WHEN HAVE YOU EVER SEEN AN ILLEGAL WAVE AN AMERICAN FLAG!?!
Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers: Illegal Immigrants Are Still ‘Wisconsinites’
Wisconsin’s Democratic governor Tony Evers said he considers illegal immigrants to be "Wisconsinites" just as much as lawful residents, according to newly unearthed video from 2019.
During a speech to the Voces de la Frontera’s Migration is Beautiful Masquerade Gala in 2019, Evers said he does not differentiate between illegal immigrants and lawful residents of Wisconsin.
"No matter your immigration status, if you call Wisconsin home, you’re a Wisconsinite," Evers told the group.
Evers’s previously unreported comments give broader insight into his positions on immigration and are likely to draw scrutiny as a national debate heats up over border security issues. Evers, who is facing a tight reelection race against Republican challenger Tim Michels, led an effort to provide drivers’ licenses to illegal immigrants three years ago. He also in 2017 supported sanctuary cities in Wisconsin.
The governor said this was the primary reason he supported drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants, in addition to keeping "roads safer" and creating "opportunities for families."
"We need to make sure that everybody has the opportunity, in this state, to get a drivers’ license to go from Point A to Point B," he said at the 2019 gala.
Evers did not respond to a request for comment.
Evers’s drivers’ license proposal was blocked by the state’s Republican-run legislature in 2019. But it wasn’t the first left-leaning immigration policy he proposed. In an interview with CBS 58 News Milwaukee in 2017, Evers said he "absolutely" supports the creation of sanctuary cities in Wisconsin.
"Are you then open to standing with a mayor or a group of county supervisors who want to establish sanctuary status?" asked a CBS 58 reporter.
"Absolutely," responded Evers. "Because those illegal workers, I see the children of those illegal workers when I come to the Milwaukee area, and the fear in their hearts and their eyes. It’s just extraordinary. Why should we use a political platform from Washington, D.C., that Donald Trump wants to instigate for no apparent reason?"
The governor's race is ranked as a toss-up by election analysts, with Evers holding a small lead within the margin of error, according to the latest poll released by Emerson College this week.
A spokesman for Michels criticized Evers's immigration policies for contributing to rising crime in a statement to the Washington Free Beacon.
"Tony Evers pulled Wisconsin's National Guard troops away from the border, so it's no surprise that he wants Wisconsin to be a safe haven for illegal immigrants. Illicit fentanyl is destroying families, crime is on the rise, and Evers and Joe Biden are making it even worse," said Chris Walker, an adviser to the Michels campaign.
Immigration is turning into a major election issue ahead of the midterms, as overwhelmed border states—flooded with tens of thousands of migrants each week—have started transporting some asylum seekers to Democratic-run sanctuary cities. Evers’s opponent, Michels, held a joint rally on Sunday with Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who has been dominating headlines after sending a plane of 50 migrants to Martha’s Vineyard.
"This border is now an issue in these elections," DeSantis said at the rally. "Because all these Democrats support everything Biden’s done. They support sanctuary jurisdictions, sanctuary states, benefits, they support the whole nine yards."
WATCH: 17 Times the Biden Administration Said the Border Is Secure
Meanwhile, DHS reports a record 2.5 million immigrant encounters in 2022
The unanticipated arrival of 50 illegal immigrants to Martha's Vineyard, the elite liberal vacation hotspot and site of former president Barack Obama's $12 million mansion, forced the mainstream media to talk about the humanitarian crisis on the U.S. southern border. While most professional pundits were outraged that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.) would dare to defile their favorite island getaway—which apparently lacks the infrastructure to support an extra 50 people—the Department of Homeland Security reported a record 2.5 million immigration encounters on the southern border for fiscal year 2022.
The immigration crisis persists despite the Biden administration's repeated efforts to ensure the American people that our southern border is secure. Vice President Kamala Harris, who has on several occasions burst out laughing when asked about the border situation, keeps insisting that everything is under control. "We have a secure border," she told NBC's Chuck Todd last week. "The border is secure." President Joe Biden's secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, has repeatedly claimed the administration is doing everything in its power to stop the influx of illegal immigration. These dubious statements have been dutifully echoed by White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Alas, Democratic administrations have a history of repeating falsehoods for political gain. Just ask anyone who was duped into believing former president Barack Obama's promise that everyone would be able to keep their doctors under the Obamacare regime.
Arrests at Southern Border Reach Record Two Million
For the first time ever, the number of illegal immigrants crossing the border reached two million in one fiscal year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported Monday.
Undocumented immigrants are flooding the country at a historic pace this fiscal year, which ends on September 30. Border Patrol recorded 2,005,026 arrests since last October. Of those arrests, 78 were of individuals on the FBI's terror watchlist, triple the number detained in the previous five years combined, Fox News reported. With a record 8,000 migrants encountered at the border every day, the White House faces growing criticism for its handling of the border crisis.
"We take what's happening at the southern border very seriously, unlike some," Gov. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.) said in a speech last Thursday, "and unlike the president of the United States, who has refused to lift a finger to secure that border."
In recent months, DeSantis as well as the governors of Texas and Arizona have transported migrants to liberal cities whose leaders endorse lax immigration policies, bringing more attention to the crisis facing border cities.
Despite the record migrants at the border, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has defended the Biden administration's handling of the crisis. She claims they have taken "unprecedented action" at the southern border, including new border technology and anti-smuggling task forces. Biden administration officials emphasized on Monday that more immigrants have been removed or expelled this year than any previous year. Just last year, however, the Biden administration's policies led to the lowest deportation rate in decades, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
Migrants are not just coming from Mexico and Central America, CBP reported.
"Failing communist regimes in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba are driving a new wave of migration across the Western Hemisphere, including the recent increase in encounters at the southwest U.S. border," said CBP commissioner Chris Magnus in a press release Monday.
BIDENOMICS: THE TRICKLE UP ECONOMIC THEORY OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY FOR BANKSTERS, AND BIG TECH BILLIONAIRES
Sen. Tillis: Terrorist Watchlist Encounters Way Up Because Biden Wants ‘Open Border’
(CNS News) -- When asked why there has been a dramatic increase in the number of encounters with people on the Terrorist Watchlist this year, at the southern border, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) said it was because “the Biden administration wants an open border.”
At the Capitol on Sept. 21, CNS News asked Senator Tillis, “According to Customs and Border Protection, in fiscal year 2020 it encountered three people on the terrorist watchlist trying to cross the Southwest border between the ports of entry. Last year, it encountered 15. In the first 11 months of this fiscal year it had encountered 78. Why do you think there has been an increase?”
Tillis replied, “Beause the Biden administration wants to have an open border. The vice president says it's a secure border, but it is not -- it's an open border.”
He further stated that an open border, “creates definitive national security challenges just like [CNS News] articulated.”
As CNS News has reported, “The 78 Border Patrol encounters with people on the terrorist watchlist reported in the first 11 months of this fiscal year is 5.2 times the 15 encounters that occurred through all of fiscal 2021.
“In fiscal 2017, according to the CBP data, the Border Patrol only had 2 encounters with individuals on the terrorist watchlist between the ports of entry on the Southwest border. In fiscal 2018, it was 6. In fiscal 2019, it was zero. In fiscal 2020, it was 3. In fiscal 2021, it was 15. Then, in October through August of this fiscal year, it was 78.”
