DANGER! - THE DEMOCRAT PARTY IS DESTROYING AMERICA AS FAST AS NAFTA JOE BIDEN DESTROYED AMERICA'S BORDER AND MIDDLE CLASS

 THREE MORE PIG PARASITE LAWYERS:

Biden, Harris, and Obama have therefore put themselves squarely in the camp of the leftist extremists who think it is OK to shout down a Federal judge at Stanford, and also shout down not only conservative speakers but also one from the American Civil Liberties Union.

Watters: The Five (CRIME) Families of the Democrat Party

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBpvvHethg0

Democrat Left Goes All in on Hate, Disruption, and Violence

By Civis Americanus

The Republican Party threw away two easily won elections in 2020 and 2022 by focusing on unproven allegations of widespread election fraud. Regardless of what you or I think of that election, the swing voters who decide the elections do not believe there was election fraud, so we need to focus on winning issues in 2024.

The Democrat Left has demonstrated repeatedly that it is the party of racial animosity, anti-Semitism, civil unrest, shouting down political opponents, and even battering women who get out of line. Note that I say "Democrat Left" rather than "the Democrats" because there are still some traditional centrist and pro-worker Democrats who still identify with the party of Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy rather than that of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden.

The Tennessee Three

While expulsion came across to me as too draconian for the disruption of legislative proceedings by three Tennessee Democrats, and counterproductive because the communities that elected them returned them to office immediately, the Democrat Left has put itself on record as (1) condoning the disruption and (2) lying about Justin Jones and Justin Pearson being ejected for legislating while Black and/or protesting. The First Amendment right to protest is not a license to hijack the floor of a state legislature with a bullhorn.

This is far from Justin Jones' first brush with violations of parliamentary rules and even the law. He was arrested for misdemeanor assault for throwing coffee on two other legislators, although the charge was dismissed after he stayed out of trouble in accordance with the judge's instructions. Jones also played a role in obstruction of traffic during a Black Lives Matter disruption (I say "disruption" rather than "protest" because protest is a First Amendment right and obstruction of traffic is unlawful), and appears to assault a driver with a traffic cone. He also stood on top of a police car during more BLM antics, although he apparently did not damage the car. Now let's take a look at who condoned the behavior in question.

• Kamala Harris, who is one heartbeat away from the presidency and control of our country's nuclear weapons, said of these three individuals, "A democracy says you don’t silence the people, you do not stifle the people, you do not turn off their microphones when they are speaking about the importance of life and liberty." Actually, Vice President Giggles, your microphone is turned off in any kind of legislative assembly or parliamentary activity except when it is your turn to speak. If you don't understand that, you are incompetent, dishonest, or both.
• Joe Biden, who does control our country's nuclear weapons, "…thanked the lawmakers for spotlighting what he called undemocratic and unprecedented attacks on them this week, and invited them to the White House in the near future." Maybe he should also, under the same standards he just expressed, thank the people who invaded the Capitol on January 6 2021 but did not destroy property or assault police (the Tennessee Three did neither), invite them to the White House, and thank them as well.
• Barack Obama said, "This nation was built on peaceful protest. No elected official should lose their job simply for raising their voice–especially when they’re doing it on behalf of our children." This shows that he also is incompetent, dishonest, or both because they didn't lose their jobs for "simply raising their voices," which they have a constitutional right to do in an appropriate place such as outside the Legislature building. If Obama thinks they have the right to shut down proceedings instead, he does not understand the Constitution which brings into question his competence as an attorney, or he chooses to misrepresent it.

Biden, Harris, and Obama have therefore put themselves squarely in the camp of the leftist extremists who think it is OK to shout down a Federal judge at Stanford, and also shout down not only conservative speakers but also one from the American Civil Liberties Union.

Solid Blue San Francisco State University is OK with Men Who Batter Women

A gang of thugs at San Francisco State University who objected to swimmer Riley Gaines's opposition to having to compete against biological males forced her to take refuge in a classroom for three hours while some demanded money to let her leave. A man, and I use the term loosely, allegedly used his fists on this woman, which normally constitutes misdemeanor assault. I cannot give legal advice, but my understanding is that a demand for money backed up by a threat of physical force constitutes robbery or extortion. False imprisonment, which can be charged as a misdemeanor or felony depending on the circumstances, also comes to mind.

SFSU's President, Lynn Mahoney, said of these events, “Last Thursday, Turning Point USA hosted an event on campus that advocated for the exclusion of trans people in athletics. The event was deeply traumatic for many in our trans and LGBTQ+ communities, and the speaker’s message outraged many members of the SF State community." The President of SFSU is of course lying about anybody wanting to exclude trans people from athletics. Nobody is going to stop Lia Thomas from competing against other men in a sport in which upper body strength conveys an advantage.

Maybe the man who allegedly used his fists on Gaines is unhappy that she alleged that Lia Thomas exposed his "courting tackle," the term used by George Macdonald Fraser's antihero Harry Flashman for male genitalia, in the women's locker room. Maybe President Mahoney is also OK with thugs forcing a terrified woman to hide in a classroom for three hours for fear of being gang-beaten by them. The rest of us, including potential SFSU applicants, are free to conclude that SFSU is a physically unsafe learning environment where (alleged unless and until somebody is convicted) assault, unlawful imprisonment, robbery, and/or extortion are tolerated.

18 U.S. Code § 241 - Conspiracy against rights says meanwhile it is a felony "If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any [constitutional] right or privilege so secured.…" The phrase "go in disguise on the highway" brings to mind Ku Klux Klansmen on horses with torches in their hands. I see no difference between the thugs who terrorized Riley Gaines for not knowing her place and the night-riding Ku Klux Klansmen of the post-Civil War Confederacy.

This Needs to be a Central Issue in 2024

The Democrat Left, including the current and former heads of the Democrat party, has come across as condoning disruption of the legislative process and, in the case of SFSU's leftist administration, failure to condemn unequivocally physical threats and violence against a speaker. This, along with the fact that ActBlue Charities has apparently renewed its relationship with Black Lives Matter, needs to be a front and center issue in 2024.

I intend to report more on this later, but suffice to say for now that BLM meets the ADL and IHRA definitions of anti-Semitic (denial of the right of Israel to exist), promotes looting and rioting, endorses convicted Jew-murdering bomber Rasmea Odeh and convicted cop killer "Mama Assata" Shakur, endorses suspected cop killer and hijacker Charles Hill, and glorifies Fidel Castro whom BLM says should "rest in power." The Zachor Legal Institute has meanwhile alleged that BLM has ties with "domestic terror affiliates" of foreign terrorist organizations. The bottom line is that the Democrat Left is infested throughout with Jew-haters, race hustlers, looters, rioters, people who disrupt legislatures and speeches, men who use their fists on women with whom they disagree, and an organization (BLM) that praises terrorists, cop killers, and a dictator who murdered thousands of Cubans.

Civis Americanus is the pen name of a contributor who remembers the lessons of history, and wants to ensure that our country never needs to learn those lessons again the hard way. He or she is remaining anonymous due to the likely prospect of being subjected to "cancel culture" for exposing the Big Lie behind Black Lives Matter.

Migrant enclaves already are at the top of the U.S. lists for bad places to  - 10 of the 50 worst places in America to live according to this list are in California, and all of them are famous for their illegal populations.             MONICA SHOWALTER

Poll: Only 22% Say Joe Biden’s America Headed in Right Direction, Down 6 Points Since January

6

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

WENDELL HUSEBØ

15 Apr 20236

3:10

Only 22 percent of Americans believe President Joe Biden’s America is headed in the right direction, down six points since January, a CIVIQS poll found Friday.

While fewer Americans say the nation is headed in an increasingly right direction, 68 percent say it is headed in the wrong direction, up six points since January.

The CIVIQS rolling job approval average tracked 472,851 responses between January 19, 2017, and April 13, 2023. The CIVIQS tracking model is meant to capture the shifts in attitude of various groups over time across all 50 states and Washington, DC. These changes can happen either over time or rapidly.

Two major political events have occurred since January. The nation suffered a banking crisis, and former President Donald Trump was indicted by a far-left district attorney from Manhattan.

