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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on April 21, 2025 at 12:06 am
Run by the San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH), the COVID-19 Alternative Housing Program provides a host of amenities to drug addicts, alcoholics, the mentally ill and parasitic thieves and scammers.
Otherwise known as Untermenschen, the German word for “subhumans.”
Or Unters, for short.
It works in two stages:
Stage 1: Move the “homeless” into the city’s hotels—at city expense.
Stage 2: Provide them with not only free food and shelter but free alcohol, cannabis, and cigarettes.
“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 DPH spokeswoman Jenna Lane.
A typical cockroach scene
Notice the word “guests.” As if San Francisco—or any city—should welcome hordes of drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally ill and outright bums as assets to its community.
“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.”
DPH said in a statement that these “guests” are screened for substance addictions and asked if they’d like to stop or have support to reduce their use.
If they say they want to remain alcoholics and/or drug addicts, they’re provided with their substance of choice.
The department also provides methadone for “guests” who are addicted to opioids.
DPH staffers have helped people buy “medical marijuana,” the agency told local affiliate ABC7.
But the agency doesn’t “facilitate purchases of recreational cannabis,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle’s website, SFGate.
A typical San Francisco scene: Unters’ tents in front of City Hall
When they’re not swallowing alcohol or injecting, swallowing or sniffing drugs, many of San Francisco’s “guests” spend a lot of their time ripping off retail stores.
Walgreens drug stores have proven a particular target for these DDMBs—Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums—the four groups that make up 90% of the “homeless” population.
“I feel sorry for the clerks, they are regularly being verbally assaulted,” a regular customer, Sebastian Luke, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
“The clerks say there is nothing they can do. They say Walgreens’ policy is to not get involved. They don’t want anyone getting injured or getting sued, so the guys just keep coming in and taking whatever they want.”
“Retail theft across our San Francisco stores has continued to increase in the past few months to five times our chain average,” Walgreens spokesman Phil Caruso told the Chronicle.
“During this time to help combat this issue, we increased our investments in security measures in stores across the city to 46 times our chain average in an effort to provide a safe environment.”
As a result, Walgreens has closed at least 22 stores in San Francisco since 2019.
One store in the San Francisco area reportedly lost $1,000 a day to theft.
CVS Pharmacy has instructed its employees to not intervene because the thieves so often attack them.
Many shoplifters then sell their stolen goods on the street—often near the store where they stole them.
Until December, 2024, theft under $950 was considered a misdemeanor. Many prosecutors chose to free those charged rather than holding them in jail. The maximum sentence they could get: Six months.
In November, 2024, voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 36, which stiffened penalties for shoplifting. Thieves can now get up to three years in jail or prison if they’ve been twice convicted for certain theft offenses.
Low-income and disabled seniors who depend on these disappearing drug stores for prescriptions are especially at risk.
Some stores in the city are refusing to let themselves be ripped off.
Target’s largest store, at Geary and Masonic, is guarded by armed security from IPS. Its officers wear dark green uniforms resembling those of sheriff’s deputies and carry .40 caliber automatics.
They are unfailingly courteous—but don’t hesitate to restrain anyone who poses a threat to customers or is apparently stealing merchandise.
Of course, corporations aren’t in business to lose money. So costs for such security are passed on to customers.
Many DDMBs refuse to enter the city’s available shelters. Some claim these places are dangerous—understandably so, since they’re peopled with drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally ill and outright bums.
But another reason why many of these shelters go unused is: They don’t allow their “guests” to drink up or drug up.
The city makes no effort to force DDMBs to shut down their tent encampments that block sidewalks and pose a threat to public health through their accompanying feces, urine and used hypodermic needles.
If a citizen complains about a DDMB blocking a sidewalk, police may ask him to enter a shelter. But if he refuses, he’s simply left where he is. Thus, the “rights” of DDMBs take precedence over the rights of tax-paying San Franciscans.
The latest wrinkle in San Francisco’s “be kind to Untermenschen“ campaign is the creation of “Navigation Centers.” These are essentially holding pens for DDMBs until they can be “navigated” to permanent housing.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on April 18, 2025 at 12:28 am
Why do California politicians—especially those in San Francisco—cater so fervently to hardcore drug addicts, hardcore alcoholics, the mentally ill and those who refuse to work?
