Tag Archives: San Francisco

I Hope This Becomes A Trend

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On Wednesday, Politico posted an article about two ballot measures that were approved by voters in San Francisco.

The article reports:

Mayor London Breed has convinced voters to approve a pair of ballot measures that will move the city strikingly rightward by requiring drug screening for welfare recipients and easing restrictions on police officers.

Breed, who faces a tough reelection fight this November, banked her political future on a hard pivot toward more conservative policies aimed at appealing to residents’ frustrations about the city’s fentanyl addiction crisis and concerns about crime. Her bet appears to have yielded results — voters were on track Tuesday to approve at least two of the three measures she sponsored.

“Enough is enough. We need change,” Breed told supporters at a jam-packed bar in the Hayes Valley neighborhood.

The success of the mayor’s proposals is notable given San Francisco has long been considered the most progressive major city in America. Breed’s shift comes as she faces devastatingly low approval ratings and two moderate challengers in her reelection fight, former interim Mayor Mark Farrell and Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie.

Perhaps the most controversial Breed-backed proposal approved by voters was Proposition F, which requires recipients of locally funded welfare to undergo drug screenings. Those who have addiction disorders will have to accept treatment in order to receive cash assistance, which Breed argued would make subsidies contingent on personal responsibility. She said the city cannot continue business as usual when more than 800 people died of drug overdoses last year.

…Voters also appeared to approve an additional Breed-sponsored proposal, Proposition E, which eases restrictions on the police department, including allowing officers to engage in more vehicle chases and use public surveillance cameras and drones to combat crime.

In February 2022, The California Globe posted the headline, “Mass Retail Chain Store Closures Continue in San Francisco.” Part of that may be due to the economy, but a large part of the closings are due to the rising crime rate. Hopefully the two ballot measures the voters passed will begin to change things. It would be nice to see other Democrat-controlled cities follow suit. If you have to pass a drug test to work in many companies, you should have to pass one to collect money from the people who work.

How Is The Plan Actually Working?

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On Monday, Fox News posted an article about California Governor Gavin Newsome’s plan to end homelessness in California.

The article reports:

As Newsom took over following the 2003 San Francisco mayoral election, the then-mayor-elect said that December he intended to “aggressively” make ending homelessness in his city his administration’s top priority.

The plan involved a 10-year strategy to end chronic homelessness with “tens of millions” of federal dollars in funding to create 550 “supportive housing” units for the troubled homeless, SFGate reported at the time.

Fast-forward to December of this year and the announcement of that strategy is now two decades old. San Francisco, along with the rest of California, is far from solving the problem.

In fact, the growing homeless population has become a central issue in California’s political debate.

“Twenty years ago, then-Mayor Newsom laid out his 10-year plan to end homelessness in San Francisco,” California GOP chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson told Fox News Digital. “Not only does the problem remain unsolved today, but in the time since, he has taken his failures statewide, where communities across California are grappling with the devastating homeless crisis.”

The article notes:

Newsom was elected governor in 2018 and re-elected in 2022, with 2023 marking his fifth year in office.

Newsom took some heat earlier this year after San Francisco cleared out its homeless encampments ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s summit with President Biden in the city.

“I know folks are saying, ‘Oh they’re just cleaning up this place because all those fancy leaders are coming to town,'” Newsom said at that time. “That’s true, because it’s true – but it’s also true for months and months and months before APEC [Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit], we’ve been having conversations.”

I don’t claim to have a solution to homelessness, but it is interesting that the streets of San Francisco could be cleaned up for a state visit.

Common Sense From The Judiciary

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On Tuesday, NewsMax reported that San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Ulmer struck down a law that allowed non-U.S. citizens to vote in school board elections in San Francisco.

The article reports:

The law permitting noncitizen parents of school-age children to vote in school board races was approved in 2016, took effect in 2018 and was extended indefinitely last year 

The law was challenged by California attorney James Lacy in March of this year, with numerous groups joining the lawsuit, including the California Public Policy Foundation and the U.S. Justice Foundation.

The plaintiffs argued: ”The State of California has a long-standing requirement that voters must be United States citizens. This requirement applies to every election in the state, even those conducted by charter cities, because determining voter qualifications is a matter of statewide concern where state law supersedes conflicting charter city ordinances.”

The suit also argued that since the San Francisco Unified School District receives money from state taxpayers, the whole state has an interest in its voters’ qualifications and that the board is elected in accordance with California law. In addition, it argued that the city does not have the authority to redefine who is eligible to vote, which would override the California Constitution.

In June, a New York City court struck down a law allowing noncitizens to vote in city elections (article here).

As more illegal aliens enter the country, there will be a move by Democrats to allow these non-citizens to vote. Hopefully the courts will continue to uphold voting rights for citizens. Are there any countries in the world today that allow non-citizens to vote in their elections?

When The Public Gets Involved

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On Wednesday, The New York Post reported that a special election in San Francisco resulted in the recall of three members of the city’s school board.

The article reports:

Three members of San Francisco’s school board were ousted Tuesday in the wake of widespread backlash over the slow reopening of schools shut down by COVID-19 and a controversial plan to rename dozens of school sites.

School board president Gabriela López, vice president Faauuga Moliga and commissioner Alison Collins were all stripped of their positions during a special election, according to tallies by the San Francisco Department of Elections.

