Posted on 07/13/2005 9:03:02 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Deepening his personal involvement in an industry that has business pending at the Capitol, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger earlier this year helped dietary supplement companies launch a lobbying group.
An article in the August 2005 edition of Muscle & Fitness magazine, for which Schwarzenegger serves as executive editor, recounts his attendance at a March 5 meeting at which the lobbying group formed and says the governor remains "a phone call away" from the organization.
The meeting took place while legislation was pending that would restrict high school athletes from using some performance-enhancing supplements. The bill still awaits action in the Legislature.
Schwarzenegger vetoed a supplements bill last year, saying that most are safe. But the Republican governor last year also signed on with American Media Inc. - publisher of the National Enquirer and Star supermarket tabloids - to take his position with Muscle & Fitness and Flex magazines. The body-building publications derive much of their advertising income from the supplements industry.
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Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles and an expert on political reform, said he sees no legal problems with Schwarzenegger's association with the supplements industry. But he said the activity raises a question of "whether it is compatible with being governor."
"Shouldn't he be focusing all of his energies on being governor as opposed to helping a particular industry that he has been associated with in the past?" Stern asked. "Nobody is saying he's shirking his duties as governor, but the question is, how does it look to be promoting one industry when there is also legislation affecting that industry?"
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Ping!
Without freedom, evolution can't take its natural course. I find it interesting that those liberals who push evolution the most are rabidly against freedom.
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