Archive By Section - Other Views
Is it a Bay Bridge of cards?
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 ...
Thoughts on a gay man in the NBA
It is almost unbelievable that this is a first. But it is. Jason Collins is the first male athlete playing in a major sport to "come out." Yes - the first in any of the five major leagues. The president applauded him for his courage. Chelsea Clinton, his college classmate, and her dad both spoke out in support of him. So did Kobe Bryant, who two years ago was fined $100,000 for making an anti-gay ...
Tolerance cuts both ways
Compared to the hell Jackie Robinson went through, Jason Collins is getting a ticker tape parade.
Skipping ‘controversial stings’
The Washington Post reported something surprising on April 29 - a hidden-camera expose by pro-life advocates. On the front page of the Metro section, the Post reported how a veteran D.C. abortion doctor named Cesare Santangelo told a 24-week pregnant woman that in the unlikely event that an abortion resulted in a live birth, "we would not help it."
Their war, not America’s
"The worst mistake of my presidency," said Ronald Reagan of his decision to put Marines into the middle of Lebanon's civil war, where 241 died in a suicide bombing of their barracks.
Can Washington replicate FAA fix?
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.
Will Boston probe falter?
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."
Hollywood & Post-Boston ‘xenophobia’
As much as liberals had their fingers crossed after the Boston Marathon bombings - please don't let it be a Muslim, please don't let it be a Muslim - that's who the terrorists were. All that wishing and hoping is based on the very ugly premise that "middle America" is a cesspool of bigotry and hate, a sentiment shared by Muslim terrorists.
Extortion in the skies via FAA decisions
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 baby-faced bomber
Sometimes a picture speaks volumes. Sometimes it's outright deceptive. The picture of "Bomber No. 2" didn't look a bit like a mass murderer. A sweet-faced college kid, the former lifeguard, the nice young man described by classmates and friends. It couldn't be. There must be some outside organization calling the shots. An international conspiracy, perhaps. Brainwashing.
Dream first, and compromise later
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.
Marathon manhunt: The movie
WASHINGTON - It's sure to be a major motion picture worthy of the talents of Michael Moore and Oliver Stone. If the FBI does indeed have the right suspects, the docudrama screenplay - "based on a true story" - will begin with FBI public-domain footage of two young men carrying backpacks along a crowded street and then two bombs detonating near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and wounding more than 170. ...
Congress opts to keep poisoning kids
Lead poisoning is entirely preventable. Yes, we certainly need to cut unnecessary and frivolous federal spending, because…well, because it's unnecessary and frivolous. So Congress has targeted unnecessary oil subsidies and frivolous tax giveaways to billionaires, right? Uh…no. Instead, our learned solons have chosen to whack the Lead Poisoning Prevention Program. In December, our lawmakers slashed this tiny, $30-million fund that's not even worth a decimal point of the national budget by 94 percent, to only ...
Did the Brothers Tsarnaev fail?
"Whatever they thought they could ultimately achieve, they've already failed," says President Obama of the Boston Marathon bombers.
Don’t mourn planet’s destruction
Should we have wept or cheered on Earth Day? Both. The first step toward any recovery is admitting that we have a problem. In fact, beaucoup problems. For example, despite the squawking of profiteering polluters and professional deniers, our very atmosphere - without which everyone and everything dies- is rapidly being degraded by our addiction to fossil fuels, literally altering Earth's climate in disastrous ways. Yet, as we burn, our policymakers fiddle. Let us fiddle ...
Articles by Section - Other Views
Gang of Eight increases unemployment
The bill created in secret by the Gang of Eight is an outrageous betrayal of American workers, both high-skilled and low-skilled. Claiming it is bipartisan, the drafters were Democrats and globalist Republicans.
These hedges need trimming
They're hunkering down at SAC Capital, the hedge fund empire of billionaire Steven A. Cohen. Federal prosecutors have been picking off SAC's second bananas one by one, plea bargaining for information that brings them ever closer to Cohen.
Holder cannot investigate himself
No one should pretend that dealing with leaks of highly sensitive and classified national security documents is easy. I remember hearing plenty of conservatives taking to the airwaves to accuse The New York Times of nothing less than "treason" for publishing materials provided by WikiLeaks. I thought the Times publication was squarely within the bounds of First Amendment law, just as I think James Rosen was acting within the bounds of the First Amendment in ...
Appointment process beyond shameful
When you win the White House, you get to pick the team you want. Sure, that sounds simple and doesn't need any clarification, but it's clear that simplicity and clarity is lacking in Washington, D.C.
Dole’s lament: No caucus for old men
On Sunday, Fox News' Chris Wallace spoon-fed former GOP Sen. Bob Dole one of the media's favorite questions: Could Ronald Reagan - or Dole - make it in today's Republican Party? "I doubt it," Dole answered. "Reagan wouldn't have made it. Certainly, (Richard) Nixon couldn't have made it, because he had ideas. We might have made it, but I doubt it."
Will the West wake up?
After a British soldier wearing a Help for Heroes charity T-shirt was run over, stabbed and slashed with machetes and a meat cleaver, and beheaded, the Tory government advised its soldiers that it is probably best not to appear in uniform on the streets of their capital.
Obama: The spectator president
No, this is not Watergate or Iran-Contra. The AP, IRS and Benghazi matters represent a scandal not of presidential wrongdoing, but of presidential indolence, indifference and incompetence in discharging the duties of chief executive. The Barack Obama revealed to us in recent days is something rare in our history: a spectator president, clueless about what is going on in his own household, who reacts to revelations ...
Senate takes bite of Apple
I hate Apple. There was a time when I would look at my iPhone, and my heart would skip a beat. With its stylish white-and-gray cover, it felt like a luxury car I could hold in my hot little hand. It told me things I didn't know. It told me how to get where I wanted to go. It was exciting. It purred cute little noises that let me know I was wanted, desirable, in demand.
New crime of eating while homeless
Whenever one of our cities gets a star turn as host of some super-sparkly event, such as a national political gathering or the Super Bowl, its first move is to tidy up - by having the police sweep homeless people into jail, out of town, or under some rug.
The President’s next act
How can it be that with Washington simmering in scandals, with Republicans (not to mention talk-show hosts) using the "I" word (impeachment) with abandon, with calls to bring back Ken Starr (of Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky fame), President Obama's job approval rating is holding steady at around 50 percent, thank you very much?
Loose screws on Achy-Breaky Bay Bridge
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."
Newsom turns a new leaf on pot
California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom likes to be out front on issues. As San Francisco mayor, he approved same-sex marriages in City Hall even though they weren't legal. He pushed for a first-of-its-kind ban on city pharmacies selling cigarettes. Likewise, he signed the Special City's first-in-the-nation ban on groceries giving away plastic bags.
Graduation: Play the hand you’re dealt
It is that time of year again.
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