In his 2021 bestseller, San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities, author Michael Shellenberger provides the answer. According to its dust jacket:
“San Francisco and other West Coast cities — Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland — had gone beyond merely tolerating homelessness, drug dealing, and crime to actively enabling them.
“San Fransicko reveals that the underlying problem isn’t a lack of housing or money for social programs. The real problem is an ideology that designates some people, by identity or experience, as victims entitled to destructive behaviors. The result is an undermining of the values that make cities, and civilization itself, possible.”
In December, 2022, the Palo Alto-based cloud computing company VMware canceled its contract with the Moscone Center for its 2023 conference and said it would relocate the event.
No specific reason was given. But it’s almost a certainty that the city’s refusal to get tough on the druggies, drunks, mentals and bums who infest its streets and accost its tourists is a major one.
This is only the latest blow to a city that depends overwhelmingly on tourism for its economic prosperity—if not survival.
San Francisco saw the steepest drop of any major metro with a loss of $1.68 billion—or 68.8%—when compared with 2019.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been especially hard on the city. Huge numbers of tech workers who once flooded into San Francisco began working at home. And a great many of them still do.
Thus, those businesses—such as restaurants—which had benefitted from their presence are now desperate to stay afloat.
But even before the pandemic, an exodus of high-profile conventions had already started—such as Oracle’s CloudWorld—which left San Francisco for Las Vegas.
Unlike VMware, CloudWorld did cite the reasons for its departure: Filthy street conditions and exorbitant hotel prices.
San Francisco’s politicians—its Mayor and the 11 members of the Board of Supervisors—like to think of the city as a city-state. That is: As a power comparable to ancient Sparta or Athens.
Reality proves otherwise.
San Francisco is not an economic powerhouse like New York City. It’s not an entertainment capital like Hollywood. It’s not a political center like Washington, D.C.
Here is what San Francisco is:
- It’s a small (46.87 square miles) city with a relatively modest population (815,201).
- Its largest industry is tourism.
- This generates more than $8.4 billion annually for the local economy and supports over 71,000 jobs.
And if the tourism industry disappears, so will San Francisco.
Meet the new untouchables of San Francisco: Hardcore drug addicts. Hardcore alcoholics. The mentally ill. Parasitic scam artists/thieves who refuse to work for a living.
If you doubt it, consider the following:
If you are a firefighter, police officer, paramedic or schoolteacher, and want to live in San Francisco, forget it.
According to Rent Cafe, which provides apartment listings directly from top property managers: “The average [monthly] rent for an apartment in San Francisco is $2,879.” And “the average size for a San Francisco apartment is 739 square feet.”
So unless you’re a hugely successful IT professional—or narcotics dealer—your chances of being able to afford a San Francisco apartment are lower than Donald Trump’s of winning a “Mr. Congeniality” contest.
But there’s hope for you yet—if you’re a Druggie, Drunk, Mental or Bum (DDMBs).
Why?
Because the previous Mayor of San Francisco—London Breed—and Board of Supervisors have deliberately created an Untermenschen-friendly program that actually encourages such people to move to the city.
Run by the city’s Department of Public Health (DPH) it’s called the COVID-19 Alternative Housing Program. And it works in two stages:
Stage 1: Move the “homeless” into the city’s hotels—at city expense.
Stage 2: Provide them with not only free food and shelter but free alcohol, cannabis, and cigarettes.
According to a May 11, 2020 story in City Journal.org:
“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.”
But the agency doesn’t require that its addict “guests” remain quarantined. It merely asks that they do so.
After news about these deliveries leaked on social media, DPH claimed that “rumors that guests of San Francisco’s alternative housing program are receiving taxpayer-funded deliveries of alcohol, cannabis and tobacco are false.”
Except that the reports weren’t false.
The program is funded by private philanthropists. Nevertheless:
- DPH administers and oversees the program.
- It’s 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.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on April 17, 2025 at 12:06 am
Spend any amount of time in California, and a new foreign word will enter your vocabulary: Untermenschen.
In German, this means “subhumans.”
Or “Unters,” for short.