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Terrorist Screening Dataset (TSDS) holds sensitive information on terrorist identities. Although TSDS originally contained information on only known or suspected terrorists (KSTs), it now includes individuals that pose a potential threat to the U.S.
30 Harsh Facts About Income And Wealth Inequality That Will Shock You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAAF5du_k68
Vowing “pain,” Federal Reserve pledges to slash workers’ wages
On Wednesday, the US Federal Reserve increased the federal funds rate by three-quarters of a point, continuing the fastest pace of rate hikes since the 1980s. The action will immediately increase the costs of home mortgages, car loans and credit cards for working class and middle class families already struggling with the highest surge in inflation in four decades.
In his comments Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell declared that “economic pain” was necessary to reduce inflation. He went on to say that the members of the Federal Open Market Committee expected unemployment to rise from the current 3.7 percent to 4.4 percent in 2023, an increase that would mean the destruction of 1.3 million jobs. Powell made it clear that the Fed was willing to throw the economy into a recession, destroying millions of more jobs.
Powell complained that the Fed’s recent rate hikes had not been sufficient, saying, “Despite the slowdown in growth, the labor market has remained extremely tight, with the unemployment rate near a 50-year low, job vacancies near historical highs, and wage growth elevated.”
By driving up unemployment, the Fed expected “supply and demand conditions in the labor market to come into better balance overtime, easing the upward pressure on wages and prices.”
Critically, when Powell was asked by a reporter just how long Americans would have to endure economic pain, he replied that it depended on “how long it takes for wages ... to come down.”
In other words, when Powell and the ruling class talk about fighting inflation, they are not talking about stopping corporate price-gouging. No, they are talking about ensuring that real wages continue to fall, driving up corporate profits.
The claim that wages are driving up inflation is entirely a myth. Real average hourly wages of US workers have fallen by 2.8 percent over the last 12 months. Over half of the increase in inflation (53.9 percent) can be attributed to fatter profit margins, according to the Economic Policy Institute, with labor costs accounting for less than 8 percent. But the American ruling class considers even a small, nominal pay rise completely unacceptable and is determined to keep its foot on the neck of the working class.
The Fed’s moves are aimed at deliberately driving up unemployment and using the threat of economic destitution as a battering ram to suppress a wages movement by the working class and impose even more brutal conditions of exploitation.
This was spelled out in an op-ed piece by the Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle, which praises former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker for raising interest rates to nearly 20 percent in the early 1980s and provoking “the country’s worst economic recession since the Great Depression” that put “one-tenth of the labor force” out of work. Volcker sent a clear message, McArdle said, “If inflation creeps up, the institution will do whatever it takes to get it back under control.”
Volcker took these measures to beat back a wave of militant struggles by workers against the ravages of inflation, including the 111-day coal miners strike in 1977-78. The “Volcker Shock” led to a wave of plant closures, mass layoffs, savage wage cuts and Reagan’s smashing of the air traffic controller strike, which the Democratic Party-appointed Volcker called the most important single action “the administration took in helping the anti-inflation fight” because it transformed “the climate of labor-management relations” both “profoundly” and “constructively.”
Despite the collapse in workers’ real wages, the US ruling class is terrified that the inflationary crisis is leading to a resurgence of the class struggle. In recent months, workers in the US and around the world have engaged in evermore militant strikes to demand substantial wage increases and to oppose brutal working conditions, as corporations seek to squeeze more out of fewer and fewer workers. In September alone, Minnesota nurses, Seattle teachers and other workers have struck, and over 110,000 railway workers are pressing for strike action. In the first six months of 2022, according to the strike tracker maintained by Cornell University, there were 180 strikes in the US involving 78,000 workers, up from 102 involving 26,500 workers in the same period a year earlier.
This is part of a global upsurge of the class struggle, including railway, oil rig, dock and transportation workers in the United Kingdom and other European countries. The Wall Street Journal sounded the alarm in an article titled, “Freight Labor Unrest Is Going Global and Weighing on Supply Chains,” which warned, “From seaport docks in Los Angeles and Liverpool to rail yards in Chicago and warehouses in Europe and the U.S., clashes between cargo workers and management have been rising this year, adding complications and uncertainty to the flow of goods around the world.”
The capitalist governments and central banks in Europe are following the US Fed’s lead in carrying out a pre-emptive strike against this movement. UK Prime Minister Liz Truss instructed railway employees to “get back to work” and end their strikes over pay, job security and working conditions. She is working closely with the trade unions, which suspended the strikes out of respect for Queen Elizabeth and the monarchy.
In the US, President Biden signed a last-minute deal with the railway unions to prevent a strike last week. But there is enormous opposition to the “agreement,” which turned out to be nothing more than a pledge by the unions to block the strike and impose a slight modification on the terms of Presidential Emergency Board (PEB), which workers were ready to strike against. This includes below-inflation rate raises, a single paid sick day, and the retention of the hated attendance policies, which keep workers on call 24/7.
Before the deal Biden declared that a railroad strike was unacceptable because of the harm a shutdown would inflict on families, farmers and businesses. What utter hypocrisy coming from a spokesman of the ruling class, which is prepared to throw the economy into a recession and ruin millions of families, farmers and businesses in order to block workers from fighting for living wages.
When it comes to waging wars abroad, the United States is prepared to throw away hundreds of billions of dollars every year. There is simply no limit to the amount of money to be spent on tanks, warships and missiles. But the demands of workers for increases in pay commensurate with surging prices, much less paid time off and an 8-hour day, are treated as impossible. In reality, there is a deep connection between the US preparations for war against Russia and China and its war against the working class at home.
The growing opposition of the working class is taking the most conscious form in the development of rank-and-file committees among railroad workers, nurses, teachers and other workers, and in the campaign of Will Lehman, the Mack Trucks worker and socialist candidate for president of the United Auto Workers union. Increasingly workers are organizing independently of the pro-capitalist and nationalist trade unions. The fight to defend both the right to a job and the right to a decent standard of living will entail a direct challenge to the capitalist system and the socialist transformation of the economy to satisfy human needs, instead of profit.
The White House intervention to block rail strike and the political issues confronting railroad workers
The direct intervention of the White House to block a strike by more than 100,000 rail workers and, with the support of the trade unions, attempt to impose a sellout contract raises critical political questions for rail workers and the entire working class.
In Sunday’s interview on “60 Minutes,” US President Joe Biden emphasized the determination within the political establishment to block a strike. Speaking on the potential impact of a national railroad strike, Biden said, “If, in fact, they’d gone on a strike, the supply chains in this country would’ve come to a screeching halt. We would’ve seen a real economic crisis.” This was echoed in even more apocalyptic terms by Labor Secretary Marty Walsh to Politico late last week, when he said, “It’s like, Holy Christ: The magnitude of what would have happened … We’ll never fully understand, thank God.”
