THEY STAB US IN THE BACK AND THEN HAND THE TAX BILLS FOR IT WITH A SMILE ON THEIR BRIBES SUCKING FACES!
He added, “Illegal immigration, in particular, drives down wages and inhibits job opportunities for legal residents, while bringing more low-skilled, low-wage workers to these states. In turn, this increases costs to state and local governments, and discourages investment by businesses seeking a skilled labor force and lower overhead.”
PAUL BEDARD
FAIR reported employers’ preference for hiring foreign-born who demand lower wages, over American citizens. “This report highlights the adverse effects of unchecked mass immigration, combined with an immigration selection process that does not choose people based on merit, job skills and education. Americans are being affected by unenforced immigration policies, which is why it is at the top of the list of voter concerns heading into the 2020 elections.”
Pelosi is a ghastly creature. She and her ilk – Feinstein, Boxer, Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom – have effectively destroyed California and they did it on purpose. They strive to import as many illegal migrants as possible; they've created and fostered the homelessness and let it fester. California is now a socialist disaster and the further destruction of the economy is just what they've wanted. PATRICIA McCARTHY
"They will destroy America from within. The leftist billionaires who orchestrate these plans are wealthy. Those tasked with representing us in Congress will never be exposed to the cost of the invasion. They have nothing but contempt for us who must endure the consequences of our communities being intruded upon by gangs, drug dealers and human traffickers. These people have no intention of becoming Americans; like the Democrats who welcome them, they have contempt for us." PATRICIA McCARTHY
THE DEMOCRAT PARTY’S
BILLIONAIRES’ GLOBALIST EMPIRE requires someone as ruthlessly dishonest as
Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama to be puppet dictators.
http://hillaryclinton-whitecollarcriminal.blogspot.com/2018/09/google-rigged-it-so-illegals-would-vote.html
1.
Globalism: Google
VP Kent Walker insists that despite its repeated rejection by electorates
around the world, “globalization” is an “incredible force for good.”
2.
Hillary Clinton’s Democratic
party: An executive nearly broke down crying because of the candidate’s loss. Not
a single executive expressed anything but dismay at her defeat.
3. Immigration: Maintaining
liberal immigration in the U.S is the policy that Google’s executives discussed the
most.
ALL BILLIONAIRES ARE FOR WIDER OPEN BORDERS. ALL BILLIONAIRES ARE GLOBALIST DEMOCRATS
Pelosi Coronavirus Plan Bails Out the Rich with Tax Breaks, Cheap Labor
2:35
House Democrats’ Chinese coronavirus relief package bails out coastal millionaires and billionaires while ensuring big businesses are able to freely hire illegal aliens and visa overstayers over unemployed Americans.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) HEROES Act would end the cap on a little-known SALT tax deduction that has been strictly limited by President Trump, offering the top one percent in coastal states like New York, Massachusetts, and California a huge tax break.
The maneuver would give millionaires and billionaires, for 2020 and 2021, a windfall of more than $100,000 for taxpayers with annual incomes over $1 million.
(Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget)
“Completely repealing the cap retroactively for the last two years would cost over $130 billion, with about half the benefit going to households making over $1 million a year,” Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) analysts write. They add:
Repealing the SALT cap retroactively for two years will also send out checks as people amend their 2018 and 2019 taxes, but those checks would be almost exclusively sent to high-income households. The average household making over $1 million would receive over $100,000. Households making less than $50,000 would receive almost no benefit from repealing or raising the SALT cap.
Likewise, Pelosi’s HEROES Act would provide business with a neverending flood of cheap, illegal foreign labor that they would be legally allowed to hire over the roughly 36.5 million Americans who are jobless due to the crisis.
The provision would suspend the Department of Labor’s ability to prosecute any employer hiring illegal aliens and visa overstayers. A separate provision would drive up foreign competition against unemployed Americans by allowing illegal aliens taking “essential” U.S. jobs to receive work authorization.
