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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on February 24, 2025 at 12:05 am
On June 28, 2024, the Supreme Court, in City of Grants Pass vs. Johnson, empowered cities to enforce laws prohibiting camping and vagrancy.
Almost four years earlier, 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.
Thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling, communities nationwide can now fine, ticket or arrest those who make up the greatest part of this population–Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums (DDMBs). But they aren’t forced to take any specific actions or to actively engage in criminal punishment.

United States Supreme Court
On July 25, California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order directing state agencies on how to remove homeless encampments from public spaces.
For years, California has been plagued by thousands of tents and makeshift shelters that line freeways, clutter shopping center parking lots and fill city parks.
California has the highest number of homeless in the country—more than 181,000 people in January 2023, more than 27% of the country’s homeless population.
The governor’s order leaves it up to local mayors to remove the encampments.
“Local governments now have the tools they need to address the decades-long issue of homelessness,” declared Newsome in a statement.
“Today, we are issuing an executive order that directs state agencies & urges locals to address encampments while connecting those living in them to housing & supportive services.”
San Francisco’s Mayor and Board of Supervisors may finally be ready to do what, for years, they had refused to do: Clear the city’s streets of DDMBs.
A massive casualty of the irresponsibility of “city leaders” came on April 10, 2023: One of the largest supermarkets in downtown San Francisco—the Whole Foods Market at Eighth and Market streets—announced it would shut down at the close of business that day.
The store, operated by Amazon, had been operating slightly more than a year. It had become the repeated victim of wholesale thefts courtesy of the city’s DDMBs.

The Politically Correct name for these people is “unhoused.” The accurate name for them is summed up in a German word: “Untermenschen”—“subhumans.”
Given the Politically Correct climate of San Francisco, the closing of the Whole Foods store was almost guaranteed to happen.
At its opening, on March 10, 2022, the store operated from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. By October, it opened at 9 a.m. and closed at 7 p.m.
“It’s to better serve our customers, and it’s more or less because of the area and security issues,” said the store’s manager. “There’s just high theft and people being hostile.”
In November, the store enforced new rules for customers after syringes and crack pipes were found in the restroom. The bathroom was now open only to customers who showed security guards a receipt. Customers were then given a QR code for entry.
It was no coincidence that the bathrooms were often used by drug-abusers—the store was close to the Tenderloin Center, a safe drug-use site.

Crack cocaine
Argv0, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikipedia Commons
Another reason for the change in bathroom policy: Thieves would fill up suitcases with merchandise before going into the restroom.
And who is ultimately responsible for such outrages?
San Francisco’s topmost officials—the Mayor, Board of Supervisors, District Attorney and chief of the San Francisco Police Department. Together, they have formed an “Untermenschen”-friendly alliance.
The start of the COVID-19 pandemic inflicted a massive loss in foot traffic in downtown San Francisco as employees fled high rises to work remotely from home. Many small businesses—especially restaurants—shuttered.
Compounding this disaster has been an increasing influx of hardcore alcoholics, hardcore drug addicts, psychotically mentally ill and parasitical bums. Sidewalks are littered with huge tents, used hypodermic syringes and needles, empty beer cans and wine bottles, human feces and pools of urine.
The local and national press have predicted a “Doom Loop” facing San Francisco, as the city’s tourism rate sharply declines and City Hall officials currently project a nearly $800 million deficit in San Francisco’s budget.
Tech giants such as Meta and IBM have abandoned San Francisco for events in cities such as Denver and Orlando, Florida.
In September, 2023, Silicon Valley tech giant Alphabet announced that it would move its high-profile Google Cloud Next conference to Las Vegas in 2024.
But this has not prevented city officials from calling for increased efforts to comfort those very parasites who threaten not only their own lives but those of law-abiding San Franciscans and the city’s tourism industry.
On November 3, 2021, National Public Radio’s website carried the following headline: “San Francisco’s new rapid response teams race to save lives as ODs dramatically rise.”
From the story:
“Faced with a stunning rise in drug overdose deaths the last few years, the vast majority tied to fentanyl, San Francisco has launched mobile teams made up of paramedics and nurses.
“The new Street Overdose Response Teams (SORT), a collaboration between the city’s health and fire departments, aim to deliver a broad range of support and care directly following an overdose.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 21, 2025 at 12:44 am
Americans live by a series of myths—myths they would be wise to abandon. Some are embraced by liberals, others by conservatives, and still others by both.
Myth 4: Americans are knowledgeable about their own history—and that of other nations.
Americans’ ignorance of history—their own and that of other nations—has long been a scandal.
- A 2018 national survey by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars found that only one in three Americans (36%) can actually pass a multiple choice test consisting of items taken from the U.S. Citizenship Test.
- More than half of respondents (60%) didn’t know which countries the United States fought in World War II (Germany, Italy and Japan).
- Only 24% correctly identified one thing Benjamin Franklin was famous for; 37% believed he invented the lightbulb (that inventor was Thomas Edison).
- Twelve percent incorrectly thought WWII General Dwight Eisenhower led troops in the Civil War; six percent thought he was a Vietnam War general.

if Americans are flagrantly ignorant of their own history, they are even worse at the history of other countries.
A major reason for this lies in Americans’ belief that other nations aren’t worth bothering about except when they threaten us. During the Vietnam war, soldiers referred to the United States as “The World”—as if the rest of the planet didn’t exist.
Americans, protected from Europe by the Atlantic Ocean and the Far East by the Pacific Ocean, allowed geography to isolate themselves from the messiness of the rest of the world.
Donald Trump, as President, gave a frightening example of this during a conversation with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi: “It’s not like you’ve got China on your border.” In fact, India does share a border with China.
Myth 5: The “Bible Belt” (the Deep South) is the spiritual capitol of America.
On the contrary:
- A 2015 study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior found that religious conservatives search more for online pornography on Google than anyone else.
- Educational attainment and college graduation rates in the Bible Belt are among the lowest in the nation.

