Skip to content
TRENDING:
Donald Trump
Advertisement
Author profile

Deborah Simmons

dsimmons@washingtontimes.com

Deborah Simmons was a senior correspondent who reported on City Hall and wrote about education, culture, sports and family-related topics.

Articles by Deborah Simmons

In this photo taken Nov. 3, 2016, signs supporting DC statehood are on display outside an early voting place on in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 3, 2016. Voters in the nation's capital will decide next week whether they want their city to become the nation's 51st state.The referendum backed by Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser is expected to pass easily. But even staunch statehood supporters say they’re not sure of the path forward. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

D.C. statehood follows Sisyphus uphill

D.C. statehood advocates are again in Sisyphean mode, making likely ill-fated attempts to turn the nation's capital into the nation's 51st state.

December 21, 2017
Deborah Simmons

Public housing residents should turn to DIY

Breaking news: The federal government's chief landlord, the General Services Administration, informed us on Monday that the government owns or leases 5,066 bathrooms, more than 1,500 prisons, 766 hospitals and 2,427 schools. Not fake news: Ben Carson takes a lot of criticism. Much of the blowback is by default.

December 18, 2017
Deborah Simmons

Terry McAuliffe, Virginia road grinch, steals Christmas

Terry McAuliffe is the kind of governor who prides himself as a good-doer who works to benefit the hard-working people of Virginia. When it comes to his efforts in Northern Virginia, however, somebody should design a T-shirt that says #RoadGrinchofVirginia.

December 4, 2017
"Vincent Gray... needs to slow the roll of this new hospital train. The only reason to build a new hospital from scratch or to renovate a former acute facility is because acute-care demand is not meeting health-care supply — and that is not the case in the District," says columnist Deborah Simmons. (Associated Press)

Tax cuts, spending and Democrats

Ever since Richard Nixon presented stakeholders in the nation's capital with limited home rule in 1973, Democrats have held the purse strings and dived into public coffers for liberal causes.

November 30, 2017
Deborah Simmons

Soft bigotry, low academic expectations at Ballou High

When George W. Bush first ran for president, he told everyone paying attention, including his audience at the NAACP, that he would challenge the "soft bigotry of low expectations" inside and outside America's classrooms.

November 29, 2017
Deborah Simmons

Metro should scrap its ad guidelines

Either the folks who run the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority don't want to understand how the U.S. Constitution, marketing and free speech work — or ignorance has finally taken its toll on the lot.

November 28, 2017

Retool the crime-fighting toolbox

A Baltimore Police homicide detective was doing his job Wednesday night when he was shot in the head. He died Thursday afternoon.

November 16, 2017

Ray LaHood’s Metro reform report

Americans now know what Obama transportation chief Ray LaHood thinks should be done with the D.C. region's primary transit authority.

November 13, 2017
Deborah Simmons

Veterans Day Strong!

The U.S. has been in Afghanistan for so long, a second generation and a third generation of "military brats" have joined the ranks. How do we count the ways to honor them?

November 9, 2017
Virginia Gov.-elect Ralph Northam celebrates his election victory and addresses supporters and at the Northam For Governor election night party at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

Big government won

Many Americans did exactly what Big Labor has been asking them to do for two generations: Support Big Government.

November 8, 2017
Prince Georges County Executive Rushern Baker, (D) gave brief remarks at the base of the Capitol Wheel at the National Harbor on Thursday, May 22. Khalid Naji-Allah/ Special to The Washington Times

Rushern Baker, et al. vs. Gov. Larry Hogan

Democrats Ben Jealous and Maya Rockeymoore Cummings should be quite comfortable watching Republican Gov. Larry Hogan and their brother Dem Rushern Baker duke it out over the scandalous grade-fixing problem in Prince George's County.

November 7, 2017