Back in years like 1936 and 1972, when California was in the midst of serious recessions, no Republican presidential candidate or surrogate would have dared bash California the way Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Peggy Noonan and others lately have.
"They lie, and they don't care if people think they lie," California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton told reporter Joe Garofoli before a state delegation breakfast Monday. Burton even brought up that "as long as you lie, Joseph Goebbels, the big lie, you keep repeating it, you know."
I watch some commercials on television and am amazed that the corporate sponsor really signed off on the product. Think about the expressions on the faces of the dark suits in the executive boardroom when they were presented with some of the commercials running on TV right now.
TAMPA, Fla. - Clint Eastwood put on an odd skit Thursday night at the Republican National Convention. It was awkward to watch and hard to hear, but I have to hand it to Eastwood. He achieved the impossible; he made the gaffe-prone Mitt Romney come across as supremely tactful.
TAMPA, Fla. - You could say that the film "2016: Obama's America" is the GOP equivalent of Michael Moore's "Roger and Me." The documentary is based on conservative firebrand Dinesh D'Souza's 2010 book, "The Roots of Obama's Rage." As the film's narrator, D'Souza argues that Barack Obama's philosophy is "anti-colonialist," a legacy passed on from his Kenyan father, who left Obama's family when he was 2 years old. I watched "2016" with the California delegation ...
Did Mitt Romney make the economic sale at the Republican National Convention? Did he convince people who are living at the margin or unemployed and discouraged that he has the answers to the economy? Frankly, I don't think so.
It was the political convention that almost wasn't. In the run-up to the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., Democrats and their fellow travelers in the so-called mainstream media claimed that the GOP was waging a "war against women," depicted Mitt Romney as a heartless felon responsible for the death of a woman who lost her health insurance and blasted Romney for choosing Paul Ryan as his running mate. They then tried to define Ryan ...
After a genuinely grassroots Republican platform committee produced a principled document on a plethora of issues, including immigration, some people who were not part of the process are promoting pro-amnesty proposals. Writing this week in The Wall Street Journal, Jon Huntsman suggested that President Obama's executive order offering work permits to 1.6 million illegal immigrants doesn't go far enough.
In front of a spirited crowd that packed the Tampa Times Forum, Chris Christie gave a solid speech that echoed Mitt Romney's programs, consisting of substantial budget cuts, tax cuts and entitlement reform.
The Republican convention was delayed by a day on Monday. It's not a problem: The national media's preconvention spin was timed perfectly, almost as if it was on automatic pilot. In Monday's New York Times, longtime political writer Adam Nagourney regurgitated the same old, tired political spin that the Republican Party is too conservative and exclusionary on "social issues" and that their divisive stands will hurt them with "mainstream" voters. 1976. 1980. 1984. 1988. 1992. ...
TAMPA, Fla. - Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan to be his running mate. Since his teens, Ryan has been a big fan of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged." In 2005, he told The Atlas Society that the novel shaped his "values system" - and that speech has launched a number of recent columns by liberals aghast at Ryan's taste in literature.
Like teenagers on vacation with their parents, Republicans from blue states and Democrats from red states don't want to be seen with party elders.
Mitt Romney made a smart executive decision selecting Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate. Ryan's genial personality, serious policy wonkery and political courage have dazzled conservatives and won respect even in a few liberal circles. Romney scores points for political courage as well. He knew liberal politicians and journalists would talk in punishing terms about Ryan's budget ideas.
Shrewd move in choosing House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., as running mate for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Now here's the next play: Invite George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic presidential candidate, to speak this month in Tampa at the Republican National Convention.
The only way the planned California bullet train could possibly be exempted from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) would be via legislative action followed by a signature from Gov. Jerry Brown.
Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III started tongues wagging when he posted this cryptic message on Twitter: "In a land of freedom we are held hostage by the tyranny of political correctness."
Gosh, it seems like only yesterday that we saw George W. Bush on TV reading The Pet Goat to some second graders. Now he's all grown up and has an entire , super-duper, king-sized library filled with big books and other neat stuff - all dedicated to him.
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 ...
It is almost unbelievable that this is a first.
Compared to the hell Jackie Robinson went through, Jason Collins is getting a ticker tape parade.
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."
"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.
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.
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."