- Smoking rates are high in West Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi—and so are rates for smoking-related diseases and deaths.
- Heart disease, obesity, homicide and teenage pregnancies are among the highest in the nation.
Myth 6: Americans are health-conscious.
Comparing the United States with Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, the National Institutes of Health found:
- The United States has the second highest prevalence of HIV infections and the highest incidence of AIDS.
- Americans lose more years of life to alcohol and other drugs than people in peer countries.
- From age 20 onward, U.S. adults have among the highest prevalence rates of diabetes.
- The U.S. death rate from ischemic heart disease is the second highest.
- Lung disease is more prevalent in the United States.
Myth 7: Americans only support democratic regimes.
The United States has long supported foreign dictators—so long as they’re reliably Right-wing.
- Between 1898 and 1934, the United States repeatedly intervened with military force in Central America and the Caribbean.
- The United States occupied Nicaragua almost continuously from 1912 to 1933. Its legacy was the imposition of the tyrannical Somoza family, which ruled from 1936 to 1979.
- In 1953, the Eisenhower administration ordered the CIA to overthrew the democratically-elected government of of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. His crime: Nationalizing the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913.

- He was succeeded by Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi, a dictator who depended on United States government support to retain power until he was overthrown in 1979 by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
- In 1954, the CIA overthrew the democratically-elected government of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. His crime: Installing a series of reforms that expanded the right to vote, allowed workers to organize, legitimized political parties and allowed public debate.
- In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon ordered the CIA to prevent Marxist Salvador Allende from being democratically elected as president of Chile. When that failed, he ordered the CIA to overthrow Allende.
- His crime: A series of liberal reforms, including nationalizing large-scale industries (notably copper mining and banking).
- in 1973, he was overthrown by Chilean army units and national police. He was followed by Right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet, who slaughtered 3,200 political dissidents, imprisoned 30,000 and forced another 200,000 Chileans into exile.
* * * * * * * * * *
Behind these myths: The belief in “American exceptionalism”—that the United States is unlike other nations in its innocence and steadfast dedication to human rights above all else.
Wrote Christian G. Appy, in his 2015 book, American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity:
“It was still unimaginable to most Americans that their own nation would wage aggressive war and justify it with unfounded claims, that it would support undemocratic governments reviled by their own people, and that American troops would be sent to fight in countries where they were widely regarded not as liberators but as imperialist invaders.”
For millions, that belief died a horrific death during the Vietnam war. Yet so long as millions remain convinced that America is guided by God and that its people are His faithful servants, these myths will remain vividly alive.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 20, 2025 at 12:44 am
“The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived and dishonest—but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”
—John F. Kennedy
Americans live by a series of myths—myths they would be the wiser to abandon. Some are embraced by liberals, others by conservatives, and still others by both.
Myth 1: Americans are highly educated.
According to the 2020 U.S. Census:
- In 2022, the highest level of education of the population age 25 and older in the United States ranged from less than high school to advanced degrees beyond a bachelor’s degree;
- 9% had less than a high school diploma or equivalent;
- 28% had high school as their highest level of school completed;
- 15% had completed some college but didn’t have a degree;
- 10% had an associate degree;
- 23% had a bachelor’s degree;
- 14% had completed advanced education such as a master’s degree, professional degree or doctorate.
Myth 2: Rural America is the repository of old-fashioned virtues.
Years of “hayseed” comedies such as “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “The Real McCoys,” “Green Acres” and “Petticoat Junction” convinced millions of Americans: If you want to find the “real” America, move to rural America.
If rural America is where you’ll find the “real” Americans, the future of the United States lies in peril.

Marshall County, Indiana
Derek Jensen (Tysto), CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
- Rural Americans overwhelmingly support Donald Trump—who refused to accept defeat in a legitimate Presidential election, schemed to overturn the voters’ decision, and finally incited an attack on Congress to illegally remain in office.
- Rural America is home to fundamentalist Christians, who demand an end to legalized abortion and birth control—and thus hope to gain dictatorial control over women’s lives. They brand pro-choice Democrats as “baby killers.”
- During the 2020 Presidential election, Joe Biden won 91 of the nation’s 100 largest counties, but hardly anywhere else.
- Trump won about five times as many counties. Democrats are thriving in major metropolitan areas, but tanking elsewhere.
- Rather than being a Garden of Eden, rural America shares many big-city ills, such as crime, opioid addiction and a decline in life expectancy.
- Nearly all of the economic growth that occurred between the Great Recession and the start of the pandemic happened in a small number of metropolitan areas, making rural residents feel that the recession had never ended.

- Rural Americans refuse to abandon industries that are now dying out—such as in coal mining and steel.
- Trump promised—falsely—to bring those jobs back. Rural voters have forgiven him for this because he delivered on cultural issues—such as appointing anti-abortion Justices to the Supreme Court who overturned Roe v. Wade.
- Nearly half (46.7 percent) of all people living in rural areas are in the South.
- For a century following the Civil War (1861-1865) the South was accurately known as a Democratic stronghold. But that changed after Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act into law.
- In short: When Democrats went from suppressing black rights to protecting them, the great mass of white, racist rural Southerners moved to the Republican party.
Myth 3: Most Americans take a vital interest in politics.
Most Americans are dismayingly ignorant of politics at all levels—local, state and federal.
- The attempted coup of January 6, 2021, was largely fueled by ignorance. The rioters believed that Donald Trump was the real winner of the 2020 election, and that Joe Biden had “stolen” it through fraud.
- They clung to this belief, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, including numerous court decisions rejecting GOP claims of fraud, many of them authored by conservative, Republican-appointed judges.
- And this ignorance continues: A large majority of rural Republicans still believe that Biden was an illegitimate President—just 21% say that he “probably” or “definitely” won.