Furious parents launched the recall effort in January 2021 after arguing the school board was pushing progressive politics instead of acting in the best interests of children amid the pandemic.

“The city of San Francisco has risen up and said this is not acceptable to put our kids last,” said Siva Raj, a father of two who helped launch the recall effort.

The article notes:

Board of Supervisors president Shamann Walton had slammed the recall effort as being pushed by “closet Republicans and most certainly folks with conservative values in San Francisco, even if they weren’t registered Republicans,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

But parents among the around 100 supporters gathered in the Mission District on Tuesday insisted that support came from all walks of life.

“We wanted to show the diversity of the community behind this recall. I knew they were going to say, ‘Oh, isn’t it just a bunch of Republicans?’ and I’m like, do I look like a Republican?” David Thompson, a parent dressed in head-to-toe rainbow drag who called his persona “Gaybraham Lincoln,” told the outlet.

The school board has seven members, all Democrats, but those three were the only ones eligible to be recalled. The replacements for the three ousted members will be named by Breed (San Francisco Mayor London Breed).

Mayor Breed supported the recall effort. Parents and voters got involved and made the changes they felt were needed. Parents and voters can do that anywhere.

 

Policies Have Consequences

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Hot Air is reporting today that Target is cutting back its store hours in San Francisco in an effort to limit shoplifting.

The article reports:

Normal store hours are 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. They’re cutting back to 6 p.m. because, the company claims, “for more than a month, we’ve been experiencing a significant and alarming rise in theft and security incidents at our San Francisco stores.”

Only a month? Walgreens has closed 17 stores in San Francisco since 2016 because it didn’t pay to keep them open with so many locals taking the five-finger discount. Target’s new policy raises the ominous possibility that the problem is getting worse, which would make sense. With the pandemic all but over in the highly vaccinated Bay Area, more thieves may be out and about lately.

Read this post for background on San Francisco’s problem with shockingly brazen shoplifting. A state law that passed several years ago made it a misdemeanor to steal less than $950 worth of goods, a wrist-slap that’s encouraged repeat offenders. Go figure that three California cities (San Fran, L.A., and Sacramento) are among the top 10 in the United States for organized retail crime. Not all of the theft is organized, of course — sometimes it’s random homeless people or addicts acting alone — but a surprising amount is being driven by rings selling the stolen merchandise on the black market.

The article notes that the shoplifting problem in San Francisco has gotten so bad that the 7-Eleven on Drumm St. in the Financial District does business only through a metal door.

The article also notes:

SFPD’s Central Station reported auto burglaries skyrocketed 753% in May compared to the same time last year during lockdowns and they’re still up 75% compared to the same period in 2019…

“They don’t even care. They tell us what the hell are you going to do,” said [a] tourism operator who did not wish his business to be identified.

One family who did not wish to be identified showed KPIX 5 pictures they took as they witnessed thieves in action just before pulling into a parking lot on Embarcadero and Bay Street.

What is needed is a Mayor and City Council that will make shoplifting and theft unprofitable again. We know this will rapidly change the city because we saw it happen when Rudy Giuliani took over as Mayor of New York City. The turnaround was rapid and obvious. San Francisco needs a Mayor and City Council who understand broken windows theory.

This Is Really NOT A Good Idea

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Living in New York City is not cheap, but it is supposed to be glamorous. If you look at realtor.com, you can find a 500 or 600 square foot apartment for about $2500 a month. Then on top of that you pay city, state, and federal income tax. It’s a pretty pricey place to live. At those prices, you expect a few benefits. Many buildings have doormen. You are close to restaurants and entertainment. Central Park is beautiful. The museums are great. But New York City is changing. Crime is up. The homeless population is up. Many areas of the city are simply not appealing because of changes in the law that make peeing in the street not a crime. One partial answer to this is a return to the ‘broken windows’ policy of Rudy Giuliani. Unfortunately Mayor De Blasio is heading in the other direction.

The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article on Friday reporting the following:

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday revealed a plan to buy properties around the city and turn them into permanent affordable housing, after moving more than 10,000 homeless people into hotels during the COVID-19 pandemic and shaming rich residents who have left the city as ‘fair weather friends’. 

At a press conference on Friday, he did not say which type of buildings the city had its eye on and the city is refusing to give more details, citing ‘privacy concerns’.  

De Blasio only said there was an ‘opportunity to get creative’ now when it came to finding housing for New York’s homeless. 

It presents a stark scenario for landlords or building owners who may be struggling to collect rent from current tenants, many of whom – both commercial and residential – have absconded.  

The homeless-in-hotels scheme set up by de Blasio is one of many components to an escalating downward change in the city.

Before the Mayor gets too wrapped up in the homeless-in-hotels idea, he might want to look at a recent Fox News article detailing a similar program in San Francisco.

The article at Fox News notes:

Police arrested two adults accused of operating a low level meth lab at a San Francisco hotel designated as a safe shelter for people on quarantine, at risk for COVID-19, or without housing.

The call came in about a strong chemical odor coming from a hotel room and officers responded to the Civic Center Motor Inn about 2:30 p.m. on Saturday.

The U.K. Daily Mail also notes:

Many of New York’s wealthy residents fled months ago – taking their disposable income and their tax dollars with them – and there are fears they may never come back.