The banking crisis was caused, in part, by sharp interest rate hikes to tamp down Biden’s inflation. The Federal Reserve continued to increase interest rates in March to tamp down inflation, a decision subject to speculation by financial experts, as the central bank weighed reducing soaring inflation and the stability of the banking system.

Biden’s 40-year-high inflation, on average, cost American households an extra $5,200 last year, or $433 per month, according to Bloomberg.

Ninety percent of voters are worried about Biden’s soaring inflation, the top concern among those sampled in a March Fox News poll. Overall, 70 percent of Americans feel financially stressed in Biden’s America, a CNBC Your Money Financial Confidence survey revealed Tuesday.

After the banking crisis, Trump was indicted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. The indictment was historic, as no president has ever been indicted, much less by the leadership of a member of the opposition party who is running for president.

A recent survey from YouGov/Yahoo found that most Americans do not think the indictment from a New York grand jury will have a negative effect on Trump. Meanwhile, Trump took the lead over Biden in a hypothetical general election match-up after the indictment.

Additional polling shows the partisan nature of the indictment, according to legal experts, has not been lost on the electorate. Seventy-six percent of U.S. adult respondents believe politics influenced “the decision to indict Trump,” a CNN-commissioned poll found.

Bragg’s case has not been off to a good start. A federal court on Tuesday denied his request for a temporary restraining order to prevent House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) from questioning a former prosecutor about Bragg’s case against Trump.

Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.

WHILE THESE WOMEN WERE INSIDE TRADING, SUCKING BANKSTER BRIBES, PUSHING FOR JOE'S OPEN BORDERS AND ABORTION, THIS IS  WHAT WAS HAPPENING ON THEIR BLOCK.

AND THEY COULD NOT GIVE A FUK!

San Franciscans face about a 1-in-16 chance each year of being a victim of property or violent crime, which makes the city more dangerous than 98 percent of US cities, both small and large. To put this in perspective, Compton, California, the infamous home of drug gang turf wars, and which today remains more dangerous than 90 percent of all US cities, is almost twice as safe as San Francisco.

A shocking video of a baby born on a San Francisco street highlights the city’s collapse.

By Andrea Widburg

Apparently, San Francisco mayor London Breed has been feeling downright smug about the fact that Cash App founder Bob Lee did not die at the hands of a random homeless person but, instead, was allegedly murdered by someone he knew. That would be a decent boast if San Francisco were an otherwise clean and well-run city…but it’s not. It’s still a decayed basket case, as is vividly illustrated by a widely circulated video showing a homeless woman and her baby moments after she gave birth on the street.

Bob Lee’s terrible death made headlines across America. The instant assumption was that, given San Francisco’s descent into a Dante-esque inferno of drugs, filth, and human degradation, he was the victim of a random street crime. However, yesterday, the San Francisco police arrested Nima Momeni, a tech consultant who knew Bob Lee.

Mayor Breed was pleased with the case’s outcome, which she claims proves that the city is in great shape and that it’s the perceptions about the city that are wrong. Her claim would surprise a lot of the city’s residents.

In June 2021, car break-ins had seen a 750% year-over-year increase. Half a year later, the local media were reporting that, in a single month, San Francisco had 3,000 car break-ins. In December 2022, a survey showed that more than half of San Francisco residents had been victims of theft or larceny, with car break-ins topping the list. Admittedly, that’s not violent crime, but it’s a quality-of-life problem.

In November 2021, Lee Ohanian at the Hoover Institution wrote that San Francisco is one of the most crime-ridden cities in America:

San Franciscans face about a 1-in-16 chance each year of being a victim of property or violent crime, which makes the city more dangerous than 98 percent of US cities, both small and large. To put this in perspective, Compton, California, the infamous home of drug gang turf wars, and which today remains more dangerous than 90 percent of all US cities, is almost twice as safe as San Francisco.

This contention clashes with other outlets claiming in the wake of Lee’s death that San Francisco is a relatively safe city. However, as even the linked outlet admits, using woke, semi-literate English, there’s a “disconnect between San Francisco’s reasonable safety on paper and the lived experiences of the people who live there.” In other words, life there is dystopian and, I’m betting, most crimes don’t get reported because, with a “defund the police,” shrunken police department, and a prosecutor’s office that still hasn’t recovered from Chesa Boudin’s radical left tenure, doing so is a waste of time.

What really stands out about San Francisco isn’t the murders; it’s the homelessness:

These are the people who fill the streets and subways, leaving behind excrement, urine puddles, and drug paraphernalia, and who, along with the pro-shoplifters who plague San Francisco, even managed to drive away Whole Foods. They are broken people, and San Francisco is a broken society for incentivizing their presence there, rather than instituting a carrot-and-stick program of arrests and true treatment alternatives. However, with a giant homeless budget, the real money in San Francisco is in keeping the street people on the street.

Nothing more perfectly illustrates how broken San Francisco is than footage of a drug-addicted homeless woman giving birth on the streets of San Francisco, near the Tenderloin:

 

 

If the video doesn’t show well (and we have problems with Instagram embeds), you can see it here. The description says, “Woman gives birth on the street after smoking crack all afternoon according to the witness who filmed the video.”

That video is so horrible, it’s hard to believe it’s true. However, a local news outlet has verified that what’s shown in the video actually happened.

Of course, many women have had fast deliveries and found themselves on lawns or airplanes, or in cars or lobbies, giving birth. With this video, though, it’s easy to tell that this happened on the streets of the Tenderloin, just minutes away from Union Square, and that the woman was probably sitting on that piece of cardboard behind her when her water broke. To her credit, we can see that she cares about her baby’s life and well-being, so maybe there is hope for both of them.

But this is no way to run a once-great city in a once-great country. It’s like a snapshot of the downfall of Rome.

Image: A homeless woman gives birth on the sidewalks of San Francisco. Instagram screen grab.

How The Left Killed Our Great Cities

Welcome to the real-world impact of "progressivism."

April 13, 2023 by Stephen Moore 13 Comments

Mark down Tuesday, April 4, as the night Chicago died.

That’s when we learned that Second City voters narrowly elected Brandon Johnson as their next mayor. This is a city that was flattened during the reign of Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who lost in the first round of voting for Chicago mayor because she didn’t finish in one of the top two spots. Lightfoot, elected in 2019 after a career as a federal prosecutor who then held several appointed positions in Chicago, shut down the city for more than a year during COVID-19. She also bankrupted small businesses, allowed rioters to burn down whole neighborhoods, presided over the worst crime wave in 50 years and let the schools go to hell.

Now, the voters have selected Johnson. Elected to the Cook County Board of Commissioners in 2018, Johnson narrowly won the mayoralty of America’s third-most-populous city on April 4 over Paul Vallas, a former Chicago schools CEO and a Democrat who presented himself as a political moderate compared to the far-left Johnson.

The incoming mayor may turn out to be a worse mayor than Lightfoot. Johnson’s occupation is an organizer for the teachers unions. The unions spent several million dollars on the race. They got their man.

What this means is that Chicago’s municipal government will now be a fully owned subsidiary of the Chicago Teachers Union. (Can you imagine what the union contracts are going to look like?) This is a city where, in roughly two dozen schools, zero children can read or write at proficiency level.

Johnson said that crime and shoplifting from local schools are societal problems. And he may continue Lightfoot’s policy of not prosecuting people who rob stores — often owned by minorities.

It’s not just Chicago that has become a war zone. Portland, Seattle and San Francisco were not so long ago the crown jewels of the West Coast. They were said to be progressive cities that worked. No more. Now, they are unlivable. San Francisco is overrun with homeless people on seemingly every downtown street corner, feces on the sidewalks and trash everywhere.

In Portland, major businesses are pulling out in the aftermath of the takeover of the radical anarchists during COVID-19. Crime is so rampant that Walmart recently said “adios,” shutting down its last store. Rains PDX, a clothing store in Portland, shut down last November after a string of break-ins made it impossible to stay open. This printed sign pasted on the door says it all:

“Small businesses (and large) cannot sustain doing business, in our city’s current state. We have no protection, or recourse, against the criminal behavior that goes unpunished. Do not be fooled into thinking that insurance companies cover losses. We have sustained 15 break-ins … We have not received any financial reimbursement since the 3rd.”

