No journalist who has followed Lt. Gov. John Garamendi over the years could be surprised at his answer to the final question at Monday night's debate at St. Mary's College among candidates competing to replace Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek, in Tuesday's special election. When an opportunity for fulsome flattery presents itself, Garamendi does not miss a beat.
It must be something in the water. The ruling Democrats know their tax-hiking, re-regulating and big-spending policies have failed to rejuvenate job-creation or reduce the unemployment rate. And yet they persist in trying more of the same.
The Senate leadership's decision to include the "public option" in its health care reform legislation seemed at first almost miraculous, especially to anyone who believed the hundreds of obituaries recited in the media over the past several months. But by acting on their convictions rather than their fears, the Democrats could ultimately find that the politics of consumer choice can be turned to their advantage for years to come.
Exactly who made Bernadine Shimon think that she could buy a new house shortly after declaring bankruptcy and losing another home to foreclosure? The American taxpayer, that's who.
A growing percentage of those Americans who oppose President Barack Obama believe the president is testing the envelope of acceptable domestic, constitutional and foreign policies. Staggering deficits measured in the trillions, unemployment measured almost in double digits and a weakening dollar measured in ever fewer ounces of gold are creating an economic crisis that is testing America's historic optimism and faith in a brighter future.
My internist told me he is now using the technique he learned many decades ago in the military, when supplies of vaccine were short and they had to split doses. I wouldn't even think of asking. But I did ask my rheumatologist, since rheumatoid arthritis is one of those things that makes getting the flu worse. He would have been happy to give me a flu shot -- I'm talking regular flu here, not the swine kind -- but he was out.
The public option, we hear, is about to take earthly form. While congressional leaders working to combine five health care reform bills will determine its final shape, a government-run health plan to compete with the private offerings will almost surely become reality. And the specter of a populist uprising against it will haunt centrist Democrats no more.
Mayor Gavin Newsom's office has argued that San Francisco's "sanctuary city" policy protects undocumented immigrants who are otherwise law-abiding residents.
Barack Obama, who found time to go on a 24-hour jaunt to Copenhagen on Oct. 2 to seek the 2016 Olympics games for Chicago, apparently cannot find the time for a 24-hour trip to Berlin on Nov. 9 for a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Well, we all have our priorities, and the president can't be everywhere at once, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will surely represent the United States ably in Berlin.
Why isn't Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner doing better in his bid for governor? On paper, Poizner is a solid contender.
"His father was a great friend of my father." The reference to William Ayers' father was how Mayor Richard M. Daley began his defense of Barack Obama for his association with the unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist. Daley's father, of course, was Richard M. Daley, mayor of Chicago from 1955 until his death in 1976. Ayers' father was head of Commonwealth Edison, the Chicago-based utility, from 1964 to 1980.
The Obama White House's war on Fox News heated up when President Obama appeared on five Sunday talk shows in September, but snubbed Fox's Chris Wallace. Then White House Communications Director Anita Dunn told CNN's Howard Kurtz, "Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party." On ABC's "This Week" Sunday, Obama guru David Axelrod commented on Fox mogul Rupert Murdoch's "talent for making money" -- and added that Fox News programming is "not really news."
Popular disgust over the fat premiums that financial executives bestow upon themselves is burgeoning, and rightly so. Those Wall Street piggy banks are filling up with billions upon billions of government-subsidized dollars.
The Ken Burns series "The National Parks: America's Best Idea" got me thinking about one of America's worst ideas, the war on drugs. Particularly ill-conceived is the crusade against marijuana.
As it turns out, it was no secret that Richard and Mayumi Heene were very bad parents. Their associates knew it. Television producers witnessed it. Their willingness to put their children in danger to get attention was nothing new. They chased storms with their children. They used them to become "stars" of reality television. They taught them an ugly and offensive rap song about not being "pussies," which they posted on YouTube.
On three fronts -- South Korean trade, Ukrainian/Russian diplomacy and Afghan war fighting -- the Obama administration is being increasingly pressured by unfolding events to shed ideology and rationalizations and come quickly to a realistic analysis of world events and their consequences. In each of these cases, in the absence of very prompt United States policy decisions and actions, we shall incur long-term irreversible economic, geopolitical or national security harm. I will discuss the Afghan war decision in a future column.
Social Security is a glossy piece of paper on which nearly every politician wants to finger-paint an agenda. But Social Security has no need of ornament. It is a very grown-up program. Put some other toy into the political playpen.
It's hard to instill confidence in the U.S. economy when Washington keeps finding new and creative ways to spend money it doesn't have.
An interesting paradox. Last year, America elected a president who, in attitudes and policies, is closer to the elites of Western Europe than any of his predecessors. Yet in the nine months that he has been in office, ordinary Americans have been moving away from those attitudes and policies and have increasingly embraced positions that over the years have made Americans distinctive from those in other advanced Western democracies.
If the Democrats' health care package is so great, why are President Obama and Dem congressional leaders so hungry to share the credit for its passage with a Republican?