California has a population of nearly 40 million people—and has nearly one-third of the nation’s “homeless” population. The majority of that population consists of hardcore drug addicts, hardcore alcoholics, the mentally ill, and those who refuse to work for a living.
In short: Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums—or DDMBs.
And their numbers are growing much faster in California than in other states, according to an analysis of federal data by the Public Policy Institute of California.
Tent encampments block pedestrians (especially those with canes or in wheelchairs) from walking along sidewalks. And when pedestrians aren’t contending with tents, they’re forced to navigate around empty beer cans, empty wine bottles, piles of human feces, pools of human urine and used hypodermic syringes.
On October 4, 2024, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom awarded $131 million to 18 local communities to to clear homeless encampments and provide shelter, care, and support. It’s projected to help an additional 3,364 people currently living in encampments and permanently house 1,565 people.
But 1,565 is essentially meaningless when the numbers of Untermenschen in California are estimated at 171,000.
And how much has Newsom committed to spend on people who make absolutely no positive contribution to society? More than $27 billion.
The money partially comes from general obligation bonds that go toward construction of “campus-style” facilities along with smaller homes and long-term residential settings.
Gavin Newsom
This is a difficult time for California. The state has an estimated $22.5 billion deficit, with state revenues falling as the stock market slows.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, California’s total population declined by more than 500,000 between April 2020 and July 2022. California is one of only 18 states that saw its numbers decline and had the fourth biggest drop as a share of its population.
And a major reason for their unhappiness: The state’s intractable “homeless” problem.
Fortunately, the United States Supreme Court has finally supplied at least a partial answer to this problem.
On June 28, 2024, the Court handed down its opinion in City of Grants Pass vs. Johnson. Voting six to three along ideological lines, the Justices empowered cities to enforce laws prohibiting camping and vagrancy.
On September 28, 2018, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had issued Martin v. City of Boise. This held that “the Eighth Amendment prohibits the imposition of criminal penalties for sitting, sleeping, or lying outside on public property for homeless individuals who cannot obtain shelter.” People could be evicted only if beds or shelter were available to those who were being evicted.
The Supreme Court’s decision overrules that decision, stating that the Eighth Amendment does not prevent a municipality from evicting homeless people from public spaces.
It’s a win for the small Oregon city of Grants Pass, which brought the case, and dozens of Western cities that needed more enforcement powers as they grappled with record high rates of homelessness. The lower court rulings had prevented them from keeping public spaces open and safe for everyone.
The Court’s ruling makes it easier for communities nationwide to fine, ticket or arrest DDMBs—Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums—who make up 80% of the “homeless.” But it doesn’t force communities to take any specific actions or to actively engage in criminal punishment.
Decades ago, being “homeless” meant you lost your home due to fire, flood or earthquake. For a few weeks or months, you lived with friends or family as you searched for a new residence. Then you resumed your former life as a productive citizen.
Today, being “homeless” means living for years—even decades—on the street. Selling drugs, using drugs, getting drunk, staying drunk, living in filth, refusing treatment for drug and/or alcohol addiction, refusing even shelter from the cold, rain and terrors of street life—these are the realities of most of today’s “homeless” population.
To fully understand the consequences of this, one needs only to look at what this population has done to San Francisco.
In 2022, the San Francisco “homeless” population was officially estimated to be 7,754. Of these, 3,357 were staying in shelter. Many of those who could find shelter refused to make use of it—or were refused entry due to their rampant drug and/or alcohol addictions.
In his 2021 bestseller, San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities, author Michael Shellenberger provides the answer.
According to its dust jacket:
“Progressives claimed they knew how to solve homelessness, inequality, and crime. But in cities they control, progressives made those problems worse.
“Michael Shellenberger has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for thirty years. During that time, he advocated for the decriminalization of drugs, affordable housing, and alternatives to jail and prison.
“But as homeless encampments spread, and overdose deaths skyrocketed, Shellenberger decided to take a closer look at the problem. What he discovered shocked him. The problems had grown worse not despite but because of progressive policies.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on May 5, 2022 at 12:15 am
On May 2, POLITICO released a bombshell of a story: The United States Supreme Court intended to strike down Roe v. Wade.
The proof came in an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, circulated within the court and obtained by POLITICO.
