Schwarzenegger backs McCain for GOP nomination
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN)—California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Thursday he is endorsing Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain.
In endorsing McCain, Schwarzenegger lauded the Arizona senator’s crusade against wasteful spending, his national security credentials and his environmental and economic stewardship.
Flanked by McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who endorsed McCain on Wednesday, Schwarzenegger said he was giving McCain his blessing “because I am interested in a great future and I think Sen. McCain has proven over and over again that he is reaching across the aisle in order to get things done. . .
Primary time for celebs: Star power floods political arena
It’s fitting that tonight’s Democratic presidential debate will be held at Los Angeles’ Kodak Theatre, home of the Oscars and one of Hollywood’s most hallowed monuments to the stars.
Star power rocks on the campaign trail these days, with an unprecedented number of actors, entertainers and sports figures stumping for candidates
And it’s not only the phalanx of celebrities attempting to influence the primary races; it’s also what they’re doing. In years past, most stars have been content to endorse and bankroll candidates and make high-profile appearances. But this year, with the race still open and 22 states up for grabs on Super Tuesday next week, celebrities have been working in key states earlier, in greater numbers and more extensively than ever. . .
KFI will be live at the Kodak Theatre tonight ready to bring you the latest on the Democrat’s debate
Romney depicts loose cannon McCain
Less than 48 hours after proclaiming he would never get personal with another Republican, Mitt Romney’s latest campaign missive focuses on the temper of Arizona Sen. John McCain.
The Romney camp frames the memo as a top-10 list of McCain’s “attacks” on Republicans. It could also be called “10 instances over the last eight years when McCain got angry or lost his cool.”
Oh, and the missive pays special attention to McCain’s use of four-letter words that are not H-E-double-hockey-sticks. . .
Incumbent Democratic lawmakers have donated or raised nearly $1.4 million for the Proposition 93 campaign, fueling accusations that the measure to alter term limits is a power grab.
Fourteen Democratic Assembly members and three senators contributed money in their own name, while numerous others gave to special committees used by colleagues to solicit funds for the effort, records show.
The two largest legislative contributors are Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, $350,000, and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, $300,000. The measure would give them an extra four years and six years in office, respectively. . .
Wednesday, January 30th, 2008
KFI will be live at the Republican debate in Simi Valley tonight, and will bring you the latest as it happens
Florida puts McCain, Romney in battle for GOP lead
MIAMI, Florida (CNN)—Sen. John McCain’s Florida win essentially turns the GOP presidential race into a two-man contest between the Arizonan and Mitt Romney as the campaigns geared up Wednesday for next week’s Super Tuesday races.
With 99 percent of Republican precincts reporting from Florida after Tuesday’s voting, McCain held a five-point lead, 36 percent to 31 percent, over Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani placed a distant third with 15 percent of the vote, followed closely by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who held 14 percent. . .
Presidential election: Among GOP voters, ire over illegal immigration
ORANGE - In a state where illegal immigration is among the most important Republican election issues, in one of the state’s most Republican counties, a battle has been raging in an Albertsons parking lot.
At Chapman Avenue and Hewes Street, dozens of day laborers – many of whom are illegal immigrants – have been swarming mothers driving SUVs as they pull in to buy groceries, fed-up locals complain. Women say they are nervous to drop off laundry at the dry cleaners next door and men heading into the Ace Hardware are reluctant to leave their tools in the back of their pickup trucks.
The night after Florida’s Republican primary, many of these locals will be glued to their TV sets tonight to watch the CNN-L.A. Times Republican debate broadcast from the Reagan library in Simi Valley. They will be listening carefully for what the candidates have to say about immigration, an issue that has become a defining one for Republicans. They have taken an increasingly tougher stand on the question as the campaign gets closer to California and more than 20 other states on Super Tuesday. . .
Calif. lawmaker pulls bill that would impose vehicle emission fee
SACRAMENTO—Unable to overcome auto industry opposition, a state lawmaker shelved an ambitious proposal Tuesday that would have charged car buyers a fee for purchasing high-polluting vehicles.
Redwood City Democrat Ira Ruskin said he withdrew his bill because he did not have the votes to pass it. It would have imposed a $2,500 surcharge on vehicles that spew the highest levels of greenhouse gases.
Ruskin and environmental groups had tried for more than a year to create a program giving incentives to Californians who buy cleaner cars, sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks. . .
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008
Florida Primary Could Boost GOP Winner
MIAMI (AP) – John McCain and Mitt Romney clashed in a hard-fought Florida primary on Tuesday, seeking campaign momentum before the race for the Republican presidential nomination turns into a nationwide delegate struggle on Feb. 5.
Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee also had spots on the ballot, struggling for survival in a race that threatened to leave them behind – or out.
The winner stood to gain all 57 national convention delegates at stake, the biggest prize so far in an early round of primaries and caucuses. . .