Donald Trump
- Most Americans don’t know the names of their state and federal representatives or even the names of the three branches of government.
- Only one third of Americans can name the three branches of our federal government: executive, legislative, judicial.
- Most voters overestimate the percentage of the federal budget spends on foreign aid (actually, about 1%). Yet they underestimate the amount going to entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Social Security. As a result, they believe we can solve our fiscal problems without either cutting entitlements or raising taxes on the vast majority of Americans.
- Voters also often reward or punish elected officials for events they did not cause, such as short-term economic trends or droughts.
Such ignorance makes people more susceptible to lies and conspiracy theories, including those about the 2020 election.
Myth 4: Americans take pride in their history.
Americans’ ignorance of history—their own and that of other nations—has long been a scandal.
- A 2018 national survey by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars found that only one in three Americans (36%) can actually pass a multiple choice test consisting of items taken from the U.S. Citizenship Test.
- More than half of respondents (60%) didn’t know which countries the United States fought in World War II (Germany, Italy and Japan).
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on September 11, 2024 at 12:05 am
On December 8 and 10, 2020, the United States Supreme Court refused to hear two cases brought by supporters of President Donald Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential election.
In the first case, Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA), a Trump ally, argued that Pennsylvania’s 2.5 million mail-in ballots were unconstitutional—and should be invalidated
In the second case, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sought to overturn the results in four battleground states: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Even worse: Seventeen Republican state Attorney Generals—and 126 Republican members of Congress—rushed to support the case.
The reason: They feared Trump’s fanatical base would turn them out of office if they didn’t.

The Supreme Court
Had the Court acted on either request, the results for democracy would have been catastrophic.
For the first time in American history, a President who falsely accused his victorious rival of fraud would have invalidated the votes of 80 million Americans.
Meanwhile, as Trump continued to deny the reality of Joe Biden’s win and sought ways to overturn it, a deadly pandemic raged throughout the United States.
By December 16, 16.8 million Americans had been infected with COVID-19—and 304,000 have died.
Many of these infections and deaths resulted from millions of Americans’ insistence on spending Thanksgiving with their families. And with the Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year’s celebrations fast approaching, medical experts feared there would be even greater numbers of casualties.
So what was Trump concentrating his time on during his final weeks in office?
Two things:
- Desperately trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election; and
- Taking credit for the arrival of COVID-19 vaccines.

Donald Trump
The first one should have been grounds for his immediate removal from office. And the second should earn him everlasting contempt.
No other President had ever:
- Tried to muscle governors to override the voters of their states.
- Repeatedly spread a lie that his opponent had won by “stealing” the election.
- Demanded that the Supreme Court hear—and act—on frivolous, lie-filled lawsuits challenging the results of the election.
As for the plague, he:
- Spent most of the year ignoring the plague, and then denying it.
- Refused to wear a mask and made its wearing a political act rather than simply the best available means to stay safe.
- Turned his frenzied campaign rallies into “superspreader” events: Masses of mask-less men and women crammed into indoor stadiums, shouting vigorously—then taking the virus with them all over the country.
- Did nothing to bring rival factions in Congress together to fashion a relief bill for millions of Americans made unemployed and hungry by Coronavirus.
* * * * *
Too many people have labeled the actions of Donald Trump and his political accomplices as “insanity.”
On the contrary: It was—literally—an attempted Republican coup.
Never before in United States history had a President—or a political party—made such a blatant and unconstitutional effort to overthrow the will of the electorate.
The sheer hypocrisy of it would be stunning—if Republicans didn’t ordinarily hold to a double-standard: One that applies exclusively to its own members and another for its opponents.
For example:
During the 2016 Presidential race, members of Trump’s campaign met with Russian Intelligence agents on several occasions.
The most infamous of these meetings occurred on July 9, 2016. High-ranking representatives of Trump met at Trump Tower with at least two lobbyists with ties to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Reince Priebus, the incoming White House Chief of Staff for newly-elected Trump, was outraged that many Americans believed that the Russians had helped elect him. He demanded that outgoing President Barack Obama vouch for Trump’s legitimacy.
“I think President Obama should step up,” Priebus said on January 15, 2017, on ABC’s “This Week.”
“This Week” host George Stephanopoulos replied that Trump had questioned Obama’s legitimacy as an American citizen until almost the end of the 2016 Presidential race.
“But look, George, that’s not the point!” Priebus said, visibly agitated. “The point is not where Barack Obama was born! The point is that we’ve got congressmen on the Democratic side of the aisle that are questioning the legitimacy of President-elect Trump.”
Here was Texas—which boasts constantly of its sovereignty—trying to impose its Fascistic will on four other equally sovereign states.
And why? Because the voters in those states dared to pick a candidate Texans didn’t like.
Had New York or California tried to impose its will on Texas, the howls of Texan outrage would have resounded across the nation.
The United States has—momentarily—escaped tyranny imposed by a totally corrupt executive branch and a totally cowardly legislative one.
Every one of the 17 Republican state Attorney Generals—and the 126 Republican members of Congress—has betrayed their oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
And they have done so for the basest of reasons: Because they want to be re-elected to their current office or elected to an even higher one. And they fear they won’t be if Trump—like a Mafia capo—puts the “X” on them.
This wasn’t simply “Profiles Without Courage.” It was “Profiles in Treason.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on September 10, 2024 at 12:11 am
On November 3, Joe Biden became President-elect of the United States by winning 81,283,495 votes, or 51.4% of the vote, compared to 74,223,755 votes, or 46.9% of the vote cast for President Donald Trump.
In the Electoral College—which actually determines the winner—the results were even more stunning: 306 votes for Biden, compared with 232 for Trump. It takes 270 votes to be declared the victor.
From the moment Biden was declared the winner, Trump set out to overturn that verdict.

