bomb Letter,” and the governor the “Swearminator” in a reference to his former acting role as the “Terminator.”
Many were incredulous about the chances that the placement of the letters were pure happenstance.
But we heard from the governor himself today — it was a coincidence…
Das ist nicht gut, Herr Schwarzenegger! Was trinkte Sie?
