(full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign)

Controller John Chiang is standing up to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger -- refusing to comply with the devastating Executive Order the Governor signed last Thursday -- despite 28,016 petitions Courage Campaign, CREDO Mobile and True Majority members sent to his office.

The Executive Order fired over 22,000 seasonal, temporary and student workers and directed Chiang to reduce over 200,000 state workers' pay to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour.

But, Controller Chiang is holding his ground, daring the Governor to take him to court.

This is part of Controller Chiang's official response to Governor Schwarzenegger:

To the extent that the Order attempts to govern the constitutional duties for which I was independently elected to perform and, because it is based on faulty legal and factual premises, I will not comply with the Order.

Today Chiang announced that there is no way the state's computer systems are capable of actually processing the cuts for at least another six months of reprogramming.

John Chiang is, simply put, a hero. To thank him for his courage, the Courage Campaign is teaming up with CREDO Mobile to host a special conference call with Controller Chiang and our good friend Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Los Angeles), the lead author of a letter to Governor Schwarzenegger condemning the wage cuts signed by 27 California members of Congress. Also joining us will be Yvonne Walker, President of SEIU Local 1000, whose members account for 95,000 of those cut to minimum wage.

Please join us on Tuesday at 6 p.m. PT for this Courage Campaign Conversation with Controller Chiang, Rep. Solis and Yvonne Walker, co-sponsored by CREDO Mobile. Click here to RSVP for the call.

(full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign)

<!--

I wanted to report back on my post from Friday, warning that Gov. Schwarzengger was about to cut over 200,000 state worker's salaries down to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 -- a ploy in a political game being played by the Governor. He's trying to hold state workers hostage to try and place pressure on the Democrats instead of the Republicans who are holding up the budget.

Today, I have good news and bad news. It's Arnold's birthday. No, that's not the good news.

The good news is that over 28,000 of you stepped up and signed the petition to Schwarzenegger. The same day, he delayed signing the executive order that would have put the policy into effect.

The bad news is that he only delayed it to Thursday.

We delivered your petitions to the Governor on Monday and created a funny, snarky video you can see above, about our adventure trying to get someone to accept the darn petitions. It helped to have an Assemblymember along with us and a bunch of cameras and reporters, or else we would have been sent straight to the mailroom.

We have about 24 hours until the Governor signs the executive order. Which means we still have time today to pressure Arnold to stop holding state workers hostage to his political budget negotiation games.

On behalf of hundreds of thousands of state workers, please pick up your phone right now and call Arnold. Click here for the phone number and a form to report back your call.

UPDATE: We've already received some interesting call reports, like this one from Gary:

Staff member tried to convince me that things will be alright with our finances because my partner, who is a teacher, can get a zero-interest loan since the banks know that the employees will be getting the money eventually. I told her that we didn't want to be pawns in their political games and that the governor & legislature need to work it out. She said she would pass it along.

(full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign)

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
announced last night that he will sign an Executive Order on Monday slashing the wages of over 200,000 state employees to the bare minimum.

Not California's minimum wage of $8 per hour. The federal minimum wage of $6.55. Six dollars and fifty-five cents an hour.

Imagine trying to pay your bills on $6.55 an hour. Now imagine what will happen to thousands of vital service workers like the people who make sure that child abusers don't teach in schools, those who take care of the developmentally disabled, laundry workers who take care of our vets, or license inspectors for foster homes, all forced to live on poverty-level wages. A nauseating irony: many state employees may need to seek aid from the very state services that employ them.

The Governor's plan, rather than fixing California's massive $15 billion budget deficit, will instead make our budget crisis worse while delivering a serious blow to our struggling economy. As the recession deepens, gas prices skyrocket, stores close, and home foreclosures surge, the governor's wage cuts will force many working families over the financial edge.

This is absolutely outrageous. And the only way we can stop Arnold is by raising our voices as loud as possible in protest before 9 a.m. on Monday.

