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Debra J. Saunders is a columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle. Debra Saunders has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The National Review, and Reader's Digest. Debra Saunders is the author of the book The World According to Gore. Saunders is married to Wesley J. Smith, a lawyer, author and senior fellow in bioethics at the Discovery Institute.
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Debra J. Saunders (May 20, 2012)
The Federal Trade Commission announced Wednesday that Skechers USA Inc. will pay $40 million to settle charges that the shoe company made "unfounded claims" about its... more
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Debra J. Saunders (May 17, 2012)
When presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's eldest son, Tagg Romney, 42, and his wife, Jen, 39, posted a birth announcement for healthy, happy twin boys on their Facebook page,... more
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Debra J. Saunders (May 15, 2012)
In 1993, a jury convicted Clarence Aaron for his role in two planned cocaine deals. Aaron was a 23-year-old college student. It was his first offense. Unlike his... more
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Debra J. Saunders (May 13, 2012)
President Barack Obama emerged from his ideological closet last week when he said, "Same-sex couples should be able to get married." Obama supported same-sex marriage in... more
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Debra J. Saunders (May 10, 2012)
Walid bin Attash used to frequent online dating sites. "Loves to travel -- sometimes at a moment's notice," bin Attash described himself before his 2003 capture. So writes... more
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Debra J. Saunders (May 08, 2012)
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country," President John F. Kennedy famously said in his inaugural address.
In his... more
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Debra J. Saunders (May 06, 2012)
President Barack Obama was entitled to a victory lap. In August 2007, then-Sen. Obama stuck out his neck when he said that there were terrorists holed up in the mountains of... more
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Debra J. Saunders (May 01, 2012)
Mitt Romney can't get past the Seamus story. In 1983, Romney put the family dog in a carrier on the roof of his Chevy as his wife, their five sons and their luggage squeezed... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Apr 29, 2012)
Former San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Brown is appalled. He didn't vote for Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, and he isn't his biggest fan. But when he considers the prosecution of... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Apr 26, 2012)
This week, President Barack Obama has been warning students that without his intervention, interest rates for a federal student loan program will double to 6.8 percent July... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Apr 24, 2012)
The smart thinking among savvy election lawyers and political insiders is that federal prosecutors will have a hard time proving that John Edwards broke campaign finance laws... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Apr 22, 2012)
The American Cancer Society, American Heart Association and American Lung Association wrote Proposition 29, the measure on the June 5 ballot in California to increase the... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Apr 19, 2012)
President Barack Obama's drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, doesn't like the term "drug war." He argues that none of the smart guys in law enforcement uses it.Instead, the smart... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Apr 17, 2012)
President Barack Obama calls his proposed tax on millionaires the "Buffett rule," based on financier Warren Buffett's claim that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Apr 14, 2012)
You have to really work at it to get arrested at a University of California campus protest. University administrators look at protest as part of the education process -- and... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Apr 12, 2012)
"Godfather" director Francis Ford Coppola is a big shot -- and not just in the film world. As a vintner and restaurateur, Coppola apparently sees himself as the capo di tutti... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Apr 10, 2012)
President Barack Obama chastised the media last week. "I think that there is oftentimes the impulse to suggest that if the two parties are disagreeing, then... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Apr 08, 2012)
Why is the federal government under President Barack Obama arguably tougher on medical marijuana operations than it was under George W. Bush? That's the question that... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Apr 05, 2012)
It's not until the final book of "The Hunger Games" trilogy that Katniss Everdeen learns that Panem, the name of her country in the dystopian world, comes from the Latin... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Apr 03, 2012)
"Who killed the debt deal?" read The New York Times Magazine as it hyped its Sunday cover story as a "Washington whodunit."Author Matt Bai explained that "some of... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Apr 01, 2012)
Political activism has drawn the University of California into an academic death spiral. Too many professors believe their job is to "advance social justice" rather than... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Mar 29, 2012)
I hate to sound like a lawyer, but: There's a big hole in San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee's suspension of Ross Mirkarimi as sheriff.In written charges that launched an... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Mar 27, 2012)
President Barack Obama keeps trying to give former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney credit for the Affordable Care Act, which tells you how unpopular Obamacare is.Romney, Obama... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Mar 25, 2012)
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan introduced a hard-core GOP budget last week. His committee passed the package in a 19-18 vote. Two Republicans voted against it.... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Mar 22, 2012)
"If the history of combating drugs on our streets has shown us anything, it's that we need to address emerging drug epidemics head-on, before they destroy our... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Mar 20, 2012)
Everything is political in San Francisco. In January, police arrested Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi on domestic violence charges after an argument in which he apparently bruised... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Mar 18, 2012)