For the first time, Seattle is losing population. To be “progressive,” Seattle is imposing a massive capital gains tax increase — socking it to the rich. So they are fleeing the city and Washington state.

One of the nation’s top demographers, Wendell Cox, has been analyzing the just-released Census Bureau data on county population. He found that “during the late 2010s and before the pandemic, population growth and domestic migration transitioned toward smaller metropolitan areas from larger ones. That outmigration is accelerating.”

The nation’s 10 largest counties have lost more than 1 million residents since 2019. The biggest losers have been the counties that are home to New York and San Francisco and Chicago’s Cook County. Even Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous county, with just under 10 million people, is now contracting.

Welcome to the real-world impact of progressivism. Instead of worker paradises, the Left has transitioned our once-shining cities into slums, murder zones, homeless encampments and boarded-up stores. They have become cults of economic and political quackery — and tragically, few Democrats have the courage to speak out. They are worried about being called racists when the reality is that the victims — of terrible public schools, high murder rates and an anti-business creed — are the minorities they say they care so much about.

The three poisons of America’s leftist cities are 1) high taxes, 2) schools that don’t educate and 3) crime running rampant. As mayors such as Rudy Giuliani of New York City proved in the 1990s after the Big Apple had been driven to its knees, all it takes is committed leadership to fix these problems. Things can change quickly, as they did in Manhattan.

The fact that Chicagoans have elected not a reformer, but a deformer, suggests that inner-city residents still don’t get it — or they don’t care. Or they are all on the payroll of the city governments that are going bankrupt. Alas, our cities can’t be saved if the voters in these metropolises don’t want to be saved.

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

CUT AND PASTE YOUTUBE LINKS 

Why Most Californians Aren't Happy with the State | Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ggNbVd8f3M&list=WL&index=100&t=10s

  

Migrant enclaves already are at the top of the U.S. lists for bad places to  - 10 of the 50 worst places in America to live according to this list are in California, and all of them are famous for their illegal populations.             MONICA SHOWALTER

  

The Root Cause of People Leaving California | Joel Kotkin 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3viy5DISO7M

California Has the Highest State Taxes, What's Next | Joel Fox

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwIBKCMJL0w

San Francisco locals react to rampant shoplifting, break-ins | Fox News Digital Original

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU6o2MIuMQc&t=110s

     

EXCLUSIVE: Two San Francisco Prosecutors Quit, Join Effort to Recall City's DA'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqTfK2pRXs0

    

‘The Five’: San Francisco is so out of control even Whole Foods shut down

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Jk-9q4kY_k

California Reparations: a 'Blueprint for America’?

By Chris Talgo

Like many deep-blue states, California has its share of deep-rooted problems. From a surge in violent crime, homelessness, and drug overdoses to a giant budget shortfall, a population exodus, and a power grid on the brink of collapse, the Golden State is suffering from multiple crises.

Yet, instead of addressing these problems and actually making life better for the 39 million Americans who currently live in California, Golden State lawmakers are focused on identity politics in the form of a comprehensive reparations plan that one California lawmaker says, “will be a blueprint for America.”

So, what does the California Reparations Task Force (CRTF) “blueprint for America” look like?

For starters, the CRTF seeks to provide all eligible Black Californians with a lump sum payment of $5 million. On top of that, eligible residents would also receive “free” college, “free” housing, and total debt forgiveness, among several other government goodies.

According to California Reparations Task Force Chair Kamilah Moore, “I hope that… this task force sets a precedent not only for what other states can do… but, of course, the federal government as well because it's primarily the federal government's responsibility. They are the entity that has the big enough purse, for instance, to close the wealth gap, and so I do think that the task force is headed in the right direction in terms of that precedent-setting.”

If Moore gets her wish, and other states follow California down the reparations road, the economic and social repercussions would be terrible. If the federal government were to embark on a similar quest, it would spell the end of America as we know it.

First, it must be stated that slavery never existed in California. In fact, California was a free state that fought alongside the Union against the Confederacy during the Civil War. That alone should make the reparations conversation in California moot.

Second, California (and every other state for that matter) does not have billions of dollars at its disposal to redistribute to a sliver of its population. Currently, California’s population is 39 percent Hispanic, 35 percent White, 5 percent Asian, and 4 percent Black. Is it fair to force 95 percent of Californians, all of whom had absolutely nothing to do with a reprehensible institution that was outlawed more than 150 years ago, to pay enormous sums of money to 4 percent of the population simply based on their skin color? Of course not. Actually, that is the very essence of racism.

Third, if California lawmakers really wanted to help its Black residents and close the wealth gap, one-time payments and other government handouts will not make the situation better, it arguably will make it worse.

Consider. Since the start of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “war on poverty,” the federal government has spent $22 trillion on various wealth redistribution programs. Yet, over that span, the rate of poverty remains unchanged.

Perhaps this is because giving some people other people’s money is an incentive for the former to remain indolent. In other words, government checks breed dependence on government.

On the other hand, if California lawmakers were actually interested in addressing the plight of many of the Black residents who live in the Golden State, they ought to take a forward-looking approach that would include an increased police presence, a tough on crime approach, lower taxes, fewer regulations, and commonsense policies that would make energy affordable and abundant.

And, if these same lawmakers were really audacious and genuinely wanted to throw a wrench into the cycle of poverty that has entrapped so many Black Californians, they would do everything in their power to ensure that universal school choice was the norm in the Golden State. It also would help if these so-called leaders addressed the elephant in the room: the breakdown of the Black family, which is arguably the biggest driver of poverty and so many other societal problems.

However, these are difficult conversations for leftist lawmakers, who always view more government wealth redistribution as the answer to everything. It is much easier for politicians to propose a superficial solution, like reparation payments, even though time has shown that giving people money doesn’t solve deep-seated, complex problems.

I hope the rest of the country does not follow California’s lead on this issue. Once upon a time, Americans flocked to California because it was the land of freedom and opportunity. Today, Americans are fleeing California because it has become the land of big government socialism and identity politics. Suffice to say, this is not the path that other states, or the federal government, want to tread.

Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is editorial director at The Heartland Institute.

Image: Fibonacci Blue

Migrant enclaves already are at the top of the U.S. lists for bad places to  - 10 of the 50 worst places in America to live according to this list are in California, and all of them are famous for their illegal populations.             MONICA SHOWALTER

Kamala Harris announces what amounts to a stealth reparations plan

By Thomas Lifson

In a little-noted speech last week, VP Kamala Harris revealed that the federal government will be giving out gifts amounting to $1.7 billion dollars to “minority” businesses. This amounts to a stealth reparations plan, as the recipients likely will be predominantly Black. The Hill reports:

Vice President Harris on Monday announced $1.7 billion in grants for more than 600 community lenders to support small businesses, entrepreneurs, nonprofits, housing and commercial real estate as they seek to rebound from the coronavirus pandemic.

Harris announced the grants as part of the Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, saying that the loans will go to support local lending institutions that primarily serve minority communities, which may be hesitant to seek out a loan from a bigger bank. She said that the lenders will not need to pay back “not even a dollar of this investment,” and noting that the awards are grants, not loans.

“These banks predominantly do business in overlooked and underserved communities,” she said. “They know these communities. They understand these communities. And in particular, most importantly, they know and see the capacity of these communities.”

YouTube screengrab (cropped)

It is unclear where the money will come from, though there is still cash from Covid appropriations and the massive spending bills available.

Disguising the gifts, targeted on the basis of race, as loans that don’t have to be repaid is particularly obnoxious. What kind of lesson is it for budding entrepreneurs that you don’t have to repay money that you borrowed – because you have to approved racial identity?

Moreover, targeted loans to “disadvantaged” firms have a terrible track record, as the Wall Street Journal editorial board points out:

[T]he U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia recently won a $1 million settlement for fraud in federal contracting for Disadvantaged Business Enterprises, or DBEs. Here’s a wild idea: Why not award construction funds based on merit, not claims of identity? (snip)

The DBE program, set up in the 1980s, steers money to small businesses that are at least 51% owned by “disadvantaged” persons. Women are “presumed disadvantaged,” along with people who are black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian-Pacific or Subcontinent Asian, although there are also limits on net worth and firm size. The government’s general goal is for 10% of its highway and transit funds to be spent with DBEs. But they’re supposed to do real work, not merely pass money through.

