Jerry Brown Passes Buck on Troubled New Bay Bridge
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 11th, 2014 11:08 pm by HL
Jerry Brown Passes Buck on Troubled New Bay Bridge
Debra Saunders, RealClearPolitics
“Who is responsible for the Bay Bridge?” I asked California Gov. Jerry Brown at a San Francisco Chronicle editorial board meeting in May. Before Brown’s 2010 election victory, which made him the boss of all Caltrans, Brown was the mayor of Oakland whose political posturing helped delay the retrofit of the eastern span of the Bay Bridge, made necessary after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake knocked down a chunk of the span. It took 24 years and $5 billion more than the original budget for the state to complete the $6.4 billion span. Before the new span even opened, the retrofit needed a…
Iraq Airstrikes: What’s the Goal, and What Lies Ahead?
Alexis Simendinger, RealClearPolitics
On the first day of U.S. airstrikes inside Iraq, officials struggled to answer questions about President Obama’s decision to help a nation weakened by years of war as it battled the takeover attempts of a powerful terror group. As the president prepared to depart Washington for a summer vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., the U.S. expanded its air operations on Friday. Here’s a look at the issues raised by the policy shift: How long will the airstrikes continue? Unclear. The Pentagon announced multiple strikes Friday against terrorist fighters operating near Erbil. White…
The Dreadfully Consistent Anti-Obamacare Industry
Mike Littwin, RealClearPolitics
It has been a while, but the good times are officially back. There’s another anti-Obamacare ad on a TV screen near you, this time featuring an area woman with a sad, 30-second tale of Obamacare woe. The Crossroads GPS ad ends with a plea from “Richelle” to Mark Udall to “repeal” the law. But, of course, once the sad tale gets checked out, it is mostly discredited. KDVR’s Eli Stokols did the checking. The woman telling the story, Richelle McKim, supplies much of the discrediting. I thought they’d given up on this brand of ad. The last anti-Obamacare ad I remember in Colorado used an actress…
GOP Incumbents’ Senate Sweep; Walsh Out in Montana; Nixon’s Parting Words
Carl M. Cannon, RealClearPolitics
Good morning. It’s Friday, August 8, 2014. Forty years ago today, President Nixon spoke to the American people for — as he noted himself — the 37th time from the Oval Office. It was to be his last such address. “I have never been a quitter,” he said. “To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body.” Richard Milhous Nixon said many things in his political life that were untrue, but this wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t a quitter, and he loathed stepping down during the crucible of the Watergate scandal. But his…
