Posts By Author » Debra Saunders

Obama Is Stingy With His Pardons
21 May 2013 12:03 am

Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder gave Washington a preview of how the last few months of the Obama administration are going to look, and they’re going to be ugly.

Holder knows ugly. He was, after all, deputy attorney general when President Bill Clinton issued his infamous 140 out-the-door pardons to such unworthies as Marc Rich, who fled to Switzerland after federal prosecutors issued a 51-count indictment against him in 1983 for tax evasion, racketeering and illegal trading with Iran. Even though Rich was a fugitive from federal prosecution, Holder issued …

A Few Screws Loose on Achy-Breaky Bay Bridge
19 May 2013 12:02 am

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Jerry Brown recently stepped in it when a reporter asked him about the Bay Bridge. In March, 32 of 96 key rods in the under-construction eastern span cracked after they were tightened. Dao Guv — who, as Oakland’s mayor, helped delay construction of the new span to win a tony, world-class design — gave the wrong answer: “(Scatological stuff) happens.”

The state Senate Transportation and Housing Committee held a hearing Tuesday to find out how such stuff happens. State Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, wants to know. As …

Too Much Information
16 May 2013 12:03 am

As a journalist, I am not supposed to admit this, but: I sympathize with the Obama administration’s frustration over national security leaks. After a spate of leaks last year — notably, The Associated Press’ reporting that national security officials foiled an underwear bomb 2.0 attempt last May — Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein joined Republicans to denounce the Beltway’s proclivity for leaking classified information. “This has to stop,” quoth DiFi. “When people say they don’t want to work with the United States because they can’t trust us to keep …

The Benghazi Cover-up Matters
14 May 2013 12:03 am

Last Sept. 11, a terrorist attack left four Americans dead at the Benghazi, Libya, diplomatic mission. The next day, a State Department official wrote in an email, “The group that conducted the attacks, Ansar al-Sharia, is affiliated with Islamic terrorists.” Days later, however, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice went on Sunday talk shows and blamed an anti-Islam video for the violence, even though others in her own department knew better.

The administration later claimed that Rice simply was following CIA talking points. But last week, The Weekly Standard …

Make Sure It’s Not a Bay Bridge of Cards
2 May 2013 12:02 am

After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake shook loose a big chunk of the Bay Bridge, local politicians did not signal that they wanted to take decades to build a new eastern span, so commuters should get used to driving on a span expected to crumble in a big rumble. Instead, they made grandiose promises about a “world-class” structure. Then-Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown demanded a tony design; then-San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown stood up for Treasure Island interests. Steel prices soared.

Now, $6.4 billion later, the Mayors Brown have gotten what they …

Can Washington Replicate FAA Fix?
30 Apr 2013 12:03 am

The Pecksniffs of America had nothing but scorn for Congress’ vote last week to stop furloughs of air traffic controllers, which were ostensibly mandated under the 2011 Budget Control Act.

Congress failed to act to stop cuts to Head Start and Meals On Wheels, critics sneered, but did stop the Federal Aviation Administration cuts largely because they hit lawmakers where they live — on the planes that fly them to and from their home districts. Nonsense. Congress did what it was supposed to do. Capitol Hill responded to the flying public’s …

Will Boston Probe Falter Like Benghazi?
28 Apr 2013 12:02 am

Hours after the Boston Marathon bombings but before authorities identified suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, President Barack Obama purposefully addressed the nation. “We will find out who did this. We’ll find out why they did this,” the president pledged. “Any responsible individuals, any responsible groups, will feel the full weight of justice.”

Days later, there’s reason to wonder how zealously the administration will work to uncover everything that needs to be known.
The day after the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi, Libya, attacks, which left four Americans — Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, Sean …

Extortion in the Skies
25 Apr 2013 12:04 am

This week, the Obama administration furloughed 14,500 air traffic controllers — staffers will lose two days of work per month — ostensibly to comply with the 2011 Budget Control Act’s $85 billion in sequester cuts this year. The Federal Aviation Administration’s share is $637 million. So expect delays at the airport. That’s the idea, but it didn’t have to be.

The Obama administration has chosen to hold airline travel hostage in its never-ending effort to extort further tax increases from the GOP.
The administration argues that its hands are tied. By law, …

Stop Me Before I Buy Food
21 Apr 2013 12:02 am

There is no problem too flimsy for California’s nanny lawmakers, as witnessed by the many laws that state solons have proposed to keep constituents from getting free plastic bags at the grocery. Those teensy plastic bags are cheap. They’re lightweight. They’re energy-efficient. People use them a lot, which means that they can end up as litter. That can be ugly. So Sacramento Democrats keep concocting bills to outlaw their idea of blight — not the homeless and not unemployment but bags. When Sacramento lawmakers see an opportunity to stick it …

Immigration: Dream First, and Compromise Later
18 Apr 2013 12:03 am

The bipartisan immigration package put forward by the Gang of Eight looks like a reasonable bill, but it likely won’t become law, and it probably shouldn’t.
The 844-page bill would provide a path to citizenship to illegal immigrants who have no serious criminal record, pay $2,000 in fines and are paid up on their taxes. Though the law would confer registered provisional immigrant status to qualified immigrants immediately, it would make them wait 10 years to apply for a green card, and then they could go for citizenship. That 13-year process, …