Joe Biden
Speaking from the White House in the early hours of November 4, Trump sounded like a petulant child whose planned outing has been suddenly called off:
“We were getting ready for a big celebration, we were winning everything and all of a sudden it was just called off. The results tonight have been phenomenal…I mean literally we were just all set to get outside and just celebrate something that was so beautiful, so good, such a vote such a success.”
For the first time in American history, a President demanded a halt to the counting of votes while the outcome of an election hung in doubt.
States ignored his demand and kept counting.
Next, Trump ordered his attorneys to file lawsuits to overturn the election results, charging electoral fraud. Specifically:
- Illegal aliens had been allowed to vote.
- Trump ballots were systematically destroyed.
- A sinister computer program turned Trump votes into Biden ones.
Throughout November and December, cases were filed in Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Minnesota and Georgia challenging the election results. None were supported by evidence of fraud—as even Trump’s lawyers admitted when questioned by judges.
On November 13, nine cases meant to attack President-Elect Joe Biden’s win in key states were denied or dropped. A law firm challenging the vote count in Pennsylvania withdrew from the effort.
In Michigan, Trump’s attorneys dropped their federal suit to block the certification of Detroit-area ballots.
By November 21, more than 30 cases were withdrawn by Trump’s attorneys or dismissed by Federal judges—some of them appointed by Trump himself.
Ultimately, from November 3 to December 14, Trump and his allies lost 59 times in court, either withdrawing cases or having them dismissed by Federal and state judges.

Donald Trump
On November 19, losing in the courts, Trump invited two Republican legislative leaders from Michigan to the White House. The reason: To persuade them to stop the state from certifying the vote.
The Michigan legislators said they would follow the law.
On December 5, Trump called Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and asked him to call a special legislative session and convince state legislators to select their own electors that would support him, thus overturning Biden’s win.
Kemp refused, saying he lacked the authority to do so.
On December 8, the Supreme Court refused to hear Trump’s bid to reverse Pennsylvania’s certification of Biden’s victory. Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA), a Trump ally, argued that the state’s 2.5 million mail-in were unconstitutional.
The Court’s order read, “The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice [Samuel] Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.”
Although Trump had appointed three of the Court’s Justices, not one of them dissented.
On December 10, the Supreme Court refused to let a Texas lawsuit overturn the results in four battleground states: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The majority of their votes—cast for Biden—were critical to Trump’s defeat.
“Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections,” the court said without further comment. It dismissed all other related claims as moot.
The request for their overturning came in a lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. A Trump ally, Paxton had been indicted on felony securities fraud charges. He might have been seeking a Presidential pardon as reward for his effort.
Seventeen Republican state Attorney Generals—and 126 Republican members of Congress—supported the lawsuit. They feared Trump’s fanatical base would “primary” them if they didn’t publicly declare their loyalty—to a man they knew was slated to leave office within two months.
Had the Court acted on Paxton’s request, the results for democracy would have been catastrophic.
“Texas seeks to invalidate elections in four states for yielding results with which it disagrees,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro told the justices in legal papers. “Its request for this court to exercise its original jurisdiction and then anoint Texas’s preferred candidate for president is legally indefensible and is an affront to principles of constitutional democracy.”
Meanwhile, top Republicans—such as Vice President Mike Pence, Missouri United States Senator Roy Blunt and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—refused to congratulate Biden as the winner.

Mitch McConnell
In fact, the vast majority of House and Senate Republicans refused to publicly acknowledge Biden as President-Elect of the United States. The reason: They were still in thrall to Trump’s fanatical base.
They feared that if they broke with the soon-to-be-ex-President, they would be voted out of office at the next election—and lose their cozy positions and the power and perks that come with them.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 9, 2024 at 12:10 am
August 9, 2024, will mark an anniversary increasingly fewer Americans remember: Fifty years to the weekday that Richard Milhous Nixon, 37th President of the United States, resigned in disgrace.
Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee, the former executive editor of The Washington Post, remains virtually unknown outside the journalism profession. Yet his paper did more than any other to bring Nixon down.
Both Nixon and Bradlee were driven to succeed. And both achieved fame and power in doing so.
Bradlee made his name in journalism.

Benjamin C. Bradlee
Nixon made his name in politics.

Richard Nixon
Both served in the United States Navy in the Pacific during World War II.
Both had strong connections to John F. Kennedy.
- Bradlee knew him as a friend and reporter during JFK’s years as a Senator and President.
- Nixon—as a Senator and later Vice President—knew Kennedy as a Senatorial colleague and as a political adversary, unsuccessfully contesting him for the Presidency in 1960.
For both, 1948 was a pivotal year.
- Bradlee joined The Washington Post as a reporter.
- Nixon, as a U.S. Representative, accused Algier Hiss, a former State Department official, of having been a Communist spy. Hiss was eventually convicted of perjury and sent to prison.
Both reached their positions of maximum power in 1968:
- Bradlee became executive editor of The Washington Post.
- Nixon became the 37th President of the United States.
But there was a fundamental difference between them:
- Bradlee made it his business to dig up the truth.
- Nixon made it his business to distort the truth—or to conceal it when distortion wasn’t enough.
Nixon and Bradlee had their first major clash in 1971 with the Pentagon Papers, a secret government study of how the United States became enmeshed in the Vietnam war.
- Although the Papers concerned events that had occurred during the Presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, Nixon was outraged at their release by a former Defense Department analyst named Daniel Ellsberg.
- Bradlee, as executive editor of The Washington Post, successfully urged his publisher, Katherine Graham, to publish the papers after The New York Times was enjoined from doing so.
- The controversy ended when the Supreme Court ruled, 6–3, that the government failed to meet the burden of proof required for prior restraint of the press.
In 1972, Bradlee and Nixon squared off for their most important battle––a “third-rate burglary” of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel.

Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein and Benjamin C. Bradlee
- Bradlee backed two young, aggressive reporters named Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, as they probed the burglary.
- This led to their discovering a series of illegal dirty tricks the Nixon re-election campaign had aimed at various Democratic opponents.
- The Post’s revelations led to the formation of the Senate Watergate Committee, the discovery of Nixon’s tape-recordings of his private—and criminal—conversations, and, finally, to Nixon’s own resignation in disgrace on August 9, 1974.
Bradlee became an advocate for education and the study of history. Nixon entered history as the only American President forced to resign from office.

:Richard Nixon saying farewell at the White House
Bradlee became a media celebrity. Nixon became a media target.
- Bradlee was portrayed by Jason Robards in the hit 1976 film, All the President’s Men (for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor).
- Nixon was portrayed—in Oliver Stone’s 1995 drama, Nixon—by Anthony Hopkins.
Bradlee and Nixon each published a series of books.
- Bradlee’s: That Special Grace and Conversations With Kennedy focused on his longtime friendship with John F. Kennedy; A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures was Bradlee’s memoirs.
- Nixon’s: Among his 11 titles: Six Crises; RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon; The Real War; Leaders; Real Peace; No More Vietnams; Beyond Peace.
After leaving the White House, Nixon worked hard behind-the-scenes to refashion himself into an elder statesman of the Republican Party.
- Throughout the 1980s, he traveled the lecture circuit, wrote books, and met with many foreign leaders, especially those of Third World countries.
- He supported Ronald Reagan for president in 1980, making television appearances portraying himself as the senior statesman above the fray.
- For the rest of his life, he fought ferociously through the courts to prevent the release of most of the infamous “Watergate tapes” that chronicled his crimes as President.
- Only since his death have many of these been made public.
Nixon died on April 22, 1994, aged 81.
- Eulogists at his funeral included President Bill Clinton and former Presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, California Governor Pete Wilson and the Reverend Billy Graham.
- Despite his efforts to portray himself as an elder statesman, Nixon could never erase his infamy as the only President to resign in disgrace.
- To this day, he remains a nonperson within the Republican Party.
Bradlee remained executive editor of The Washington Post until retiring in 1991. But he continued to serve as vice president-at-large until his death at 93 on October 21, 2014.
- In 2007, he received the French Legion of Honor, the highest award given by the French government, at a ceremony in Paris.
- In 2013, he was named as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. He was presented the medal at a White House ceremony on November 20, 2013.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 1, 2024 at 12:18 am
The latest wrinkle in San Francisco’s “be kind to Untermenschen“ (the German word for “subhumans”) campaign is the creation of “Navigation Centers.”
These are essentially holding pens for Untermenschen until they can be “navigated” to permanent housing.
But housing is in short supply in San Francisco, and there is no telling how long many of these drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally ill and/or bums will stay in them. Or what harm they will wreak on the neighborhoods warehousing them.
Since 2015, eight Navigation Centers have been opened throughout San Francisco; six are in operation.
Among the “amenities” they provide:
- Meals
- Privacy
- Space for pets
- Space separate from sleeping areas
- Laundry
- Access to benefits
- Wi-Fi
Hundreds—if not thousands—of their occupants are meth or heroin addicts. Such people commit virtually any crime to support their habit. And their crimes of choice are burglary and robbery.

Thus, pouring large numbers of them into San Francisco neighborhoods via “Navigation Centers” guarantees that countless decent citizens will become targets for desperate criminals.
At a public hearing in January, 2020, San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin touted the importance of Navigation Centers—including the one that would soon be established at Post and Hyde Streets.
When a local resident asked, “Is one of these centers located where you live?” Peskin replied: “No.”
In short: The city’s elite make sure their homes are far removed from the plague they so easily inflict on San Francisco residents.
In fact, when they’re not swallowing alcohol or injecting, swallowing or sniffing drugs, many of San Francisco’s “homeless” 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 in October, 2021.
“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 11 stores in San Francisco.
One store in the San Francisco area reportedly lost $1,000 a day to theft.
Many shoplifters then sell their stolen goods on the street—often near the store where they stole them.
Under California law, theft under $950 is considered a misdemeanor, but many prosecutors prefer to free those charged rather than holding them in jail.
The maximum sentence they could get: Six months.

Low-income and disabled seniors who depend on these disappearing drug stores for prescriptions are especially at risk.
The city budgeted $1.1 billion for fiscal year 2021-22 on DDMBs. Dividing that amount by about 7,754 DDMBs provides the figure of about $128,925 per DDMB per year.
So what can San Francisco do to effectively combat the plague of DDMBs?
- Launch a “Please Do Not Feed the Bums” publicity campaign—as it has against feeding pigeons. And those caught doing so should be heavily fined.
- Trash cans should be equipped with locked doors, to prevent bums from using them as food dispensers.
- Those living on the street should be given two choices: (1) Go to a local shelter or face arrest and the immediate confiscation of their possessions;
- (2) An “Untermenschen City” should be set up near the city dump. There they can live in their tents and/or sleeping bags while being unable to daily confront or assault others to obtain free money.
- San Francisco’s rent control laws should be strengthened, to prevent future evictions owing to the unchecked greed of landlords. Tenants on fixed incomes should be given special protections against extortionate rent increases.
- Bus drivers should be able to legally refuse passengers who stink of urine/feces, as they present a potential health-hazard to others.
- The owners of restaurants, theaters and grocery stores should likewise be allowed to refuse service on the same basis.
- Those applying for welfare benefits should be required to provide proof of residence. Too many people come to San Francisco because, upon arrival, they can immediately apply for such benefits.
- Set up a special unit to remove “street people” and their possessions from city sidewalks. This could be a division of the Sanitation Department, since its personnel are used to removing filth and debris of all types.
- Forcefully tell alcoholics and drug addicts: “Your anti-social behavior is not welcome here. Take your self-destructive lifestyles elsewhere. We won’t subsidize them.”
- Take the mentally unstable off the street and place them in institutions where their needs can be met.
- Tell those who are just plain bums: “Don’t expect us to support you.”
Only then will San Francisco reclaim its place as America’s most beloved city.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on July 31, 2024 at 12:10 am
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.”