Crime is on the up but de Blasio has stripped the police force of $1billion in response to Black Lives Matter protests.

Some retailers and restaurants have been forced to close permanently and those who are hanging on face continuously changing and difficult rules, like having to sell ‘substantial’ amounts of food to customers to avoid crowds gathering.

De Blasio and Cuomo are enforcing checkpoints to stop tourists from 35 COVID hotspot states from entering the city without quarantining for 14 days too.

Earlier this year, it emerged that 139 struggling hotels are taking in homeless people to avoid deathly COVID-19 breakouts in shelters. The effort is being mostly paid for by FEMA, but 25 percent of it is coming from the city’s shrinking budget. It brings some cash to the struggling hotels which were decimated by the pandemic. 

Through the program, they take $175 per person, per night which – with more than 13,000 homeless currently being housed in hotels – is more than $2.275million, according to anonymous city sources who have been quoted since May. 

Please follow the link to the article at the U.K; Daily Mail for further details on the Mayor’s idea.

I suspect in the very near future, you will be able to buy a condo or rent an apartment in New York City at bargain-basement prices.

Is The Destruction Related To The Cause?

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Destruction of other people’s property is not constructive, whatever the cause. In recent weeks we have seen total insanity in terms of the destruction of our history. It really doesn’t accomplish much–it simply gives vandals a chance to vent their general anger. We all agree that the killing of George Floyd was awful. Most of us don’t agree with much of what happened next. Protest is legal. When the first brick is thrown or the first person attacked, it is no longer a protest.

John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog today about some recent actions by the rioters that simply betray what they claim is their cause.

The article reports:

So much for the idea that “Confederate monuments” are under attack. Last night in San Francisco, left-wingers pulled down a statue of Ulysses Grant, the man who did more than anyone except Lincoln to preserve the Union and abolish slavery. Grant also, as President, did all he could to enforce Reconstruction and protect blacks in the South. He sent the military after the Ku Klux Klan in South Carolina, worked to ensure passage of the 15th Amendment, and signed the Civil Rights Act of 1875.

Of course, the Left knows little and cares less about any of this. Leftists hate the Union and hate men like Lincoln, Grant, Sherman and Sheridan for preserving it. Slavery is only a pretext. The United States and our constitutional democracy are the targets.

The article notes that Grant at one point was given a slave and was so against the idea of slavery that he freed the slave within a year. It seems as if Grant would be someone they would approve of. The fact that they tore his statue down gives weight to the fact that the riots have a deeper purpose than protesting racism.

The article concludes:

Every four years it is said that the current election is the most important one in our lifetimes. This time, it is actually true. Not a single Democratic Party official, to my knowledge, has condemned the anti-American madness that is sweeping across the nation. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are fully on board with the extremist elements in their party–I am starting to wonder whether there is any Democratic Party apart from the extremist elements–and the Democrats’ presidential nominee is a senile nonentity who, in office, would be controlled by the radicals. It is absolutely essential to our country’s future that Donald Trump be re-elected.

The Homeless Are A Danger To Themselves And To The Rest Of Us

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The once beautiful streets of San Francisco are now littered with needles and human waste. The homeless commit crimes to support various drug habits. Diseases that we have not seen in America for decades are appearing in the community. Who knows how the coronavirus will impact these people. The city does not seem to be able to deal with the problem. Where do you start?

On Tuesday The City Journal posted an article about the homelessness problem. The article reminds us that new data undermines the idea that homelessness is the result of high rents and lack of economic opportunity.

The article reports:

But new data are undermining this narrative. As residents of West Coast cities witness the disorder associated with homeless encampments, they have found it harder to accept the progressive consensus—especially in the context of the coronavirus epidemic, which has all Americans worried about contagion. An emerging body of evidence confirms what people see plainly on the streets: homelessness is deeply connected to addiction, mental illness, and crime.

Homeless advocates argue that substance abuse is a small contributor to the problem, and that no more than 20 percent of the homeless population abuses drugs. Last year, when I suggested that homelessness is primarily an addiction crisis—citing Seattle and King County data that suggested half of homeless individuals suffered from opioid addiction—activists denounced me on social media and wrote letters to the editor demanding a retraction. But according to a recent Los Angeles Times investigation, 46 percent of the homeless and 75 percent of the unsheltered homeless have a substance-abuse disorder—more than three times higher than official estimates from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

In the interest of preventing “stigmatization,” progressives downplay the connection between schizophrenia, severe bipolar disorder, and homelessness. In general, cities have claimed that roughly 25 percent to 39 percent of the homeless suffer from mental-health disorders. As new data from the California Policy Lab show, it’s likely that 50 percent of the homeless and 78 percent of the unsheltered homeless have a serious mental health condition. For residents of cities like San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle, this should come as no surprise. The people smashing up property and yelling in the streets are clearly suffering from mental illness. The numbers confirm the ground-level reality.

The article concludes:

Residents in the most progressive enclaves of West Coast cities have quietly begun to demand policy changes to address the obvious causes of the homelessness crisis. In San Francisco, city leaders have launched a new initiative to focus on the 4,000 individuals who suffer from the “perilous trifecta” of homelessness, addiction, and mental illness. Mayor London Breed has spoken frankly about the human causes of homelessness, and Anton Nigusse Bland, a physician and director of mental health reform for the city, has pledged to “develop a strategic approach to mental health and substance use services for people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco.”