Please join thousands of people in signing the Courage Campaign's petition to Governor Schwarzenegger. On Monday morning, I will personally deliver your signatures to the governor's office in the State Capitol.

Download | play    Download | play   (h/t Heather)

I don't think this is what John McCain meant by being on the Straight Talk Express.  California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger -- who has endorsed John McCain -- admits that even though McCain is running on a Bush third term, agreeing with him on Iraq, economic policies, tax cuts, health care and free trade, we shouldn't take his words seriously...his actions show him to be far more moderate guy, willing to work and compromise with the Democrats in Congress.  He's just saying what he has to during the campaign, see? He doesn't really mean it.

Well, let me tell you something. What is being said on those presidential campaigns is one thing, but what people have done in the past is something else. So you judge people on what have they done.

Yeah, let's look at his record...does this look moderate to you?

Transcripts below the fold

Continue reading »

It was only a few years ago that Arnold Schwarzenegger recalled a sitting governor, promising the end of massive budget deficits. Guess what we have in California this year? Oh, just a measly $20 billion deficit.

Our schools are closing and social services have already been slashed to the bone. And it is just the start of budget season in California. Unfortunately, because Democrats do not hold a two-thirds majority in the state legislature, a small minority of Republicans are able to hold Californians hostage, refusing to raise taxes, no matter how ridiculous the loopholes.

Even, get this... a sales tax loophole for purchasers of yachts and private jets. The Republicans have very much earned the moniker bestowed on them by the Calitics crew: The Yacht Party.

The Courage Campaign has teamed up with the California Nurses Association to create "Yacht Party 2", the second in a series of TV ads designed to re-brand the California Republican Party. This spot is not your traditional political ad. In fact, it's quite non-traditional. And it's got a lot of people talking. In fact, the response to Arianna Huffington's message announcing the ad to Courage Campaign members was so strong, we have already authorized an ad buy in Sacramento. See what you think....

To increase the pressure on Republicans in Sacramento to close this yacht tax loophole, we need to make this "Yacht Party" brand stick. If you like the ad, please contribute to help us expand our buy across California.

Download | play Download | play

Props to the Governator for just coming right out and saying that the real reason Republicans deny Global Climate Change so hotly is that they're beholden to big business.

Kilmeade: But here’s the thing, Governor: A lot of people, a lot of Republicans in particular don’t believe there is Global Warming, there is Climate Change. They don’t believe the green technology and we talk to a lot of them on an every day basis. You’re a Republican, what do you know that they don’t?

Schwarzenegger: Well, I think they know the reality. I think they’re just trying to protect business. And in the end, they’re hurting business. Because we’ve proven in California that you can do both, that you can protect the environment and protect business. Even though in 2003, when I ran and I said that, people didn’t believe it but then we started building the ‘Hydrogen Highway’ and passed the Green Building Initiative and the Million Solar Roof Initiative and the Ocean Action Plan and AB32 to make a commitment to roll back our greenhouse gas emissions and the low carbon fuel standards, all of those things that got world recognition, I think people realize now, ‘wait, this does not hurt our economy, this is actually a big plus' because we’re creating jobs through green, clean technology.

This being Fox though, they had to end a rather lengthy interview on a more cheerful note, with Fox & Friends' Brian Kilmeade looking for some body-building tips. Arnold called him "without a doubt the most muscular television host," whereupon Kilmeade positively swooned.

Addressing California's 14 billion dollar deficit, Ahnold is a one-trick nightmare.

For everyone living in CA like myself, Governor Schwarzenegger's State of the State earlier this year was reprehensible. You can see it here.

We now have no way out except to face our budget demons. It does not raise taxes, it cuts the increase in spending and it cuts that spending across the board. As governor, I of course see first hand that the consequences of cuts are not just dollars but people. I recently brought leaders and advocates of various communities into my office to tell them about what we face financially. I had to look them in their eyes and tell them. I mean talking about fiscal responsibility sounds so cold when you have a representative for AIDS patients or poor children or the elderly sitting across from you. It's one of the worst things about being governor---yet, fiscal responsibility like compassion is a virtue because it allows the necessary programs in the first place.

