Free Republic

Actor and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he believes it's a "no-brainer" he could win the presidency in 2024 — if he were able to run for election. Schwarzenegger, who was born in Austria and served as the Golden State's governor from 2003 to 2011, made the comments during a recent sit-down interview on Max and CNN’s "Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?"

KATOWICE, Poland (AP) — Arnold Schwarzenegger says he wishes he could travel back in time like the cyborg he played in “The Terminator” so he could stop fossil fuels from being used.“If we would’ve never started in that direction and used other technology, we’d be much better off,” the actor and former California governor said Monday at the start of a U.N. climate conference in Poland.“The biggest evil is fossil fuels: it’s coal, it’s gasoline, it’s the natural gas,” he told conference delegates.

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 two-day-a-month unpaid furloughs of state executive branch workers ordered in 2008 by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger legally applied to employees of California's elected constitutional officers, an appellate court in Sacramento ruled Tuesday. Applying the furlough order to the staffs of constitutional officers "does not violate the California Constitution's system of divided executive authority or impermissibly interfere with (the officers') statutory right to control the staffing and management of their respective offices," a three-justice panel of the 3rd District Court of Appeal declared in a 47-page opinion. Schwarzenegger resorted to furloughs as a cost-saving device in the face of an overwhelming...

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...

Sacramento anti-tax advocate Ted Costa looks back at the events he set in motion when he helped kick off California's historic gubernatorial recall in 2003 - culminating in the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger - with more than a little disgust."He's betrayed the people who supported him from Day One," said Costa of the former GOP governor, who this week acknowledged betraying wife Maria Shriver by having an affair and an out-of-wedlock child with a housekeeper more than a decade ago. "I don't know why people are shocked." Melanie Morgan, the former KSFO conservative talk show host who was dubbed the...

In 2005, Maria Shriver told Vanity Fair that many people were surprised that a Kennedy clan member would marry Hollywood bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger. "People at first were like, 'You married the other side of the tracks.' " She said, "They have trouble with the class thing. ... Everyone assumed that I was supposed to marry someone like a John Kerry, some preppy that had gone to Harvard or Yale. I didn't want to marry those boys - I did not like them. I had been around them my whole life. I interrupted the story line." Tuesday the Los Angeles Times...

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...

SAN DIEGO -- San Diego County prosecutors asked a state court Wednesday to overturn former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's last-minute decision to slash the prison sentence for the son of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, his friend and political ally. The civil lawsuit filed in San Diego County Superior Court is the latest fallout from the Republican governor's decision, which angered prosecutors, the victim's family and other Republicans. A day before his term ended in January, Schwarzenegger cut by more than half the sentence for Esteban Nunez, to 7 years from 16 years. The younger Nunez pleaded guilty in the 2008...

Arnold Schwarzenegger came into the governorship seven years ago believing that he could succeed where his predecessors had failed in dealing with California's thorniest issues. He'll leave office in a few months, having learned the hard way that California is difficult, and perhaps impossible, to govern. Its ever-expanding economic and cultural complexity collides with a politics so ossified and diffused, with so many officeholders and institutions sharing authority, that no one is truly accountable for outcomes. Schwarzenegger offered his take on that dysfunction during a presentation in Fresno the other day, a truncated version of which follows: "There is no...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he is not sure he will endorse either candidate bidding to succeed him. If he does, he said after last week's primary elections, it will not necessarily be Republican Meg Whitman, his party's nominee. Not that she has asked. Or that the governor's endorsement would be helpful, anyway. Even when he was popular, Schwarzenegger's star power did not always rub off on fellow Republicans. Now, with his public approval rating foundering and the Capitol gridlocked over a $19.1 billion deficit, some strategists and campaign watchers say his endorsement, if he offers it, could hurt. "Meg's going...

So much for the undeserved stereotype of California Republicans voting lemming-like for the most conservative, unelectable contenders. Tuesday, GOP voters rejected the most conservative candidates in favor of moderate hopefuls generally deemed to be more likely to win in November. Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman trounced Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina beat two skilled opponents. Like Whitman, most candidates endorsed by former Gov. Pete Wilson won big. Most endorsed by conservative demigod Tom McClintock tanked. It wasn't even close. Down ticket, Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, a GOP moderate, fended off more conservative competition. In the attorney...

Former Gov. Jerry Brown and other forces lining up to oppose Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman in November learned something from the billionaire's overwhelming primary victory: It wasn't just about her seemingly bottomless bank account.It was about letting her ubiquitous advertising go unchallenged. Of course, Whitman's money played a major role in her victory Tuesday over state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, a fellow Silicon Valley multimillionaire. Whitman contributed a record-shattering $71 million of her own money to her campaign and raised another $16 million. Poizner contributed $24 million of his own money to his bid and raised another $3 million....

It looks like it's going to be eMeg versus Moonbeam for governor of California, and the whole world will be watching.For Meg Whitman, this is not just a race for governor. This is a race to the top of the Republican food chain and for consideration to be Mitt Romney's running mate in 2o12.For Jerry Brown, it's the ultimate redemption for old-time politicians, for those opposed to term limits and for those who believe that experience counts.I think Jerry started out with the idea that becoming governor again would launch him on another run for the White House, but Barack...

More Californians disapprove of the job performance of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger than any governor in modern state history including Gray Davis, who was ousted by Schwarzenegger in a popular uprising, according to a Field Poll released today. Seventy-one percent of California voters surveyed said they disapprove of Schwarzenegger's handling of the job, while 23 percent approve. The low ratings are shared across all demographics including party affiliation, region of the state, age and race or ethnicity."Schwarzenegger still has a persona that appeals to people, but the real problem is he's presiding over a terrible time in California history and he...

California: While Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger worries about rising seas, his state sinks below the waves. Don't mess with Texas, they say. But California and the nation could follow its lead. Last Wednesday, Gov. Schwarzenegger released a new report based on research compiled by the California Energy Commission claiming that by 2100 San Francisco Bay would be more bay than San Francisco, with Fisherman's Wharf and Treasure Island under the rising waters of climate change. His show-and-tell, which included a new Google Earth application the commission spent $150,000 to help develop, goes a long way toward explaining the once-Golden State's slide...

Shedding jobs that once reliably attracted new residents, California grew at a slower pace this year than all but two other years since 1900, according to state Department of Finance figures released Thursday. The number of new births dropped. The number of new immigrants dropped. And more residents left California for other states than came here. The end result: Statewide growth from July 2008 to July 2009 was 350,000 people, or less than 1 percent. During the rest of the decade, California averaged 525,000 new residents each year. The four-county Sacramento region posted even more striking numbers, adding just 21,000...

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...

There is absolutely no way I’ll be able to make this relevant to tech. But I’m posting it anyway. Our Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, vetoed a California legislative finance bill – AB 1176. The letter is terse and to the point. And the first letter of each line in paragraphs 2-3 are even terser and more to the point. Schwarzeneggers battles with the state legislature are epic. But this just goes way beyond epic. It’s something for the history books. (click the link to view the message...)

An image of the bill's veto message, with some interpretive graphics added: A link to this pdf on Schwarznegger's official web site can be found here, in the "Bills Vetoed" section. It's the real deal.