Panel kills Schwarzenegger’s health plan
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s audacious plan to arrange medical insurance for nearly all Californians—one watched as a potential model for the nation—was rejected Monday by the state Senate, obliterating the chance of anything but piecemeal healthcare changes from the Legislature this year.
The Senate Health Committee voted down the $14.9-billion proposal, which would have required people to hold private insurance and subsidized the premiums for those who could not afford them. The repudiation came from Republicans and Democrats, with only one of 11 senators backing the plan that Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles) spent much of 2007 putting together.
Lawmakers called the plan, which passed the Assembly last month, “fundamentally flawed” and “a fairy tale” as a visibly frustrated Nuñez, sitting in the committee room, muttered disagreement under his breath. Senators said the proposal, while laudable in its ambitions, might fall apart financially in a few years, leaving the state to cancel its new healthcare services or put taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars more. . .
Prop. 93 is a toss-up, poll shows
SACRAMENTO —Half of likely California voters support Proposition 93, the ballot measure to adjust the Legislature’s term limits, but nearly as many appear poised to reject it, according to a new poll.
A week before election day, with most likely voters saying they have made up their minds, the initiative shows no strong lead, according to a Times/CNN/Politico poll conducted by Opinion Research Corp.
The 1,218 likely primary voters interviewed Wednesday through Sunday under the supervision of Times Poll Director Susan Pinkus showed 50% of voters supporting Proposition 93 and 46% leaning against it, with a margin of sampling error of 3 percentage points. . .
Monday, January 28th, 2008
KFI WILL AIR THE STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH LIVE AT 6:00
Kennedy: ‘It’s time now for Barack Obama’
WASHINGTON (CNN)—Sen. Edward Kennedy backed Sen. Barack Obama for president Monday, saying, “It is time again for a new generation of leadership.”
“It is time now for Barack Obama,” the Massachusetts senator and brother of the late President Kennedy added.
He stood with Obama, his son, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, and his niece, Caroline Kennedy, before a screaming capacity crowd of students at American University in Washington. . .
Obama takes big risk on driver’s license issue
Sen. Barack Obama easily won the African American vote in South Carolina, but to woo California Latinos, where he is running 3-to-1 behind rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, he is taking a giant risk: spotlighting his support for the red-hot issue of granting driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.
It’s a huge issue for Latinos, who want them. It’s also a huge issue for the general electorate, which most vehemently does not. Obama’s stand could come back to haunt him not only in a general election, but with other voters in California, where driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants helped undo former Gov. Gray Davis.
Clinton stumbled into that minefield in a debate last fall and quickly backed off. First she suggested a New York proposal for driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants might be reasonable. Then she denied endorsing the idea, and later came out against them. . .
McCain: Attrition can ease illegal entries
Sen. John McCain now is embracing a version of the attrition strategy to fight illegal immigration, saying his version of a guest-worker plan would actually force many illegal aliens to leave the country over the next couple of years.
“I would propose, once the borders are secure and the borders stay government-certified, then I would have [a] tamper-proof biometric-document system so that the only people that can work are those who have that. And that would cause many more to leave this country,” Mr. McCain told “Al Punto,” Univision’s Sunday political talk-show program, in an interview broadcast yesterday.
Mr. McCain and three other Republican presidential candidates sat down for interviews with the program, which covered immigration, the economy and U.S. policy toward Cuba. . .
Bill offers rebates, exacts fees based on car emissions
Say you buy a car that coughs out a lot of greenhouse gases. Should you pay more for the privilege of polluting?
And say your neighbor buys a car that spews out far less. Should he be rewarded for helping to save the planet?
This week, the California Assembly is expected to vote on the California Clean Car Discount Act, which, if passed, would be the nation’s first “feebate” law, imposing charges and granting rebates based on a vehicle’s emission of carbon dioxide and other gases. . .
Friday, January 25th, 2008
Lawyers for Carona may try to move trial out of O.C.
SANTA ANA – Defense attorneys for former Sheriff Michael Carona, his wife and his ex-girlfriend told a federal court judge Thursday that they are considering a variety of pre-trial motions, including a bid to move the trial out of Orange County.
The lawyers also complained that they are not being given sufficient information from prosecutors about the public corruption charges contained in a grand jury indictment to fully prepare for their defense and to evaluate the scope of pre-trial motions.
Assistant United States Attorney Brett Sagel and Ken Julian, however, said they have been appropriately providing information to the defense term, and will continue to do so. . .
Greg Haidl will go free this weekend
Gregory Haidl, described by a prosecutor during a 2004 trial as the “maestro” who directed his friends in the videotaped sexual assault of an unconscious 16-year-old girl on a pool table, is getting out of prison.
Haidl, the son of a controversial former assistant sheriff, will be paroled from Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga sometime Saturday after serving most of a six-year sentence.