This is a small but promising step. Especially now, with the threat of an infectious disease becoming a national crisis, it is imperative that city leaders come to grips with the dangers of letting people live in encampments that lack even rudimentary sanitation. We can only hope that this new awareness extends to other cities. For now, more than 100,000 people in California, Oregon, and Washington continue to languish in the streets.

Rhode Island has put in place a program that has been successful in dealing with the problem of homelessness. The problem includes counseling, drug rehabilitation, reintegration into the community and reintegration into family units. The program is a public-private partnership that has been successful in getting many of the homeless reintegrated into society. Similar programs need to be instituted on the west coast. It is a disgrace that America has not done more to help those among us living on the street. Throwing money at the problem or ignoring it is not the answer. It takes a commitment to helping the homeless deal with the mental problems that have resulted in their living on the street.

When Justice Isn’t Justice

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The Daily Caller posted an article today about some recent actions of a California court.

The article reports:

A California court overturned the conviction Friday of a five-time deported homeless illegal immigrant who shot Kate Steinle in 2015.

The 1st District Court of Appeals ruled that the trial judge erred in not giving the jury “the momentary possession instruction,” NPR reported.

“It is undisputed that defendant was holding the gun when it fired. But that fact alone does not establish he possessed the gun for more than a moment. To possess the gun, defendant had to know he was holding it,” the appellate court wrote, according to NPR.

Jose Ines Garcia-Zarate was deported five times before he shot Steinle on a San Fransisco pier in 2015. Zarate was a seven-time convicted felon and Mexican national. Before he shot Steinle, Immigration and Customs Enforcement lodged a detainer for Zarate with the San Francisco sheriff’s office. The office did not honor the request, according to former Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan’s statement.

The article notes:

A jury acquitted Garcia-Zarate of the charge of murdering Steinle in November 2017 but convicted him of being a felon in possession of a gun.

So the argument is that the defendant did not know that he was holding the gun when he shot Kate Steinle?! And that argument worked!? Something is seriously wrong with our justice system.

San Francisco Has A Language Problem

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When you drive through the streets of much of San Francisco, you see tents of homeless people. You have to step over things you would find in a third-world country. There are rats, needles, etc. There is definitely a problem. Many of the homeless have mental issues and drug problems. Many of them are well-known to local law enforcement. The Gateway Pundit posted an article today noting the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ solution to these problems–the are changing the language used to describe many of the people involved.

The article reports:

San Francisco has a lot of problems: Rampant drug use on the streets, homeless defecating everywhere, medieval diseases like typhoid and bubonic plague engulfing the once-great city.

But fortunately, elected officials are tackling the most important problem: Politically incorrect language.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is busy rewriting “language guidelines” for what to call certain people. For instance, a convicted felon or an offender released from jail should be called a “formerly incarcerated person,” or a “justice-involved” person. A person who commits another crime — once called a “repeat offender” — should be called a “returning resident.”

 People on parole or probation should be referred to as a “person on parole” or  a “person under supervision.”

In addition, a juvenile “delinquent” should become a “young person with justice system involvement,” or a “young person impacted by the juvenile justice system.” And drug addicts should become “a person with a history of substance use.”

“We don’t want people to be forever labeled for the worst things that they have done,” Supervisor Matt Haney told the San Francisco Chronicle. “We want them ultimately to become contributing citizens, and referring to them as felons is like a scarlet letter that they can never get away from.”

The article concludes:

The Chronicle points out the resolution makes no mention of victims of “justice-involved” people, and constructs a sentence to show the absurdity of the new language: “[U]sing the new terminology someone whose car has been broken into could well be: ‘A person who has come in contact with a returning resident who was involved with the justice system and who is currently under supervision with a history of substance use.’ “

San Francisco needs a history lesson that provides an example of how to deal with runaway lawlessness (which is what they are dealing with). A website called ThoughtCo.com explains the concept of ‘broken window theory’:

In 1993, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and police commissioner William Bratton cited Kelling and his broken windows theory as a basis for implementing a new “tough-stance” policy aggressively addressing relatively minor crimes seen as negatively affecting the quality of life in the inner-city.

Bratton directed NYPD to step up enforcement of laws against crimes like public drinking, public urination, and graffiti. He also cracked down on so-called “squeegee men,” vagrants who aggressively demand payment at traffic stops for unsolicited car window washings. Reviving a Prohibition-era city ban on dancing in unlicensed establishments, police controversially shuttered many of the city’s night clubs with records of public disturbances.

While studies of New York’s crime statistics conducted between 2001 and 2017 suggested that enforcement policies based on the broken windows theory were effective in reducing rates of both minor and serious crimes, other factors may have also contributed to the result. For example, New York’s crime decrease may have simply been part of a nationwide trend that saw other major cities with different policing practices experience similar decreases over the period. In addition, New York City’s 39% drop in the unemployment rate could have contributed to the reduction in crime.

While other factors may have played a part, there is no doubt that the ‘broken window policy’ made New York City a much more pleasant place to be. My middle daughter attended Cooper Union from 1992 to 1996 and lived in New York City for a number of years after that. The change under Mayor Giuliani was noticeable. It was a pleasure to visit the city during the time he was Mayor.