Free Speech, Hidden Cameras Don’t Mix
16 Apr 2013 12:03 am

USC lecturer Darry Sragow dismissed California Republicans as “really stupid,” “racist” and “angry old white people” before his political science class last fall. Those remarks wouldn’t be news — except that student Tyler Talgo secretly videotaped Sragow, and the bias-watchdog group Campus Reform posted 15 minutes of excerpts from the 2 1/2-hour class, which the Drudge Report picked up. That turned Sragow into a chew toy for cable news pundits.
As a Republican, I found his remarks offensive and inaccurate. Angry, old and white — those words apply to Sragow, too. …

Aiming at a Compromise, 2 Senators Hit Bull’s-eye
14 Apr 2013 12:02 am

When Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., visited the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial board in February, he essentially predicted that Washington would end up where it is today. Asked whether an assault weapons ban had a realistic chance of passage, the longtime gun owner, Vietnam vet and Democrats’ point man on crafting legislation in the wake of the horrific Dec. 14 Sandy Hook shooting replied, “You don’t think this whole thing’s going to get through?” His apparent assessment was that it would not.
With a foot in both the gun world and the …

Knives on a Plane
11 Apr 2013 12:05 am

When the Transportation Security Administration announced that it will allow passengers to carry small knives on planes effective April 25, my reaction matched that of Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., who has called the policy change “misguided and, frankly, dangerous.” It’s impossible to think about the ban on knives on planes without remembering what prompted it — the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
But then I thought, I’m always urging Washington to reconsider regulations that don’t work. Maybe the TSA is right.
Here’s the argument for removing small knives (with blades up to 2.36 …

From the AP Stylebook: How to Obscure
9 Apr 2013 12:03 am

The Associated Press announced last week that it no longer sanctions the term “illegal immigrant” in its stylebook. Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll explained that the AP has decided it is wrong for reporters to use the word “illegal” to describe a person, but it’s OK to use the word to “describe only an action, such as living or immigrating to a country illegally.”
Make no mistake about this decision. Whatever prompted the change, its practical effect is to delegitimize those who have called for tougher enforcement of U.S. immigration law. The …

Feel-Good Bills That Turn Into Do-Nothing Laws
7 Apr 2013 12:02 am

Readers share their ideas. Since the massacre in December in Newtown, Conn., which left 20 children and six elementary-school staff members dead, readers have passed on a host of so-called remedies. Let’s make gun owners be licensed and pass a test, some have suggested. So the problem is, I ask them, that these mass killers aren’t good shots?
A tax on ammunition, others chime in. So, I counter, you don’t want gun owners practicing at shooting ranges?
Basically, the gun haters are angry about Newtown. They blame lawful gun owners for the …

Pipelines and Pipe Dreams
4 Apr 2013 12:04 am

Whom does Barack Obama want to please more — out-of-work adults who would love a high-wage job building the Keystone XL pipeline or tony venture capitalists who travel cloistered in private jets when they’re not complaining that Washington doesn’t do enough about global warming?
On Wednesday night, the president attended a $5,000-a-head cocktail fundraiser, hosted by climate change capitalist Tom Steyer. On Tuesday, Steyer, who has been both a big Democratic donor and a vocal opponent of the Keystone pipeline, told the San Francisco Chronicle’s Carla Marinucci that the president “knows …

Welcome to San Francisco, DMV Licenses Optional
2 Apr 2013 12:03 am

In 2009, then-Mayor Gavin Newsom announced a city policy that directed police not to impound the cars of unlicensed drivers if those drivers could find a licensed friend to drive away their car. The idea, then-police chief (now District Attorney) George Gascon told me at the time, was to help those who could not get a valid California driver’s license because of their immigration status, as well as legal residents who could not afford to get a license or driver training.
City Hall’s message was clear: San Francisco loves undocumented drivers.
It …

Cruelest Month — For Taxpayers
2 Apr 2013 12:03 am

When you’re president, every day is a holiday. This April is National Financial Capability Month, as declared last week in a presidential proclamation. “I call upon all Americans to observe this month with programs and activities to improve their understanding of financial principles and practices,” quoth President Obama.
If April is the cruelest month, as T.S. Eliot wrote, then April as National Financial Capability Month could be the cruelest joke. It’s as if every day is April Fools’ Day, especially tax day, the dreaded 15th.
This also is the host month of …

Love, California Style
28 Mar 2013 12:03 am

Marriage returned to the two-parent union of a 1950s sitcom on Tuesday as the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the legal challenge to Proposition 8, the California-voter-approved measure that banned same-sex marriage in 2008. Urging the court to overturn Prop. 8, attorney Ted Olson argued that the law stigmatized same-sex couples by consigning them to a status that labels “their most cherished relationships as second-rate, different, unequal and not OK.”
It’s a complete turnaround for California, the state that pioneered dismissing marriage as a meaningless legality. In 1976, the …

Drug Case Judges Need Mechanism for Mercy
26 Mar 2013 12:03 am

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., believes that Congress is “about 10 years behind the public.” So Paul said on “Fox News Sunday” as he argued against incarcerating marijuana users. Paul sagely suggested the Republican Party should employ such thinking to “appeal across the left-right paradigm.”
Paul has put his money where his mouth is. Last week, Paul co-sponsored legislation with Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt. Their Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013 would grant judges greater flexibility in the federal mandatory minimum sentencing system.
“I think the American public would be shocked to find …

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