From one of the bastions of progressivism
The people of San Fransisco, whoever they are, have had enough. Last night the voters there overwhelmingly approved a pair of ballot measures that would upend the radical course that once beautiful city by the bay has been subject to. Those measures would expand police powers and require welfare recipients to be screened for drugs. For a long time, Republican critics have tried to tell the crazies who run San Fransisco as well as California's other city officials that the main problem of the homeless population living on the streets is mental illness and drugs. California is home to one third of the nation's homeless population and the state seems proud of it.
Proposition E, which allows police to use surveillance equipment, such as cameras, drones, and even facial-recognition technology without prior permission from a far-left radical oversight body, passed with 59,818 votes, or 59.9 percent of the vote. The new rules also remove a lot of the restrictions on police involving police chases and making extensive police reports.
Proposition F, which mandates that anyone receiving public-assistance benefits be screened for a substance-abuse disorder, passed with 63,295 votes, or 63 percent. Finally, the left will have to admit what it is dealing with. It took decades and incredible suffering by SF residents to get democrat voters to finally vote against an evil ideology.
In other news:
Nikki Haley is expected to drop out of the GOP primary race today.
Senator Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona Democrat-turned-independent, will not seek re-election. She said that bipartisan compromises were “not what America wants right now.”
A new federal indictment charged Senator Bob Menendez, the New Jersey Democrat, and his wife with obstruction of justice. Please note that his indictment/trial are moving at a normal pace.
Victoria Nuland, the State Department’s third-ranking official and a Russia hawk, is retiring. Hillary Clinton seems to feel the same way about Russia/Russia.
Louisiana’s governor hopes to crack down on crime, including by limiting parole.
A deal to free hostages in return for a six-week pause in the fighting in Gaza is in the hands of Hamas according to Joe Biden.
Donald Trump said that the Israeli military should finish the job in Gaza.
The U.S. airdropped more expensive ready-to-eat meals into Gaza and said it will make more such drops.
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Good morning
Span and scrambled eggs?
We'll also be following the case that just keeps getting worse: that of Fani Willis.
ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia commission with powers to discipline and remove prosecutors needs only Gov. Brian Kemp’s approval before it can begin operations, possibly disrupting Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ prosecution of former President Donald Trump.
The state House voted 97-73 on Tuesday for Senate Bill 332, sending it to Kemp. The Republican governor has said he will sign the measure.
Georgia pushes group to sanction prosecutors as Fani Willis faces removal from Trump case | AP News
This is something that should be spread across the country.
I think everyone's got it.
All it takes is a little leftwing governance.
Doing ONE thing right doesn't mean that they are the example for everything.
The thousand-mile journey begins with a single step.
This was all stuff that older generations knew. Unfortunately, we have to suffer before we do the right thing.
So profound.
Thank you.
A gray whale extinct from the Atlantic for more than 200 years was spotted off the New England coast last week in an “incredibly rare event,” the New England Aquarium said.
The whale was spotted 30 miles south of Nantucket on March 1, seen diving and resurfacing, appearing to feed, the aquarium said in a news release .
Rare gray whale, extinct in the Atlantic for 200 years, spotted near Nantucket (msn.com)
Joe Biden has devoted much of the past week for rest and practice for his upcoming 40–60-minute State of the Union speech.
He usually doesn't screw up something like this. I suspect they are giving him something.
That's a lot of single syllable words.
Lol, he should make it.
I doubt it.
Remember all the propositions that purple California used to vote for, and the 9th Circuit used to overturn?
It was almost routine. A lot of terrible things happened to get that state to the position it is in now,
These have been overturned in the courts every time they come up. It won't stand here either.
The Ninth Circuit has changed a bit since the days when it overruled everything decent CA citizens wanted.
True. I think its a matter of how much the politicians cry.
So you believe both the 9th AND the SCOTUS will uphold a law presuming people are guilty without due process? If so then I fully expect a slate of new state propositions that will require drug testing for every politician receiving a publicly funded paycheck.
That law doesn't do that. Anyone getting public assistance must answer questions and follow rules.
Here is a big part of it:
When President Trump ticks off his accomplishments since taking office, he frequently mentions his aggressive makeover of a key sector of the federal judiciary — the circuit courts of appeal, where he has appointed 51 judges to lifetime jobs in three years.