San Francisco needs to deal with their problems–not rename them.

A Rare Moment Of Truth In The Democrat Debates

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The Daily Caller posted an article today about remarks made by Democratic Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard regarding Senator Kamala Harris of California during the Democrat debate on Wednesday.

The article notes:

Democratic Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard was among the first to land a solid blow on presidential primary rival Sen. Kamala Harris (CA), but she may not have taken her attack far enough.

“She put over 1500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana,” Gabbard said of Harris’s time as a prosecutor and District Attorney of San Francisco.

But as Joe Garofoli of the San Francisco Chronicle discovered as he fact-checked Gabbard’s claim, the number of people Harris sent to jail for marijuana violations was actually closer to 2000.

Garofoli noted that an initial report published by the Washington Free Beacon had put the number at 1560, but that a spokesman for California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation had told him the actual number was 1974.

It’s an interesting attack. First of all, Kamala Harris was doing her job as District Attorney of San Francisco. Admittedly, her priorities might have been a little off, but she was essentially doing her job. The really sad part of the story is that she is so arrogant that she laughed about putting people in jail for something she herself had done. Some of our politicians have made a career out of ‘one rule for me and another rule for thee.’ That is the sad part of the story.

An Interesting Perspective On Homelessness

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Christopher F. Rufo posted an article in The City Journal about the homelessness that has become so prevalent on the west coast of America. The title of the article is, “An Addiction Crisis Disguised as a Housing Crisis.” Please follow the link above to read the entire article; it is very insightful.

The article states:

By latest count, some 109,089 men and women are sleeping on the streets of major cities in California, Oregon, and Washington. The homelessness crisis in these cities has generated headlines and speculation about “root causes.” Progressive political activists allege that tech companies have inflated housing costs and forced middle-class people onto the streets. Declaring that “no two people living on Skid Row . . . ended up there for the same reasons,” Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti, for his part, blames a housing shortage, stagnant wages, cuts to mental health services, domestic and sexual abuse, shortcomings in criminal justice, and a lack of resources for veterans. These factors may all have played a role, but the most pervasive cause of West Coast homelessness is clear: heroin, fentanyl, and synthetic opioids.

Homelessness is an addiction crisis disguised as a housing crisis. In Seattle, prosecutors and law enforcement recently estimated that the majority of the region’s homeless population is hooked on opioids, including heroin and fentanyl. If this figure holds constant throughout the West Coast, then at least 11,000 homeless opioid addicts live in Washington, 7,000 live in Oregon, and 65,000 live in California (concentrated mostly in San Francisco and Los Angeles). For the unsheltered population inhabiting tents, cars, and RVs, the opioid-addiction percentages are even higher—the City of Seattle’s homeless-outreach team estimates that 80 percent of the unsheltered population has a substance-abuse disorder. Officers must clean up used needles in almost all the homeless encampments.

The article reminds us that drug-dealing is a lucrative industry for the cartels:

For drug cartels and low-level street dealers, the business of supplying homeless addicts with heroin, fentanyl, and other synthetic opioids is extremely lucrative. According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the average heavy-opioid user consumes $1,834 in drugs per month. Holding rates constant, we can project that the total business of supplying heroin and other opioids to the West Coast’s homeless population is more than $1.8 billion per year. In effect, Mexican cartels, Chinese fentanyl suppliers, and local criminal networks profit off the misery of the homeless and offload the consequences onto local governments struggling to get people off the streets.

The article concludes:

No matter how much local governments pour into affordable-housing projects, homeless opioid addicts—nearly all unemployed—will never be able to afford the rent in expensive West Coast cities. The first step in solving these intractable issues is to address the real problem: addiction is the common denominator for most of the homeless and must be confronted honestly if we have any hope of solving it.

Part of the problem here is that some cities and states are moving toward legalizing recreational drug use. Obviously not all of that drug use will lead to further problems, but a percentage of it will–adding to the homeless problem. The other problem is that treating a drug addict will not be successful unless the addict desires to be free of drugs. You can lock up an addict until he is clean, but there are no guarantees that he will stay clean once he is out on the street again.

 

As People See The Results Of Democrat Policies, They Begin To Wake Up

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CNS News posted an article today about California’s vanishing middle class. Being middle class in California is not a successful long-term plan.

The article reports:

A survey recently released by the Public Policy Institute of California found that President Donald Trump is more popular in the deep blue state than the Democratic legislature.

Democratic consultant Steve Maviglio recently told the Los Angeles Times, “All they hear from Sacramento are proposals for more taxes and more spending for everyone except the middle class. And they rightfully wonder where the high taxes they already are paying are going.”

While the president’s approval ratings are underwater with only 38 percent of Californians approving of his job, this pales in comparison to the state legislature having only 34 percent among likely voters having confidence in them.

With voters still anxious about a gas tax hike pushed through last year, recent suggestions of a $2 billion tax hike on everything from water to phones by California Gov. Gavin Newsom hasn’t eased that apprehension.

Newsom holds a job approval rating of 45 percent among likely voters with 29 percent disapproving and a 26 percent responding “don’t know.”