Extensive research by economists like George Borjas and analyst Steven Camarota reveals that the country’s current mass immigration system burdens U.S. taxpayers and America’s working and middle class while redistributing about $500 billion in wealth every year to major employers and new arrivals. Similarly, research has revealed how Americans’ wages are crushed by the country’s high immigration levels.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
Why the rich favor the Democrats
There's little doubt that today's Democrat Party is the party of the rich. Actually, that's an understatement. Far more than billionaires are involved. A better expression of reality would be to say a fundamental core of Democrat coalition is the managerial class, also known as the elite. These are the people who run the media, Hollywood and the entertainment industry, the big corporations, the universities and schools, the investment banks, and Wall Street. They populate the upper levels of government bureaucracies. These are the East and West Coasters.
The alliance of the affluent with the Democrat Party can be seen in the widely disproportionate share of hefty political donations from the well-to-do going to Democrats and a bevy of left-wing causes. It's also why forty-one out of the fifty wealthiest congressional districts are represented by Democrats.
BLOG: DEMS LOVE SOCIALISM FOR ILLEGALS TO KEEP THEM COMING AND BREEDING ANCHOR BABIES FOR WELFARE AND SOCIALISM FOR BANKS. TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF IT!
Bernie Sanders is an exception. But he's an anomaly viewed as dangerous to the party, which is why he's being crushed by the Democrat establishment.
Why do the wealthy align with the Democrats? The answer may seem counter-intuitive, but it is really quite simple. It's surely not ideals or high-minded principles. Nor is it ignorance. Rather, it boils down to raw self-interest.
In his book, The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties, Christopher Caldwell notes that rich Americans think themselves to be as vulnerable as blacks. They are a relatively small minority of the population. They fear being resented for their wealth and power and of having much of that taken from them. Accordingly, the wealthy seek to protect what is theirs by preventing strong majorities from forming by using the divide and conquer principle.
As R.R. Reno writes when reviewing Caldwell's book: "Therefore, the richest and most powerful people in America have strong incentives to support an anti-majoritarian political system." He goes on: "Wealthy individuals shovel donations into elite institutions that incubate identity politics, which further fragments the nation and prevents the formation of majorities."
Some of the rotten fruit of the wealthy taking this approach include multiculturalism, massive immigration of diverse people, resistance to encouraging assimilation, racial strife, trying to turn white males into pariahs, and the promotion of gender confusion. Through it all, society is bombarded with the Orwellian mantra that "diversity is strength," as if repeating it often enough can make it so. It is also why patriotism and a common American culture are so disparaged today. Those from the upper strata of society project the idea that if you're a flag-waving American, you must be some kind of retrograde mouth-breathing yokel.
The wealthy as a groups are content to dissolve the glue that holds the U.S. together. And it is all done to enhance and preserve their power, wealth, and influence. This is why they so hate Donald Trump. He strives to unite people and the country, although you'd never know that that is what the president is doing if you live in the media bubble. Trump's MAGA agenda is an anathema to the managerial class.
To quote Reno one final time:
The next decade will not be easy. But it will not be about what preoccupied us in the sixties, and which Caldwell describes so well. Rather than the perils of discrimination we are increasingly concerned with the problem of disintegration — or in Charles Murray's terms, the problem of "coming apart."
Trump and the GOP he is molding are the vehicles to restore and strengthen national solidarity. Trump said at the Daytona 500, "No matter who wins, what matters most is God, family, and country." That is not the Democrat agenda. As seen in Democrat politicians, their policies, and the behavior of their major contributors, the aim is to further weaken the social and national bonds in America. There is a lot at stake here. If solidarity wins, the Republic can survive and prosper. If the Democrats and their wealthy cohorts do, then the middle class withers, the Republic dies, and the rich and their managerial class get to rule the roost. That is what it comes down to.
ALL BILLIONAIRES ARE DEMOCRATS. ALL BILLIONAIRES WANT WIDER OPEN BORDERS, AMNESTY AND HELL NO TO E-VERIFY!
In addition, establishment Republicans are no better than Democrats at stemming the flow of illegal immigration because big businesses reap the benefits of this cheap labor without incurring any of the social costs.