What is it about a national rail strike that fills Biden and the political establishment with such dread? The economic impact of a strike (which they judge not in the shortage of goods, but in the impact on profits and share values) would have been major and immediate, demonstrating the immense social power of the railroad workers. Even more frightening for the ruling class, however, is its potential to develop into a general confrontation with the American working class as a whole. Since the Great Railway Strike of 1877, the first major strike movement in American history, the railroad workers have always played a central and vital role in the development of the class struggle.
The ruling class knows that it has created a powder keg by sacrificing more than 1 million lives to profit during the COVID-19 pandemic, and by driving living and working conditions for workers back to the 19th century. They are determined to prevent, or at least to delay, a massive social eruption as long as possible.
Over the course of the past week, the entire state apparatus demonstrated its hostility to rail workers. Prior to the agreement announced by the White House, Republicans proposed legislation that would have implemented, by Congressional fiat, the recommendations of Biden’s own Presidential Emergency Board (PEB), universally hated by rail workers.
The Democrats opted for a different path. Biden enlisted the services of the rail unions to block strike action, brokering a deal last Thursday morning. This is in reality an injunction in all but name, mandated by the White House but enforced through the mechanism of the union bureaucracy. Indeed, union officials later admitted that no final contract existed. The only hard commitments made by anyone were by the unions not to strike.
A critical role was played by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who voted with broad bipartisan majorities to ban the last rail strike in 1991. On Wednesday night, Sanders blocked the Republican-sponsored bill in the Senate, paving the way for Biden’s announced agreement. But House leader Nancy Pelosi admitted the following morning that Democrats in the House had a bill ready to go the moment a strike broke out.
Despite the civil war atmosphere raging within Washington, both parties are united in their opposition to the working class.
The agreement announced by the White House and the unions on Thursday meets none of the demands of rail workers. It is the culmination of months of intensive government intervention under the provisions of the anti-worker Railway Labor Act, including the appointment of the PEB, which is the basis of Biden’s agreement with the unions.
From the beginning, the unions have played a central role in this process. They called for the PEB—and a 60-day cooling-off period—after workers voted 99 percent to strike. When workers responded with outrage to the PEB’s recommendations, which sided with the companies on every point, the unions tried to sabotage workers’ unity by signing separate agreements, hiving off other crafts from the conductors and engineers.
The Biden administration is pursuing a corporatist policy, based on an alliance of the trade union apparatus and its well-paid functionaries with the government and the major corporations—against the workers. The trade unions in all industries have worked for decades to enforce pro-company sellouts, while their own assets and salaries for top officials have exploded. Biden’s policy since coming to office has been to suppress an increasingly restive working class by greatly expanding on what already exists.
The purpose of this alliance is twofold. First, the White House hopes to use the unions to enforce labor discipline on workers in the United States to enable it to wage war abroad. The context in which the issue of a rail strike was raised in the “60 Minutes” interview was significant. It came up in the midst of a discussion on the economic impact of the US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, particularly on the price of oil and gas.
Second, Biden is using the unions to suppress wage growth by enforcing contracts well below the rate of inflation. Indeed, figures have shown that wages have risen over the past year at a much lower pace for unionized than for nonunion workers. They are also seeking to undercut the “wages push” by jacking up interest rates, thereby triggering rising unemployment. Only days after the concessions deal was announced on the railroads, the Federal Reserve is expected to announce another rate increase of three quarters of a percentage point.
The problem for Biden and the ruling class, however, is that both they and the unions are despised and discredited among workers. Biden may be declaring “victory” in averting a strike, but, just as with his declaration that the pandemic is “over,” this will prove to be premature. The workers will have the last say.
The White House hoped that the announcement of a deal would sow confusion and demoralization among workers. In reality it has only angered them and demonstrated the need to organize a rebellion of the rank and file against the union apparatus and the entire corporatist framework.
Throughout the struggle, workers have fought to organize and fight independently of the rail union bureaucracy. This found powerful expression in a meeting attended by 500 railroaders last week, sponsored by the Rail Workers Rank-and-File Committee, which passed a resolution declaring that the unions and Washington had no right to enforce a contract which did not meet their demands.
Since the announcement of the deal, the work of that Committee has expanded significantly. It has issued a powerful new statement calling on workers to organize to enforce last week’s resolution and countermand the agreement.
The movement underway among railroad workers is part of a much broader movement for rank-and-file control in the US and around the world. This Thursday, Will Lehman, an autoworker running for United Auto Workers president on a rank-and-file platform of abolishing the bureaucracy, will take part in a candidates’ debate where he will confront sitting UAW president and close Biden ally Ray Curry.
Two basic conclusions flow from this experience.
First, the role of the unions in enforcing the demands of the companies and sabotaging the struggle of workers demonstrates the urgent need for the expansion of a network of rank-and-file committees that will establish the power of workers on the shop floor, allow them to countermand the actions of the union apparatus, and unify their struggles with workers in the US and throughout the world.
Second, the involvement of the White House and the entire political establishment in the attempt to force through a concessions contract exposes the class character of the state itself. It is not a neutral body, but an instrument of the ruling class.
The fight of rail workers to defend their interests therefore requires a political struggle against the Democrats and Republicans, the two parties of the ruling class. Both parties defend the capitalist system, which is based on the exploitation of the vast majority of the population, the working class, to meet the profit interests of the corporate and financial oligarchy.
A powerful resurgence of the class struggle, among rail workers and every section of the working class, in the US and internationally, must be connected to the building of a revolutionary and socialist leadership in the working class.
SURRENDERING OUR BORDERS TO NARCOMEX' INVASION FOR 'CHEAP' LABOR IS BUT ONLY ONE OF THE DEMS'S ASSAULT ON THE AMERICAN WORKER!
BLOG EDITOR: DO A SEARCH FOR WHAT BARACK OBAMA AND JOE BIDEN DID THROUGH THEIR GAMER LAWYER BLACKROCK'S BRIAN DEESE DID TO THE WORKERS OF GENERAL MOTORS!
Second, Biden is using the unions to suppress wage growth by enforcing contracts well below the rate of inflation
The Biden administration is pursuing a corporatist policy, based on an
alliance of the trade union apparatus and its well-paid functionaries with
the government and the major corporations—against the workers. The
trade unions in all industries have worked for decades to enforce pro-
company sellouts, while their own assets and salaries for top officials have
exploded. Biden’s policy since coming to office has been to suppress an
increasingly restive working class by greatly expanding on what already
exists.
The White House intervention to block rail strike and the political issues confronting railroad workers
The direct intervention of the White House to block a strike by more than 100,000 rail workers and, with the support of the trade unions, attempt to impose a sellout contract raise critical political questions for rail workers and the entire working class.
In Sunday’s interview on “60 Minutes,” US President Joe Biden emphasized the determination within the political establishment to block a strike. Speaking on the potential impact of a national railroad strike, Biden said, “If, in fact, they’d gone on a strike, the supply chains in this country would’ve come to a screeching halt. We would’ve seen a real economic crisis.” This was echoed in even more apocalyptic terms by Labor Secretary Marty Walsh to Politico late last week, when he said, “It’s like, Holy Christ: The magnitude of what would have happened … We’ll never fully understand, thank God.”
