The Weekly Roundup

Hil plugs Phil; guv dines in silence, gets license

Thursday, July 6
The L.A. Times reports: “State intelligence reports released by the
Schwarzenegger administration include material suggesting that the
governor’s anti-terrorism operation was interested in the actions of the
Minuteman volunteer border patrol group.”

The reports also include a cryptic reference to “suspicious conversations at
a mosque” in San Diego.

“State officials released more than 80 intelligence reports prepared for the
state Office of Homeland Security, in response to The Times’ disclosure that
two reports carried information about domestic political protests ranging
from antiwar gatherings to protect-the-seals rallies.”

Friday, July 7
Phil Angelides got a little campaign help from New York Senator Hillary
Clinton. “He was instrumental in the campaign that my husband ran in 1992
here in California,’ Clinton said Friday. Clinton said she admired Angelides
for announcing he would challenge Schwarzenegger when the governor looked
invincible. Bill Clinton similarly began his campaign for president against
a popular incumbent, George H.W. Bush.”

“‘He’s obviously unafraid,’ Clinton said. ‘He was unafraid when it looked
like a hopeless cause because he believed California could do better.'”

Saturday, July 8
Looking for a 56,000 square-foot house? We may have just the place for you.
“Despite denials by those involved, speculation persists that Candy
Spelling, the widow of the recently deceased TV mogul Aaron Spelling, is
planning to place the family’s famous 56,500-square-foot Holmby Hills
mansion on the market. The price for the 45-room, six-acre property?
According to one gossip website: $150 million.”

What a bargain.

Sunday, July 9
The N.Y. Times’ Mireya Navarro reports: “Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of
California has finally gotten a motorcycle license after riding his
Harley-Davidsons for years in movies and off without one.”

“A spokeswoman for the governor, Margita Thompson, said he passed both a
written and a riding test and got the required permit on Monday, nearly six
months after he crashed one of his Harleys into an S.U.V. pulling out of a
driveway while riding near his Los Angeles home with his 12-year-old son in
a sidecar.”

Monday, July 10
A state appeals court in San Francisco on Monday heard arguments in a case
that challenges the state’s ban on gay marriage. “The First District Court
of Appeal is scheduled to hear six hours of arguments in as many related
cases–four of them filed by the city and lawyers for 20 couples seeking the
right to wed, and two brought by groups that want to maintain the status quo
barring same-sex unions,” reports the AP.

Tuesday, July 11
The Chron’s Carla Marinucci reports on the governor’s quasi-secret trip to
the White House. “Call it election-year politics, or GOP nervousness, or a
desire to get distance from an unpopular president–but, in a highly unusual
move, Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger attended a fancy
White House dinner Monday and his office wouldn’t acknowledge it,” writes
Marinucci.

“The White House dinner gala honored the governor’s mother-in-law, Eunice
Kennedy Shriver, and celebrated her work as founder of the Special Olympics,
an organization that promotes physical fitness for children and adults with
developmental disabilities, a program Schwarzenegger has ardently supported.

“Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, attended the White House event,
but neither officially acknowledged the trip. Indeed, the governor’s office
released an announcement that he would be ‘out of state’ and would have no
official events on Monday–never mentioning the White House invitation for
the event scheduled on Eunice Shriver‘s birthday.”