Democrats: The Party of Big Labor, Big Government...and Big Business
There is a widespread perception that the Democrat Party is the party the working class and the Republican Party is the party of big business. Even though Republicans on average received slightly more from corporate employees prior to 2002, the overall difference between both parties from 1990 to 2020 is statistically insignificant (Table 1). In fact, Democrat reliance on big labor gradually shifted toward big business following the involvement of solidly Democrat corporate giants in 2002, and from 2014 to 2020, Democrats consistently surpassed Republicans in corporate donations (Tables 1 & 2).
Based on data compiled by Open Secrets, Soros Fund Management, Fahr LLC (Tom Steyer), and Bloomberg LP ranked among the top ten for political contributions that gave over 90% to Democrats. In sharp contrast, the right-leaning Koch Industries made the top ten only in 2014. In nearly all other years, Koch ranked well below the top twenty.
Whether or not this trend is long-term, there is no denying that large corporations on average no longer lean right. But what does it mean to be "the party of big business"? Donations are not definitive evidence. What ultimately matters is what politicians do once they get elected.
Many liberals believe that big government is needed to "rein in" big business and that in the absence of federal intervention, corporations will "run roughshod" over the average American. Many liberals also believe that corporations are the main beneficiaries of laissez-faire economics and that free-market conservatives who want to scale back regulations are somehow "in the pocket" of big business.
In reality, the opposite is true: big business and big government
go hand in hand because government meddling in the economy
for the lobbyists. This crony capitalism grew exponentially as
during the 1930s. Establishment politicians and well
connected corporations are beneficiaries of the myth that big
government and big business are adversaries because it hides
their unholy alliance.
In all fairness, neither party has had a monopoly on the dispensation of corporate welfare: the TARP funds that propped up financial institutions deemed "too big to fail" during the Great Recession were released by the Bush administration. In addition, establishment Republicans are no better than Democrats at stemming the flow of illegal immigration because big businesses reap the benefits of this cheap labor without incurring any of the social costs.
If both parties are playing this game, what is the basis for labeling the Democrat party "the party of big business"? What policies from Republicans support small business?
Free-market conservatism benefits small businesses because the government does not pick the winners and losers by means of subsidies, tax breaks, and cumbersome regulations. You will not see policies like these coming from Washington in a major way because proposals for shrinking the federal government rarely see the light of day in Congress.
Based on data collected by Gallup and Thumbtack, red states far outscore blue states in small business friendliness (Table 3). This may be why less affluent Americans are fleeing states that score abysmally like California, Illinois, New York, and Hawaii. This might also be why small business–owners are more likely to vote Republican.
The Trump administration has been good for businesses of all sizes mainly due to the unprecedented rate at which it scaled back stifling regulations. This may be why some of the president's highest approval ratings now come from small businesses.
Donald Trump set himself apart from the ruling class when he latched onto the third-rail issue of illegal immigration and called out the corporate darling Jeb Bush (AKA "Low Energy Jeb") for his lack of grassroots support. This may explain in part why Bain Capital, the firm co-founded by Mitt Romney, switched teams and contributed solidly Democrat in 2018. In 2012, Democrats accused Bain Capital of destroying jobs by systematically dismantling the companies it bought off. Times have changed...
Small businesses generate well over half of all new jobs. Most importantly, many are family-owned, have strong ties to their communities, and provide upward mobility for millions of Americans who never attended college. The Democrats' undermining of this quintessentially American institution is shameful and disqualifies it as the "party of the working class." Contributions from big labor do not count toward "labor-friendliness" because mega-unions care more about recruitment than about the welfare of working Americans. This is why the SEIU supports blanket amnesty for illegal aliens.
Democrats fed up with the corporate status quo are now choosing their own anti-establishment candidate, not realizing that socialism is just a more impoverished version of the crony capitalism they are rejecting. Many Sanders-supporters are also morally shallow because they want to harness the power of the state to muscle in on the wealth of Americans who borrowed responsibly and worked hard to pay their bills.
After the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin said, "This Constitution ... is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism ... when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government." If Democrats implement the dystopian policies of California on a national level, their corporate allies will do fine. It is small business–owners and working-class Americans with nowhere to flee who have the most to lose. Be careful what you wish for.
To view the tables below, click the links.
*The red lettering highlights a funding advantage for Republicans. The blue lettering highlights a funding disadvantage for Republicans.