“This was precisely the case with the Platt Bridge project,” says a news release by the U.S. Attorney. In 2011, Hercules-Vimas Joint Venture won a $42.7 million painting job from Pennsylvania’s Department of Transportation. To meet the disadvantaged rules, it subcontracted Vertech International, a certified DBE. “While Hercules-Vimas represented to PENNDOT that Vertech was the paint supplier, the government alleges that it worked directly with Sherwin-Williams, a non-disadvantaged business, to deliver paint and materials to the project site. Vertech merely created invoices designed to conceal the fraud in exchange for a nominal fee.”

Principals from Vertech and Hercules-Vimas pleaded guilty in 2016 and 2017. The new $1 million settlement is with Sherwin-Williams, which the feds allege was a knowing participant. (snip)

So the DBE program raises the cost of construction, creates an ecosystem of make-work for certification and oversight, and provides easy pickings for scofflaws? The U.S. Attorney in Boston last week announced a $1.24 million settlement to resolve an alleged “fraudulent scheme” in an I-95 project. 

Favoritism of any type, whether based on race, ethnicity, bribery, or political clout, is counterproductive. I am more and more convinced that the solution to racial disparities is in the reforming the education system and efforts to recognize the importance of and to instill functional social norms across underperforming groups.

NO, BLACK CRIME HAS KILLED OUR ONCE GREAT CITIES. BLACKS MAKE UP ONLY 8% OF THE POPULATION OF SAN FRANCISCO, BUT PERPETRATE 40% OF THE CRIMES (these are pre-covid stats and before the store looting and carjacking began).

The Left Has Killed Our Great Cities

STEPHEN MOORE | APRIL 11, 2023 | 9:17AM EDT

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(Getty Images)

Mark down Tuesday, April 4, as the night Chicago died.

That's when we learned that Second City voters narrowly elected Brandon Johnson as their next mayor. This is a city that was flattened during the reign of Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who lost in the first round of voting for Chicago mayor because she didn't finish in one of the top two spots. Lightfoot, elected in 2019 after a career as a federal prosecutor who then held several appointed positions in Chicago, shut down the city for more than a year during COVID-19. She also bankrupted small businesses, allowed rioters to burn down whole neighborhoods, presided over the worst crime wave in 50 years and let the schools go to hell.

Now, the voters have selected Johnson. Elected to the Cook County Board of Commissioners in 2018, Johnson narrowly won the mayoralty of America's third-most-populous city on April 4 over Paul Vallas, a former Chicago schools CEO and a Democrat who presented himself as a political moderate compared to the far-left Johnson.

The incoming mayor may turn out to be a worse mayor than Lightfoot. Johnson's occupation is an organizer for the teachers unions. The unions spent several million dollars on the race. They got their man.

What this means is that Chicago's municipal government will now be a fully owned subsidiary of the Chicago Teachers Union. (Can you imagine what the union contracts are going to look like?) This is a city where, in roughly two dozen schools, zero children can read or write at proficiency level.

Johnson said that crime and shoplifting from local schools are societal problems. And he may continue Lightfoot's policy of not prosecuting people who rob stores -- often owned by minorities.

It's not just Chicago that has become a war zone. Portland, Seattle and San Francisco were not so long ago the crown jewels of the West Coast. They were said to be progressive cities that worked. No more. Now, they are unlivable. San Francisco is overrun with homeless people on seemingly every downtown street corner, feces on the sidewalks and trash everywhere.

In Portland, major businesses are pulling out in the aftermath of the takeover of the radical anarchists during COVID-19. Crime is so rampant that Walmart recently said "adios," shutting down its last store. Rains PDX, a clothing store in Portland, shut down last November after a string of break-ins made it impossible to stay open. This printed sign pasted on the door says it all:

"Small businesses (and large) cannot sustain doing business, in our city's current state. We have no protection, or recourse, against the criminal behavior that goes unpunished. Do not be fooled into thinking that insurance companies cover losses. We have sustained 15 break-ins ... We have not received any financial reimbursement since the 3rd."

For the first time, Seattle is losing population. To be "progressive," Seattle is imposing a massive capital gains tax increase -- socking it to the rich. So they are fleeing the city and Washington state.

One of the nation's top demographers, Wendell Cox, has been analyzing the just-released Census Bureau data on county population. He found that "during the late 2010s and before the pandemic, population growth and domestic migration transitioned toward smaller metropolitan areas from larger ones. That outmigration is accelerating."

The nation's 10 largest counties have lost more than 1 million residents since 2019. The biggest losers have been the counties that are home to New York and San Francisco and Chicago's Cook County. Even Los Angeles County, the nation's most populous county, with just under 10 million people, is now contracting.

Welcome to the real-world impact of progressivism. Instead of worker paradises, the Left has transitioned our once-shining cities into slums, murder zones, homeless encampments and boarded-up stores. They have become cults of economic and political quackery -- and tragically, few Democrats have the courage to speak out. They are worried about being called racists when the reality is that the victims -- of terrible public schools, high murder rates and an anti-business creed -- are the minorities they say they care so much about.

The three poisons of America's leftist cities are 1) high taxes, 2) schools that don't educate and 3) crime running rampant. As mayors such as Rudy Giuliani of New York City proved in the 1990s after the Big Apple had been driven to its knees, all it takes is committed leadership to fix these problems. Things can change quickly, as they did in Manhattan.

The fact that Chicagoans have elected not a reformer, but a deformer, suggests that inner-city residents still don't get it -- or they don't care. Or they are all on the payroll of the city governments that are going bankrupt. Alas, our cities can't be saved if the voters in these metropolises don't want to be saved.

Census Data Shows Mass Exodus from Democrat-Run Cities to Red States

323

Jill Siegrist/flickr; David J. Phillip/AP

MICHAEL FOSTER

11 Apr 2023848

3:39

Counties overlapping Democrat-run cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York top the list of locales that have been losing population, while the biggest inflows of people have been to Arizona, Texas, and Florida, according to census data.

A Press Release by the United States Census Bureau revealed that the top county in terms of population loss was Los Angeles County, which lost 90,704 people over a one-year period from 2021 to 2022.

Elsewhere in California, Santa Clara County lost 15,650 people and Alameda County lost 14,840 residents.

Cook County Illinois, home to the city of Chicago, lost 68,314 people during the same period. 

In New York, Queens County lost 50,112 people, Kings County lost 46,970 people, and Bronx County lost 41,143 people between 2021 and 2022.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – MAY 25: A view of a moving truck during the coronavirus pandemic on May 25, 2020, in the Queens borough of New York City. (Cindy Ord/Getty Images)

According to the Census Bureau, 68 percent of the largest counties in the United States experienced population gains.

The counties that had the largest inflows of new residents were Maricopa County, Arizona, which includes Phoenix, and Harris County, Texas, which has Houston as its county seat. Indeed, six of the ten counties that experienced the largest population gains were located in the Lone Star State, with Harris and five other counties experiencing an influx of 209,182 people in aggregate.

Other big winners in terms of population gain were located in the state of Florida. The Census Bureau reported the counties of Polk, Lee, and Montgomery together gained 92,848 people.

The Census Bureau noted that while a pandemic-era flight from big cities was a population boon to rural locales, this trend was more muted between 2021 and 2022. Instead, while some cities continued to lose residents, the major beneficiaries were different cities elsewhere in the country, particularly the south and west. 

As Breitbart News noted, data from the Public Policy Institute of California suggested economic conditions, rising costs – particularly in housing – and the large homeless populations that roam some of California’s largest cities were major drivers of a population decline in the state, totaling roughly half a million people between 2020 and 2022.

Similarly, an Illinois Policy Institute analysis of data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) found that between 2019 and 2020 the average person leaving the state earned over $30,000 more than the average person moving to the state.

The analysis also revealed that besides the adjacent states of Indiana and Wisconsin, the main states residents were fleeing to were Texas, Florida, and Arizona.

The report cited jobs, housing, and tax policy as the major factors driving residents to other states.

Notably, neither Texas nor Florida levies a state income tax, and Arizona taxes personal income at roughly half the Illinois rate.

RELATED — WATCH: Hawkins: ‘Nothing Is Changing’ — ‘Democrat-Controlled Cities Are Killing Fields’

0 seconds of 2 minutes, 1 secondVolume 90%

You can follow Michael Foster on Twitter at @realmfoster.

