Julia at ABC points us to a major conflict of interest::

Rob Stutzman, Arnold’s former spokesman and one of the key players in the disastrous special election has just been hired by Channel 13, the local CBS station in Sacramento. He is being labeled as a “non-partisan” political analyst, appearing with no counterpart. Despite earning $10,000 a month from the California Republican Party, Channel 13 believes he will give a balanced view of politics. This is outrageous.

Here is their contact info. Let them know that this is not right.

Email Bruno Cohen, Channel 13’s President and General Manager: [email protected]
Give the administrative offices a call:
916-374-1313
Here is their fax number:
916-374-1304 Fax

(Welcome dKos readers. You can throw Busby some cash at our ActBlue Page. From one crook to another…sheesh. – promoted by SFBrianCL)

Brian Bilbray has been very quiet recently. Yeah, he’s heavily favored in CA-50 in the rematch with Francine Busby, but still you’d think he’d show up somewhere, anywhere in his district.  But, according to Words Have Power, he’s been hiding out.  He’s not been updating his web site, and he failed to show up at an AARP-sponsored debate. Strange.

Or maybe not so strange. According to the San Diego County Democratic Party, Bilbray is being investigated a grand jury impaneled by the District Attorney.  Follow me over the flip.

From the very beginning, there were questions as to where Mr. Bilbray lives.  We all know that. But he swore, under the penalty of perjury, that he had multiple primary residences.  One of which, was his mother’s address in North (San Diego) County. Well, more from the party:

We’ve recently heard reports that the San Diego District Attorney’s Office has impaneled a Grand Jury to investigate our complaint.

The Democratic Party had asked whether Bilbray’s sworn claims of multiple primary residences amounted to perjury or voter fraud. If our concerns are substantiated, it would appear that Bilbray broke the law in the very district whose past representative is now in federal prison for betraying the public’s trust.
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Our original letter to the San Diego District Attorney (5/17/06) refers to Bilbray’s signed voter registration — days after the Cunningham story broke — declaring a Carlsbad address to be his “residence and domicile” under penalty of perjury (6/21/05).

Less than two months after re-registering, he signed a new deed of trust for his home in Alexandria, Virginia (8/25/05). He did not indicate that the home was anything other than his “principal residence,” which the deed would have explicitly forbidden.

In December of 2005, Bilbray’s children testified under oath that they lived in Virginia with their father. The context was a lawsuit in which Bilbray claimed his children were out-of-state residents who deserved to pay the same tuition as undocumented immigrants who lived in-state. A few months later, he signed a formal declaration of candidacy to run for Congress (2/23/06), citing his mother’s house on Unicornio Street in Carlsbad as his residence.

Throughout this entire period, he was receiving a homeowner’s tax exemption on his property in South County’s Imperial Beach, where neighbors had spotted him in the community ever since he began to run for the North County seat.(SD Cty. Dem. Party)

So, what’s that 3 “primary residences” ? One of which, and the residences where his children were living, was in Virginia.  You know, where he was a lobbyist. Oh, and residency requirements include…well…actually living in the state.

So, CA-50 has gone from a crook who received bribes for his votes to a perjurer .  Wow, that’s a huge step up.

Oh and Words Have Power is reporting that he is scheduled (since 9/26) to appear at a Chamber of Commerce event. Follow this Words Have Power link for more info and to get the information to attend.  If you live in the S.D. area, please do so.  You think he’ll answer any questions about the grand jury?

I’ve made a few remarks about Arnold’s “assimilation” comments, but Ruben Navarette says it a lot better than me. The column is simply brilliant.  He says that Arnold’s comments are:

• Inaccurate because Mexicans do assimilate. A recent study found that, by the second generation, English is dominant for children of Mexican immigrants. By the third generation, only 17 percent still speak fluent Spanish. In the fourth generation, it’s 5 percent.

• Impolite because it’s never a good idea to compare one group to another. Schwarzenegger contrasted Mexicans to Asians, whom he called a “hardworking people … making great contributions.” Imagine if the governor used an event for Jews to criticize African Americans.

• Inconsistent because the governor was, after all, in Chinatown to attend a celebration of something called the Moon Festival, a fall holiday in Asian culture, and promote a new law to study the effects of relaxing health standards for ethnic foods. And he touts assimilation?

• Imprudent because issues of language and assimilation represent delicate territory where it’s best not to charge in without reflection and restraint. Schwarzenegger’s comments showed little of neither.

• Insincere because Mr. Assimilation’s own campaign Web site, www.joinarnold.com, has a feature where you can hit a button to read the site en español. Que pasa, Arnold? I thought you wanted folks to learn English. Why cater to them in Spanish?

• And incomplete because this line about how Americans will “embrace” Mexicans if they do X, Y and Z only perpetuates the notion that — to the degree that Mexicans aren’t embraced now — it’s their own fault. Never mind racism, discrimination or fear.

Schwarzenegger’s mistake was assuming that this was some revolutionary idea that Mexicans and Mexican Americans need to be sold on. They don’t. They’ve already bought in. And one would like to think the immigrant governor of the most diverse state in the country would know that. (SacBee 10/11/06)

Why this story hasn’t received more traction is really beyond me.  This is the Governor of our state telling a very large voting bloc that they don’t speak English well enough. Does anybody understand that? That a sitting governor is completely stereotyping an entire people! That he ignores racial factors and brag that he is better than Mexicans. That he ignores the fact that he was being paid from the moment he landed on American soil that enabled him to succeed. Is anybody doing that with all those “Mexicans” that he is challenging?

Do you think Jay Leno will be asking him about this?

In case you haven’t seen the video, I’ve posted it at Tracking Arnold and the YouTube video is over the flip.