The draft opinion completely repudiates the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights.
The Supreme Court
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes. “Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.”
Some 36 million women could then lose abortion access, according to research from Planned Parenthood, a healthcare organization which provides abortions.
Making this possible was the appointment of three Right-wing Justices by President Donald Trump: Neil Gorsuch (2017); Brett Kavanaugh (2018); and Amy Coney Barrett (2020).
This has been a dream for Right-wing anti-abortion fanatics since the Court struck down abortion restrictions almost 50 years ago.
So what’s responsible for all this fetus fanaticism?
First, there is an energized constituency for politicians willing to wave this red flag.
Every major Republican Presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan has tapped into this voting bloc. And each has found plenty of votes to be gotten from it.
Second, many fetus fanatics simply dislike women.
They fear and resent the women’s movement, which has given women the right to enter the workforce and compete directly with men.
And what they hate most is the legal right of a woman to avoid becoming pregnant via birth control—or to abort the result of a male’s sperm if they do. They see this as a personal rejection.
The Right is made up overwhelmingly of white males. And many of these men would feel entirely at home with a Christianized version of the Taliban. They long for a world where women meekly cater to their every demand and believe only what their male masters approve for them to believe.
Third, many fetus fanatics are “pro-life” when it comes to fetuses, but hypocritically refuse to support the needs of children from low-income families.
Fourth, many fetus fanatics are “family values” hypocrites.
For example: Representative Scott DesJarlais (R-TN), an anti-abortion, “family values” doctor, had an affair with a patient and later pressured her to get an abortion. He also agreed that his wife should have two abortions.
Scott DesJarlais
People like this subscribe to a philosophy of: “Do as I say, not as I do. And if I do it, it’s in the service of a Higher Cause and therefore entirely justified.”
Fifth, many fetus fanatics feel guilty about their own past sexual transgressions—especially if these resulted in pregnancy.
And they want to prevent others from living the same life they did.
Some of these people are well-intentioned. Even so, they usurp unto themselves a God-like right to intrude on the most intimate decisions for others—regardless of what those people may need or want.
Sixth, many fetus fanatics embrace contradictory goals.
On one hand, most of them claim they want to “get government off the backs of the people.” That usually means allowing corporations to pollute, sell dangerous products and treat their employees as slaves.
On the other hand, they want to insert the government into the vagina of every woman. That means empowering State and Federal authorities to prevent women from getting birth control or an abortion—even in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother.
Seventh, many leaders of the fetus fanatics movement are independently wealthy.
This means that even if abortion could be outlawed for the vast majority, they could always bribe a willing doctor—here or abroad—to perform such an operation on their wife, daughter and/or mistress. For them, there is always an escape clause.
Eighth, many fetus fanatics are not truly “pro-life.”
They totally oppose abortion under most—-if not all—circumstances. But they also fully support:
- making military-style assault weapons available to nutcases;
- capital punishment;
- going to war for almost any reason;
- wholesale massacres of wildlife;
- despoiling of the environment; and/or
- even nuclear war.
Lucy, the famous cartoon character in Charles Schultz’ “Peanuts” series, once said: “I love humanity. It’s people I can’t stand.” With fetus fanatics, the line runs: “I love fetuses. Everything else is expendable.”
Ninth, many fetus fanatics believe that since their religion teaches that abortion is wrong, they have a moral duty to enforce that belief on others.
This is especially true for evangelical Christians. These are the same people who condemn Muslims—such as those in Saudi Arabia—for segregating women, forbidding them to drive and forcing them to wear head scarfs or chadors—loose, usually black robes.
Taliban: Islam’s version of the “Right-to-Life” movement
But while they condemn Islamics for their general intolerance of others’ religious beliefs, they lust to impose their own upon those who belong to other churches. Or who belong to no church at all.
Tenth, many fetus fanatics are just as opposed to birth control as they are to abortion.
Thus, when Georgia University law student Sandra Fluke asked Congress to require insurance companies to cover birth control, Rush Limbaugh branded her a “slut” and a “prostitute.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on October 8, 2020 at 12:16 am
What began as the gloating jubilee of an expected Right-wing triumph has turned into a COVID-19 nightmare for the Trump administration.