But there’s hope for you yet—if you’re a Druggie, Drunk, Mental or Bum (DDMBs).
Why?
Because the Mayor of San Francisco—currently London Breed—and Board of Supervisors have deliberately created an Untermenschen-friendly program that actually encourages such people to move to the city.
“Untermenschen,” in German, means “subhuman.”
The short version of this is “Unters.”
A major part of this lies in placing these “guests” in hotels throughout the city. These range from the relatively low-budget Motel 6 to the luxurious Mark Hopkins.
“Guests” receive personal grooming, sanitary and cleaning supplies, three delivered meals, and laundry service for clothes and linens.
The hotels were pressured into accepting the Unters, but they also wanted to recover monies lost to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The city is paying $200 per night per room, totaling $6,000 a month—nearly double the cost of a private one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco.
But there is a big catch for the hotels: When the “homeless” are placed in subsidized housing, their mental illness, irresponsible addiction to drugs and/or alcohol and/or generally sloth-like habits usually trash those premises.
San Francisco is secretly placing DDMBs—Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums—among the tourists who check into these hotels. It does so by designating them as “emergency front-line workers.”
For most people, this means doctors, nurses and similar professionals.
It doesn’t mean DDMBs, if not outright criminals.
The city has invoked emergency-disaster law to keep this information secret. Officials refuse to notify the public about the dangers within their midst. The list of hotels is withheld from the press and reporters are forbidden to enter the properties.
City and hotel workers are required to sign nondisclosure agreements that forbid them to reveal the dangers they and their legitimate guests are exposed to. Doing so is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000, imprisonment for up to one year, or both.
Despite this, the truth has been leaking out. Security guards stand outside hotel entrances, alerting anyone who sees them that all is not well. Crime, vagrancy and drug usage/dealing have also increased around the hotels.
In one hotel, Unters receive needle kits and are advised to call the front desk before shooting up. Drug-related deaths have occurred. Containers for safely disposing of needles are placed on every floor. Even so, used syringes are often left where non-addicts can be infected by them.
“There are parties, drug overdoses, deaths, assaults on people, sexual harassment. It’s pandemonium,” City Journal writer Erica Sandberg reported. “This is very bad and it needs to be stopped.
“What they [hotel employees] told about the situation inside goes beyond any scope. They are not just terrified, they are traumatized by what they see. According to their stories, in hotels they found mattresses with feces, blood, hospital bandages on the floor. What people see is so terrible that they go out and say, ‘I don’t want to go back there.'”
City officials provide far more than free room and board to DDMBs.
The Department of Public Health (DPH) runs 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.
The latest wrinkle in San Francisco’s “be kind to Untermenschen“ campaign is the creation of “Navigation Centers.” These are essentially holding pens for Unters—until they can be “navigated” to permanent housing.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on July 30, 2024 at 12:10 am
On November 3, 2021, National Public Radio’s website carried the following headline: “San Francisco’s new rapid response teams race to save lives as ODs dramatically rise.”
From the story:
“Faced with a stunning rise in drug overdose deaths the last few years, the vast majority tied to fentanyl, San Francisco has launched mobile teams made up of paramedics and nurses.
“The new Street Overdose Response Teams (SORT), a collaboration between the city’s health and fire departments, aim to deliver a broad range of support and care directly following an overdose.”
And what is the ultimate result of repeatedly saving drug-abusers from their own self-destructive behavior?
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.”
In a June 1, 2022 interview with The Spectator World, Shellenberger blamed liberal ideology for this epidemic:
“The first thing is that they don’t enforce laws. They don’t enforce laws against people that they consider victims, which includes addicts and the mentally ill. And if you don’t enforce laws it turns out people don’t follow them and you don’t have functioning civilization.

Michael Shellenberger
Michael Shellenberger, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
“The second is that they have pursued a radical de-incarceration, de-policing and decriminalization agenda, which has removed penalties for many laws, including shoplifting $950 worth of goods, or possessing three grams of fentanyl and meth, enough to produce paranoid psychosis. And they’ve pursued a so-called housing first anti-shelter policy.
“So they’ve defunded the shelters. The governor himself has established that housing should be a right. That anybody who comes to San Francisco or Los Angeles should have their own apartment unit in those cities. That is the state policy. It is so ridiculous. It is shocking to even say that that is what the policy is, but that is what it is.
“What we need is pretty straightforward. We need to enforce laws. We need a shelter-first housing-earned policy and you need statewide psychiatric and addiction care like they have in every civilized country.
“We’re reviving people from overdose six, nine, twelve times and then sending them right back onto the streets to smoke more fentanyl. It’s bonkers.
“Fifty percent to 75 percent of all fires put out by the San Francisco and Los Angeles fire departments are in homeless encampments. My own research, and the research of others, shows that most of these are arson fires, people just getting back at each other.”