What is it about a national rail strike that fills Biden and the political establishment with such dread? The economic impact of a strike (which they judge, not in the shortage of goods, but in the impact on profits and share values) would have been major and immediate, demonstrating the immense social power of the railroad workers. Even more frightening for the ruling class, however, is its potential to develop into a general confrontation with the American working class as a whole. Since the Great Railway Strike of 1877, the first major strike movement in American history, the railroad workers have always played a central and vital role in the development of the class struggle.
The ruling class knows that it has created a powder keg by sacrificing more than one million lives to profit during the COVID-19 pandemic, and by driving living and working conditions for workers back to the nineteenth century. They are determined to prevent, or at least to delay, a massive social eruption as long as possible.
Over the course of the past week, the entire state apparatus demonstrated its hostility to rail workers. Prior to the agreement announced by the White House, Republicans proposed legislation that would have implemented, by Congressional fiat, the recommendations of Biden’s own Presidential Emergency Board (PEB), universally hated by rail workers.
The Democrats opted for a different path. Biden enlisted the services of the rail unions to block strike action, brokering a deal last Thursday morning. This is in reality an injunction in all but name, mandated by the White House but enforced through the mechanism of the union bureaucracy. Indeed, union officials later admitted that no final contract existed. The only hard commitments made by anyone was by the unions not to strike.
BLOG EDITOR: PHONY SOCIALIST BERNIE SANDERS IS AN ADVOCATE FOR OPEN BORDERS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED.
A critical role was played by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who voted with broad bipartisan majorities to ban the last rail strike in 1991. On Wednesday night, Sanders blocked the Republican-sponsored bill in the Senate, paving the way for Biden’s announced agreement. But House leader Nancy Pelosi admitted the following morning that Democrats in the House had a bill ready to go the moment a strike broke out.
Despite the civil war atmosphere raging within Washington, both parties are united in their opposition to the working class.
The agreement announced by the White House and the unions on Thursday meets none of the demands of rail workers. It is the culmination of months of intensive government intervention under the provisions of the anti-worker Railway Labor Act, including the appointment of the PEB, which is the basis of Biden’s agreement with the unions.
From the beginning, the unions have played a central role in this process. They called for the PEB—and a 60-day cooling-off period—after workers voted 99 percent to strike. When workers responded with outrage to the PEB’s recommendations, which sided with the companies on every point, the unions tried to sabotage workers’ unity by signing separate agreements, hiving off other crafts from the conductors and engineers.
The Biden administration is pursuing a corporatist policy, based on an alliance of the trade union apparatus and its well-paid functionaries with the government and the major corporations—against the workers. The trade unions in all industries have worked for decades to enforce pro-company sellouts, while their own assets and salaries for top officials have exploded. Biden’s policy since coming to office has been to suppress an increasingly restive working class by greatly expanding on what already exists.
The purpose of this alliance is twofold. First, the White House hopes to use the unions to enforce labor discipline on workers in the United States to enable it to wage war abroad. The context in which the issue of a rail strike was raised in the “60 Minutes” interview was significant. It came up in the midst of a discussion on the economic impact of the US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, particularly on the price of oil and gas.
BLOG EDITOR: DO A SEARCH FOR WHAT BARACK OBAMA AND JOE BIDEN DID THROUGH THEIR GAMER LAWYER BLACKROCK'S BRIAN DEESE DID TO THE WORKERS OF GENERAL MOTORS!
Second, Biden is using the unions to suppress wage growth by enforcing contracts well below the rate of inflation. Indeed, figures have shown that wages have risen over the past year at a much lower pace for unionized than for nonunion workers. They are also seeking to undercut the “wages push” by jacking up interest rates, thereby triggering rising unemployment. Only days after the concessions deal was announced on the railroads, the Federal Reserve is expected to announce another rate increase of three-quarters of a percentage point.
The problem for Biden and the ruling class, however, is that both they and the unions are despised and discredited among workers. Biden may be declaring “victory” in averting a strike but, just as his declaration that the pandemic is “over,” this will prove to be premature. The workers will have the last say.
The White House hoped that the announcement of a deal would sow confusion and demoralization among workers. In reality it has only angered them and demonstrated the need to organize a rebellion of the rank and file against the union apparatus and the entire corporatist framework.
Throughout the struggle, workers have fought to organize and fight independently of the rail union bureaucracy. This found powerful expression in a meeting attended by 500 railroaders last week, sponsored by the Rail Workers Rank-and-File Committee, which passed a resolution declaring that the unions and Washington had no right to enforce a contract which did not meet their demands.
Since the announcement of the deal, the work of that Committee has expanded significantly. It has issued a powerful new statement calling on workers to organize to enforce last week’s resolution and countermand the agreement.
The movement underway among railroad workers is part of a much broader movement for rank-and-file control in the US and around the world. This Thursday, Will Lehman, an autoworker running for United Auto Workers president on a rank-and-file platform of abolishing the bureaucracy, will take part in a candidates’ debate where he will confront sitting UAW president and close Biden ally Ray Curry.
Two basic conclusions flow from this experience.
First, the role of the unions in enforcing the demands of the companies and sabotaging the struggle of workers demonstrates the urgent need for the expansion of a network of rank-and-file committees that will establish the power of workers on the shop floor, allow them to countermand the actions of the union apparatus, and unify their struggles with workers in the US and throughout the world.
Second, the involvement of the White House and the entire political establishment in the attempt to force through a concessions contract exposes the class character of the state itself. It is not a neutral body, but an instrument of the ruling class.
The fight of rail workers to defend their interests therefore requires a political struggle against the Democrats and Republicans, the two parties of the ruling class. Both parties defend the capitalist system, which is based on the exploitation of the vast majority of the population, the working class, to meet the profit interests of the corporate and financial oligarchy.
A powerful resurgence of the class struggle, among rail workers and every section of the working class, in the US and internationally, must be connected to the building of a revolutionary and socialist leadership in the working class.
Joe Biden’s Pick for Economic Adviser Tied to Delphi
Pension-Slashing Scheme BRIAN DEESE OF BLACKROCK
Democrat Joe Biden’s pick to be his top economic adviser in the White House served on the Obama-appointed team that helped slash pensions for roughly 20,000 Americans in the auto bailout.
This week, Biden announced that Obama alum Brian Deese, now an executive at the investment management firm BlackRock, will serve as his top economic adviser should he enter the White House.
Deese previously served as a special assistant to Obama for economic policy and played a role in the administration’s bailout of the auto industry, which ultimately led to slashed pensions for 20,000 non-union workers at the Delphi Corporation, an auto parts supplier to General Motors (GM).
In 2009, as part of the Obama-Biden administration’s taxpayer-funded bailout of GM, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) terminated the pension plans of non-unionized Delphi workers. In some cases, workers had their pensions gutted by as much as 75 percent.
A federal report in 2013 detailed that the Delphi workers would likely have their pensions cut by an estimated $440 million. Meanwhile, GM topped off unionized Delphi workers’ pensions at a cost of about $1 billion.
