Posts By Author » Debra Saunders

Democrats’ War on Money
22 May 2012 12:02 am

Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, N.J., came across as a moderate, sensible Democrat when he said on “Meet the Press” Sunday that negative political ads are “nauseating to the American public. Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity. Stop attacking Jeremiah Wright.”
Booker, a Barack Obama surrogate, later tried to walk back his comments. He posted a video in which he explained that he was expressing his frustration with negative campaigning when he spoke out, effectively undermining the president’s re-election narrative. (Booker also referred to the biggest non-story in politics last …

FTC vs. Skechers: Overhyped Meets Overkill
20 May 2012 12:10 am

The Federal Trade Commission announced Wednesday that Skechers USA Inc. will pay $40 million to settle charges that the shoe company made “unfounded claims” about its Shape-ups.
“Shape up while you walk,” one ad proclaimed. And: “Get in Shape Without Setting Foot in a Gym.” Kim Kardashian endorsed the rocker-bottom sneaks. She said they worked so well she got rid of her personal trainer. The FTC found Skechers’ weight-loss and tone-up claims to be overhyped.
Overhyped? It’s a good thing Washington politicians never overpromise; otherwise, one might think the FTC should go …

O Brave New World That Has Such Romneys in It
17 May 2012 12:01 am

When presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s eldest son, Tagg Romney, 42, and his wife, Jen, 39, posted a birth announcement for healthy, happy twin boys on their Facebook page, they demonstrated how mainstream in vitro fertilization births have become. They gave “a special thanks” to their “gestational surrogate,” who “made this possible” for them.
The couple have six children; Politico reports that though there was no surrogate involved in the elder three children’s births, the couple used the same surrogate for their 2-year-old son.
E! anchor Giuliana Rancic just announced that after years …

The Pardon Attorney Who Just Says No
15 May 2012 12:02 am

In 1993, a jury convicted Clarence Aaron for his role in two planned cocaine deals. Aaron was a 23-year-old college student. It was his first offense. Unlike his co-defendants, Aaron was not a career drug dealer. He didn’t know enough to plead guilty and testify against others to win a reduced sentence. He perjured himself in court. A federal judge sentenced Aaron to three terms of life without parole for a first-time nonviolent drug offense.
Aaron’s only hope of not dying behind bars is a presidential commutation. President George W. Bush …

Obama’s Honesty on Same-Sex Marriage Long Overdue
12 May 2012 12:07 am

President Barack Obama emerged from his ideological closet last week when he said, “Same-sex couples should be able to get married.” Obama supported same-sex marriage in 1996. He opposed same-sex marriage, however, in 2004 and 2008 and right up until Vice President Joe Biden announced that he is “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex nuptials on “Meet the Press” May 6. Thus, I would categorize the president’s position on same-sex marriage not as having evolved, as he claims, but as a long overdue moment of honesty.
For bonus points: This moment has spared …

First the Circus and Then the 9/11 Trial
10 May 2012 12:03 am

Walid bin Attash used to frequent online dating sites. “Loves to travel — sometimes at a moment’s notice,” bin Attash described himself before his 2003 capture. So writes former CIA veteran Jose Rodriguez in his new book, “Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives.”
On Saturday, bin Attash was one of five defendants charged with 2,976 counts of murder for their role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It would seem that bin Attash has grown very devout at Guantanamo Bay. His civilian attorney, Cheryl Bormann, wore a …

Obama’s Julia a Woman in Need of Protector
8 May 2012 12:01 am

“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country,” President John F. Kennedy famously said in his inaugural address.
In his bid for re-election, the hope-and-change president, Barack Obama, clearly has decided to ditch JFK’s country-first approach. The Obama-Biden campaign is all about what this country can do for voters.
Last week, the Obama campaign introduced “The Life of Julia,” a slide show about a fictional American that contrasts and compares the programs and services that would be available for her from age 3 …

Obama’s Afghan War Unhindered by Partisan Fights
6 May 2012 12:01 am

President Barack Obama was entitled to a victory lap. In August 2007, then-Sen. Obama stuck out his neck when he said that there were terrorists holed up in the mountains of Pakistan and that he was willing to do something about it.
“If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and (Pakistani) President (Pervez) Musharraf will not act, we will,” Obama asserted.
Hillary Clinton, Obama’s rival Democrat at the time, was aghast that he would talk about encroaching on an ally. Later, John McCain, then the Republican candidate for president, scolded …

Rich Man, Poor Dog
1 May 2012 12:01 am

Mitt Romney can’t get past the Seamus story. In 1983, Romney put the family dog in a carrier on the roof of his Chevy as his wife, their five sons and their luggage squeezed in to the station wagon for a vacation. The dog got diarrhea. Romney has not figured out how to put the 29-year-old story behind him. So critics continue to use the episode as the defining anecdote about the GOP hopeful.
Last month, conservatives unearthed a passage in Barack Obama’s book “Dreams from My Father.” Obama wrote that …

SF’s Political Correctness Takes Mirkarimi Prisoner
29 Apr 2012 12:01 am

Former San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Brown is appalled. He didn’t vote for Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, and he isn’t his biggest fan. But when he considers the prosecution of Mirkarimi for bruising his wife’s arm during a New Year’s Eve argument, he is appalled. People lose sight of what types of cases should be prosecuted, Brown told me Tuesday, and Mirkarimi’s case is not one of them.
“Sometimes you have to break it off,” Brown said, as “Cyrus Vance did in New York City.” The Manhattan district attorney dropped rape charges …