**Based on a T-test, the difference is insignificant at P = 0.46
Table 2: Top ten contributors to Democrats and Republicans by category (union, corporate, and ideological) as compiled by Open Secrets:
*In 2008 Goldman Sachs donated 74% to Democrats. All other groups in this column donated between 40 and 69% to both parties. This column does not differentiate between giving equally to both parties and giving 70–79% to Democrats or Republicans.
**This number includes the "City of New York." Although it is officially listed as "other" by Open Secrets (not corporate, union, or ideological), I was personally informed by someone from the organization that Michael Bloomberg was the main source of this funding.
Table 3: Small business scores states scored by Thumbtack ranked according to their Democratic advantage by Gallup:
*GPA scores are based on the following numerical equivalents: A = 4, B = 3, C = 2, D = 1, F = 0, A+ = 4.3, A- = 3.7, etc.
** Not scored.
***Mean GPA ± standard error. Based on a T-test, the difference is significant at P = 0.00001.
Grim Reaper Mitch to Pelosi: I'm Going to Kill Your Stimulus Plan
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just got some bad news from Mitch McConnell. Any talk about another stimulus isn’t going to happen. She may draft a bill, but it’ll meet a swift death in the Republican-controlled Senate. Mitch is the legislative grim reaper for most of what the Democratic House sends his way (via The Hill):
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) hit the brakes Tuesday on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) plan to move ahead with a fourth stimulus package that would include major infrastructure spending and other Democratic priorities.
“I think we need to wait a few days here, a few weeks, and see how things are working out,” McConnell said on “The Hugh Hewitt Show.”
“Let’s see how things are going and respond accordingly,” he added. “I’m not going to allow this to be an opportunity for the Democrats to achieve unrelated policy items that they would not otherwise be able to pass.”
McConnell's remarks came the same day that President Trump encouraged Congress to pass a $2 trillion infrastructure bill as the next piece of coronavirus legislation.
Pelosi is also mulling a rollback of the SALT taxes, which would be nothing short of a giveaway to millionaires. And by the giveaway, it would be something of a $620 billion tax cut for them. Remember, this is the party of the working people, or so they say, and a part of me hopes she goes aggressive on this, so we can see Bernie Sanders gum up the Democratic works for a bit. There is no way a hardcore lefty would back this nonsense. Yet, there’s another reason why Mitch isn’t rushing on the House Democrats’ stimulus reloaded plans. They’re off. They won’t be back to work until April 20. And The Hill added that Mitch hasn’t forgotten about judges, adding that the Kentucky Republican’s motto is “leave no vacancy behind.”
THE OBAMA – BIDEN BANKSTERS CON JOB STARTED BEFORE HIS FIRST DAY IN OFFICE!
GET THIS BOOK!
Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses
BY TIMOTHY P CARNEY
Editorial Reviews
Obama Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?
Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and consumers. In Obamanomics, investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics.
Congressman Ron Paul says, “Every libertarian and free-market conservative needs to read Obamanomics.” And Johan Goldberg, columnist and bestselling author says, “Obamanomics is conservative muckraking at its best and an indispensable field guide to the Obama years.”
If you’ve wondered what’s happening to America, as the federal government swallows up the financial sector, the auto industry, and healthcare, and enacts deficit exploding “stimulus packages,” this book makes it all clear—it’s a big scam. Ultimately, Obamanomics boils down to this: every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich, and those somebodies are friends of Barack. This book names the names—and it will make your blood boil.
Investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics. In this explosive book, Carney reveals:
* The Great Health Care Scam—Obama’s backroom deals with drug companies spell corporate profits and more government control
* The Global Warming Hoax—Obama has bought off industries with a pork-filled bill that will drain your wallet for Al Gore’s agenda
* Obama and Wall Street—“Change” means more bailouts and a heavy Goldman Sachs presence in the West Wing (including Rahm Emanuel)
* Stimulating K Street—The largest spending bill in history gave pork to the well-connected and created a feeding frenzy for lobbyists
* How the GOP needs to change its tune—drastically—to battle Obamanomics
Praise for Obamanomics
“The notion that ‘big business’ is on the side of the free market is one of progressivism’s most valuable myths. It allows them to demonize corporations by day and get in bed with them by night. Obamanomics is conservative muckraking at its best. It reveals how President Obama is exploiting the big business mythology to undermine the free market and stick it to entrepreneurs, taxpayers, and consumers. It’s an indispensable field guide to the Obama years.”
