Author: Debra Saunders

What happened to California’s death penalty? There has not been an execution since 2006, when a federal judge ruled against the state’s three-drug lethal injection protocol. In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld three-drug executions. It didn’t matter. Though as candidates Gov. Jerry Brown and Attorney General Kamala Harris — who both personally oppose capital […]

Thursday morning’s “Building community trust” roundtable discussion in Oakland, California, with Attorney General Eric Holder, local law enforcement, elected officials and community leaders was designed to “build trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve.” After brief remarks, Holder and company dismissed the press corps. It is a courtesy, a Department of Justice spokesman […]

I believe that parents should vaccinate their children. Because children are vulnerable, the media have a responsibility to inform parents about the risks involved when they don’t vaccinate their children. Instead, I see news outlets turning vaccines into a political issue starring anti-science Republicans in need of correction by pro-science Democrats. “Measles moves to forefront […]

First lady Michelle Obama made an important statement when she showed up in Saudi Arabia with her husband Tuesday to mourn the death of King Abdullah and meet successor King Salman. Though the first lady dressed in a fashion respectful of Saudi custom — in black pants and a long, loose jacket that fully covered […]

Jeb Bush may be the front-runner in the GOP 2016 primary. He is the son and brother of former presidents and can tap into their vaunted fundraising machines. In some eyes, the former Florida governor always was the more disciplined, thoughtful and worthy son. Maybe. But Jeb Bush also has a problem: He is a […]

“I don’t believe I’m poking anyone in the eye,” House Speaker John Boehner asserted Wednesday. That was after His Speakership told the media that he had invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before a joint session of Congress about “the grave threats radical Islam and Iran pose to our security and way of […]

As President Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, I saw all of 2015 flash before my eyes. It was a smart speech that wisely stuck to “middle-class” values and was shrewdly short on details. I saw another year of the president not compromising. For Republicans, it was Groundhog Day — […]

After what became known as the Moonlight Fire burned some 65,000 acres in the Sierra Nevada in 2007, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection decided that Sierra Pacific Industries was responsible for the damage. The culprit, regulators charged, was a friction spark from a bulldozer operating on Sierra Pacific land. Cal Fire fined […]

Mitt Romney is thinking of running for president in 2016. According to The New York Times, that’s what Romney told a group of big donors last week. Earlier, the former Massachusetts governor was thinking of running because the only other hefty Republican who could spare the party from a nutty primary — former Florida Gov. […]

Here’s what I love about the French: They’ve long understood the dangers presented by radical Islam. French President Francois Hollande swiftly called the deadly Wednesday shooting at Paris’ Charlie Hebdo magazine “an act of exceptional barbarity,” without doubt a terrorist attack. There was no hedging. The Socialist leader didn’t engage in the sort of blather […]

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio lambasted the hundreds of police officers who turned their backs on him outside the funeral of assassinated officer Wenjian Liu in the same defiant spirit displayed outside the funeral of Liu’s partner, Rafael Ramos. On Monday, Hizzoner called this act of silent protest “disrespectful to the people in this […]

It sounds like one of those only-in-San-Francisco tales: San Francisco’s sheriff cannot carry a gun because he is on probation. “That doesn’t handicap me from being a sheriff,” Ross Mirkarimi told me. On New Year’s Eve 2011, Mirkarimi and his wife, Eliana Lopez, a telenovela actress from Venezuela, got in a heated argument after the […]

“The Interview” is a funny movie that does a stand-up job showcasing how a not particularly serious or informed person would deal with Kim Jong Un — and evil itself, with all its blandishments. James Franco plays talk show host Dave Skylark, who discovers that the North Korean dictator loves his show. Skylark’s susceptibility to […]

Carly Fiorina is gearing up to run for president. National Journal reports she already has begun hiring staff. Fiorina has run for office only once, as the Republican challenger to Sen. Barbara Boxer of California in 2010 — and she lost. Still, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO won prime attention by running and losing. She’s on […]

With apologies to W.S. Gilbert and “The Pirates of Penzance.” I am the very leader of the Democrat minority. I used to rule the House, but then I blew the D’s majority. I pass a bill so I can read what’s written deep inside of it. Though November felt like Waterloo, it won’t come off […]