‘The Five’: San Francisco is so out of control even Whole Foods shut down

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Jk-9q4kY_k

WARNING! GAVIN NEWSOM WANTS TO BE PRESIDENT! THIS IS THE SHITSTATE HE WANTS TO EXPAND BORDER TO OPEN BORDER!!!

IS LIFE IN CALIFORNIA THAT BAD: "Failed State"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEesZI4qx0U

NAME EVEN ONE DEMOCRAT-CONTROLLED SANCTUARY CITY THE DEMOCRAT PARTY HAS NOT YET DESTROYED. JUST ONE.

Watters: The Five (CRIME) Families of the Democrat Party

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBpvvHethg0

Internet stock traders often follow Nancy

Pelosi's purchases and selloffs for investing tips, Business

Insider reported, with some suggesting "she's making the

big bucks off of insider information."

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

CUT AND PASTE YOUTUBE LINKS 

San Francisco locals react to rampant shoplifting, break-ins | Fox News Digital Original

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU6o2MIuMQc&t=110s

     

EXCLUSIVE: Two San Francisco Prosecutors Quit, Join Effort to Recall City's DA'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqTfK2pRXs0

    

San Francisco’s Flagship Whole Foods Market Location Closes Until City Makes It Safe to Reopen

CRAIG BANNISTER | APRIL 11, 2023 | 11:08AM EDT

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A flagship Whole Foods Market location in San Francisco has been closed until the store is able to ensure the safety of its employees.

Previously, the store had changed its bathroom policy to cut down on drug use and removed its handbaskets because they made shoplifting easier. But, that wasn’t enough, NBC Bay Area notes:

“The location at 8th and Market streets will keep its doors closed beginning Tuesday. It's not known when the store will reopen.

"‘To ensure the safety of our Team Members, we have made the difficult decision to close the Trinity store for the time being,’ a Whole Foods Market spokesperson said in a statement.”

The store, which was a little more than a year old, shut its doors after a center across the street helping drug users and the homeless closed, local station KTVU reports:

“The store opened on March 10, 2022, and was nearly 65,000 square feet. 

“Five months ago, the Tenderloin Center —  a place intended to be a safe place to reduce overdose deaths for those who use drugs and provided services for the unhoused — was across the street from Whole Foods, but closed.”

Crime in San Francisco isn’t confined to just everyday citizens, Yahoo! News reports:

“The news comes after a recent spate of violent attacks upon prominent San Franciscans. CashApp founder Bob Lee was fatally stabbed last week, cycling champion Ethan Boyes died after being struck by a car, and former fire commissioner Don Carmignani was brutally beat over the head with a pipe by a homeless man, surviving.

“When a team from CNN traveled to San Francisco’s city hall to report on the crime issue, members of the crew had their bags stolen out of their rental car nearby.”

Other retailers in the city are also closing, due to increasing crime.

For example, despite increased security, theft at Walmart and Walgreens stores in San Francisco has skyrocketed, forcing store closures. And, as The Daily Mail has noted, soft-on-crime policies are to blame:

“These lax bail reform laws in often-liberal cities, including New York and San Francisco, mean there is virtually no penalty for the thieves who carry out the crimes.

“Without any threat of a jail sentence, the crooks are released back out onto the streets and able to reoffend - often on the same day of their original arrest.”

San Francisco has, reportedly, become “a shoplifter’s paradise,” since theft of less than $950 has been, essentially, decriminalized.

A study of prospective homebuyers by brokerage company Redfin released last December found that San Francisco had the highest net outflow - a measure of how many more homebuyers are looking to leave an area than move into it - among major metropolitan cities.

Whole Foods shuts down its flagship store in San Francisco after just one year over city's failure to control crime

By Monica Showalter

Just days after a top tech executive was killed in a random street stabbing, and a former fire commissioner was beaten by a bum with a metal object, the wokester leftists running San Francisco can take another bow.

The huge new ritzy Whole Foods Market flagship store in San Francisco, which opened only a year ago, has announced it's closing shop, citing the city's out-of-control crime. 

According to the San Francisco Standard:

One of the largest supermarkets in Downtown San Francisco—the Whole Foods Market at Eighth and Market streets—intends to shut down at the close of business Monday just a little more than a year after the store opened, company officials told The Standard.

“We are closing our Trinity location only for the time being,” a Whole Foods spokesperson said in a statement. “If we feel we can ensure the safety of our team members in the store, we will evaluate a reopening of our Trinity location.”

 

A City Hall source told The Standard the company cited deteriorating street conditions around drug use and crime near the grocery store as a reason for its closure.

This wasn't just any Whole Foods Market high-end grocery store. This was the 64,737-square-foot flagship store in a fleet of nine grocery stores, built as a state-of-the-art establishment to cater to a high-end clientele. There were art sculptures and fancy flooring in the courtyard, and electrical vehicle charging stations in the secure parking lot. The store itself, which based on its pictures appeared to be a secure box with a glass framework around it, to prevent looting, featured locally grown organic produce, handcrafted chocolates, fresh baked goods, fancy organic personal care products, craft beers, Napa Valley wines, ready-to-eat meals, hard-to-find gourmet specialties, and more, none of which come cheap. But they did have the customer base to support such an operation -- with the tech baronies up the street on Market towards the Bay -- Twitter, SalesForce, Uber, Block -- the happy customers. The typical Whole Foods customer, according to Statista, is someone in the prized 30-49 year old demographic, which are most customers' prime working years.

Just one problem, though: The place was plagued by violent crime from the nearby bums of downtown, the South of Market area, the Mission and the Tenderloin, all of which are just as walking distance to the place as the various tech headquarters.

Target closed one of its large stores not far from where the Whole Foods was located on the same crime concerns in 2021. They couldn't take the daily losses of thousands of dollars in merchandise -- and the robbings and beatings of both the employees and the customers who would otherwise come to shop. Whole Foods specifically cited the safety of its employees.

 Which was sorry stuff, because according to the Trinity developer, the idea was to make the market an "open" and inviting and inclusive place for the community. According to the San Francisco Chronicle's account at the time of the ritzy, much-hyped opening:

But only with this spring’s opening of a Whole Foods Market along Market Street does the scale of Trinity Place sink in. It is huge — no surprise. It’s also more inviting than you might expect.

The invitation is literal, with the new building along Market Street punctured by an eight-story portal that’s 45 feet wide and leads into a large courtyard. Another, lower portal is carved through the building beyond.

Semi-public spaces often are designed and managed with cues to keep outsiders out, to keep passersby passing by. Here, it’s the opposite. If the vast portal doesn’t whet your curiosity, maybe the herringbone pattern of the white-and-black marble pavers will. No? Then try and resist the lure of life-size classical figures carved from white marble and encased in thick clear glass. You’ll want a closer look — if only to confirm that you’re not hallucinating the juxtaposition of rigid modernism and curvaceous Greek bodies, male and female alike.

With bums, lifestyle homeless people, drug addicts and criminals all around, you can just imagine how that worked out. The Whole Foods statement explicitly cited "hostile people."

Which drives customers away, of course. Combine it with the lockdowns which turned large numbers of tech workers into telecommuters, the great flight from the city of the city's residents, the tech layoffs, the shutdowns of small businesses in the area on bad losses, and the city's defunding of the police, leaving it some 500 officers short, and one can pretty well see that the whole thing was a big disaster for Whole Foods, which had just opened the place and wanted to cut its losses just to stop the figurative bleeding. Like Target, they first cut their hours because of the unapprehended and unpunished criminal element. Then they shut their doors, although they may be attempting to pressure the city into providing security and enforcing its laws, given that the San Francisco Standard reported that employees were seen still stocking store shelves, which a store would be unlikely to do if it is planning to get the hell out of Dodge.

All the same, the writing is on the wall. According to this financial report, which is a little outdated, I'm still looking for the exact amount they shelled out to open this store, but we know the company spends big dollars -- neighborhood of $300 million companywide each year, to develop new store locations.  (You find it on the cash flow statement under investment activities with a specific line about developing new locations).

Getting the permit for the store would have taken about six years, as this example demonstrates, and particularly for Whole Foods, which is non-union. The complex itself took 19 years to get off the ground.