California Gov. Jerry Brown likes to talk about "loyalty to California." For Brown, that means that public people should put aside their partisan interests to do what is best... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Mar 15, 2012)
In the heat of the Democrats' "We Love Women" campaign, the White House took a detour to testosterone land Tuesday. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Mar 13, 2012)
San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi agreed to a plea bargain on a misdemeanor domestic violence charge and two related charges that began with a New Year's Day... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Mar 11, 2012)
Rick Santorum has become the alternative to Mitt Romney because the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania comes across as, to use his words, "the conviction conservative" in... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Mar 08, 2012)
While running for governor of California in 2010, Jerry Brown admitted he would "rather have a society where we didn't have to use death as a punishment." But because the... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Mar 04, 2012)
Though the Obama administration's decision to force church-based institutions to provide "access" to contraception as part of their health plans was intolerant and... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Mar 01, 2012)
California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom began a San Francisco Chronicle editorial board meeting last week by complaining about his job. In states such as Texas and Maryland,... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Feb 28, 2012)
Newt Gingrich presented a stark contrast between Republicans and Democrats on gasoline prices Saturday at the California GOP convention in Burlingame. Gingrich promised that... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Feb 26, 2012)
As I watched Wednesday night's GOP presidential primary debate on CNN, I couldn't help but notice that the four surviving Republicans are old news. Three have been... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Feb 23, 2012)
Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute and a prominent climate change expert, admitted Monday that he lied. Gleick pretended to be someone else in order to obtain... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Feb 19, 2012)
Occupy Oakland activists have filed a lawsuit against the city and are seeking damages. The American Civil Liberties Union-backed suit argues that protesters are engaged in... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Feb 16, 2012)
In February 2009 -- having signed into law his $787 billion stimulus package -- President Barack Obama made a pledge to the nation. "Contrary to the prevailing wisdom in... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Feb 14, 2012)
From San Francisco, where I live, the controversy over the White House decision to require church-affiliated employers to provide contraception in their employee health... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Feb 12, 2012)
The domestic-violence case against San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi did not start with a call from wife Eliana Lopez or neighbors who heard a fight getting out of control... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Feb 08, 2012)
Two of three judges on a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel on Tuesday found Proposition 8 unconstitutional. Judge Stephen Reinhardt stipulated that the ruling skirted... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Feb 07, 2012)
Losing candidates usually congratulate the winner -- first by telephone and then in front of their supporters. Not Newt Gingrich. When he loses, Gingrich doesn't even bother... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Feb 05, 2012)
It says something about the brazen attitude of American politicians that Congress enacted a measure to create a program that was impossible to implement -- and named it the... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Feb 02, 2012)
"Hell is paved with good intentions," George Bernard Shaw wrote, "not bad ones." And Shaw never wrote about the unintended consequences of American campaign finance law or... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Jan 31, 2012)
Occupy Oakland is aptly named. When forces occupy a city, they know that occupied turf is not their home. They can maraud, loot, vandalize, abuse the locals, and then leave.... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Jan 29, 2012)
Last week, Sarah Palin stepped over the edge of civility. Fox Business host Eric Bolling played a clip of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on "Meet the Press" in which Christie... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Jan 26, 2012)
Toward the end of his State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama observed that Washington politicians should learn from the example of the U.S. military: "When you're... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Jan 24, 2012)
When Newt Gingrich called CNN anchor John King's decision "despicable" to begin last Thursday's GOP debate with a question about Gingrich's second wife, the Charleston... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Jan 22, 2012)
When former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman exited the GOP presidential primary earlier this month, left-leaning columnists were bereft. Huntsman, after all, was the Republican... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Jan 19, 2012)
President Barack Obama should pardon the four Marines who were captured on video as they urinated on three corpses, presumably dead Taliban.After the video went viral last... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Jan 17, 2012)
After a New Year's Eve fight, former Venezuelan TV actress Eliana Lopez went to the home of neighbor Ivory Madison to talk about her husband's behavior. Madison... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Jan 08, 2012)
President Barack Obama is running for re-election with an unusual pitch: He can't work with others.He only gets along with yes men. "I refuse to take 'no' for an answer,"... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Jan 05, 2012)
As the results of the Iowa caucuses dribbled in, Americans got to see how the GOP candidates greeted victory and defeat. Top vote-getter Mitt Romney was gracious toward Rick... more
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Debra J. Saunders (Jan 01, 2012)
Mitt Romney may be the best candidate in the 2012 GOP primary, but that's not saying much. It's like being the best mayor of Oakland, Calif.Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota... more