—Jonha Goldberg, LA Times columnist and best-selling author
“‘Every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich.’ With this astute observation, Tim Carney begins his task of laying bare the Obama administration’s corporatist governing strategy, hidden behind the president’s populist veneer. This meticulously researched book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how Washington really works.”
—David Freddoso, best-selling author of The Case Against Barack Obama
“Every libertarian and free-market conservative who still believes that large corporations are trusted allies in the battle for economic liberty needs to read this book, as does every well-meaning liberal who believes that expansions of the welfare-regulatory state are done to benefit the common people.”
—Congressman Ron Paul
“It’s understandable for critics to condemn President Obama for his ‘socialism.’ But as Tim Carney shows, the real situation is at once more subtle and more sinister. Obamanomics favors big business while disproportionately punishing everyone else. So-called progressives are too clueless to notice, as usual, which is why we have Tim Carney and this book.”
—Thomas E. Woods, Jr., best-selling author of Meltdown and The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to American History
*
• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Regnery Press (November 30, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596986123
• ISBN-13: 978-1596986121
Senator Dianne Feinstein
- Website
- SF
Office
(415) 393-0707 - DC
Office
(202) 224-3841 - Los
Angeles Office
(310) 914-7300
“I look forward to working with you to continue
San Francisco’s proud tradition of standing as a guiding light for progress
across America.” I don’t know what definition of “progress” Pelosi is using,
but any candid observer would rate the city a catastrophe.
Pelosi is a ghastly creature. She and her ilk –
Feinstein, Boxer, Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom – have effectively destroyed
California and they did it on purpose. They strive to import as many
illegal migrants as possible; they've created and fostered the homelessness and
let it fester. California is now a socialist disaster and the further
destruction of the economy is just what they've wanted. PATRICIA McCARTHY
San Francisco is a disaster about which
Nancy Pelosi she cares nothing. It is a city ravaged
by drug abuse, homelessness, rampant crime and all the other scourges
of leftism. She lives extravagantly in her gated
mansion. She lives a life of wealth and privilege in city
suffering a civilizational collapse created and orchestrated by her
own party. She revels in it. She has become
a near-billionairess by way of politics of the most corrupt
variety. She is indeed a cancer on the body politic. PATRICIA
McCARTHY
"They will destroy
America from within. The leftist billionaires who orchestrate these
plans are wealthy. Those tasked with representing us in Congress will never be
exposed to the cost of the invasion. They have nothing but contempt for us who
must endure the consequences of our communities being intruded upon by gangs,
drug dealers and human traffickers. These people have no intention
of becoming Americans; like the Democrats who welcome them, they have contempt
for us." PATRICIA McCARTHY
FLEEING SAN FRANCISCO: A DEMOCRAT CONTROLLED CITY IN MELTDOWN
America’s Havana
Thousands say ciao to San Francisco.
California
Cities
Economy, finance, and budgets
On January 8, London
Breed, San Francisco’s mayor, was sworn in for her first full term. House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi congratulated her in a tweet, saying, “I look forward to
working with you to continue San Francisco’s proud tradition of standing as a
guiding light for progress across America.” I don’t know what definition of
“progress” Pelosi is using, but any candid observer would rate the city a
catastrophe. Mayor Breed was inaugurated on the same day that I moved from San
Francisco to Los Angeles, after ten years working at the cutting edge of
science and technology.
Even
before the current Covid-19 pandemic, San Francisco was a deeply troubled city.
It ranks first in the nation in theft, burglary, vandalism, shoplifting, and
other property crime. On average, about 60 cars get broken into each day.
Diseases arising from poor sanitation—typhoid, typhus, hepatitis A—are reappearing
at an alarming rate. Fentanyl goes for about $20 a pill on Market Street, and
each year the city hands out 4.5 million needles, which you can find used and
tossed out like cigarette butts in parks and around bus stops. The city’s
department of public works deploys feces cleaners daily—a “poop patrol” to wash
the filth from the sidewalks.
