Author: Debra Saunders

Everyone has a theory as to why former congressman and not-so-former tweeter Anthony Weiner is running for New York mayor. My new take is: Weiner really is running to be a co-host on CNN’s “Crossfire,” which will return to cable TV next month after an eight-year hiatus. After all, Newt Gingrich will be one of […]

“Washington is an island surrounded by reality,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, likes to say. In an effort to inject some reality into the Beltway, Grassley introduced an amendment to the Affordable Care Act to require that members of Congress and their staff get their health care from the new Obamacare exchanges. “Congress should live under […]

It was big news Monday when Attorney General Eric Holder told the American Bar Association in San Francisco, “Certain low-level nonviolent drug offenders who have no ties to large-scale organizations, gangs or cartels will no longer be charged with offenses that impose draconian mandatory minimum sentences.” It was big news because the Obama administration finally […]

If House Republicans had somehow erased chunks of the Affordable Care Act — the employer mandate, the ability to screen who gets subsidies and the annual cap on out-of-pocket costs for a year — the Democrats would have blasted those moves as unconscionable acts of sabotage. But the GOP didn’t sneak in those changes. President […]

Eric Holder, America’s first African-American attorney general, and his boss, Barack Obama, the first black president, haven’t been shy about pointing out racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Racial profiling? It’s real, they say. State “stand your ground” laws? Obama says they don’t work for minorities. Yet both have been conspicuously absent when it […]

The accused Fort Hood shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, began his court-martial Tuesday admitting he’s guilty. “The evidence will clearly show that I am the shooter,” said Hasan, who faces 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder for those he wounded. But because this is a death penalty case, the Army […]

Republicans basically have two choices when it comes to how to deal with the dysfunction and big-spending ways that define Washington. They can point a finger at the GOP for not working with — also known as giving in to — Democrats, who ostensibly are more in touch with American voters. That’s how some Republicans […]

Before you join Jay Leno and Susan Sarandon and sign an open letter to Gov. Jerry Brown to protest “solitary confinement” in California prisons’ security housing units, there are a few things you should know. Start with the criminal records of the leaders of the Short Corridor Collective — the four inmates who, despite their […]

John Pike — the University of California, Davis police lieutenant whom the university fired for pepper spraying Occupy protesters Nov. 18, 2011 — has filed a workers’ compensation claim based on a “psychiatric injury.” UC should change its motto from “Fiat lux” (“Let there be light”) to “Fiat meum” (“Where’s mine?”). The protesters got theirs […]

A former Obama White House press aide is calling for an end to the White House’s daily press briefings. “The daily briefing has become a worthless chore for reporters, an embarrassing nuisance to administration staff, and a source of added friction between the two camps,” Reid Cherlin wrote in New Republic. “It’s time to do […]

When I first saw the KTVU video in which anchorwoman Tori Campbell gave the fictional names of the Asiana Airlines pilots — Captain Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk and Bang Ding Ow — I laughed. I laughed out loud, and then I watched it again. After days of watching the painful […]

Huma Abedin has graduated from sympathetic victim to pathetic enabler. I felt bad for Abedin in 2011 when, as a newly married and pregnant wife, her congressman husband, Anthony Weiner, embroiled her in his sexting scandal. With a baby on the way, she chose to stick with the marriage — a decision others must respect. […]

It just so happens that when President Barack Obama gave his moving speech on racial disparities and the death of Trayvon Martin on Friday, it was a year almost to the day since the White House said it wanted to review the commutation petition of a black man sentenced to life without parole in 1993 […]

Democratic California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has written a bill that would require public schools in his state to allow students to choose which bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams match their gender identity. Both the Assembly and state Senate have passed Assembly Bill 1266. It now sits on the desk of Gov. Jerry Brown. If […]

Hunger strikes aren’t really hunger strikes anymore. “Hunger strikes are a long known form of non-violent protest aimed at bringing attention to a cause, rather than an attempt of suicide,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., explained in a letter to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. Feinstein wants the military to curb the force-feeding of hunger-striking detainees […]

George Zimmerman exhibited the good sense not to flash a triumphant high-five after a jury found him not guilty of second-degree murder or manslaughter in the 2012 shooting death of an unarmed 17-year-old named Trayvon Martin. There was no public victory dance, only a quiet exit from the harsh public spotlight. I had expected the […]

Ever get the feeling that Washington sees every issue as a hockey puck in a rink with no nets? There’s just a constant back-and-forth between two teams with big elbows and pointed fingers — but no real resolution. That’s how a battle over federal student loans played out in Congress last week — lots of […]

California’s marijuana advocates need to inhale a breath of fresh air and take a long look at their judgment — or lack thereof. On Monday, I attended the “International Summit on Cannabis” news conference at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco to hear why Vicente Fox, former president of Mexico, supports legalizing marijuana […]

I used to pack a smoke hood in my carry-on luggage. I knew that most passengers survive a plane crash on impact but that many die before they can escape the toxic smoking fuselage of an airplane. But I didn’t pack a smoke hood for the trip that ended with a safe landing at San […]

The Senate is so out of touch that some leaders think the way to pass a path-to-citizenship bill for immigrants in the country illegally is to budget $40 billion for extra immigration enforcement over the next 10 years. This is the type of cynical ploy that makes everyone hate Washington. The Senate wants to reward […]

For most of the first half of my life, I lived in or near Boston. Usually, I am proud of my hometown, its history, its universities and its spirit. After the Boston Marathon bombings, Beantown united under the phrase “Boston Strong.” I left in 1985. When I go back, I see how much the city […]

When a man has been in the Oval Office for a few years, does he start to buy his own balderdash? In an interview with PBS’ Charlie Rose that aired Monday, President Barack Obama asserted that the debate on National Security Agency intelligence gathering “is a healthy thing” and “a sign of maturity” and that […]

Last week, Bill Clinton warned that President Barack Obama risked looking like a “wuss” and “a total fool” for not acting sooner on Syria. Shortly thereafter — but two months after Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel charged that strongman Bashar Assad had crossed a “red line” in using chemical weapons against his own people — […]

Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla, D-Calif., believes that if her Assembly Bill 926 passes, researchers will be able to pay egg donors as they develop medical advances that can help all women. To her, the bill is an issue of simple fairness — gender equity, really. Since a well-intended 2006 bill banned researchers from paying egg donors […]

Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald wrote that Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old former intelligence analyst who leaked information on huge U.S. data mining operations, “will go down in history as one of America’s most consequential whistleblowers.” House Speaker John Boehner called Snowden “a traitor.” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein railed that he had committed “treason.” My […]

SAN JOSE, Calif. — “Nobody’s listening to your phone calls,” President Obama proclaimed at a Friday event that was supposed to be about California’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act. But that morning, the New York Times had reported that surveillance programs begun under President George W. Bush had been clearly “embraced and even expanded […]

Ruth Asawa’s “San Francisco Fountain” owes Apple big time. Before the tech behemoth announced its plans to plop a slick, glassy Apple Store where Levi’s and the fountain plaza reside, many locals were blithely unaware of the bronze landmark. Mayor Ed Lee apparently forgot about it when he cozied up to Apple execs announcing their […]

The power to prosecute is an awesome power that confers the ability to ruin people’s lives, which is why an attorney general should use that power judiciously. There should be, to borrow from language in currency at the Obama Department of Justice these days, “balance.” When authorities uphold federal drug laws, they should target the […]