So the fact that they shut down so quickly to cut their losses, against that much investment and fanfare, tells us a lot about just how serious the situation is and just how bad the losses were. 

That's on San Francisco's blue-city government. The tech community is bound to make noise about the loss of their favorite grocery store, and the stories about San Francisco becoming a food desert are likely to grow too. They just can't bring themselves to curb crime and defund the NGOs which are effectively producing this huge class of bums and criminals. Now they have to live with it. Hope they don't get hungry.

Image: JCruzTheTruth, via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 4.0

IS LIFE IN CALIFORNIA THAT BAD: "Failed State"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEesZI4qx0U

U.S. Cycling Champion Ethan Boyes Struck and Killed by Car in San Francisco

Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via AP

WARNER TODD HUSTON

9 Apr 2023149

2:41

Ethan Boyes, a ten-time U.S. cycling champion, was struck and killed by a car on the streets of San Francisco on Tuesday.

Boyes suffered critical injuries after being hit by a driver in Presidio, near Arguello Boulevard at Washington Boulevard. He was taken to a local hospital, where he soon died from his injuries, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The 44-year-old athlete has a long list of accomplishments and championship wins and is the current Masters’ Track World Champion in the Men’s 40-44 Time Trial and Sprint event. He also holds several records for over 40 riders and the American record for the 500-meter “flying start” track time trial.

Sydney Parcell, right, and Wagner Sousa places a track cycling world champion jersey at a memorial, Thursday, April 6, 2023, in San Francisco, near where friend Ethan Boyes was fatally struck by a vehicle earlier in the week. (Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

The tributes poured in for the cyclist.

“Ethan was a very experienced cyclist and well regarded in the cyclist community,” Shaana Rahman, a spokesperson for the family, told the paper. “This is a pretty devastating loss for the family and for the San Francisco cycling community.”

“He was literally one of the nicest people I’ve ever met — not only in the small circle of track cycling… but anywhere!” former teammate Karl Baumgart wrote on Facebook. “… He also just so happened to be one of the fastest sprinters in the World.”

“Beyond Ethan’s athletic achievements, he was an upstanding member of the American track cycling community,” USA Cycling said in a Facebook post. “His loss will be felt at local, regional, national, and world events for years, as he brought a mixture of competition and friendliness to every race. Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones.”

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, a city safety group, also lamented the loss.

“The SF Bicycle Coalition joins the bicycling community in mourning Ethan Boyes, a well-known and beloved figure in San Francisco bicycling, and especially in the track racing world,” the coalition wrote. “The outpouring of sadness on social media speaks to Ethan’s kindness and generosity of spirit. We extend our deepest condolences to Ethan’s family and everyone who knew and loved him.”

Since the accident occurred in the Presidio of San Francisco, which is a former U.S. Army Post and a national park, U.S. Park Police are investigating the incident.

Park police also reported that the driver of the vehicle that hit Boyes was also injured and was treated at the hospital.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston

THIS IS WHAT GAVIN NEWSOM DID FOR CA .... the vision of the Democrat Party is 49 more Mexifornias

I Drove Around California For A Month. It Was A Disaster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVsxOMUzeJk

The city of Austin, Texas, might be liberal, but it has yet to become

the fecal-infested drug den that is San Francisco. Tesla CEO Elon

Musk hopes it stays that way.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/10/31/elon-musk-warns-austin-texas-avoid-becoming-san-francisco-copycat/

Californians Losing Homes to Eviction Moratorium | Jonathan Madison

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK-WEL8YIHM

Migrant enclaves already are at the top of the U.S. lists for bad places to  - 10 of the 50 worst places in America to live according to this list are in California, and all of them are famous for their illegal populations.   MONICA SHOWALTER

Gavin Newsom Visits States Where Freedom ‘Under Attack’; Skips California

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

JOEL B. POLLAK

9 Apr 202335

2:14

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) revealed Thursday that he has completed a tour of states where “freedom” is “under attack” — but excluded California, even as he tries to limit the Second Amendment and other freedoms there.

CBS News noted that Newsom “has been everywhere but the Golden State” in his tour, which included Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and other Southern states. Newsom has targeted socially conservative laws on abortion, and has (falsely) accused states like Florida of “banning books” because they have barred the use of radical ideologies like Critical Race Theory, and have removed transgenderism from curricula for early grades.

Newsom is hardly a proponent of “freedom” — at least in his own state. He banned indoor religious worship during the coronavirus pandemic — a policy that was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court — and has constantly targeted the Second Amendment, though his policies have also fallen afoul of the courts. Newsom is also attacking the oil and gas industry, attempting to eliminate gas-powered cars — just the latest example of a heavy-handed economic approach that limits economic freedom.

But California was not on the list of states for Newsom’s “tour,” which is aimed at shoring up a new political action committee (PAC), the Campaign for Democracy.

The PAC is widely seen as a vehicle for Newsom’s future presidential ambitions, though he has disavowed any intention to challenge President Joe Biden in 2024 — for now.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Illegal aliens continue overwhelming the state, draining California’s already depleted public services while endangering our lives, the rule of law, and public safety for all citizens. Arthur Schaper 

THIS IS WHAT GAVIN NEWSOM DID FOR CA 

I Drove Around California For A Month. It Was A Disaster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVsxOMUzeJk

SAN FRANCISCO IS ONLY ONE O GAVIN NEWSOM'S DISASTERS.

A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 49th lieutenant governor of California from 2011 to 2019 and the 42nd mayor of San Francisco from 2004 to 2011.

Cost of crime: Mass exodus of businesses from big cities

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnvNN6FBg94

The Five’: San Francisco chaos spirals out of control

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztDRqKPxLmI

As Gavin Newsom launches stealth campaign for Dem presidential nomination, he clamps down on media access to Cali government data

By Thomas Lifson

It’s obvious that Gavin Newsom is running for Joe Biden’s job on the assumption that the geriatric mediocrity will not run for re-election or that he can be defeated if he does run.  Polls show that a majority of Democrats would rather someone else head the ticket in 2024, after all.   And veteran political reporter Mark Halperin has a column citing anonymous White House insiders on the possibility Biden won’t run.

Meanwhile, Newsom is out touring red states and attacking Republicans, especially Ron DeSantis. Half a minute video.

He’s also announced something grandiosely titled The Campaign for democracy, focuse don how red states are denying your freedom (never mind keeping California schools closed longer than any other state and hindering the use of ivermectin for Covid). This is almost 2 minutes, so your patience may be tested.

Given his awful track record in California, driving away half a million residents in just the last 2 years – managing to see California’s population actually decline for the very first time ever -- it’s clearly in his advantage to go in the offense.

But now, he has gone further. He is hampering media access to information on California’s state government. CalMatters reports:

Like so much else about California, its state government is large: A $300 billion budget. More than 230 departments and agencies. More than 234,000 employees.

Keeping the public apprised of everything that’s happening in that massive bureaucracy requires its own small army of communications staff, who craft messages, write press releases and answer questions from journalists covering everything from the governor to welfare programs, prisons to water policy.

Lately, however, the information isn’t flowing as freely — raising transparency concerns among the press corps that acts as a watchdog for Californians.

Last month, the Capitol Correspondents Association of California, which represents journalists who cover the state Capitol and advocates for improved press access, distributed guidelines to its members about how to handle some of the increasingly common hurdles they encounter, including government agencies asking for questions in advance and refusing to attribute information to their spokespeople. (snip)

[T]he extraordinary step was prompted by years of complaints from Capitol press about problems reporting on Gov. Gavin Newsom, his administration and the Legislature. 

Newsom is a human Potemkin Village – all façade. Underneath the Brylcreem-rich hairdo he sports, there is no substance.

He publicly admits to dyslexia, but a veteran political observer of California avers to me that he is functionally illiterate, which might be a first of a president if, God forbid, he ever makes it to the White House.  He is very pretty, I admit, though I am no expert on male beauty. But that, and the sponsorship of the Getty fortune, is all he has.             

