Free Republic

California's reformer-in-chief looked a lot better in the previews For an action-hero politician who likes to taunt "girlie-men," Arnold Schwarzenegger sure turned out to be a wuss. Two years after sweeping into office with promises to "blow up boxes," perform "the Miracle of Sacramento," and "not rest until our fiscal house is in order," California's Milton Friedman–quoting governor is wasting our time with a special election that does little more than tweak his unionized political tormentors and tinker at the margins of mis-governance, while the state's fiscal house maintains its disorder of $6 billion budget deficits. The governor is tramping...

10/3/2005 - ALI BASE, Iraq (AFPN) -- The magazine selection has not changed, but everything else about the 777th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron medical clinic here has. Fifteen Airmen from several occupational specialties came together recently to double the clinic’s work space. Patients now have more privacy during screenings and treatment, a clinic waiting area and the six-person clinic staff is not tripping over each other during sick call. “It was a truly amazing effort,” said Lt. Col. (Dr.) Anthony Ghim, a 777th EAS flight surgeon deployed from Ramstein Air Base, Germany. “Civil engineering carpenters, electricians, air conditioner technicians, heavy equipment...

The Sacramento-based vice president of a worldwide information technology company with a lengthy tenure in state service was named Wednesday as director of California's newly created Department of Technology Services. In announcing the appointment, Schwarzenegger said in a statement that under Agarwal, the department established in July "will successfully consolidate and modernize California's information technology system for the future of our state." Agarwal's position, which pays $123,255 annually, will require state Senate confirmation. He declines to state a party preference on his voter registration.

NOTICE OF MEETING OF THE CALIFORNIA PERFORMANCE REVIEW (CPR) COMMISSION HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES AND EDUCATION, TRAINING AND VOLUNTEERISM AGENDA FRIDAY, August 20, 2004 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Price Center, Ballroom AB UC San Diego UCSD 9500 Gilman Drive La Jolla, California 92093-0076 This is the second of six public hearings on the recommendations in the report generated by the CPR. It will focus on CPR recommendations to improve the efficiency and management of the State Health & Human Services and Education, Training and Volunteerism programs. I. Call to order - Welcome remarks by Co-Chairs II. Introduction of Commission...

RECALLING Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2004 State of the State pledge to not just rejigger state government by moving a few boxes around, but to "blow them up," I asked Schwarzenegger campaign guru Mike Murphy at a lunch earlier this month what boxes the governator has blown up in office. Murphy's answer: "Oh, I don't think we ... That's like a good policy question, because I'm not the policy expert." Columnist's translation: The boxes don't even have a dent on them. The administration isn't exactly happy about my question. On the one hand, Sacramento has become host to angry demonstrators who...

'They're the most beautiful books that were created.' So said Peter Stoicheff, professor of English at the University of Saskatchewan, who wants to reassemble forty boxes of single manuscript pages. May 26, 2005: University of Saskatchewan Reassembles Medieval Manuscripts at Rare Book News and Scattered Leaves at Bookworm started me on a little journey. Prof Stoicheff's quote is in Pages for the ages: U of S prof on quest to reassemble pages of centuries-old manuscripts. The hand-written pages were torn from some 50 books in the possession of Otto Ege of Cleveland, Ohio. In the early decades of the...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has dropped a plan to eliminate or consolidate 88 state boards and commissions - a major setback to his reorganization of a bureaucracy that he's called a "mastodon frozen in time." The plan "will benefit from further review" and more consultation with state lawmakers, Schwarzenegger said Thursday in a letter to an agency that reviews state operations. The nonpartisan Little Hoover Commission was scheduled to review the plan next week. Last year, after comparing the state's executive branch to a huge, extinct animal, Schwarzenegger launched the California Performance Review, which resulted in more...

Those who created the American system of government, and encased it in the U.S. Constitution, were attempting to balance two equally insidious forces - tyranny and chaos. They had fought a revolution to escape the former, but had experienced the latter in the years following the war under the too-weak Articles of Confederation. The Constitution, therefore, embodied what were called "checks and balances," creating a stronger central government but diffusing its authority among two legislative branches, a separately elected presidency and an independent judiciary. The structure reflected the belief, as James Madison states it in the Federalist Papers, that "The...

"My relationship to power and authority is that I'm all for it... People need somebody to watch over them... Ninety-five percent of the people in the world need to be told what to do and how to behave." Arnold Schwarzenegger, U.S. News & World Report, November 26, 1990 In the eyes of many elected officials, America is no longer capable of self-government. Many Americans were stunned to learn that a small group of Congressmen have requested the United Nations to monitor our federal elections this November. Yet at the same time, other elected officials are working to ‘reinvent’ American government...

Sometimes a cartoon says things better than thousands of words. So it was the other day when Bruce Tinsley's "Mallard Fillmore" spoof predictions for 2005 contained this zinger: "All agencies will be consolidated under the new 'agency of agencies,' which will oversee and coordinate the activities of the 'bureau of bureaus' and the 'department of departments.'" All, of course, would be ruled by the "czar of czars." Ordinarily a fan of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Tinsley comic strip this time was perfectly timed to puncture a key part of Schwarzenegger's many-pronged plan for so-called reform in California government. For...

Caring civilians who send unsolicited packages to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan could misconstrue military commanders as Scrooges this holiday season. The Department of Defense wants an immediate halt to those well-meaning collection drives and the resulting shipments of donated goods to overseas bases. The plea is supported by two state military commanders who asked that gestures of generosity be made closer to home by supporting the families of soldiers abroad. Though packages from family members are still welcome, security concerns and distribution problems throughout the war zones make unsolicited items potential liabilities to military commanders who are busy fighting...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger lit the fuse on his promise to blow up the boxes of state government with the release last week of the massive, 2,500-page California Performance Review report. Many Sacramento insiders, including legislators and advocacy groups opposed to the reforms, are already frantically trying to stamp out that fuse. They say it won't work, reforms can't be made. Others say the report, like so many reports before, will simply end up in the dustbin of failed government reform efforts. But there's a difference this time: Schwarzenegger himself. "Of course there will be the special interests that will be...