The needle already was in the haystack. That essentially is the message embedded in the Democrats’ Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on CIA interrogations and detentions, approved with one lonely Republican vote, that of former Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, and released by committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein of California. Three former CIA directors contend that enhanced interrogation techniques, […]

I have a theory as to why Americans don’t worry all that much about global warming: High-profile purveyors of climate change don’t push for reductions in greenhouse gases so much as focus on berating people who do not agree with their opinions. They call themselves champions of “the science” yet focus on ideology more than […]

The intelligence was obtained illegally. The hackers presented a threat to workers and their families. Foreign operatives likely were behind the document theft. Any news organizations that report this ill-gotten information are, if not un-American, surely “morally treasonous and spectacularly dishonorable.” Are those the words of intelligence talking heads railing against National Security Agency leaker […]

President Barack Obama recently spoke of the “simmering distrust” between many police departments and minority communities. The president is correct in his assessment, but dramatically understates the problem. Rather than being just a feature of the minority communities in our nation, distrust of law enforcement is widespread. Whether it’s the IRS targeting Tea Party groups, […]

When California Gov. Jerry Brown was pushing Proposition 30 in 2012, he sold it with the promise that the income and sales tax increases in his measure would put off sharp tuition increases in the UC and CSU systems. Sacramento increased state funding for the University of California and California State University by 5 percent […]

Thanksgiving week, GOP House aide Elizabeth Lauten posted an admonishment of first daughters Sasha and Malia Obama on her Facebook page: “I get you’re both in those awful teen years, but you’re a part of the First Family, try showing a little class,” it began. And: “Dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at […]

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t become majority leader until next month, and already he is cracking the whip. He’s making senators work on Fridays — or at least they’re supposed to work on Fridays, as the Senate will be in session. Roll Call first billed the Fridays-included-week as part of an “aggressive schedule.” A […]

We hand a man a gun and ask him to protect us. If something goes horribly wrong, perhaps in a flurry of panic, we don’t rush to punish him. We make sure a criminal justice system meant to protect all citizens also protects him. We blanket him in the presumption of innocence. It’s the reason […]

In December 2001, I wrote my first column urging President George W. Bush to commute the sentence of Clarence Aaron, a federal drug offender who, at age 24 in 1993, was sentenced to life without parole for a first-time nonviolent drug conviction. Aaron has been part of my holiday season every year since Bush left […]

When President Barack Obama chose former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel to serve as his third secretary of defense, most Republicans were not amused. Obama was able to claim that his pick was an example of his reaching across the aisle, when in fact, most Beltway Repubs viewed Hagel with distrust. Yes, Hagel is a Vietnam […]

When Uber hired onetime Obama whisperer David Plouffe, CEO Travis Kalanick wrote: “We are in the middle of a political campaign and it turns out the candidate is Uber. Our opponent — the Big Taxi cartel — has used decades of political contributions and influence to restrict competition, reduce choice for consumers, and put a […]

Before he became the Obama administration’s least favorite overpaid expert, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber was its darling. He appeared in an Obama campaign ad saying, “I helped (Massachusetts) Gov. (Mitt) Romney develop his health care reform, or Romneycare, before going down to Washington to help President Obama develop his national version of that law.” The […]

In her mind, Dianne Feinstein will always be mayor of San Francisco. She may be a high-ranking U.S. senator with more than her share of clout in Washington, but she never forgets her roots as onetime mayor and supervisor in the city by the bay. As Ess Eff’s mayor emerita, Feinstein recently inserted herself into […]

The words “deportation relief” jumped out at me from Greg Sargent’s Washington Post blog posting titled “Get ready for a titanic battle over immigration.” Those two words seem so benign compared with “amnesty” — the preferred usage in the GOP lexicon — but that is their meaning. President Barack Obama was dangling a promise to […]

“I may be a thief, but you’re a terrorist,” quoth University of California, Santa Barbara feminist studies professor Mireille Miller-Young. It was March 4. The professor had just grabbed an anti-abortion poster from the Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust at the campus free speech area. The professor didn’t like a poster of an aborted fetus; […]