California’s fiscal policies are going to result in bankruptcy at some time in the not-so-distant future. The bad news is that the rest of the country will be required to bail them out. The major cities in California, San Francisco and Los Angeles, have areas that look like third-world countries–unsanitary conditions, homeless people living in tents, and needle-strewn streets. Diseases that America has not seen for decades are cropping up in these areas. Meanwhile, the state government continues raising taxes and doing business as usual. There will be a tipping point fairly soon. People are leaving the state in droves. The only thing keeping the population stable is the flow of illegal immigrants who are generally not contributing to the economic well being of the state.

What Happened To Ethics In Science?

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Yesterday CNS News posted an article about research going on at the University of California at San Francisco. This research is so horrific I can’t even believe it is being done in America, much less being partially financed by the government.

The article reports:

The Department of Health and Human Services says it has granted a second 90-day extension to a contract it has with the University of California at San Francisco that requires UCSF to make “humanized mice.”

These creatures are made by implanting mice with human tissues taken from late-term aborted babies.

The HHS’s multi-million-dollar contract with UCSF that requires the construction of these “humanized mice” creates a demand–driven by federal tax dollars–for tissue taken from late-term aborted babies. According to an estimate it has published on its website, the National Institutes of Health (which is a division of HHS) will spend $95 million this fiscal year alone on research that–like UCSF’s “humanized mouse” contract–uses human fetal tissue.

Under the new 90-day extension, the contract—which the government calls “Humanized Mouse Models for HIV Therapeutics Development”–will run through June 5.

HHS also is still in the process of conducting the “comprehensive review” it announced last September “of all research involving fetal tissue.”

It’s bad enough that we are killing the unborn. Now we are using them for scientific experiments. That is beyond repulsive.

Positions Change When You Run For President

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Kamala Harris is running for President. She has taken a number of stands on the issues, but some of these stands are in conflict with previous stands and actions. I guess things change when you run for President.

On Tuesday The Washington Examiner posted an article about one area where Kamala Harris has changed her views.

The article reports:

Presidential wannabee and Sen. Kamala Harris, who spent decades as a district attorney and California attorney general destroying the lives of sex workers, has officially come out in support of decriminalizing sex work.

In an interview with The Root, which includes a haphazard endorsement of reparations, Harris confirmed that “when we’re talking about consenting adults,” she endorses decriminalizing sex work.

It’s called the world’s oldest profession for a reason, and the overwhelming empirical evidence continues to demonstrate that in the absence of a legal and regulated arena for prostitution, an exploitative black market emerges. Decriminalizing, taxing, and regulating sex work seems like an obvious compromise that both the Left and libertarian-leaning conservatives would agree upon. But if you spend longer than half a second delving through Harris’ checkered past, you’d realize that she’s not a part of that coalition, and she never has been.

In 2008 as San Francisco district attorney, Harris excoriated Prop K, a ballot measure which would have ceased the enforcement of anti-prostitution laws and defunded the city’s anti-prostitution programs.

I honestly do not know enough about this issue to take a stand on it. However, I suspect that as a District Attorney, Kamala Harris saw the issue up close and made a decision based on what she saw. My question is, “Why would she change that decision?”

I Guess We Haven’t Entirely Cleaned Up The Internal Revenue Service

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Bay City News posted an article today with the following headline: “IRS analyst charged with leaking Michael Cohen bank records.” What was leaked was a bank report of suspicious activity. IRS investigative analyst John Fry, 54, was charged in federal court in San Francisco on Feb. 4 with leaking information about Michael Cohen’s (formerly President Trump’s personal attorney) bank records. Michael Avenatti, a lawyer for adult film actress Stormy Daniels, posted those records online. An employee of the IRS has stated that Fry talked with Avenatti the day before the records were posted online.

The crime that John Fry is charged with carries a jail sentence of five years if he is committed.

It is time that all of the people in government who are using their positions for political purposes or personal gain were removed. If the IRS cannot clean up its act, it needs to be put out of business.

More Businesses Leaving California And Heading For Texas?

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CNBC is reporting today that San Francisco’s Proposition C, which will tax the city’s biggest businesses to raise funds to combat homelessness, passed Tuesday.

The article reports:

Proposition C will increase gross receipts taxes for companies with more than $50 million in annual revenue by an average of 0.5 percent, generating up to $300 million a year to combat the city’s homelessness crisis through initiatives like new beds in shelters and increased mental health services.

…Critics of the proposition argued that it lacked proper accountability and oversight, and would unfairly affect financial services companies like Square. Outside the tech industry, San Francisco Mayor London Breed and state Sen. Scott Wiener opposed the measure as well.

In the weeks leading up to the election, the measure became a point of tension in a city where tech-fueled wealth stands in stark contrast with the human suffering on display on its sidewalks.

Overall, more than 7,000 people experience homelessness in San Francisco. The median house price hit $1.6 million earlier this year and one-bedroom apartments rent for an average of $3,300.

Although I agree with the idea of helping the homeless, has it occurred to the residents of San Francisco that if you increase taxes on companies, some of those companies will relocate? When those companies relocate, you will have fewer jobs, less tax revenue, more unemployment, and possibly more homelessness–exactly the opposite of your intention. The only good news is that as people leave the area, you might have a housing glut that causes the price of housing to go down. No one will want to live there because of the scarcity of jobs, but housing might become more available.

