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San Francisco's slide into hell under extreme leftism


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2021 Apr 15, 9:51pm   116,283 views  945 comments

by Patrick   ➕follow (55)   💰tip   ignore  

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2021/04/19/chesa-boudins-dangerous-san-francisco/

‘Hey, where are you?” Hannah Ege texted her husband, Sheria Musyoka. He’d left on a morning jog and had been gone for an hour and a half. Hannah was home, taking care of their three-year-old son. She began to freak out. She called and texted and called again. He never answered.

Speeding and drunk — at just shy of eight in the morning — Jerry Lyons barreled through a red light at an intersection in a stolen Ford Explorer. Lyons struck and killed Musyoka, a 26-year-old Dartmouth grad who had moved to San Francisco only ten days earlier with his wife and their son. After clipping Musyoka, Lyons collided with another car, causing an eight-car pileup that sent several other people to the hospital.

The San Francisco police arrested Lyons on multiple charges that morning in February, but this was not the first time he’d been arrested for drunk driving in a stolen car. On December 3, he had been arrested for driving under the influence, driving a stolen vehicle, and driving without a license. Before that, he’d been released from prison after serving time for a grand-theft conviction; in fact, Lyons had been arrested at least seven times in the Bay Area since his release from prison, and his rap sheet goes back a decade. Still, San Francisco’s district attorney, Chesa Boudin, delayed pressing charges against Lyons until a toxicology report confirmed that he had been inebriated, which, more than a month and a half later in January, it did. Lyons then had 14 days to turn himself in to the DA’s office. On the 13th day, he killed Musyoka. While COVID-era difficulties might have accounted for the medical examiner’s slow speed in returning test results, a different DA could have chosen to move forward sooner — taking necessary precautions — and charged Lyons with a DUI based on observable factors alone, such as the results of Lyons’s field sobriety test, his erratic driving in a stolen vehicle, and close scrutiny of his behavior.

Hannah Ege expressed her grief and pain to a local TV news station, railing at the district attorney’s reluctance to lock up repeat offenders. Whom does she blame for her husband’s death? “The DA,” she said. “This freak accident was no freak accident. It was someone who was out in the public who should not have been out in public.”

The Lyons mayhem is not an isolated case in the city by the bay. On New Year’s Eve, a parolee on the run from a robbery — also in a stolen car — sped through a red light, striking and killing two women, 60-year-old Elizabeth Platt and 27-year-old Hanako Abe, who were in the crosswalk. The driver, Troy McAlister, had been released twice by the district attorney in the previous year: the first time because Boudin refuses to pursue three-strike cases, of which McAlister’s was one; the second — as recently as December 20, when the SFPD arrested McAlister for driving a stolen car — because Boudin kicked the case to the state parole officers, who did nothing.

Welcome to San Francisco’s latest idiocy, a new experiment in governance where everything is allowed but nothing is permitted. A paradox, you might say, but take a walk down Market Street, down that great avenue in a great city in a great nation, and note the desolation of the empty streets, the used needles tossed on the sidewalks, and the boarded-up windows on storefronts. Consider that, at various unpredictable times in the last year, it has been illegal — for the sake of public safety during COVID — to run a mom-and-pop corner shop or to serve food at sidewalk cafés. Reflect for a moment that, since time immemorial, it has been illegal to build any new housing, because of the most onerous and confusing zoning laws in the known universe. Mark Zuckerberg can apparently influence national elections by tweaking algorithms, but he is powerless before the planning commission when it comes to building apartments for his employees. The city has banned plastic straws, plastic bags, and McDonald’s Happy Meals with toys. And yet, all the while, drug dealers sell their wares — COVID or no COVID — openly and freely at all hours of the day and night, users shoot up or pop fentanyl in public and defecate on the street, robbers pillage cars and homes with the ease of Visigoth raiders, and the district attorney frees repeat offenders who go on to sow disorder, pain, devastation, and grief. A profound melancholy hangs in the air of this city, punctuated only by the shrieks of a junkie dreaming of demons or by the rat-tat-tat-bam of the occasional firework. (Or was that a gun?) ...