Deese, along with agency heads like Timothy Geithner and top advisers like Ron Bloom, was named in that federal report, having had been involved in multiple conversations about the Delphi pensions:
In July 2009, internal Government emails between the Auto Team and Advisor to the President Brian Deese discussed GM’s need to address issues with Delphi’s “splinter unions.” Auto Team officials did not recall details related to the emails. When Senator Charles Schumer took a position that GM should assume the Delphi salaried retiree pensions, Mr. Deese emailed Mr. Rattner this “may complicate the optics of doing anything for the splinters.” Other emails from Mr. Deese stated, “We will continue to face intense scrutiny on this issue. The politics of terminations is quite intense” and “we need to work on a clear rationale for the outcomes we’re moving toward, as well as an explanation of respective roles.” Mr. Rattner emailed members of the Auto Team that he had spoken with Fritz Henderson about “our logic on the splinters, which he [Henderson] was fine with. [Auto Team Analyst] Sadiq [Malik] should speak to Janice [Uhlig] about the details, particularly how the reallocation of the $417mm would work.” Auto Team member Feldman emailed members of the Auto Team about health care/pension benefit changes for IUE and USW employees, and Mr. Deese responded that the company’s organizing principle was parity between GM salaried and non-UAW hourlies. Mr. Deese referenced a discussion about health care costs and the “credible fairness arguments to augment the hourlies’ recovery based on the pension disparity, but that for all the reasons we discussed that would not be possible. However, I think the logic of that conclusion strongly counsels in favor of bringing the top-up through. Otherwise, we’re moving in the opposite direction from a position that we all agreed was itself on the edge of fairness.”
In October, President Trump signed a memorandum to devise a plan to restore the pensions of the Delphi workers. Biden has not said if he supports the memorandum.
Former Delphi workers told Breitbart News in interviews how the pension-slashing scheme uprooted their livelihoods. One retiree said she lost her home, and her retirement plans to move to the Florida coast have been squashed.
Another retiree said his wife died in the process, as he was forced to find work in order to pay for her medical bills. He had assumed that after 30 years at Delphi, he and his wife would have a good healthcare plan in their retirement. That ended when his pension was cut by about 30 percent.
Delphi, which has since split into Aptiv and Delphi Technologies, announced in 2006 that it would shutter 21 of its 29 plants in the United States — offshoring some 20,000 U.S. jobs to Mexico, China, and other foreign countries.
At the time, Delphi employed nearly 50,000 Americans, who earned about $30 an hour on the assembly line. Now, workers in Mexico for the company earn about $1 an hour.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
‘She Has to Go’: Democrats Wary Of Nancy Pelosi Having Another Term in Leadership After Midterms
Four years after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) reportedly made a deal to serve only four more years — when some Democrat lawmakers dissented on her rise to the speakership in 2018 — she will not say if she intends to keep a leadership position after the midterms, but other members may be quietly making the decision for her.
CNN reported further on Pelosi’s 2018 deal:
The 2018 deal Pelosi agreed to with dissident members limiting her to four more years as speaker was an informal agreement, and caucus rules were never changed imposing any time limits on her tenure. Several members told CNN that if the midterms go well for their party, a combination of shocked euphoria and deference to both her fundraising prowess and the importance of female voters, could make them reconsider.
Several noted, though, that a surprising victory in holding the majority might be the perfect time for the exit that Pelosi has said she originally planned to make six years ago if Hillary Clinton won the presidency, and that any decision to stay would have to come with a clear timetable for leaving.
However, CNN noted that Democrat lawmakers are not on the same page regarding Pelosi’s future.
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), a vulnerable member, who has been relying on the speaker’s help in his reelection bid, said that he supports Pelosi and that we would “support her for whatever position.”
Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX), another vulnerable member, said if the Democrats keep the majority in the House, “she’ll deserve it – it’s as simple as that.” But if the Democrats lose the majority, it will be a “dynamics change” and that “it changes the game.”
On the other hand, Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN), who has voted for Pelosi to be Speaker and said she is “one of the most extraordinary speakers in history,” added that “It’s time for generational diversity of our leadership ranks – regardless of the outcome of the election.”
Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) also said, “I certainly have long thought it’s time for new leadership…She’s done an incredible job, but we really do need to grow new leaders.”
“When you have the top three people in our caucus in their 80s. … There does need to be a new generation coming up and starting to lead. And that’s something that I think the Democratic Party shouldn’t be afraid of,” Sherrill added.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), a critic of Pelosi, added, “I think if we’re in a minority, then I think that the desire for change will be broader, potentially within the party. But I think that desire exists.”
“We saw and heard that desire in the last two terms that Democrats were the majority, so it really is just a question of, not if people want that, but how many,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
CNN also acknowledged that Democrats have privately been more forthcoming.
One senior Democrat told CNN, “She has to go.”
“No way she can stay,” another House Democrat told CNN, while another vulnerable democrat, who vowed not to vote for Pelosi added, “She doesn’t have the votes.”
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.
Democratic House Speaker Pelosi to rail workers: Accept a pro-company deal or we’ll force you to
Railroad workers: Tell us what you think about the White House deal. Contact us by filling out the form at the bottom of this page. All submissions will be kept anonymous. Contact the Rail Workers Rank-and-File Committee at railwrfc@gmail.com.
Among those praising the tentative rail agreement, worked out in the middle of the night between Wednesday and Thursday, is House Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In a statement issued yesterday, Pelosi heaped praise on the Biden administration and “the representatives of the labor unions who wouldn’t leave the table without achieving justice for their workers.”
What “their workers” think of the “justice” that has been achieved at the table with Biden and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh is evident in the outpouring of anger at the deal worked out behind their backs.
Pelosi, with a net worth of $135 million, is one of the richest individuals in a Congress composed largely of millionaires. When Pelosi declares that the agreement is “good for our economy,” she really means it is good for Wall Street. When she adds that it is good “for our security,” she means that blocking a strike of railroad workers is a necessary part of American war planning.
After her words about “justice for workers,” Pelosi proceeded to threaten workers that if they don’t accept this “justice,” then other measures will be necessary.
In her statement, Pelosi acknowledged that the Democrats would have sided with the carriers and barred any strike:
With hope for an agreement but concern for the challenges that a strike would present, Congress stood ready to take action. Congress under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution has the authority and responsibility to ensure the uninterrupted operation of essential transportation services and has in the past enacted legislation for such purposes. Led by the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the House prepared and had reviewed legislation, so that we would be ready to act, pursuant to Section 10 of the Railway Labor Act.
That is, Pelosi and the entire political establishment (Democrats and Republicans alike) stood ready to bar a strike and force through an agreement that workers rejected.
Lest anyone think that this threat applies only to the past, Pelosi added: “Thankfully this action may not be necessary. We congratulate the unions and railroads for coming to an agreement, because it is in the national interest that essential transportation services be maintained” (emphasis added).
The implications are clear enough. Accept this “justice,” Pelosi is declaring to workers, or else we’ll force you to.
Rank-and-file rail workers had their own say the day before Pelosi’s remarks. At a mass meeting held Wednesday night by the Railroad Workers Rank-and-File Committee, workers voted by 98 percent to endorse a resolution that stated:
1. We will not accept any act by Congress that violates our democratic right to strike and imposes upon us a contract that we do not accept and has not been ratified by the rank and file.
2. We demand a contract that addresses our needs, including a major pay increase to make up for years of declining wages; cost-of-living adjustments to meet soaring inflation; an end to brutal attendance policies; guaranteed time off and sick days; and an end to the push for one-man crews.