Photo credit: Grabien screengrab

S.F. IS HOME TO THREE OF THE MOST CORRUPT POLITICIANS IN AMERICAN HISTORY: FEINSTEIN, PELOSI, KAMALA HARRIS

I Drove Around California For A Month. It Was A Disaster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVsxOMUzeJk

Food Insecurity in America Reaches the Highest level in Four Years

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSXmUPIrFW8

Exclusive–Steve Camarota: Every Illegal Alien Costs Americans $70K Over Their Lifetime

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/04/11/exclusive-steve-camarota-every-illegal-alien-costs-americans-70k-over-their-lifetime/

JOHN BINDER

 Every illegal alien, over the course of their lifetime, costs American taxpayers about $70,000, Center for Immigration Studies Director of Research Steve Camarota says.

Migrant enclaves already are at the top of the U.S. lists for bad places to  - 10 of the 50 worst places in America to live according to this list are in California, and all of them are famous for their illegal populations.   MONICA SHOWALTER

Many Democrats understand that the welfare checks for foreign children will encourage more illegal immigration, he said:

They know what’s going on. But they know that they can’t say what their true goal is, which is actual open borders with open, uncontrolled migration both ways. And this is a step toward getting rid of borders.

“It’s a globalist mindset and it welcomes anything that moves toward open borders,” he concluded. NEIL MUNRO

Illegal aliens continue overwhelming the state, draining California’s already depleted public services while endangering our lives, the rule of law, and public safety for all citizens. Arthur Schaper 

Cash App Creator and Tech Executive Bob Lee Fatally Stabbed in San Francisco

1

Bob Lee/Facebook

LUCAS NOLAN

5 Apr 2023144

2:21

Tributes have begun to pour in for Cash App founder Bob Lee after it was reported that he was stabbed to death in San Francisco, California. Police found him on Tuesday morning suffering from numerous stab wounds and transported him to a hospital where he died. No arrests have been made.

The New York Post reports that the developer of the mobile payment system Cash App, Bob Lee, was fatally stabbed on Tuesday morning in San Francisco. According to local police reports, the 43-year-old was attacked in the downtown neighborhood of Rincon Hill.

Officers arrived on the scene and discovered Lee suffering from numerous stab wounds. He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he eventually passed away from his injuries. San Francisco police have not yet disclosed any suspect information or made any arrests.

According to his friend and mixed martial arts champion Jake Shields, Lee was attacked while walking. “He was in the ‘good’ part of the city and appeared to have been targeted in a random mugging/attack,” Shields shared on Twitter.

In his impressive career, Bob Lee has held positions such as Square’s chief technology officer and, most recently, MobileCoin’s chief product officer since November 2021. On Tuesday night, his coworkers started offering sincere condolences, with MobileCoin CEO Joshua Goldbard calling Lee “a force of nature.”

“Bob was a force of nature. Helped to birth Android and Cash App into our world,” Goldbard told ABC7. “Moby was his dream: a privacy-protecting wallet for the 21st Century. I will miss him every day.”

Lee made a lot of contributions to the tech sector. According to his profile on MobileCoin’s official website, Lee previously worked at Google, where he served as team leader for the Android core library and contributed to the introduction of the most popular operating system in the world. After that, he invested in a number of businesses, including Figma, Clubhouse, Beeper, and Faire, and founded the social network Present.

Read more at the New York Post here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan

San Francisco's ruling elites go all 'Chesa Boudin' on crime in wake of tech executive's killing

By Monica Showalter

Looks like getting rid of leftist district attorney Chesa Boudin didn't really get rid of the problem he represented for crime-battered San Francisco.

Two days, ago, this happened:

SAN FRANCISCO -- Bob Lee, founder of Cash App and the former chief technology officer of Square, was identified as the man stabbed to death early Tuesday morning near downtown San Francisco, according to his current employer, cryptocurrency startup MobileCoin.

Officers responded at about 2:35 a.m. to a report of a stabbing in the 400 block of Main Street in the city's Rincon Hill neighborhood. Officers found the victim who was taken to a hospital and succumbed to his injuries there, police said.

Rincon Hill's a nice neighborhood full of condos near various tech headquarters in downtown San Francisco, not far from the Bay Bridge entry, and close to the famous docks of the bay. It's not known as a criminal dump, but it's not far from the places that are -- from the retailers who've been subjects of mass lootings, to the dangerous areas in the South of Market and the Mission, to the seventh circle of hell known as the Tenderloin, which is loaded with drug addicts, drug dealers and five-dollar hookers.

Someone stabbed the man who had recently fled the city but returned for a brief business trip, while he was walking at night in a seemingly random attack; a productive citizen with no criminal background who apparently had no enemies and was successful in his field. When he tried to flag down a car to get himself to the hospital, the cars he pleaded with all drove past him, not helping him; leaving him to die, which happened shortly afterward.

It's a horrible story of seemingly random crime brought on by the layers and layers of crime already engulfing San Francisco, accentuated by citizen flight, and an emerging culture of distrust, like you see in places like Argentina and Venezuela -- where someone who seemingly needs help is fled from in terror as a likely ruse for robbery. And yes, the tech community is alarmed and beginning to protest

But instead of confronting this complete breakdown in law and order, the ruling elites of San Franciso are trying to make light of it. Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who has a headquarters walking distance from where Lee was stabbed, made this pointed tweet about it:

 

 

The response? Get a load of this goober, who serves as a "police commissioner" in the city:

 

 

According to the San Francisco Standard:

At a City Hall meeting Wednesday evening, Police Commissioner Kevin Benedicto expressed frustration with the deluge of comments on social media and in the press, saying many people were “exploiting this horrific incident for political gain.” He encouraged people to read eulogies about the victim—not Musk’s tweets.

“So much of the coverage in this short amount of time has been a significant amount of misrepresenting facts, of fear-mongering and of trying to exploit this tragedy,” Benedicto said. “We don’t know all the facts. … I find it premature and distasteful to try to fit this horrifying act of violence into a preconceived narrative and use it to advance a political agenda.”

Narrative? What is he talking about? A man got killed and the city has done nothing. They didn't prevent it by scraping the lowlife off the streets, they didn't have a cop onhand to help the man, and they have no idea who did it. That's political? Maybe this oaf's politics doesn't involve preserving human life and perhaps we are supposed to just step over the body and walk on by, calling it nothing out of the ordinary. It's this clown's job as police commissioner to make sure police are around and people don't get killed. He's failing miserably at that. Based on his history, his call to wait and see sounds as though he's waiting to hear that the perpetator was a white supremacist before he can make a condemnation. His knowledge of policing seems to be confined to donut shops. How the heck is any of this murder a spinmeister's narrative?

He's not the only one trying to downplay the killing while the legitimate anger is hot. Two other strains of elitist indifference seem to be gripping the city as something very bad is happening, too:

The San Francisco Chronicle is busy downplaying the murder entirely as statistically insignificant, despite that 20% rise in the murder rate in the city. Nothing to see here, move along, and amazingly offensive to the family and friends of the victim. The argument they are using about statistics is the one Chesa Boudin used, advising San Franciscans that the crime in front of their eyes was all in their heads and and instead of thinking about that street they dare not walk down or that car of theirs that just got broken into, they were better off thinking about statistics and dismissing whatever it was that victimized them for the umpteenth time. Here's how they filled in their copy in the story announcing the killing:

 San Francisco has a relatively low rate of homicides compared with other major U.S. cities, but it has struggled with high property crime rates, particularly in the last decade. Reported violent crime overall declined over the past three years, dropping by 14%, along with property crimes, which decreased by 7%. Homicides increased slightly from 2020 to 2021. 

Reported? Perhaps the defund the police movement, which has left the city with cops who retire at their desks and cops who quit, might have something to do with the reportings being down. Why report crime when the city is not going to do anything about it and prosecutors will simply not charge the perpetrators? Failing to prosecute small crimes is the surest social fertilizer for creating the conditions for big crimes, as James Q. Wilson has noted.   

As for the murder rate, where the data do tend to get reported, there are problems with that data, too. Killings happen for reasons -- such as being a gang member or being a hooker or living in other high-risk ways -- which for better or worse, raise one's odds of being killed. The overall murder rate may be low or steady, but for a gang member or a hooker, the odds are far higher. For a guy like Lee, the odds are far lower than even the average, even in an area with violent crime. These things didn't happen in the past -- but now they do. That's a sign of crime reaching a critical mass.K'

Killings happen when a criminal, hopped up on drugs, living off thefts, muggings, and NGO "aid," is confident he will never be punished no matter what he does. That is what San Francisco has become today, and it doesn't take long for unpunished small crimes, to become very big crimes in short order, which is now happening. 