On September 26, President Donald Trump hosted festivities in the Rose Garden to celebrate his Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett.
Amy Coney Barrett
Rachel Malehorn / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)
Trump had already put two Justices—Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh—on the Court. Gorsuch was nominated as a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia, who had died in 2016.
President Barack Obama had sought to confirm his own nominee, Merrick Garland, to the Court. But 2016 was a Presidential election year. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked giving Garland even the courtesy of a Senate hearing.
“The Senate will appropriately revisit the matter when it considers the qualifications of the nominee the next President nominates, whoever that might be,” claimed McConnell.
When Trump won, the way was clear for him to nominate his own candidate—who turned out to be Neil Gorsuch.
Then, in 2018, Justice Anthony Kennedy decided to retire after spending 20 years on the Court. This gave Trump the chance to replace him with Brett Kavanaugh.
Then, on September 18, 2020, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suddenly died of cancer. Appointed in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, she had been the first Jewish woman and the second woman to serve on the Court, after Sandra Day O’Connor.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Her death offered Trump his third chance to shift the Court decisively to the Right for decades to come.
Stacking the Court with Right-wing judges has long been the goal of Republicans. And their two most important priorities:
- Overturning Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in 1973; and
- Gutting the Affordable Care Act, the single most important achievement of the first black President of the United States.
So on September 26, Donald Trump hosted festivities in the Rose Garden to celebrate his third Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett.
Trump assembled his guest list, and the major domos of the Right showed up.
They knew–or should have known–that a deadly pandemic called COVID-19 was ravaging the country. They knew—or should have known—it had already killed more than 200,000 Americans.
But Trump had spent the year telling them there was nothing to worry about. The virus, he had said repeatedly, was no worse than the common flu. He had ridiculed those who wore masks, and had made not wearing one a sign of macho solidarity with himself.
Coronavirus
So they showed up without masks, and crammed together in folding chairs. And now many of them are dropping like poisoned Tsetse flies.
Among the casualties of the celebration so far:
- President Donald Trump
- First Lady Melania Trump
- Presidential Aide Hope Hicks
- White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany
- United States Senator (R-UT) Mike Lee
- United States Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC)
- United States Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI)
- Former Presidential adviser Kelleyanne Conway
- White House Assistant Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt
- Trump Presidential Campaign Manager Bill Stepien
- Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel
- Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie
- White House Senior Adviser for Policy Stephen Miller
For Trump, the Rose Garden celebration has turned into a nightmare.
First, it thrust the issue of the dreaded Coronavirus—and his administration’s failure to effectively combat it—to the front of the Presidential campaign.
Donald Trump
Trump had been desperate to avoid talking about this subject—and with good reason.
When the virus struck the United States in January, Trump quickly learned how deadly it was. As he admitted to Washington Post investigative reporter Bob Woodward: “It goes through air, Bob. That’s always tougher than the touch.
“The touch, you don’t have to touch things, right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flues.”
But Trump didn’t share that warning with the American people. When Woodward published his book, Rage, in September, Trump was mortally embarrassed at having that conversation revealed.
Instead, Trump attacked the wearing of masks and maintaining social distancing. When states ordered businesses to close to halt the spread of COVID-19, Trump ordered his followers to protest in the streets. When businesses reopened, COVID rates spiked and so did unemployment rolls.
Second, the sidelining of so many top Republicans—including Senators—threatened to at least temporarily halt Senate confirmation hearings on Amy Coney Barrett.
Third—and probably most important: Trump himself was rushed to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on October 2 after he tested positive for Coronavirus.
For the image-conscious Trump, press reports that he received oxygen and experimental drugs proved highly embarrassing. On October 5, still highly infectious, he demanded to be returned to the White House.
With less than a month to go before the November 3 Presidential election, Trump found himself overwhelmed by media reports that the White House was now the Number One Coronavirus hotspot in the United States.
A celebration of hatred and arrogance has turned into a COVID-19 nightmare for the Trump administration. It’s a irony the ancient Greeks, with their understanding of hubris, would have appreciated.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 14, 2018 at 1:05 am
“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,” Donald Trump—then a candidate for President—said at a rally in Sioux Center, Iowa.