3. We inform the unions that any attempt to force through contracts that we do not accept and that have not been voted on, or to keep us working without a contract, will be in violation of clear instructions given by the rank and file.
The unions, the Biden administration, Congress may have blocked a strike from happening this morning, but the conflict between the workers and the whole corporate-union-political establishment is only in its initial stages.
Surging cost of living in US drives class tensions to the breaking point
The latest inflation data published Tuesday shows that the working class confronts months of immense hardships as wages lose their value in the face of rising living costs. The ruling class’s attempt to make the working class pay for the crisis of capitalism is driving workers into struggle across the world, including in the United States, where teachers, nurses, and possibly railroad workers are launching powerful strikes.
Price increases in virtually all consumer items led to a 12-month inflation rate of 8.3 percent, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday. Rents, groceries, and medical care costs drove the rise in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in August. Household furnishings, new vehicles, motor vehicle insurance, and education also saw increases.
For the working class, life is becoming intolerably more expensive by the day.
Rental housing costs rose another 0.7 percent in August, bringing the 12-month increase to 6.2 percent, the highest since 1986. Utilities were up 2.1 percent in August and are up a staggering 19.8 percent over the past year. The cost of food was up 0.8 percent last month and has risen by 11.4 percent over the last year, the sharpest rise since 1979.
President Biden did not refer to the new figures during a White House event to celebrate the passage of the phony “Inflation Reduction Act” Tuesday afternoon, only saying glibly, “We have more to do.” The president touted the three-month fall in gasoline prices, without mentioning that gas is still up 26 percent over the last year.
Biden, the Democrats and Republicans have provided at least $50 billion to arm Ukraine this year, but they have done nothing to alleviate the impact of rising costs on working class and middle-class families.
In a separate report Tuesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said real average hourly earnings fell another 0.2 percent from July to August. Over the last year, real average hourly pay of an American worker fell by 2.8 percent.
“Everything is going up except our paychecks,” James, a Detroit Chrysler (Stellantis) worker, told the World Socialist Web Site. “I’m working two jobs and at least 80 hours a week to make it. It’s crazy. I don’t have any time to sleep.”
The rise in living expenses—which has added $341 to a typical family’s monthly costs—is escalating class conflict in the United States and internationally. This week alone, 15,000 nurses in Minnesota participated in one of the largest private sector health care strikes in US history; 6,000 Seattle teachers walked out of classrooms; and more than 100,000 railroad workers are set to strike at 12:01 a.m. EDT on Friday morning.
The American ruling class, and the Biden administration in particular, is relying on the trade union apparatus to enforce contracts with wage increases that are far below the rate of inflation. Indeed, workers in trade unions have seen nominal wage increases that are significantly lower than for workers who are not in unions.
In an effort to enforce labor “peace” at home, while it wages war abroad, the Biden administration is working on further integrating the trade union apparatus—and its thousands of officials making six-figure salaries—into a tripartite corporatist relationship directed against the working class.
The teachers unions are doing whatever they can to suppress the fight of educators against horrific conditions and the spread of the pandemic as schools open. The health care unions are isolating the powerful struggle of Minnesota nurses, while limiting their strike to only three days. The AFL-CIO apparatus is desperately trying to keep a lid on anger that is boiling to the surface.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the rail industry, where workers have not had a raise in years and have no sick days. Many are forced to remain on call 24/7, leaving no time for their families or rest.
While the Biden administration and the millionaires in the US Congress are threatening to use strikebreaking legislation against workers, the unions are engaged in a divide-and conquer strategy aimed at forcing through a sellout agreement. They promoted the fiction that a “Presidential Emergency Board” would propose a contract favorable to workers—the very same proposal that Congress is preparing to try to ram through over overwhelming opposition.
The ruling class is engaged in a policy of class war. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, with the full backing of the Biden administration, has made it clear that he is willing to throw the economy into a recession with sharp increases in rate hikes, which are designed to “exert pain” and use mass unemployment to beat back workers’ demands for raises that keep up with the rate of inflation.
Inflation, however, is not caused by workers’ demands for raises to keep up with rising costs but the infusion of trillions of dollars by the US government and central banks to bail out Wall Street and prop up the stock market bubble. The economic crisis has been exacerbated by the limitless resources handed over to the Pentagon to wage war against Russia and China.
Urgent action by the working class is needed to defend living standards. The Socialist Equality Party calls for workers to form independent organizations of working-class struggle, rank-and-file committees, in every workplace and neighborhood.
A network of rank-and-file committees, as part of the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees, should prepare strikes, mass demonstrations and other class actions to win the following emergency demands:
- Raise base hourly pay by 40 percent to offset declining real income over the last five years. Two thirds of American workers are living paycheck to paycheck.
- Immediately index all wages to the current inflation level and introduce an automatic monthly Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) escalator to keep pace with rising expenses.
- Increase all employer-paid medical and pension benefits in line with inflation.
- Sharply raise government-funded Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security benefits to protect retired workers and spouses.
- Immediate relief for unpaid credit card, student loan, car and housing debt.
- Stop price-gouging by the energy monopolies and roll prices back to the November 2020 level of $2.00 a gallon. The profits must be reclaimed to meet social needs, and the energy industry must be nationalized under public ownership and democratic control.
Rank-and-file committees have already been initiated in critical industries, including among rail workers, health care workers, educators and autoworkers. The campaign of Will Lehman for president of the United Auto Workers is spearheading the fight for a rank-and-file rebellion against the union apparatus and the establishment of democratic control on the shop floor. It is winning a powerful response from autoworkers and other workers throughout the country.
A counter-offensive in the working class, freed from the constraints of the union apparatus, is the only way to break the dictatorship of the corporate and financial oligarchy and its two parties, the Democrats and Republicans. Only in this way can any of the great problems confronting workers be resolved.
The development of the class struggle must be connected to the building of a socialist and revolutionary leadership in the working class, in the United States and throughout the world. Capitalism offers nothing but poverty, exploitation, war and dictatorship. If there is to be a future for workers, it is through the fight to expropriate the ruling elites, establish genuine democratic control over economic life, and reorganize society on the basis of social need, not private profit. That is, it is through the fight for socialism.
San Fran patrol special officer rips Pelosi's inaction over BLACK crime surge: She doesn't care
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SewBXWKj2g
SF Suffers Highest Rate of Car Break-Ins Compared to Atlanta, DC, Dallas, LA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTLPISB7xig
Among the 25 largest U.S. cities, San Francisco has had the highest
property-crime rate in four of the most recent six years for which
data is available, bucking the long-term national decline in such
crimes that began in the 1990s. Property crimes declined in San
Francisco during the first year of the pandemic, but rose 13% in
2021. Burglaries in the city are at their highest levels since the mid
1990s. There were 20,663 thefts from vehicles last year—almost 57
a day—a 39% increase from the prior year, although still below the
record of 31,398 in 2017, according to the police. Zusha Elinson
Half of San Franciscans Have Been Robbed
How bad can crime get when the laws are no longer enforced, criminals are released as soon as they’re caught and the police hardly bothering to respond to calls?
Here’s life for ordinary people in the pro-crime utopia of San Francisco which doesn’t just have streets covered in human waste, it also has human waste walking the streets.