He is being released early because he was given automatic credit for good time and work time while in prison and for the time he served in the Orange County jail prior to his sentencing, according to Bill Sessa, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections. . .
SACRAMENTO — Cars packed the parking lot of a shuttered CompUSA store one recent weekday afternoon as schoolchildren, health professionals and the just plain curious paid $24 apiece to stare at a score of plasticized, dissected human cadavers and roomfuls of preserved body parts.
The cadavers are displayed dramatically, with layers of skin and muscle peeled back to reveal internal organs, bones, blood vessels and nerves. The exhibition, with bodies posed as if playing a violin, swinging a golf club or performing other tasks, provoked plenty of hushed comments.
“Where do they come from?” a young woman asked a guide dressed in a white lab coat.
“They’re elderly Chinese men who donated their bodies,” the docent said. . .
Thursday, January 24th, 2008
Poll: Term limits change slipping; gambling compacts maintain lead
The fight over Proposition 93 has slipped into a dead heat, according to a new Field Poll, leaving the fate of the term limits change in doubt heading into the last two weeks before California’s Feb. 5 presidential primary.
Meanwhile, four Indian gambling compacts on the ballot continue to maintain a narrow lead.
The term limits adopted by voters in 1990 allow legislators to serve up to three two-year terms in the Assembly and two four-year terms in the Senate — 14 years in all. . .
Newport Beach enacts curbs on sober-living homes
Despite threats of lawsuits from operators of sober-living homes, Newport Beach late Tuesday enacted some of the state’s tightest restrictions on the facilities.
The unanimous City Council vote, which came after nearly two hours of public comment and discussion, was only a prelude to what is expected to be a drawn-out court battle over the homes, which by the city’s count number 76, although critics say there are many more.
And the legal challenges aren’t coming only from the operators: Hours before the ordinance was passed, a citizens group filed a $250-million lawsuit against Newport Beach, the City Council and 11 companies that provide sober-living homes, alleging that they have not done enough to stop the proliferation of the facilities. . .
Bill Clinton Accuses Obama Camp of Stirring Race Issue
KINGSTREE, S.C. — Former President Bill Clinton defended himself Wednesday against accusations that he and his wife had injected the issue of race into the Democratic presidential primary in South Carolina, and he accused Senator Barack Obama of Illinois of putting out a “hit job” on him.
Scolding a reporter, Mr. Clinton said the Obama campaign was “feeding” the news media to keep issues of race alive, obscuring positive coverage of the presidential campaign here of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
“They know this is what you want to cover,” Mr. Clinton told a CNN reporter in Charleston, in an apparent reference to the Obama campaign. . .
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008
Autopsy fails to find how actor Heath Ledger died
NEW YORK (CNN)—An autopsy Wednesday morning on actor Heath Ledger was inconclusive, and a cause-of-death determination will take 10 to 14 days, a medical examiner’s spokeswoman said.
The Academy Award-nominated actor was found dead Tuesday of a possible drug overdose in a Lower Manhattan apartment, the New York Police Department said. He was 28.
Flowers, notes and a candle were left by mourning fans on the sidewalk outside the Soho apartment building. . .
Complaint accuses Nuñez of misusing charity
SACRAMENTO—A complaint filed with state ethics officials Tuesday accused Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez of using a charity to illegally funnel donations into political activities.
The complaint cites more than $270,000 that Nuñez solicited in 2005 and 2006 from corporations, utilities and other interests with a stake in legislation to pay for toy giveaways, scholarships, youth summits and other events that featured Nuñez and were arranged by his staff.
The donations were the subject of a Times investigation in November, which showed how a small charity—Collective Space—in Nuñez’s downtown Los Angeles district wrote checks at the direction of the speaker’s staff for events that benefited his constituents. . .
Suspect in Fatal Echo Park Hit and Run Sought
Authorities appealed for the public’s help Friday to find the hit-and-run motorist responsible for fatally injuring a man who was walking on a sidewalk in Echo Park on New Year’s Day.
John Kerns, 49, was hit by the vehicle near the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Mohawk Street shortly before 1 p.m. Jan. 1, the Los Angeles
Police Department reported.
The impact of the collision threw Kerns through the plate glass window of a building, police said. The driver, described only as a male, walked away
from the scene. . .
LAUSD scales back construction plans
Declining enrollment has prompted the Los Angeles Unified School District to scale back a $20 billion school construction and remodeling program meant to relieve overcrowding and end involuntary busing, it was reported today.
The building program, paid for by four bond issues approved by local voters and state funds, is believed to be the largest public works project in the nation.
But since the fall, the school system has canceled plans for 19 new schools and additions to existing campuses in South Gate, Bell, Van Nuys, San Fernando, Sun Valley and central Los Angeles and other areas, citing new enrollment projections, the Los Angeles Times reported. . .