In few places has the effect been felt more powerfully than in the sprawling 9th Circuit, which covers California and eight other states. Because of Trump’s success in filling vacancies, the San Francisco-based circuit, long dominated by Democratic appointees, has suddenly shifted to the right, with an even more pronounced tilt expected in the years ahead.
Trump has flipped the 9th Circuit — and some new judges are causing a 'shock wave' - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)
Drug testing for public benefits hasn't worked in any city/state that's tried to do it before, what make you think it will work now here?
Who says so?
What do you mean who says so? The courts have consistently said so. You can look up Marchwinski v. Howard to start and I'm sure if you actually do some research you'll find more.
It's also prohibitively expensive and ineffective.
Then they shouldn't get benefits. End of story.
Then they should get nothing.
Who are you talking about? Poor people shouldn't get benefits because one or two people might be doing drugs? Really? That's your take?
EDIT: Your seeming solution here has historically caused more homelessness and more crime.
That is my take. Furthermore vagrancy is vagrancy. They shouldn't be allowed to live in city streets nor should the insane be living on the streets.
Are there no prisons and workhouses?
The point is this has been tried in many states and cities over the years and has failed in all. Records show that the same number of people receiving public benefits vs people who do not receive such benefits are using drugs. How much money should be spent to prevent a few people here? In four months Florida spent over $1 million in such a failed attempt.
We as a people waste a lot of money on these things, it's after all a favorite pastime for politicians to throw money at "things" in order to appear to be doing something. But where does it end?
Drug testing everyone isn't the solution. Increased housing and mental health facilities & staffing will be but people like you don't want subsidized housing in their neighborhoods either. So what are these people supposed to do? Perhaps they can just bus their problems to Texas... /s
That's the thing democrats out there keep emphasizing. It has not worked.
Out here in Boston we have a place called "The Pine Street Inn." It is a shelter for the homeless.
Not only does it keep them off the street, but it has one other benefit. Once someone has been there, they NEVER EVER want to go back.
You'll have to back up that claim with some data showing where and why it hasn't worked. All the data I'm seeing is the rising cost of rent is the biggest cause of homelessness.
[deleted] We all know that your solution is to put them in a burlap sack and drown them.
Oh, we're not talking about kittens and puppies?
In 1980 Carter signed landmark legislation that had been "in the works" since 1950.
In 1981 Reagan repealed it. No federal funding. Back to States rights and 50 different ways to fuck up a good thing.
The Patients Bill of rights however was left intact.
So basically no insane people living on the streets can be institutionalized against their will.
States could not afford the funding on their own so
State hospitals like Byberry and Norristown in PA just opened their doors and let the patients roam free.
It varies per state but essentially it's all thanks to Ron.
To be fair, President Kennedy started the process of deinstitutionalization.
Following that, several other presidents and congressional committees met to review and recommend on the issue. Additionally there was a lawsuit filed by the ACLU that lead up to the major changes in institutionalizing for mental health reasons.
Like they say, context matters.
"Deinstitutionalization as a policy for state hospitals began in the period of the civil rights movement when many groups were being incorporated into mainstream society. Three forces drove the movement of people with severe mental illness from hospitals into the community : the belief that mental hospitals were cruel and inhumane; the hope that new antipsychotic medications offered a cure; and the desire to save money ."
"Over time, several court cases have further defined the legal requirements for admission to or retention in a hospital setting. In Lake v. Cameron, a 1966 D.C. Court of Appeals case, the concept of “least restrictive setting” was introduced , requiring hospitals to discharge patients to an environment less restrictive than a hospital if at all possible. In the 1975 case of O’Connor v. Donaldson, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that a person had to be a danger to him- or herself or to others for confinement to be constitutional . The 1999 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Olmstead v. L.C. stated that mental illness was a disability and covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act. All governmental agencies, not just the state hospitals, were be required thereafter to make “reasonable accommodations” to move people with mental illness into community-based treatment to end unnecessary institutionalization."
"Perhaps the most important change in federal law was the introduction of Medicaid , which shifted funding for people with SMI in state hospitals from the states’ responsibility to a shared partnership with the federal government [17]. This created an incentive for states to close the facilities they funded on their own and move patients into community hospitals and nursing homes partially paid for by Medicaid and the federal government."
https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/deinstitutionalization-people-mental-illness-causes-and-consequences/2013-10\
And who can forget One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?