And how did the city’s mayor, London Breed, respond to the closing of the flagship store of Whole Foods Market? With a public statement that was pure boilerplate:
“Public safety is Mayor Breed’s top priority and vital to the City’s work around restoring our economy and making our residents and workers feel safe.
“We will continue to engage with them about the future use of the site. The Police will continue aggressively enforcing against open-air drug dealing, maximizing police response to urgent calls for assistance, partnering with retailers to address theft in their stores, and enforcing new street vending regulations to disrupt the sale of stolen goods.”
Nowhere in that statement is there any mention that from 2020 to July, 2022, San Francisco had a District Attorney—Chesa Boudin—who saw criminals as victims and sought any reason to excuse them for their crimes.
Nor is there any mention that the current D.A.—Brooke Jenkins—remains stymied by the realities that, under California law:
- Theft under $950 is considered a misdemeanor.
- As a result, many prosecutors prefer to free those charged rather than holding them in jail.
- The maximum sentence offenders can get is six months.
- This has led to massive shoplifting sprees at drugstores and merchandise discount stores like Target.
Also left unsaid:
- Firefighters, police officers and schoolteachers are unable to afford the extortionate rents charged by San Francisco landlords.
- But city officials have thrown out the welcome mat for DDMBs—Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums.
- 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, psychotics and outright bums.
- Another reason why many of these shelters go unused: They don’t allow their “guests” to drink up or drug up.
Not everyone who can’t find housing is a DDMB.
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.”
ABC NEWS, ALCOHOLISM, ALTERNATIVE HOUSING PROGRAM, ALTERNET, AMAZON, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BROOKE JENKINS, BUMS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHESA BOUDIN, CITY JOURNAL, CNN, COVID-19, CRACK COCAINE, CROOKS AND LIARS, CVS, DAILY KOS, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH (DPH), DRUG ADDICTION, FENTANYL, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GAVIN NEWSOM, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HOMELESS, HOMELESSNESS, HUFFINGTON POST, IPS SECURITY, JOSEPH STALIN, LONDON BREED, LOS ANGELES, MARK HOPKINS HOTEL, MEDIA MATTERS, MENTAL ILLNESS, MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER, MOTEL 6, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAVIGATION CENTERS, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, ORACLE, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PORTLAND, RAW STORY, REUTERS, SALON, SAN FRANCISCO, SAN FRANCISCO BOARD OF SUPERVISORS, SAN FRANCISCO DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, SAN FRANCISCO MAYOR'S OFFICE, SAN FRANCISCO POLICE DEPARTMENT, SAN FRANSICKO: WHY PROGRESSIVES RUIN CITIES (BOOK), SEATLE, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TENDERLOIN, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE SPECTATOR WORLD, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, UPI, USA TODAY, VMWARE, WALGREENS, WHOLE FOODS MARKET
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on July 29, 2024 at 12:11 am
On June 28, the Supreme Court, in City of Grants Pass vs. Johnson, empowered cities to enforce laws prohibiting camping and vagrancy.
Almost four years earlier, 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.
Thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling, communities nationwide can now fine, ticket or arrest those who make up the greatest part of this population–Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums (DDMBs). But they aren’t forced to take any specific actions or to actively engage in criminal punishment.

United States Supreme Court
On July 25, California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order directing state agencies on how to remove homeless encampments from public spaces.
For years, California has been plagued by thousands of tents and makeshift shelters that line freeways, clutter shopping center parking lots and fill city parks.
California has the highest number of homeless in the country—more than 181,000 people in January 2023, more than 27% of the country’s homeless population.
The governor’s order leaves it up to local mayors to remove the encampments.
“Local governments now have the tools they need to address the decades-long issue of homelessness,” declared Newsome in a statement.
“Today, we are issuing an executive order that directs state agencies & urges locals to address encampments while connecting those living in them to housing & supportive services.”
San Francisco’s Mayor and Board of Supervisors may finally be ready to do what, for years, they had refused to do: Clear the city’s streets of DDMBs.
A massive casualty of the irresponsibility of “city leaders” came on April 10, 2023: One of the largest supermarkets in downtown San Francisco—the Whole Foods Market at Eighth and Market streets—announced it would shut down at the close of business that day.
The store, operated by Amazon, had been operating slightly more than a year. It had become the repeated victim of wholesale thefts courtesy of the city’s DDMBs.

The Politically Correct name for these people is “unhoused.” The accurate name for them is summed up in a German word: “Untermenschen”—“subhumans.”
Given the Politically Correct climate of San Francisco, the closing of the Whole Foods store was almost guaranteed to happen.
At its opening, on March 10, 2022, the store operated from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. By October, it opened at 9 a.m. and closed at 7 p.m.
“It’s to better serve our customers, and it’s more or less because of the area and security issues,” said the store’s manager. “There’s just high theft and people being hostile.”
In November, the store enforced new rules for customers after syringes and crack pipes were found in the restroom. The bathroom was now open only to customers who showed security guards a receipt. Customers were then given a QR code for entry.
It was no coincidence that the bathrooms were often used by drug-abusers—the store was close to the Tenderloin Center, a safe drug-use site.