“Forty-five percent of people surveyed for the poll said they had an item stolen within the last five years. Proportionally, Black and mixed-race respondents felt a more severe impact than other groups, with a majority — 54% of Black respondents and 55% of mixed-race respondents — reporting they had suffered theft. Property crime rates were lower for white residents, 43% of whom had a possession swiped within the time period.”
Equity. There’s the disproportionate impact of pro-crime policies.
“Rates of physical and verbal assaults appear to be lower than property crimes, the poll indicated, with roughly a quarter of respondents — 24% — saying they had been threatened or attacked.”
24% is 1 in 4. That’s a horrifying number.
This is the result of Democrats adopting pro-crime policies. And it’s only going to get worse until they start enforcing the law again.
Daniel Greenfield
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
Watters: The Five (CRIME) Families of the Democrat Party
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBpvvHethg0
WHAT DID NANCY PELOSI DO FOR HER CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
OF MELTDOWN SAN FRANCISCO? - NADA! - BUT SHE SURE
RAKED IN THE MONEY BEING A FAILURE
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/03/what-did-nancy-pelosi-do-for-her.html
SAN FRANCISCO POPULATION IS ONLY 8% BACK, HOWEVER, BLACKS PERPETRATE 40% OF THE CRIME (these are pre-covid numbers).
San Fran patrol special officer rips Pelosi's inaction over BLACK crime surge: She doesn't care
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SewBXWKj2g
Small-business owners have been hit Petty Thieves Plague San Francisco. ‘These Last Two Years Have Been Insane.’
https://www.wsj.com/articles/crime-san-francisco-petty-thieves-small-businesses-11647797642
By Zusha Elinson
SAN FRANCISCO— Terry Asten Bennett’s family has been running Cliff’s Variety Store since 1936. In all that time, they’ve never experienced the amount of burglaries and property damage that they have recently, Ms. Bennett said.
Thieves smashed a display window and broke down a door to steal items as small as spray paint, and people shattered glass doors on two occasions for no apparent reason.
“These last two years have been insane,” she said. “It used to be a rare occurrence.”
Although violent crime in San Francisco is lower than in many other major U.S. cities, business owners, residents and visitors here are dealing with a rash of thefts, burglaries and car break-ins.
Among the 25 largest U.S. cities, San Francisco has had the highest property-crime rate in four of the most recent six years for which data is available, bucking the long-term national decline in such crimes that began in the 1990s. Property crimes declined in San Francisco during the first year of the pandemic, but rose 13% in 2021. Burglaries in the city are at their highest levels since the mid-1990s. There were 20,663 thefts from vehicles last year—almost 57 a day—a 39% increase from the prior year, although still below the record of 31,398 in 2017, according to the police.
Smashed storefronts are so common that the city launched a program to fix them with public money. Car owners leave notes declaring there is nothing of value in their vehicles, or leave their windows open to save themselves from broken glass. Videos of shoplifters hauling goods out of drugstores such as Walgreens have gone viral, and a smash-and-grab robbery by 20 to 40 people at a Louis Vuitton store last November made the national news.
Owners of small businesses say the costs of security and repairs are eating into profits already diminished by the Covid-19 pandemic. In the Castro, the neighborhood where Cliff’s is located, shops have recorded nearly 100 instances of smashed windows and doors that cost $170,000 to repair since the beginning of 2020, according to the neighborhood’s merchant association.
Criminologists say San Francisco’s high density of retail stores and its mix of tourists, commuters and wealthy residents have made it an inviting target for thieves. Locals point to a host of other factors that may be exacerbating the problem, including the tactics of the police and prosecutors, statewide changes intended to reduce the number of people behind bars, and the city’s dual crises of drug use and homelessness. There has been no end of finger-pointing.
Despite the city’s long history of progressive politics, some business owners and residents are demanding that political leaders shift to a more law-and-order approach.
San Francisco’s mix of retail stores, tourists, commuters and wealthy residents have made it an inviting target. The Union Square retail district, top, and the Chinatown neighborhood.
District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who took office in 2020 as part of the national “progressive prosecutor” movement and has de-emphasized the prosecution of low-level offenses, will face a recall election in June.
“Nothing is more important than to make sure that people who live in this city, people who work in the city, people who visit San Francisco, feel safe,” Democratic Mayor London Breed said at a news conference last month. “The fact is, that does require police officers.”
Some former police officials and business owners blame Mr. Boudin’s focus on keeping people who commit small-scale crimes out of prison. His office, for example, discourages filing charges in cases where suspects are pulled over for traffic infractions and officers find small amounts of drugs. Others point the finger at the police, who cleared just 6% of the city’s property crimes in 2020, more than 8 percentage points lower than the national average. A case is considered cleared if a suspect is arrested, charged and turned over to a court for prosecution, or is identified with sufficient evidence for a charge but can’t be taken into custody for circumstances beyond police control.
Some business owners say the city’s large population of people living on the streets and using drugs such as fentanyl is a big factor in the small-scale thefts. Law-enforcement officials, though, say they suspect organized crews of petty criminals are carrying out a large portion of them.
Police Chief Bill Scott has deployed more officers to tourist spots such as Fisherman’s Wharf to stop car break ins, and to retail shopping districts to stop thefts and burglaries. He has beefed up his retail theft investigations unit.
Businesses have been affected in every corner of San Francisco, even traditionally low-crime areas such as the Sunset District, where commercial and residential burglaries rose 80% in between 2019 and 2021.
Michael Hsu’s Footprint shoe store got broken into for the first time in February 2021. The thief used a blowtorch to crack the glass door without setting off the alarm and took tens of thousands of dollars worth of high-end North Face jackets. More people arrived soon after, taking whatever they could grab before they set off the alarm.
Mr. Hsu, who grew up in the Sunset, said he recalled thinking: “Oh, they finally got me.”
Michael Hsu's shoe store in the Sunset neighborhood has been burglarized repeatedly.
He now keeps some merchandise locked with security cables.
He turned to a grant program for small businesses to fix his shattered storefront.
Security footage shows a thief using a blowtorch to crack the glass door at Footprint.
Michael Hsu
Mr. Hsu was the first recipient in the new grant program for small businesses to fix their storefronts. Three weeks later, his store was hit again, this time by a thief who climbed up scaffolding, broke in through a second-story window and made off with several boxes of shoes.
He now equips his employees with pepper spray and a key fob that calls the police directly. He upgraded his security system and is putting money aside for other antitheft measures.
The grant program has distributed more than $500,000 to nearly 400 businesses to fix their storefronts.
Sharky Laguana, who is president of the city’s small business commission and runs the van-rental company Bandago, said thieves frequently smash his vehicles’ windows and steal his customers’ belongings. “It gives customers a bad experience, it costs them a lot of money and it costs us a lot of money,” he said.
Police and prosecutors say the majority of car break-ins are committed by organized crews. Mr. Laguana grew so frustrated he launched a reward program for information that leads to busts of big fencing operations that buy merchandise from such thieves. He thought he would be able to raise tens of thousands of dollars at best; he got $250,000 in pledges from rental-car companies and other businesses.