That's hysterical, the president can't repeal a law. the democrat controlled house introduced a bill.
H.R.3982 - Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981
that was entered and sponsored by democrat James Jones, where it passed by a bipartisan vote of 232-193, it then went to the Senate where it passed 80-14 and yet it is Reagans fault. This is partisanship at it's finest.
Did you deliberately skip the first paragraph?
just so you have some context there George.
and there's always that sketchy part where the POTUS signed it willingly, he owned it.
Surprisingly Bill Clinton did restore when we were flush with money in the tech bubble and knowing the impacts now, why wasn’t it part of Biden’s infrastructure bill?
Apparently, the mentally ill and homeless aren’t reliable voters.
This is why nobody takes liberals seriously, they mindlessly bleat that Biden can't get anything done with the mean old republicans blocking him, and then follow it with Reagan passed a bill through a democrat controlled house, and then the Senate, without a super majority, and not one democrat filibustered it, in fact it got 80 fucking votes and it is still Reagans fault, and the stupid fuckers say he was senile to boot, how retarded does that make the democrats in the house and Senate at the time?
It won't.
It doesn't work that way. Period. End of sentence.
It doesn't work that way. End of story.
Excellent points.
To hear Democrats tell it, they can't do anything while in the majority because the mean old GOP blocks them. and when in the minority, Dens are just powerless to stop that very sane GOP from running roughshod over them.
Why would anyone vote for such idiots?
Awesome movie!
But Still....
How Reagan’s Decision to Close Mental Institutions Led to the Homelessness Crisis (obrag.org)
and a longer overview without much politics about how the deinstitutionalizing process
simply put most of these people into the prison population.
The Truth About Deinstitutionalization - The Atlantic
Wasn't that the start of the alleged compassionate conservatives? Dump all the insane on the streets. How compassionate.
Thanks for the truth of the matter SP. See how the endless defense of the indefensible is never ending.
[deleted]
Yes, if you actually look at data, almost all of the deinstitualization occurred between 1955 and 1980. The institutionalization rate per 100,000 dropped from about 300 people at its peak in the 1950s to about 70 by the time Reagan took office. There was a much more gradual decrease through the Reagan/Bush/Clinton years. The idea that Reagan is somehow to blame for what happened before he took office is just silly.
I think the AMA analysis that I provided is a bit less biased than yours.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if complex problems could be made so simple that one man could create the problem and then one man could just as easily fix it.
This why it's hard to take certain individuals here seriously.
They mindlessly compare certain periods of history to current affairs.
Back in the day when Tip O'Neil was the Speaker, compromise and respect were the name of the game.
Differences of opinion were left on the House floor and everyone went to the same bars afterwork to "unwind".
That all died with Newt.
Well the "stupid fuckers" who said that were complaining about his gaffes in 1987 and later; he wasn't diagnosed with Alzheimers until 1994,
so it doesn't have a thing to do with how retarded Congress was in 1981.
I hope that helps put the timeline in perspective.
The AMA makes everything bland and alienates no one, lol.
Good bed time reading...
Maybe Biden will fix this in his second term.
Exactly, but please don’t another 1619 project argument.
Don't you love how old time Republicans are almost revered by today's Democrats?
Maybe the lesson unlearned is that we take significant risk electing presidents that will be 77 or older when their term ends.
Again, overwhelming support from democrats, introduced by a democrat and liberals still blame republicans, hence that is why democrats are the party of no personal responsibility.
One has to wonder what Reagan promised those 80 Dems who voted to repeal the MHSA ,
most of whom had voted for the MHSA only a year earlier.
Oh the good old days of swapping votes and compromising...
it only matters who has the majority in Congress when a Republican is President.
Convenient, no?
Yes, Obama frequently invoked Reagan and called him one of our few"transformational" presidents.
kind of went out the window when Dems renigged on border security after getting amnesty for illegal aliens.
?
The Senate was 53 (R) to 47 (D) one Independent
There were 272 Democrats in the House with 158 Republicans
Regan needed 58 Dems to cross over in a period of time where this was routine.
The MHSA repeal was included in the Omnibus Spending Bill.
192 Dems voted against the Omnibus Bill probably for 192 different reasons.
80 For
192 opposed
That is not overwhelming support.
At the time it was OK to be a conservative Democrat or even a liberal Republican.