Will He Stay Out This Time?

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According to Fox News, after the not guilty verdict in the Kate Steinle murder, federal officials are now charging Jose Ines Garcia Zarate with being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, and for being an illegally present alien in possession of a firearm and ammunition. If he is convicted on either charge, he could face a maximum of ten years in jail.

The article also reports:

After Zarate’s acquittal, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also announced last week that they planned to take Zarate into custody and remove him from the U.S. after the case was completely over.

When you consider the fact that Zarate was in the country illegally after having been deported five times. Why do we think that deporting him a sixth time will keep him out of the country? This man is a classic example of the reason we need to control our borders. We need to know who is coming into the country, what their purpose is in coming here and how long they plan to stay. Why are we putting the so-called rights of someone who is here illegally above the right to life of an American citizen?

Common Sense Comes To The Park Service

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The Washington Free Beacon posted an article today about a recent decision by the National Park Service.

The article reports:

The National Park Service told the Washington Free Beacon it is no longer providing funding for a controversial project “honoring the legacy” of the Black Panther Party after outrage that the agency would spend taxpayer dollars to memorialize a group that murdered a park ranger in the 1970s.

The Free Beacon revealed last month that the Park Service gave roughly $100,000 to the University of California, Berkeley for a research project on the Marxist extremist group to “memorialize a history that brought meaning to lives far beyond the San Francisco Bay Area.”

“Committed to truthfully honoring the legacy of [Black Panther Party] BPP activists and the San Francisco Bay Area communities they served, the project seeks to document the lives of activists and elders and the landscapes that shaped the movement,” the National Park Service stated in the grant awarded for the project.

A captain in the Black Panther Party murdered National Park Service ranger Kenneth Patrick while he was on patrol near San Francisco in 1973. Patrick was shot three times by Veronza Leon Curtis Bowers Jr., who is currently serving a life sentence for first-degree murder. Patrick left behind a widow and three children.

In 1997 David Horowitz published a book called Radical Son. The book details Mr. Horowitz’s experiences as a 1960’s radical and details his involvement with the Black Panthers during that time. He details the story of the murder of a friend of his that he had recommended as a bookkeeper for the group. Shortly after she began asking questions about the books she was keeping and the financing of the group, she was murdered. This is not a group that needs to be either memorialized or celebrated.

A New Way Of Causing Divisions Among People

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Divide and conquer can be defined in politics, sociology and economics, as a strategy to gain or maintain power. It is possible to set up artificial divisions between groups of people that prevent them from getting together exercising their freedom and rights. If a government can keep people fighting each other, it can prevent them from looking at any problems the government may be causing. It can also cause people to be preoccupied with their differences while an overly powerful government takes control. That is exactly what is going on in American today.

Here is one example reported by CBN News:

College campuses across the U.S. are participating in a poster campaign to raise awareness about “institutional oppression.”

The posters list several categories of privilege but puts an emphasis on “Christian privilege.”

“If you can expect time off from work to celebrate your religious holidays, you have Christian privilege,” said the poster which originated at the University of San Francisco. 

…Posters put up at Virginia Tech, Oregon University, and the University of San Francisco suggests that Christians receive an assortment of unearned advantages. 

“Today, I was diagnosed with privilege”, said Elizabeth Campbell, chairwoman of the conservative Young Americans for Freedom chapter at Virginia Tech. 

“Symptoms: white, Christian, straight, ‘cisgender,’ and able bodied,” Campbell wrote on YAF’s website. “Virginia Tech deciding who does and does not have privilege is not okay. Going up to a sign and reading that you should ‘check your privilege’ just because of the situations you were born into, and paths you have chosen for your life, is categorizing and dividing people further.”

Parents, take a good look at what your children are learning in college. How much is it costing you to have them fed this garbage?

Teaching Our Children Really Bad Political Practices

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Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about political correctness run amok. The story was about an election at a San Francisco middle school.

The article reports:

A student government election at a San Francisco middle school had its results ignored after a principal decided the candidates elected were too white.

Elections were held at Everett Middle School Oct. 10, but on Oct. 14 principal Lena Van Haren sent an email to parents saying the results were being ignored, without being made public, because those elected did not reflect how diverse the school is. While Everett is more than 80 percent non-white, Van Haren said the election results “weren’t representative” of that.

“That is concerning to me because as principal I want to make sure the voices are all heard, from all backgrounds,” Van Haren told local KTVU News.

The students voted. No one twisted their arms. There was no illegal registration or restriction of the vote. The students chose who would represent them.

Stop and think for a minute. Teenagers know who has it together and who doesn’t. They probably picked the most popular, the best looking, and someone they thought was the smartest. Isn’t that true equality–you pick the person that meets the standards you set, regardless of race, color, religion, looks, height, sex, etc.?

The article further reports:

“The organizers are saying things like, ‘we want everyone’s voice to be heard,’ but in truth, the voters’ voices are not being heard,” seventh grader Sebastian Kaplan told KRON, another local news station. “The whole school voted for those people, so it is not like people rigged the game, but in a way, now it is kinda being rigged.”

Van Haren went on to say that she is considering a variety of fixes to the problem, including appointing several new positions in order to ensure more minorities are represented without kicking out those who actually won the election.