How To Build a Tuition Trap
26 Apr 2012 12:01 am

This week, President Barack Obama has been warning students that without his intervention, interest rates for a federal student loan program will double to 6.8 percent July 1.
In the process, he’s been misquoting a Republican congresswoman. On Tuesday, he told students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that she has “very little tolerance for people who (say) they graduate with debt, because there’s no reason for that.”
And: “She said students who rack up student loan debt are just sitting on their butts, having opportunity ‘dumped in your …

John Edwards, Campaign Reformer
24 Apr 2012 12:01 am

The smart thinking among savvy election lawyers and political insiders is that federal prosecutors will have a hard time proving that John Edwards broke campaign finance laws when he ran for president in 2008. Edwards has pleaded not guilty. Election lawyer Jerry Goldfeder captured this view when he said: “With the government having to prove that Edwards knew the intricacies of the campaign finance law and intentionally broke it, the government has a very tough road in this trial. He may not be a sympathetic figure, but that doesn’t mean …

Proposition 29 — Forget Ballot Box Budgeting
22 Apr 2012 12:01 am

The American Cancer Society, American Heart Association and American Lung Association wrote Proposition 29, the measure on the June 5 ballot in California to increase the state’s cigarette tax by $1, to $1.87 per pack. Lung Association President Jane Warner likes to emphasize the demarcation at play: She’s with the good guys, while the bad guys, big tobacco, will spend buckets more money trying to fight the measure than her groups will spend trying to pass it.
It’s the virtuous underdogs vs. the nefarious moneybags. Good vs. evil.
There’s one unmistakable plus …

No Cease-Fire in War on Drugs
19 Apr 2012 12:01 am

President Barack Obama’s drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, doesn’t like the term “drug war.” He argues that none of the smart guys in law enforcement uses it.
Instead, the smart guys talk about middle-of-the-road strategies that emphasize treatment over incarceration — as did both Presidents Richard Nixon and George W. Bush — while they also advocate tough law enforcement.
Folks in the drug czar’s office have “gotten really good at stealing the rhetoric of drug policy reformers,” griped Bill Piper of the anti-drug war Drug Policy Alliance, but they don’t mean it. Obama …

They Shoot Rich Guys, Don’t They?
17 Apr 2012 12:01 am

President Barack Obama calls his proposed tax on millionaires the “Buffett rule,” based on financier Warren Buffett’s claim that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. Obama claims that the “Buffett rule” asks millionaires to “do their fair share” by paying the same income tax rate that middle-class families pay.
Despite a sluggish recovery and depressing job creation numbers, the president isn’t pushing for policies that would stimulate the economy and create jobs; he’s focusing on keeping his own job. On Monday, the Senate voted 51-45 — shy of …

Mind-Numbing Protests, Meet Pepper Spray
14 Apr 2012 12:01 am

You have to really work at it to get arrested at a University of California campus protest. University administrators look at protest as part of the education process — and they frequently issue memos stating how much they agree with left-wing causes. Administrators don’t want campus police to arrest students — especially students who attend demonstrations against state cuts to higher education.
Thus, students have had to ramp up dissident behavior if they want to be handcuffed and detained. Campus activists have begun to follow Occupy Wall Street’s lead and set …

The Godfather’s Italian Table
12 Apr 2012 12:02 am

“Godfather” director Francis Ford Coppola is a big shot — and not just in the film world. As a vintner and restaurateur, Coppola apparently sees himself as the capo di tutti capi – the boss of all bosses — who owns the Italian dictionary. Last year, Coppola won a U.S. trademark for the phrase “a tavola” — Italian for “to the table” (or, in American English, “come and get it”). It seems the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office also thinks Coppola owns a piece of the Italian language.
Last week, Coppola filed a …

Where Are All the Moderate Democrats?
10 Apr 2012 12:01 am

President Barack Obama chastised the media last week. “I think that there is oftentimes the impulse to suggest that if the two parties are disagreeing, then they’re equally at fault and the truth lies somewhere in the middle,” the president chided those attending the American Society of Newspaper Editors luncheon.
Obama also claimed that he holds positions that 20 or 15 years ago “would have been considered squarely centrist positions. What’s changed is the center of the Republican Party.” Oh, and Ronald Reagan “could not get through a Republican primary today.”
Yet …

Obama, the Happy Drug Warrior
8 Apr 2012 12:01 am

Why is the federal government under President Barack Obama arguably tougher on medical marijuana operations than it was under George W. Bush? That’s the question that anti-drug-war groups have been asking themselves for months.
In 2008, antiprohibitionists thought an Obama administration would not tread on medical marijuana dispensaries in states where they are legal. Obama’s 2008 campaign spokesman, Ben LaBolt, told me Obama “believes that states and local governments are best-positioned to strike the balance between making sure that these policies are not abused for recreational drug use and making sure …

‘The Hunger Games” Bread and Circuses
5 Apr 2012 12:02 am

It’s not until the final book of “The Hunger Games” trilogy that Katniss Everdeen learns that Panem, the name of her country in the dystopian world, comes from the Latin phrase “Panem et Circenses.” The phrase “bread and circuses,” her mentor tells her, comes from a Roman writer who lamented that “in return for full bellies and entertainment, his people had given up their political responsibilities and therefore their power.”
Each year, the Panem government forces 12 surrounding districts to surrender a boy and a girl as “tributes,” who must participate …

Who Is Brett Kimberlin?

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