Free Republic

Yes, we fall for it every time…but why? It isn’t so much the violence although the idea of cruel and vicious people being paid back in their own coin generates a certain degree of schadenfreude. What is of greater significance is that it plays out the triumph of good v evil, a moral imperative that, despite our own flawed behaviour, appears to be a key driver in how we wish to be perceived.

California became the first state to cap greenhouse gas emissions across its major industries Thursday when air regulators unanimously approved a plan to allow companies to sell pollution credits as a way to ratchet down heat-trapping gases. The state Air Resources Board took the action almost a year after a nearly identical plan was approved, then delayed by environmentalists who demanded the board consider taxing carbon as an alternative to the cap-and-trade strategy. By 2013, refineries, power plants and the rest of the state's top 600 industrial sources of greenhouse gases will have to cut emissions on average by 10...

Americans need to know why the Energy Department approved a loan guarantee for Solyndra when the company was so clearly troubled. But politicizing this mess to smear the entire renewable energy industry won't help the country or the jobless. This industry is estimated to have doubled its number of American jobs in the past two years. Demonizing it could cripple its job-creating potential. San Jose's SunPower is the latest victim. Fox News has made a series of outrageous claims about it, calling its $1.2 billion federal loan guarantee a scandal "bigger than Solyndra." This is utterly baseless. Fox, without a...

I want to welcome this groundbreaking scientific expedition to the savage lands of the Left Coast. You are here in California to answer an important theoretical question and now you have your answer. Yes, this is what Barack Obama’s second term would look like. Study it. Fear it. And then go home and make sure that it never happens to the rest of the country. Of course, in spite of all of its problems, California is still one of the best places in the country to build a successful small business. All you have to do is start with a...

The U.S. Department of Energy has finalized a 535-million-dollar loan guarantee for a (first-in-the-nation recipient), Solyndra Inc. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden and U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu jointly made the announcement.

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...

Um, hardy har? Arnold Schwarzenegger recycled an old gag T-shirt while exercising in Santa Monica on Sunday. As the photo (originally at TMZ) shows, the former California governor and actor, 64, donned a shirt that read "I survived Maria" on the back; on the front of the shirt the dates "2007-2010" appear, but "2007" is crossed out, replaced with "1977.

LOS ANGELES (KTLA) -- Arnold Schwarzenegger appears to be using his wardrobe to send a message to estranged wife Maria Shriver. The former governor recently donned a t-shirt that read, "I survived Maria." Schwarzenegger was spotted wearing the shirt during a bike ride Sunday in Santa Monica. The garment was designed by Shriver's staff as a joke and given to Schwarzenegger last November during a farewell party for his staff, TMZ is reporting. The shirt, which originally had the dates 2007-2010 printed on the bottom, was altered to list the dates 1977-2010. Schwarzenegger and Shriver began dating in 1977. The...

Boarded-up shops and a nearly empty parking lot provided the backdrop for former Masschusetts' Gov. Mitt Romney’s visit today to a struggling shopping center near the intersection of Victory and Laurel Canyon boulevards. Romney, presumed to be among the leading Republican contenders for the presidency in 2012, said President Barack Obama’s economic policies have contributed to the decline of this and many other malls across America. “Proposing raising taxes did not put people back to work. Obamacare made it less likely for employers to want to hire people. The talk about cap-and-trade and higher energy costs made it less likely...

When President Barack Obama announced an agreement to double fuel-economy requirements Friday, standing with him were industry executives and environmental, public health and labor leaders, all of whom, remarkably, had signed off on the deal. But the real credit for this historic achievement, which is expected to cut oil consumption by 1.5 million barrels per day and eliminate half of all carbon pollution nationwide, doesn't go to the White House. Instead, thank California. For decades the state has set the nation's clean-energy agenda; it's been the tip of the spear in the fight for higher fuel standards. Its huge automobile...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Arnold Schwarzenegger has indicated in court filings that he does not want to pay Maria Shriver spousal support or her attorney's fees in their divorce case. ... The issues of whether Shriver will receive spousal support and who will pay her attorney's fees are the only differences in their initial filings to end their 25-year marriage.

<p>Conservative commentator Bill Bennett says that anyone looking for democracy, good government, business and job growth, the best medical care, a lower cost of living and taxes should look to Texas as the model and to Rick Perry as the model governor.</p>

The Lionsgate project has been off, then on, then off, and now on again. The studio in May had been on the verge of announcing that Arnold Schwarzenegger was starring in its long-in-development Western titled Last Stand, set up as the English-language debut of director Kim-ji-Woon. Then the actor pulled out just before his personal scandal went public and deep-sixed his marriage to Maria Shriver. But now the actor is back in the project and aiming to test his popularity post-divorce. I've learned that Arnold's deal with Lionsgate is not nearly as rich as the one CAA made for him...

Maria's new home -- which she bought for around $10 mil -- is 11,000 square feet, and every inch is being redone. It will have 8 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, a 3-car garage, a gym, theater and wine room. We're told the house will be completed in 3 months -- good luck with that. Maria will get somewhere around $200 million in the divorce, so the house is pretty much a drop in the buck. Liberals are such hypocrites...

Arnold Schwarzenegger's housekeeper turned mistress has come out of hiding and broken her silence about the affair. In an Internet preview of an exclusive interview to HELLO! magazine, Mildred Baena revealed that Maria Shriver found out about the affair by herself and that Baena's son, Joseph, only learned who his father was a year ago. Baena, 50, said Maria deduced that Joseph was Arnold's son after hearing "whispers in the household" about the boy's resemblance . . .

Betrayal -- that's what living a cafeteria lifestyle means, so it's hard to feel too sorry for proud, self-proclaimed "cafeteria Catholic" Maria Shriver who is experiencing the reality of betrayal from her cafeteria husband. In 2008, Shriver told the world, via the Washington Post's religion blog, that she chooses what she wants from Church teaching: "Even though I consider myself a Catholic in good standing, I disagree with a lot of the teachings of the Church....I don’t believe that if someone’s divorced they shouldn’t get Communion; I don’t believe that people who are gay shouldn’t be accepted into the...

California's ethics commission has rejected a request by Los Angeles Democrats to investigate whether former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger violated state laws during his affair with a housekeeper — a relationship that produced a child he hid from his wife for years.

"I swear that I am not making this up." Dave Barry

Ahnold's cheating may put him into legal trouble. The California Attorney General will conduct an “inquiry” into former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s alleged misuse of taxpayer funds to cover up his sexual liaisons, it was reported today. Probers are conducting a "preliminary evaluation" into Schwarzenegger’s double life, which allegedly included using his "state-funded security details to cover up women being escorted into his hotel room," according to RadarOnline.com. Veteran hotel security officer William Taylor said he witnessed Ahnold using California Highway Patrol cops and vehicles to carry "scantily-clad women in-and-out of his suite" at the Sacramento Hyatt Regency, where he and...

Rosie O'Donnell Sneers 'This Republican Guy' Schwarzenegger Has No Right to the Kennedy Legacy By Tim Graham Created 05/22/2011 - 6:05pm Brian Maloney at the Radio Equalizer blog reports that Rosie O’Donnell thinks cheating Arnold Schwarzenegger is somehow beneath the history of the Kennedy family – as if cheating were never allowed among the Kennedys? Perhaps it should be said that Maria Shriver’s parents, Sargent Shriver and Eunice Kennedy Shriver, seemed to have a happy, long-lasting marriage of 56 years. But Rosie might want to be careful about boasting of a Kennedy "legacy" on this topic of womanizing: ROSIE O'DONNELL:...