That low moment—one of many others in his campaign—came on January 23, 2016.
Recently, the idea that Trump might shoot someone—and get away with it—has also occurred to his attorney, Rudloph Giuliani.
Donald Trump
“In no case can he be subpoenaed or indicted,” Giuliani told the Huffington Post. “I don’t know how you can indict while he’s in office. No matter what it is.”
On June 3, 2018, the former Federal prosecutor asserted that, no matter what crime Trump might commit, he couldn’t be held accountable for it unless he was first impeached.
“If he shot [former FBI Director] James Comey, he’d be impeached the next day. Impeach him, and then you can do whatever you want to do to him.”
Trump’s legal team had recently said as much in a letter to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating documented ties between Trump’s Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents. Trump’s counsel said that that the President “could, if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon if he so desired.”
Asked on ABC’s “This Week” if Trump could legally pardon himself, Giuliani said: “He probably does. He has no intention of pardoning himself, but he probably—not to say he can’t.”
Rudolph Giuliani
Trump quickly backed up his attorney’s claim with a tweet on Twitter: “As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong?”
Conservative commentator Joe Scarborough had a different take on the issue.
“This is really literally out of a tyrant’s playbook,” Scarborough said on his MSNBC show, “Morning Joe.”
“You pick the president’s sworn political enemy and then you put it out there about the shooting of him. And you let the president’s followers know that—Vladimir Putin could shoot his political rival and not be thrown in jail. [Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan could do the same thing. Except this is in America.
Joe Scarborough
By NBC News (NBC News) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
“What if Barack Obama had said in 2009, 2010, or let’s say Eric Holder here. What if [Obama’s Attorney General] Eric Holder had said, ‘You know what? Barack Obama could shoot Rush Limbaugh and he can’t be indicted. Barack Obama could shoot Paul Ryan and he couldn’t be indicted. You know what, Barack Obama could shoot George W. Bush and he couldn’t be indicted.’
“The reaction from Republicans and the media would be just mind-boggling.”
During the Nixon administration, the Justice Department wrestled with the question: Is a sitting President immune from indictment and criminal prosecution?
Its Office of Legal Counsel determined that indicting and criminally prosecuting a President would interfere with his ability to carry out his constitutionally given duties.
And that has been its position since 1974. Although reaffirmed in the Clinton administration, it has never been tested in court.
What lies beyond doubt is this: For Republicans, actions that are perfectly justifiable for a Republican President are absolutely taboo for a Democratic one.
- Republicans accused Democrats of blocking Trump’s nominee, Neil Gorsuch, for the Supreme Court. Yet Obama’s nominee for the seat, Merrick Garland, is the only candidate in the history of the United States to be denied a hearing by the opposition—Republicans.
- More than nine out of 10 Tea Partiers said they feared Obama’s policies were “moving the country toward socialism.” Yet Republicans overwhelmingly voted for a man—Trump—who has repeatedly praised Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and clearly has close ties with him.
- Republicans falsely accused Obama of creating “death panels” in the Affordable Care Act—yet have enthusiastically supported Trump’s efforts to destroy access to healthcare for more than 20 million Americans.
- During the Republican-orchestrated government shutdown in October, 2013, Arizona state Representative Brenda Barton attacked Obama for closing Federal monuments: “Someone is paying the National Park Service thugs overtime for their efforts to carry out the order of De Fuhrer…where are our Constitutional Sheriffs who can revoke the Park Service Rangers authority to arrest???”
- In a June 10, 2012 tweet, Donald Trump wrote: “Why is @BarackObama constantly issuing executive orders that are major power grabs of authority?”
- “The problem with executive [orders], it’s really bad news for this reason,” Ohio Governor John Kasich said of Obama in February, 2016. “Since he’s given up on working with Congress, he thinks he can impose anything he wants. He’s not a king. He’s a president.”
But Republicans who accused Obama of acting like a dictator haven’t objected to Trump’s “joking” that it would be “great” if the United States had a “President-for-Life”—like China.
Nor have they objected to Trump’s flood of executive orders—65 in a year and a half. The inescapable message in all this: “Legitimacy is only for us—not for you.”