If crime is so small and statistically insignificant (it sure as heck wasn't if you were Bob Lee, or for that matter, Paul Pelosi, who was attacked last year by a local bum), as the Chronicle's reporting argues, why is Mayor Breed calling for a federal bailout on the city's out-of-control crime in the wake of the city's defund the police movement? More likely, the paper was playing city booster, attempting to get reluctant tech workers to return to their empty skyscrapers from telecommuting (the city has about a 25% vacancy, one of the country's highest) by dismissing the threat of violent crime as statistically unimportant. That was what Chesa Boudin did in his recall campaign last year, and we all know how well that worked out for him.

These are far from the only San Francisco elites disgracing themselves in the face of violent and growing crime. Others are putting their heads in the sand.

There is this former mayor of San Francisco turned ambassador for California, Gov. Gavin Newsom, who's spending his time in Florida preaching at the locals about the importance of duplicating his morals:

 

 

The killing of Lee, amid the crime and disorder already seen in San Francisco, is prompting the locals to conclude that there really is a problem. 

The various instances of excusemaking didn't go down well with the San Francisco tech locals:

 

 

 

 

Musk threw this in, highlighting that an emerging divide was coming between the local radicals and their NGO buddies who take government money, and the lefty tech community, which pays the government money:

 

 

It points to a sorry showdown ahead -- as tech companies pull out of the city simply because they cannot get employees to come to their downtown offices and city officials keep on doing what they are already doing -- letting criminals out for small crimes, demonizing the police, calling anyone who questions them as "political," failing to charge criminals, shoveling billions at the great homeless industrial NGO complex which thrives on More Homelessness, and other destructive practices. Then they either deny the reality of what they have wrought, or tell concerned citizens it's all in their heads -- a "perception" of crime, as Boudin used to say. 

It's strange stuff because already they are facing a monster budget shortfall premised on falling tax revenues based on the high numbers of productive citizens who have fled the city and taken their taxes to be paid with them. Last year, the Chronicle ran a piece called "San Francisco is on the brink and it's worse than it looks," describing the impact of free crime and citizen flight, suggesting that the city is well on the way to economic and physical collapse.  

All signs remain that they going to continue on with that same track. Now that Lee has been killed, the tech community seems to be waking up. But the elites? Same old same old. They are like dinosaurs in their inability to change -- and as the money dries up, they will be heading for extinction.

Image: Jitze Couperus, via Flickr // CC BY 2.0

I don’t blame those illegal aliens demanding their cut of the government pie. In the next paragraph, Toledo interviews a guy named Jose, who speaks no English and has two anchor children born after he arrived illegally 14 years ago. That is, for 14 years, our failure to enforce our immigration laws has left him feeling that he has a stake in things. As he says (in Spanish), “I still pay my taxes.” And he’s got a point.

In the wake of California’s flooding, illegal aliens want their cut

By Andrea Widburg

As inevitably happens after a few years of drought in California, the rain comes with fury, landing on rock-hard, dried-out soil, without enough beneficial reservoirs to catch it. Flooding is inevitable. Equally inevitable is that the government steps in to help; after all, that’s one of the things for which we pay taxes. But do we pay taxes for the government to fund illegal aliens who got caught in the storms? That’s what the illegal aliens think is owed them—and, under today’s Uniparty rule, they have a point.

Aldo Toledo, of the Bay Area News Group, reports on demands from people who have no legal right to be in America (emphasis mine):

Dozens of angry flood victims marched down Salinas Road on Thursday to demand respect and dignity for the storm-ravaged town’s about 3,000 inhabitants, raising alarms about alleged government discrimination — based on immigration status — against people seeking aid, and demanding that all those suffering be treated equally.

Since torrents of water and contaminated mud decimated the town of primarily agricultural and blue-collar workers, flood victims have been able to return to their homes and begin the arduous journey of rebuilding.

But for many who showed up Thursday, the current means-tested aid available only to some — with others being turned away at shelters and aid lines, or filling out endless forms applying for assistance that hasn’t come — highlights systemic discrimination against undocumented residents of the agricultural community.

I don’t blame those illegal aliens demanding their cut of the government pie. In the next paragraph, Toledo interviews a guy named Jose, who speaks no English and has two anchor children born after he arrived illegally 14 years ago. That is, for 14 years, our failure to enforce our immigration laws has left him feeling that he has a stake in things. As he says (in Spanish), “I still pay my taxes.” And he’s got a point.

Image: Flooding from the Pajara River. YouTube screen grab.

Others make the same argument: They live here unmolested despite their illegal residential status, and they pay taxes—although I wonder if they’re talking about sales taxes or income taxes and, if the latter, I wonder how much they get back from the government in benefits. Still, they function exactly like legal residents, so why shouldn’t they get their cut?

The problem, of course, is the lawlessness on the government’s end. Biden has made it exponentially worse by effectively erasing the border (something for which he should be impeached and then imprisoned), but this is a problem going back decades to all our presidents but for Trump.

A nation is not a nation without a border. It’s just a land mass. But our nation does have a border, and it has laws regarding that border.

It used to be that, if one disliked laws, one persuaded the American people to vote for representatives who promised to, and then did, change the laws. However, the modern D.C. Uniparty (again, except for Trump) has opted for lawlessness. Why persuade Americans to accept new immigration policies when you can just let everyone in, and then destroy the only president who tried to apply the law as written?

Trump’s fatal error wasn’t sleeping with bimbos. We all knew he did that. What set him up for destruction was that he tried to represent the American people—and they dislike open borders, welfare for illegal aliens, and foreign wars that don’t benefit America. Unfortunately for Trump, the Uniparty, having effectively been lawless for decades now, is doubling down on that strategy with a coming slew of wrongful indictments for acts that weren’t illegal.

What we’re seeing is the inevitable effect of the fish rotting from the head down. Given how corrupt and lawless our government is, why shouldn’t illegal aliens feel entitled to their cut of emergency funds? They’re just doing what they’ve been taught works in America.

NANCY PELOSI RANKS AS ONE OF THE MOST CORRUPT WOMEN IN AMERICAN HISTORY RIGHT UP THERE WITH DIANNE FEINSTEIN AND HILLARY CLINTON. KAMALA HARRIS IS WAITING AND WATCHING IN THE WINGS STUDYING HOW THEY STAGE THEMSELVES AS 'POPULIST' AND THEN GO SERVE THE 1% AND SUCK BANKSTER BRIBES!

Watters: The Five (CRIME) Families of the Democrat Party

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBpvvHethg0

Internet stock traders often follow Nancy

Pelosi's purchases and selloffs for investing tips, Business

Insider reported, with some suggesting "she's making the

big bucks off of insider information."

Cut and paste youtube links

Elon Musk Gets up and RIPS Nancy Pelosi to SHREDS, Evidence in showing Pelosi's Lies and Corruption!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv19kmZw8lc

“Our job as elected officials is to serve the people — not ourselves,” the Virginia Democrat said in a statement on Friday.

Nancy Pelosi Sits in SILENCE as Lauren Boebert UNVEIL New Facts on her in Congress

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49fs72UqZ6k

 

Watters: The Five (CRIME) Families of the Democrat Party

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBpvvHethg0

Internet stock traders often follow Nancy Pelosi's purchases and selloffs for investing tips, Business Insider reported, with some suggesting "she's making the big bucks off of insider information."

Nancy Pelosi Sits in SILENCE as Lauren Boebert UNVEIL New Facts on her in Congress

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49fs72UqZ6k

Why Most Californians Aren't Happy with the State | Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ggNbVd8f3M&list=WL&index=100&t=10s

  

Migrant enclaves already are at the top of the U.S. lists for bad places to  - 10 of the 50 worst places in America to live according to this list are in California, and all of them are famous for their illegal populations.             MONICA SHOWALTER

  

The Root Cause of People Leaving California | Joel Kotkin 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3viy5DISO7M

California Has the Highest State Taxes, What's Next | Joel Fox

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwIBKCMJL0w