So the principal is simply diluting the voices of the children who were elected in order to reach her idea of ideal racial balance. What lesson does that teach the children?

Let’s See How Serious Congress Is About Protecting Americans

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On Wednesday Breitbart.com posted an article about an amendment Representative Kevin Yoder introduced to the 2016 Homeland Security Appropriations Bill. The bill has been passed in the House Appropriations Committee. Let’s see how far it goes after that.

The article reports:

The revision serves to withhold funding from cities with sanctuary policies and inhibit enforcement of immigration law.

Thousands of Americans fall victim to crimes by illegal aliens each year that could be prevented, such as the July 1 death of Kate Steinle in San Francisco. Her murder may have been prevented had the “sanctuary city” not released a five-time deported, seven-time convicted felon back out onto American streets.

Steinle’s killer made a jailhouse confession in which he indicated that he chose San Francisco for its lax immigration enforcement.

…The House Appropriations Committee is also pushing to keep U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from releasing criminal illegal aliens from custody before they are deported, the Associated Press reported.

Some 1,400 criminal illegal aliens released under the Obama administration in the 2014 fiscal year committed additional crimes, Breitbart News reported Tuesday.

When Viewing The Statistics, Follow The Money

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On Sunday, Michael Barone posted an article at the Washington Examiner about mass transit in America. The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) announced last week that Americans use of public transportation was at an all-time high.

The chart below tells a different story:

So why would the American Public Transportation Association be telling us that ridership of public transportation is up? Well, it has to do with the way highway funds are distributed.

The article explains:

APTA is promoting the idea of a transit boom because it would like to see lots of federal money continue to be spent on transit. It already is: as King et al. point out, transit receives about 20 percent of federal surface transportation funding while accounting for only 2 to 3 percent of U.S. passenger trips. And as Cox points out, two-thirds of the recent rise in transit commuting occurred in the six “transit legacy cities”–New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston and Washington. These six cities have the nation’s six largest concentrations of downtown office employment, and transit routes were designed to funnel people into and out of these concentrated areas. Transit use has languished in other areas with subways or much touted light railway systems like Portland‘s.

Those who complain about the condition of the nation’s highways need to remember that since the 1980’s, money has been taken from highway funding to pay for bike paths and other items that are not related to maintaining highways. The program with our highways is not lack of money–it is how the money is spent. The amount of spending on public transportation in relation to the percentage of the population that uses public transportation is another example of the government trying to force people to do something they are not interested in doing. That is not the government’s job.

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Your Tax Dollars At Work

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Below are some of the provisions in the current farm bill being debated on by the House and the Senate. Are these really things we need to do when we are currently more than $17 trillion in debt?

Some highlights:

…provide for “Economic Adjustment Assistance” that would pay domestic manufacturers of cotton products $66 for each ton they use of “upland cotton”—the most common type of the fiber grown in the United States

…grants have included $1,055,996 to the Unison Resource Company, San Francisco Carbon collaborative, and EcoAnalytics to prevent global warming by reducing intestinal methane emissions from cattle

…transforming goat manure into “biochar” (a.k.a. charcoal) to mitigate global warming. Said biochar is buried to eliminate the greenhouse gas emissions that would otherwise occur from the natural degradation of goat manure

…a tax of 15 cents per (Christmas) tree on sellers to support a marketing program for enhancing the image of the industry

…$100 million and the House $225 million for the “Rural Energy for America” program. Recipients have included the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center in Patagonia, Arizona, which was awarded $45,263 to install a solar energy system. The center is dedicated to “whole-person enlightenment” under the direction of an ordained rabbi, “acknowledged” yogi, and four-year Native American Sundancer. (Just FYI: The body-cleansing regimen starts at $3,159.)

…subsidies for “Access to Broadband Telecommunications Services in Rural Areas.” The Senate would double the current spending—to $250 million—and include subsidies for “ultra-high speed broadband.” The House proposes to maintain spending at $125 million

Just as some of the smart phone commercials used to say, “There’s an app for that,” Americans can say in almost any case, “There’s a government program for that.” I don’t think that is a good thing.

 

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Sometimes Going Green Has A High Price Tag

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Steven Hayward at Power Line posted an article today about the unintended consequences in cities and counties that have banned plastic bags in supermarkets. It seems that the use of cloth bags has caused some unintended problems.

The article quotes U. of Penn. Inst for Law & Econ Research Paper 13-2:

San Francisco County was the first major US jurisdiction to enact such a regulation, implementing a ban in 2007. There is evidence, however, that reusable grocery bags, a common substitute for plastic bags, contain potentially harmful bacteria. We examine emergency room admissions related to these bacteria in the wake of the San Francisco ban. We find that ER visits spiked when the ban went into effect. Relative to other counties, ER admissions increase by at least one fourth, and deaths exhibit a similar increase.

The article also quotes an article at Bloomberg.com:

Klick and Wright estimate that the San Francisco ban results in a 46 percent increase in deaths from foodborne illnesses, or 5.5 more of them each year. They then run through a cost-benefit analysis employing the same estimate of the value of a human life that the Environmental Protection Agency uses when evaluating regulations that are supposed to save lives. They conclude that the anti-plastic-bag policies can’t pass the test — and that’s before counting the higher health-care costs they generate.

Back to the drawing board…

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