Free Republic

SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has appointed two attorneys to Superior Court judgeships in Alameda and Marin counties. -- Each judge will receive an annual salary of $178,789.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gave Democrats the cold shoulder as he grew convinced he can somehow win Republican support for a midyear budget deal that includes tax hikes, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said Wednesday. The Democratic Senate leader said he and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass came just shy of closing a budget deal Sunday that would have reduced the state's estimated $40 billion deficit by $17 billion over the next 17-plus months. But Steinberg said in subsequent talks the governor spurned their offer with an eye toward reaching a bipartisan agreement with support from anti-tax Republicans instead of working...

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger created shock and awe in the Republican Party when he warned years ago that the GOP was in danger of "dying at the box office" by failing to make the sale to a wide swath of voters. And with the presidential election looming, the Republican governor of the nation's most populous state - a decidedly blue state - has now found a chorus of agreement. The Republican "brand" - thanks to an unpopular president, a war, gas prices, foreclosures and deficit - has become such damaged goods that GOP Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia groused last...