Steve Lopez of the LA Times wrote a great piece about the Governor and said that we're basically in the same situation that California was in when the Davis recall was instituted.

Only a year ago, Gov. Schwarzenegger was telling us we were in good shape financially, with no need for a rainy day fund. Now he says the wolf is at the door. He's planning to lock the gates at 48 California state parks and beaches. And give get-out-of-jail-free cards to tens of thousands of prisoners statewide. And slash school budgets.

These and many other draconian horrors have been proposed by the governor who rose to power on three main recall promises: No more gaping budget holes. No more reckless borrowing. No more out-of-control fundraising and caving in to special interests. Is it time for Total Recall: The Sequel?

California is staring in the face of a $14.5 billion budget deficit and, lucky for us, the old Arnold Schwarzenegger is back.

I'm kidding. It's 2004/05 all over again.

Our "post-partisan" governor has pushed forward a devastating, mean spirited, wholly unacceptable budget. See, he took the Grover Norquist pledge and said "I do not believe in tax increases". Therefore, his solution to the deficit is to cut funding across the board. Plus he wants to tack on a few billion more dollars on the state's credit card that he supposedly cut up years ago.

Schwarzenegger's budget is Norquist's wet dream. It would have absolutely catastrophic effects on California's educational, health care, and parks systems, among other services. LA Times:

Yet his vision for the state is costly -- and contradictory. Proposing that the state more than double the borrowing voters approved 14 months ago for public works, the governor compared himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt with the New Deal.

Bewildered lawmakers and activists said that reference was inconsistent with his administration's bid to close nearly one of every five state parks.

"I don't think it represents the governor's values," Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles) said of the proposed budget, which is intended to close a $14.5-billion gap over the next 18 months.

Continue reading »

Here we go---the good old bipartisan garbage. I can't stand primary season.  Arnold got shamed by the Nurses and was forced to change his style of "governating" so why did Barack pick him?

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger: "What (he's) doing on climate change in California is very important and significant. There are things I don't agree with him on, but he's taken leadership on a very difficult issue and we haven't seen that kind of leadership in Washington," Obama said of the California governor

 Paul Rosenburg writes:

Here's an article I wrote back in July, about how  Schwarzenegger fired the head of the California Air Resources Board for being too enthusiastic about fighting global warming--and then lied about it, claiming that the fired official had resigned.  I also refer to an executive order that, like a Bush signing statements, effectively undermined the law it was supposed to reinforce--the global warming law that Schwarzenegger is routinely hailed for.

And C&L's good pal Julia Rosen has a fairly comprehensive look at the Terminater's governing style.

Let me state up front that since moving to California two years ago, I have written thousands of blog posts on Arnold Schwarzenegger. This governor loves to say one thing and do another. His public statements rarely match up with his actions. I talk about Arnold's governing philosophy in terms of software versions, since it switches all too often...read on

Mary Nichols was just hired to try and quiet the storm. Arnold's stance on Global Warming must now be considered a con:

Her appointment follows the recent departure of two top board officials who each complained publicly that meddling by the Schwarzenegger administration on behalf of business interests limited their ability to draft effective regulations for curbing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality.

Nichols replaces Robert Sawyer, who says he was fired after pushing to implement more aggressive action to curb global warming than the administration supports.

Witherspoon said she and her staff were also pressured by the administration to ease a crackdown on heavy diesel construction equipment after industry representatives complained the draft regulations were too tough.

I hope the Hollywood community that supported his re-election are proud of themselves. Tools...Except for Warren Beatty, that is.

SmokingGun:

Claim: Governator sold moldy home with damaged pool, tennis court

DECEMBER 17--A lawyer who recently bought a $7.95 million Pacific Palisades home from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver is suing California's first couple, claiming that they hid damage to the estate's pool and tennis court, as well as a mold problem in the screening room. Now you know what blindingly rich people squabble over...

Will this come out in the vetting process when Arnold runs for president?