The day after the Louis Vuitton smash-and-grab robbery, San Francisco police deployed a mobile command center that still sits across the street from the luxury-goods store. The department sent more foot patrols to the Union Square retail district, pulling officers from all over the city, said Captain Julian Ng who oversees the area.
“It’s a resource drain, but if I had my way, we’d do this forever because it’s such an important area for the city,” said Capt. Ng.
Police Capt. Julian Ng, top, on the street in Chinatown. Shattered auto glass in the parking lot of a popular tourist destination.
Five people were arrested in connection with the Louis Vuitton incident. Captain Ng said there are many reasons for the city’s overall low rate of clearing property-crime cases, including the department’s no-chase policy for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, which aims to reduce unnecessary accidents. Car break-in crews can easily zip away in their own vehicles without police cars chasing them, he said.
Some former police officials said in interviews that officers don’t feel it is worth making an arrest in low-level cases because they assume the district attorney won’t file charges. They also point to a statewide ballot measure passed in 2014—Proposition 47—that raised the dollar amount at which theft can be prosecuted as a felony from $400 to $950.
Mr. Boudin, a former public defender, said his office hasn’t changed the way it prosecutes property crimes from the previous district attorney, George Gascon, who is now district attorney in Los Angeles and facing his own recall campaign. The office’s rate of filing charges against people arrested for burglaries and thefts dipped to 41% in Mr. Boudin’s first year in office, but increased to 58% in 2021, similar to the rate during Mr. Gascon’s tenure.
Mr. Boudin has pointed the finger back at the police, arguing that the certainty of arrest is low in San Francisco compared with other cities. More consistent arrests of criminals, he has said, would be a more powerful deterrent than the length of prison sentences.
Last November, officers were caught on a surveillance camera sitting in a squad car, watching as burglars made off with stolen product from a cannabis dispensary. The department is investigating the incident.
Lt. Scott Ryan, who heads a unit that investigates property crimes, said clearance rates aren’t a good measure because police often nab serial offenders who they believe to be responsible for far more burglaries or thefts than they can prove.
He said consequences aren’t severe enough for repeat offenders. Police investigators have a list of 48 people arrested five or more times for burglaries in recent years, he said, and more than half of them are no longer behind bars. “There’s got to be a line in the sand,” he said.
In February, Ms. Bennett, the owner of Cliff’s Variety, received an email alert that angered her. The burglar who broke into her store to steal spray paint and gloves was being released from jail, it said.
Charles Andrews, who was convicted in the burglary, was getting out of jail after 244 days. It was the second time that Mr. Andrews had been arrested for breaking into Cliff’s, the first coming in 2017.
The other burglar, who smashed a $4,500 display window to steal a $200 emergency kit, was never caught.
Terry Asten Bennett, right, in front of her family-owned store, Cliff's Variety Store.
She said the store has been burglarized more than once by the same person.
Security footage shows a break-in at Cliff's Variety.
Terry Asten Bennett
A large TV displays the many security cameras throughout the store.
Sylvia Cediel, a public defender who represented Mr. Andrews, said his repeated arrests “reflect the circumstances of his life—primarily extreme poverty.” Mr. Andrews has been homeless since he came to the Bay Area more than a decade ago, she said, and his time in jail has been the only time he has spent off the streets. Ms Cediel said the city needs to do a better job addressing poverty and lack of housing.
Ms. Bennett said she believes the worsening drug problem within San Francisco’s homeless population has led to thefts and some of the property damage at Cliff’s. Last year, Mayor Breed declared a state of emergency because of overdoses in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood.
In an effort to deter shoplifters, Ms. Bennett now stations employees at the door to greet customers. She installed a camera system and gave employees walkie-talkies so they could monitor shoplifters and confront them before they leave the store. Shoplifting losses have since dropped from 2% to 1% percent of annual sales, she said.
The increase in burglaries, which often involves breaking into closed shops, may be driven in part by emptier streets during the pandemic, police and criminologists say.
Ms. Bennett, whose great-great-grandfather Hilario DeBaca started the business, said the increase in crime hasn’t made her consider closing Cliff’s, which she said is woven into the neighborhood. But the break-ins are eating into the store’s bottom line.
New metal gates to protect the entrances plus repairs from the two burglaries and shattered door totaled about $22,000, less than half of which was covered by insurance, she said. She is applying to the city grant program to fix the most recently shattered door.
“When you’re a small-business owner, you spend more hours at work than at home, so you take it very personally when someone attacks you,” she said. “Whether it’s an attack on you or just your building, it really doesn’t matter. It feels the same.”
Signs warn visitors to remove valuables from vehicles at the tourist destination of Twin Peaks.
REALITY: DEM POLS SPEND TOO MUCH TIME SUCKING OFF BRIBES THEY SIPHON THROUGH FAMILY MEMBERS, SERVICING BANKSTERS AND BILLIONAIRES FOR OPEN BORDERS. THE REST OF US ARE FUCKED BIG TIME.
PHOTO: Grandma Accused in San Francisco $1 Million Looting Spree
AMERICAN THE FAILED NATION!
BLACK GHETTOS IN AMERICA
The 10 WORST (MOSTLY BLACK) Neighborhoods in America. It's Shocking and Terrifying.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12vnzZSw9f8&t=77s
ONLY 8% OF S.F. IS BLACK. THEY PERPETRATE MORE THAN 40% OF THE CRIMES.
17,000 CARE BREAK-INS
SF Suffers Highest Rate of Car Break-Ins Compared to Atlanta, DC, Dallas, LA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTLPISB7xig
It's your message, Democrats
Yesterday, House speaker Nancy Pelosi said she does not understand where the lawlessness is coming from. She was talking about all of those attack on shops in San Francisco.
Maybe Mrs. Pelosi finally noticed when the mob attacked her favorite places!
The mayor of San Francisco noticed the looting, too. This is the story:
The mayor's plan includes a series of initiatives to implement a 180-degree reversal from blind compassion to "tough love." Outlined in a Medium post, Breed's proposals take aim at illegal drug sales and restore funding for police with targeted resources dedicated to the low-income Tenderloin neighborhood. The mayor calls for:
Executing an Emergency Intervention Plan in the Tenderloin neighborhood
Securing emergency police funding to ensure we have the resources to combat major safety problems over the next several
Amending our surveillance ordinance so law enforcement can prevent and interrupt crime in real time — something they're effectively barred from doing now — to better protect our homes and businesses
Disrupting the illegal street sales of stolen goods that have become a clear public safety issue and are contributing to retail theft
Well, at least the strategy is changing. Let's hope it goes beyond talking points.
Why are Democrats suddenly talking about crime?
The answer is twofold:
First, this level of "lawlessness," as the speaker would say, is driving taxpayers away. My guess is that it keeps a lot of people from driving downtown for dinner on a Saturday. I was in a city in Maryland last summer and asked about Little Italy, a once-charming neighborhood for eating Italian food. My friend said it was still there, but many people were afraid of going down in this atmosphere.
Second, the violence must be hurting Democrats with African-Americans and Hispanics, or the people who live in those areas, which may be both. Check out Chicago and the weekend shootings. It's hard to blame Trump when everyone running the city is a liberal Democrat.
Memo to Democrats: Let the police do their job, and you will see how quickly the "lawlessness" will disappear.
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