The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board has long argued that presidents should be able to choose individuals for top positions without reflexive opposition from those on the other side of the political aisle. "Elections have consequences," as President Barack Obama famously told congressional Republicans who opposed his agenda in 2009.

That...Read more

The Supreme Court on Tuesday made it harder -- again -- for victims of human rights violations to seek justice in American courts. Five conservative justices held that an 18th century law that allows foreigners to bring lawsuits for violations of the "law of nations" can't be used against foreign corporations -- even if the alleged violations ...Read more

Environmental Protection Agency director Scott Pruitt proposed a new rule Tuesday that he insisted would enhance "transparency," but which critics described as a thinly veiled attack on the use of science and scientific studies to craft regulations aimed at protecting the environment.

Under the rule, the EPA could consider only studies for ...Read more

If you were told you were driving a car with a bomb inside, would you pull over?

The Washington Post reports that more than 60,000 Honda vehicles on the road today have defective airbags that experts have referred to as "ticking time bombs," an airbag model regarded by safety experts as likeliest to cause serious injury or death. The owners of ...Read more

Evidence is mounting that the $1.5 trillion tax-cut package enacted in December by congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump was a bad idea, not only for the long-run health of the economy but for the short-term political prospects of the GOP.

On April 17, Tax Day, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow rejected reports from the ...Read more

For 45 sickening minutes inside a Norristown, Pa., courtroom Tuesday, it might as well have been the retrograde 1980s and not the so-called #metoo millennium. Like old-school mafia hit men carrying axes and baseball bats, Bill Cosby's defense team attacked his alleged sexual-assault victims as fame whores, lust mavens, or party girls. It was so ...Read more

President Donald Trump is full of surprises -- major surprises, such as getting elected in the first place. Can he now deliver the biggest surprise of all by getting North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenal, something that just might save the world from annihilation?

Probably not, many observers say. They agree it would be hallelujah time if ...Read more

Repeat drunken drivers have a way of skirting the consequences of their crime: They refuse to take a breath test. That triggers automatic suspension of their driver's licenses but lessens the chance of DUI convictions since there's no record of their blood alcohol levels.

This chicanery can pay dividends. Repeat DUI convictions invite such ...Read more

I know you don't care, or not enough, that seven prisoners were killed and an additional 17 injured during a riot this month at Lee Correctional Institution in South Carolina.

I know that despite declarations that many in our area are followers of Jesus, who admonished us to love even prisoners, you don't care. It probably doesn't bother you ...Read more

The whistleblower in me is concerned. Recent headlines have pronounced, "Supreme Court deals blow to Wall Street whistleblowers with unanimous ruling" and "The Supreme Court limits whistleblower protections under Dodd-Frank." With almost daily ethics assaults coming from the executive and legislative branches of government, it seems as if all ...Read more

Philly, all of this killing over dumb stuff has got to stop. A bump, a look, some words, and the next thing you know, someone pulls out a gun and starts shooting.

That's what happened with Dominique Oglesby, the 23-year-old Penn State student killed outside the Galaxy West Bar & Grill in West Philly in March. She reportedly accidentally bumped ...Read more

The case for high-skilled immigration to the U.S. isn't hard to make. All those Ph.D.s in science and technology help build the nation's advanced infrastructure while adding to the store of human capital and generating national wealth.

As a 2016 Congressional Research Service report stated, "This workforce is seen by many as a catalyst of U.S. ...Read more

Before launching his campaign for governor last year, Assemblyman Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach) was a fairly ordinary legislator. Republican, but not in a rabble-rousing kind of way, and seemingly willing to work across the aisle to get things done. His first attention-getting legislation was a bill he co-authored in 2013 with a Democratic ...Read more

Welcome back, Sen. Grassley.

It's heartening to see the independent-minded Chuck Grassley of earlier times reappear to protect the special counsel's probe into collusion between the president's 2016 election campaign and Russia.

As head of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Iowa's senior senator is refusing to cave to pressure from Mitch ...Read more

In the wake of an incident that drew unwelcome national attention, Starbucks will close its 8,000 U.S. stores for part of the day on May 29 to offer "implicit bias training" to its 175,000 workers.

On April 12, the manager of a Starbucks in downtown Philadelphia called police to report that two men were "refusing to make a purchase or leave." ...Read more

The culture of disruption is getting out of hand.

Silicon Valley venture capitalist and Bitcoin evangelist Tim Draper has revived his proposal to carve our fabulous state into smaller parts. His current proposal, Cal 3, is a minor improvement over his 2014 scheme, which was to break the state into six parts.

But it's just as misguided.

Draper...Read more

The second felony charge against Gov. Eric Greitens -- the one for tampering with a computer -- isn't as explosive as the one for allegedly taking a photograph of his semi-nude hairdresser. But it could be easier to prove and could shed some much-needed light on how a political newcomer managed to raise so much cash so quickly for his 2016 ...Read more