Or, as Joe Scarborough put it: “This is really literally out of a tyrant’s playbook,”
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UNTERS, AWAY!–PART THREE (OF FOUR)
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on April 21, 2025 at 12:06 amRun by the San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH), the COVID-19 Alternative Housing Program provides a host of amenities to drug addicts, alcoholics, the mentally ill and parasitic thieves and scammers.
Otherwise known as Untermenschen, the German word for “subhumans.”
Or Unters, for short.
It works in two stages:
Stage 1: Move the “homeless” into the city’s hotels—at city expense.
Stage 2: Provide them with not only free food and shelter but free alcohol, cannabis, and cigarettes.
“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 DPH spokeswoman Jenna Lane.
A typical cockroach scene
Notice the word “guests.” As if San Francisco—or any city—should welcome hordes of drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally ill and outright bums as assets to its community.
“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.”
DPH said in a statement that these “guests” are screened for substance addictions and asked if they’d like to stop or have support to reduce their use.
If they say they want to remain alcoholics and/or drug addicts, they’re provided with their substance of choice.
The department also provides methadone for “guests” who are addicted to opioids.
DPH staffers have helped people buy “medical marijuana,” the agency told local affiliate ABC7.
But the agency doesn’t “facilitate purchases of recreational cannabis,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle’s website, SFGate.
A typical San Francisco scene: Unters’ tents in front of City Hall
When they’re not swallowing alcohol or injecting, swallowing or sniffing drugs, many of San Francisco’s “guests” spend a lot of their time ripping off retail stores.
Walgreens drug stores have proven a particular target for these DDMBs—Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums—the four groups that make up 90% of the “homeless” population.
“I feel sorry for the clerks, they are regularly being verbally assaulted,” a regular customer, Sebastian Luke, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
“The clerks say there is nothing they can do. They say Walgreens’ policy is to not get involved. They don’t want anyone getting injured or getting sued, so the guys just keep coming in and taking whatever they want.”
“Retail theft across our San Francisco stores has continued to increase in the past few months to five times our chain average,” Walgreens spokesman Phil Caruso told the Chronicle.
“During this time to help combat this issue, we increased our investments in security measures in stores across the city to 46 times our chain average in an effort to provide a safe environment.”
As a result, Walgreens has closed at least 22 stores in San Francisco since 2019.
One store in the San Francisco area reportedly lost $1,000 a day to theft.
CVS Pharmacy has instructed its employees to not intervene because the thieves so often attack them.
Many shoplifters then sell their stolen goods on the street—often near the store where they stole them.
Until December, 2024, theft under $950 was considered a misdemeanor. Many prosecutors chose to free those charged rather than holding them in jail. The maximum sentence they could get: Six months.
In November, 2024, voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 36, which stiffened penalties for shoplifting. Thieves can now get up to three years in jail or prison if they’ve been twice convicted for certain theft offenses.
Low-income and disabled seniors who depend on these disappearing drug stores for prescriptions are especially at risk.
Some stores in the city are refusing to let themselves be ripped off.
Target’s largest store, at Geary and Masonic, is guarded by armed security from IPS. Its officers wear dark green uniforms resembling those of sheriff’s deputies and carry .40 caliber automatics.
They are unfailingly courteous—but don’t hesitate to restrain anyone who poses a threat to customers or is apparently stealing merchandise.
Of course, corporations aren’t in business to lose money. So costs for such security are passed on to customers.
Many DDMBs refuse to enter the city’s available shelters. Some claim these places are dangerous—understandably so, since they’re peopled with drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally ill and outright bums.
But another reason why many of these shelters go unused is: They don’t allow their “guests” to drink up or drug up.
The city makes no effort to force DDMBs to shut down their tent encampments that block sidewalks and pose a threat to public health through their accompanying feces, urine and used hypodermic needles.
If a citizen complains about a DDMB blocking a sidewalk, police may ask him to enter a shelter. But if he refuses, he’s simply left where he is. Thus, the “rights” of DDMBs take precedence over the rights of tax-paying San Franciscans.
The latest wrinkle in San Francisco’s “be kind to Untermenschen“ campaign is the creation of “Navigation Centers.” These are essentially holding pens for DDMBs until they can be “navigated” to permanent housing.
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