This is
just a brief summary of the lack of hygiene and common decency. A reasonable
person might declare an emergency, but in her first official act, Breed swore
in Chesa Boudin, San Francisco’s new district attorney, before a packed house
at the Herbst Theater. “Chesa, you have undertaken a remarkable challenge
today,” said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a congratulatory
video message. “I hope you reflect as a great beacon to many.” Boudin’s résumé
boasts of a stint working directly for the late dictator Hugo Chávez in
Venezuela, who turned a once-rich nation back to the dark ages. “We will not
prosecute cases involving quality-of-life crimes,” Boudin promised during his
campaign. He must have witnessed the success of that policy in Caracas, which
was voted the world’s most dangerous city in 2018.
Even the
sights and sounds of the city suggest a certain derangement. When the Bay Area
Rapid Transit (BART) system was first built in the 1970s, its designers failed
to understand the acoustics between wheel, track, and tunnel. Since the
nineteenth century, competent railroad engineers have known that a tapered,
flanged wheel will handle turns better and generate less noise. For some
reason, BART designers ignored this design in favor of a cylindrical wheel with
a straight edge. Years of wear and tear have degraded the screech into a mad
howl. According to a recent count by the San Francisco Chronicle, BART has lost nearly 10
million riders on nights and weekends because of the noise, grime, and lack of
safety. It doesn’t help that it has also become a de facto shelter for drug
addicts and the mentally ill.
Today,
it’s nearly impossible to build anything in San Francisco. Infrastructure
projects balloon indefinitely. In 2001, the city proposed a new bus lane on Van
Ness, one of the main arteries. Nearly 20 years later, the new lane’s opening
is slated for 2021; Van Ness remains a mess of potholes, equipment, and
detours. It wasn’t always this way. In the 1930s, the Golden Gate Bridge was
built in three and a half years. To commemorate its completion, as an encore,
the city created an artificial island in the middle of San Francisco Bay.
Treasure Island took under three years to finish.
The city
no longer builds housing, either. Due to the nation’s tightest zoning rules and
land-use restrictions, developers struggle mightily to put up new apartments
and houses. Even after getting permission to build—following years of
scrambling through a dysfunctional approval process—it costs about $700,000 to
construct a single new apartment unit. Consequently, the cost of housing has
skyrocketed. The median price for a one-bedroom rental is the most expensive in
the nation, at about $3,700 per month. To buy a single-family home, a family
needs $1.5 million, on average—and they’d better be a cash buyer.
But the
culmination of local incompetence and misplaced priorities has to be the
blackouts and fires. The monopoly utility, PG&E, began rolling blackouts
this past autumn to prevent sparks in dry and windy weather. Millions went
without power for days. Many of the company’s electric lines contain components
that go back to the 1950s; some date to the 1920s. These parts have ignited
1,961 fires since 2014, according to the company. The 2018 Camp Fire, the
deadliest in California’s history, was caused by a broken hook on a tower. It
killed 85 people and torched 150,000 acres; a year later, near Sonoma and Napa,
vineyards burned among 190,000 acres, and 22 people were killed. Smoke drifted
over San Francisco and choked its residents for weeks. For the duration, San
Francisco became one of the most polluted cities in the world. People now stock
up on air filters and masks every October for the season of ash.
San
Francisco is a city overwhelmed by its own stupidity, but painful adjustments
are coming. For the seventh straight year, more people have left California
than have moved in. Tech companies are reconsidering the importance of being in
San Francisco. Oracle, for example, has moved its yearly conference to Las
Vegas. After nearly 50 years, Charles Schwab is moving its headquarters out of
town. And in a recent earnings call with investors, Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO,
said that the company planned to have a more distributed workforce in the
future and be less concentrated in San Francisco. With tech companies operating
remotely while their employees shelter in place, how many of these workers will
return to their San Francisco offices after the Covid-19 crisis subsides is an
open question.