Crack cocaine
Argv0, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikipedia Commons
Another reason for the change in bathroom policy: Thieves would fill up suitcases with merchandise before going into the restroom.
And who is ultimately responsible for such outrages?
San Francisco’s topmost officials—the Mayor, Board of Supervisors, District Attorney and chief of the San Francisco Police Department. Together, they have formed an “Untermenschen”-friendly alliance.
The start of the COVID-19 pandemic inflicted a massive loss in foot traffic in downtown San Francisco as employees fled high rises to work remotely from home. Many small businesses—especially restaurants—shuttered.
Compounding this disaster has been an increasing influx of hardcore alcoholics, hardcore drug addicts, psychotically mentally ill and parasitical bums. Sidewalks are littered with huge tents, used hypodermic syringes and needles, empty beer cans and wine bottles, human feces and pools of urine.
The local and national press have predicted a “Doom Loop” facing San Francisco, as the city’s tourism rate sharply declines and City Hall officials currently project a nearly $800 million deficit in San Francisco’s budget.
Tech giants such as Meta and IBM have abandoned San Francisco for events in cities such as Denver and Orlando, Florida.
In September, 2023, Silicon Valley tech giant Alphabet announced that it would move its high-profile Google Cloud Next conference to Las Vegas in 2024.
But this has not prevented city officials from calling for increased efforts to comfort those very parasites who threaten not only their own lives but those of law-abiding San Franciscans and the city’s tourism industry.
On November 3, 2021, National Public Radio’s website carried the following headline: “San Francisco’s new rapid response teams race to save lives as ODs dramatically rise.”
From the story:
“Faced with a stunning rise in drug overdose deaths the last few years, the vast majority tied to fentanyl, San Francisco has launched mobile teams made up of paramedics and nurses.
“The new Street Overdose Response Teams (SORT), a collaboration between the city’s health and fire departments, aim to deliver a broad range of support and care directly following an overdose.”
ABC NEWS, ALCOHOLISM, ALTERNATIVE HOUSING PROGRAM, ALTERNET, AMAZON, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BROOKE JENKINS, BUMS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHESA BOUDIN, CITY JOURNAL, CNN, COVID-19, CRACK COCAINE, CROOKS AND LIARS, CVS, DAILY KOS, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH (DPH), DRUG ADDICTION, FENTANYL, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GAVIN NEWSOM, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HOMELESS, HOMELESSNESS, HUFFINGTON POST, IPS SECURITY, JOSEPH STALIN, LONDON BREED, LOS ANGELES, MARK HOPKINS HOTEL, MEDIA MATTERS, MENTAL ILLNESS, MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER, MOTEL 6, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAVIGATION CENTERS, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, ORACLE, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PORTLAND, RAW STORY, REUTERS, SALON, SAN FRANCISCO, SAN FRANCISCO BOARD OF SUPERVISORS, SAN FRANCISCO DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, SAN FRANCISCO MAYOR'S OFFICE, SAN FRANCISCO POLICE DEPARTMENT, SAN FRANSICKO: WHY PROGRESSIVES RUIN CITIES (BOOK), SEATLE, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TENDERLOIN, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE SPECTATOR WORLD, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, UPI, USA TODAY, VMWARE, WALGREENS, WHOLE FOODS MARKET
FINALLY! A REMEDY FOR AMERICA’S PLAGUE–DDMBs: PART ONE (OF FOUR)
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on February 24, 2025 at 12:05 amOn June 28, 2024, the Supreme Court, in City of Grants Pass vs. Johnson, empowered cities to enforce laws prohibiting camping and vagrancy.
Almost four years earlier, 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.
Thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling, communities nationwide can now fine, ticket or arrest those who make up the greatest part of this population–Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums (DDMBs). But they aren’t forced to take any specific actions or to actively engage in criminal punishment.
United States Supreme Court
On July 25, California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order directing state agencies on how to remove homeless encampments from public spaces.
For years, California has been plagued by thousands of tents and makeshift shelters that line freeways, clutter shopping center parking lots and fill city parks.
California has the highest number of homeless in the country—more than 181,000 people in January 2023, more than 27% of the country’s homeless population.
The governor’s order leaves it up to local mayors to remove the encampments.
“Local governments now have the tools they need to address the decades-long issue of homelessness,” declared Newsome in a statement.
“Today, we are issuing an executive order that directs state agencies & urges locals to address encampments while connecting those living in them to housing & supportive services.”
San Francisco’s Mayor and Board of Supervisors may finally be ready to do what, for years, they had refused to do: Clear the city’s streets of DDMBs.
A massive casualty of the irresponsibility of “city leaders” came on April 10, 2023: One of the largest supermarkets in downtown San Francisco—the Whole Foods Market at Eighth and Market streets—announced it would shut down at the close of business that day.
The store, operated by Amazon, had been operating slightly more than a year. It had become the repeated victim of wholesale thefts courtesy of the city’s DDMBs.
The Politically Correct name for these people is “unhoused.” The accurate name for them is summed up in a German word: “Untermenschen”—“subhumans.”
Given the Politically Correct climate of San Francisco, the closing of the Whole Foods store was almost guaranteed to happen.
At its opening, on March 10, 2022, the store operated from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. By October, it opened at 9 a.m. and closed at 7 p.m.
“It’s to better serve our customers, and it’s more or less because of the area and security issues,” said the store’s manager. “There’s just high theft and people being hostile.”
In November, the store enforced new rules for customers after syringes and crack pipes were found in the restroom. The bathroom was now open only to customers who showed security guards a receipt. Customers were then given a QR code for entry.
It was no coincidence that the bathrooms were often used by drug-abusers—the store was close to the Tenderloin Center, a safe drug-use site.
Crack cocaine
Argv0, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikipedia Commons
Another reason for the change in bathroom policy: Thieves would fill up suitcases with merchandise before going into the restroom.
And who is ultimately responsible for such outrages?
San Francisco’s topmost officials—the Mayor, Board of Supervisors, District Attorney and chief of the San Francisco Police Department. Together, they have formed an “Untermenschen”-friendly alliance.
The start of the COVID-19 pandemic inflicted a massive loss in foot traffic in downtown San Francisco as employees fled high rises to work remotely from home. Many small businesses—especially restaurants—shuttered.
Compounding this disaster has been an increasing influx of hardcore alcoholics, hardcore drug addicts, psychotically mentally ill and parasitical bums. Sidewalks are littered with huge tents, used hypodermic syringes and needles, empty beer cans and wine bottles, human feces and pools of urine.
The local and national press have predicted a “Doom Loop” facing San Francisco, as the city’s tourism rate sharply declines and City Hall officials currently project a nearly $800 million deficit in San Francisco’s budget.
Tech giants such as Meta and IBM have abandoned San Francisco for events in cities such as Denver and Orlando, Florida.
In September, 2023, Silicon Valley tech giant Alphabet announced that it would move its high-profile Google Cloud Next conference to Las Vegas in 2024.
But this has not prevented city officials from calling for increased efforts to comfort those very parasites who threaten not only their own lives but those of law-abiding San Franciscans and the city’s tourism industry.
On November 3, 2021, National Public Radio’s website carried the following headline: “San Francisco’s new rapid response teams race to save lives as ODs dramatically rise.”
From the story:
“Faced with a stunning rise in drug overdose deaths the last few years, the vast majority tied to fentanyl, San Francisco has launched mobile teams made up of paramedics and nurses.
“The new Street Overdose Response Teams (SORT), a collaboration between the city’s health and fire departments, aim to deliver a broad range of support and care directly following an overdose.”
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