They just weren't into this rabid partisanship we see and hear every day.
A minimum of 37 of the 47 democrats in the senate voted for it, that is overwhelming support for a democrat introduced bill.
Were they liberals, conservatives or just plain patriots voting for the annual funding bill?
It's ludicrous to suggest drug testing for all welfare recipients - it is cost prohibitive and not legal and it's been tried and shot down.
[deleted]
At least some folks aren't referring to him as joetard or Brandon now -
Mindless . . . you hit that nail on the head.
Good old Newt - banging his mistress while his wife is dying of cancer. That scumbag started it all, you're so right SP. Good old hypocrites of the gop - do as I say - not as I do.
Isn't it so mature to refer to folks as retarded or joetard or Brandon?
Almost like referring to Trump as Trumptard!
That is an old partisan trope.
True, Reagan tried for a wall for 8 years but Congress balked at the prices.
Bush & Clinton both tried to fix immigration. Congress provided E-Verify in 1997 but 26 years later only a handful of states use it, while others use it only for federal or state jobs.
24 of the past 43 years have been Republican Administrations but partisans always blame the Dems?
The system is broken because there is no legal path for any immigrant seeking asylum
and the visa system only caters to those that can afford it. Meanwhile we need non skilled laborers.
Came close to a good solution a couple of weeks ago but politics by the GoP killed their own baby.
But the Dems...!!! /s
Nice spin............but I ain't gullible enough to buy it.
Bingo!
You are correct sir!
Reality is starting to set in after they managed to destroy San francisco.
Maybe we can bring it all the way back. Then they may recover Tony Bennett's heart.
He probably wouldn't want it back, someone has probably shit on it by now in SF.
So classy!
Let them eat bombs, right ?
Let them act like human beings first.
They bleed and die like everyone. Isn't that Human enough for you?
How about exchanging hostages for food?
How about a Hamas surrender.
[deleted]
Would you have supported air drops to the starving Germans in World War I or 2?
Great question.
Did we know they were starving ?
The United states is currently trying to negotiate not only an end to the war in Gaza but a solution for the peace including a two state solution . obviously the United States government does not consider everyday Gazans to be our enemy.
The terrorists do NOT want a two state solution.
And I don't know why anyone would ever pretend they do.
But they do consider those who support terrorists to be enemies. Now, the people of Gaza put Hamas in the position they are in. They stood idly by while Hamas carried out their terrorist act. Do you also forget that the people of Gaza cheered when the towers fell on 9-11? Of course you did.
Yes, that was the point. To weaken the will/ability to resist and shorten the war. It may have essentially won WW1 as the German home front collapsed before their armies.
es is currently trying to negotiate not only an end to the war in Gaza but a solution for the peace including a two state soluti
So you believe the appropriate role of the US after Hamas breaks a cease fire and slaughters/rapes/mutilates civilians is to supply Hamas with food that it gives to Gazans at it's' discretion, restrain Israeli tactics and ensure as many Israeli soldiers die as possible fighting terrorists and reward Hamas with its own state for its efforts.
Could Hamas realistically ask for more for more from Joe Biden? He's been an amazing friend.
nt does not consider everyday Gazans to be our enemy.
In what war have we ever believed that to be true?
If there was a two state solution, the Palestinians seem to have any one the knows how to govern, they know how to terrorize and how to steal from their people.
"Let them free the hostages" would be the correct thing to say.
Here in the nations capital this week, in response months of intense outcry from residents and businesses over last year’s historic crime spike, the Wash DC Council passed a massive public safety package.
The legislation makes it easier keep adults and certain juveniles charged with violent offenses detained while they await trial; expands the definition of carjacking to make prosecution easier; recognizes as a felony for “organized retail theft,” creates temporary drug-free zones after residents demanded attention to drug-related loitering and establishes harsher penalties for a wide range of crimes.
If you're going to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
If you're going to San Francisco
You're gonna meet some gentle people there
The gentle people there are learning how expensive a progressive city can be.
The sink hole city on the bay released it's 2022 Financial last January (a little late). They discovered that the city owes more than it owns, creating a $2.4B hole or $8,800 per tax payer.
Progressive states have hit debt load as well. California most recent projection for 2024-25 has risen to $73 billion in the red. This doesn't include long-term debt.
The gentle people need some of that debt forgiveness that some students are getting.