“For the
future to have power over the present, it has to be different from the
present,” Peter Thiel said in a recent interview with Peter Robinson of the
Hoover Institution. “The future has power because it is a time that will look
different.” San Francisco is trapped in the past. The future will be built
elsewhere. I left to find it.
Free Booze, Pot, and Smokes for San Francisco’s Homeless
A new city program tries to
make quarantine comfortable—for some.
May 11, 2020
Covid-19
California
San Francisco officials
deny direct involvement in a controversial program, funded by private sources,
that provides free alcohol, cannabis, and cigarettes to homeless people living
in the city’s hotels during the Covid-19 outbreak. After news about the special
deliveries was leaked and caused embarrassment on social media, the city’s
Department of Public Health issued a statement claiming that “rumors that
guests of San Francisco’s alternative housing program are receiving
taxpayer-funded deliveries of alcohol, cannabis and tobacco are false.”
Except they’re not false.
DPH, which administers and oversees the program, is staffed by city workers,
including doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers, and security
personnel. The department manages, stores, and distributes the substances.
Employee time is involved. Thus, the program is financed by taxpayers, even if an
outside group provides some of the funding. According to DPH spokesperson Jenna
Lane, the philanthropists who helped purchase the substances wish to remain
anonymous.
The program’s primary
purpose is to keep homeless people, the majority of whom are addicts, out of harm’s
way during the pandemic. By getting their substance of choice delivered, the
thinking goes, the guests may be more apt to remain in their government-funded
rooms. Another purpose of the program is to protect the public against the
spread of coronavirus. The city doesn’t want homeless people who should be
staying in their rooms roaming the neighborhood in search of the substances,
potentially infecting others.
“Managed alcohol and
tobacco use makes it possible to increase the number of guests who stay in
isolation and quarantine and, notably, protects the health of people who might
otherwise need hospital care for life-threatening alcohol withdrawal,” says
Lane.
Lane concedes that the
provision of substances is not necessarily meant to save people from dangerous,
unsupervised detoxification. The homeless are screened to determine what
substances they would prefer to have on hand and might be uncomfortable
without. “Many isolation and quarantine guests tell us they use these
substances daily,” says Lane, “and this period in our care has allowed some
people to connect for the first time with addiction treatment and harm
reduction therapy.” But DPH has not made clear which addiction-recovery
services are offered and whether anyone has used them. In any case, “harm-reduction
therapy” is about reducing the negative consequences associated with drug use,
not about recovering from addiction.
The details of the
free-substances program—to the extent that they have been disclosed—are
fascinating. Alcohol is served with meals (those, too, are provided at no cost
to guests), and the DPH, in consultation with doctors, determines how much each
person gets. Does a physician write a script for a daily dose of five Sierra
Nevadas, seven shots of Tito’s, or a fine bottle of Sangiovese? And who does
the shopping? The DPH doesn’t say.
DPH workers assist in
purchasing cannabis for guests who prefer that drug. Ostensibly, the purpose is
for medical use, though physicians are prohibited from prescribing cannabis,
and insurance doesn’t cover it. In California, the average price for an ounce
of median-grade marijuana is $207.
Guests who enjoy a good
smoke receive cigarettes, divided up by medical staff and handed out in
Ziploc-type bags. The number they’re allotted is “determined by physicians who
calculate the minimum possible to achieve the public health goals of isolation
and quarantine,” says Lane. When questioned about whether these guests receive
premium or generic brands, Lane said that doctors determine the quality. Almost
all hotel rooms in San Francisco are normally smoke-free, but these rules have
apparently been suspended, at least for the city-funded guests.
One would think that DPH
would require that guests gifted such substances remain quarantined, but the
city is merely requesting that they do so. “The City of San Francisco is asking
guests of isolation and quarantine sites to remain in their rooms,” says Lane.
“DPH is managing the use of these substances so a guest does not have to leave
to obtain them.” Security guards aren’t monitoring doors, and no one is locked
in.
The program ensures the
protection of neither the homeless hotel guests nor the general public. San
Francisco taxpayers are footing the bill for people to drink, smoke, and get
high while living in a hotel for free. It’s no surprise that the Department of
Public Health and its mysterious donors sought to keep details of the program
on the down-low.
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