How did it come to this? On January 8, 2020, Mayor London Breed swore in Chesa Boudin as the new district attorney of San Francisco in front of a packed house at the Herbst Theater. Boudin won the election by a nose in a runoff, with oily promises to feel the pain of all parties to a crime, both victims and perpetrators. He made pledges to enact “restorative justice” and prison reform through “decarceration.” U.S. Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor recorded a congratulatory video message, which was played at the swearing-in ceremony for Boudin and the crowd. “Chesa, you have undertaken a remarkable challenge today,” the justice said. “The hope you reflect is a great beacon to many.”

The task before Boudin was already monumental. Before he assumed his office, San Francisco ranked No. 1 in the nation in property crime. On average, thieves broke 60 car windows per day, with impunity. In 2014, California voters approved Proposition 47, a reform measure that reduced many felonies to ticketed misdemeanors, such as theft of less than $950 and hard-drug possession. There were more drug addicts on the streets than there were students in the schools. Tent encampments of homeless people had sprouted in every nook and alley and under every highway overpass. Commuters faced a daily gauntlet in the form of an appalling humanitarian crisis in the streets.

But Boudin immediately refused to take any responsibility for these issues. Among his first acts was to fire seven veteran prosecutors who were not on board with his radical views. (Over 30 prosecutors have left during his tenure because they don’t want to work for him.) Next, Boudin abolished the cash-bail system, so offenders are able to walk free after arrest. He rarely brings a case to trial: Out of the 6,333 cases to land on his desk since taking office, he has gone to trial only 23 times. This is one-tenth the rate of his predecessor, George Gascón, who was hardly tough on crime. Since the killing of George Floyd, there has been a shortage of cops, as officers retire in record numbers. San Francisco has also moved to defund the police, with plans to shift $120 million in law-enforcement funding to restorative-justice programs, housing support, and a guaranteed-income pilot, among other ideas.

To where does Boudin’s “great beacon” point? Over the last year, there have been more deaths from drug overdoses in San Francisco than from COVID-19. Walgreens has closed ten of its drugstores in the city because its shelves were being pillaged freely by shoplifters. According to SFPD’s CompStat, compared with last year, arson has increased 52 percent, motor-vehicle theft is up 21 percent, and burglaries have seen a 59 percent increase. One largely Asian neighborhood, the Richmond district, has reported a 342 percent spike in burglaries this year compared with last. Admittedly, some numbers are down, such as those for larceny and robbery. But police attribute these declines to the pandemic, since there are fewer opportunities for would-be criminals to commit such crimes as people shelter in place. One neighborhood association sent a letter in February to Boudin and Mayor Breed, begging them to restore public safety. The association also posted it on the Internet. “Our neighborhood can’t wait another day,” they wrote. “Our homes are repeatedly broken into and robbed. Our merchants suffer unsustainable losses from theft and smashed windows. Employees are threatened with guns. Residents are robbed at gunpoint on our own streets. The sound of gunshots is no longer unusual.” ...

Now, what rough beast slouches its way towards San Francisco? With a district attorney who won’t prosecute crimes, how long will it be until an anxious Google engineer defends himself from being harassed by a madman? Will envious arsonists light the Salesforce Tower on fire as a jacked-up mob courses through the streets burning and looting the Painted Ladies?

A desperate sun struggles through the fog. There may be one ray of hope. The city has recently approved the effort to recall Chesa Boudin from office. Locals could begin downloading signature-gathering petitions on March 12. If 10 percent of registered voters sign the petition, all voters may get the chance to vote the bum out. But even if they do, it will remain tragic for Musyoka, Platt, Abe, and others like them that the day did not come soon enough.


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546   AmericanKulak   2023 May 15, 12:04pm  

Funny you should mention Social Conformance via Late Nite (Un)funny Men.

Just saw this minutes ago:

547   richwicks   2023 May 15, 12:11pm  

AmericanKulak says


Funny you should mention Social Conformance via Late Nite (Un)funny Men.

Just saw this minutes ago:




I don't know if the timing is strictly necessary, but the repetition and and derision certainly is.

You ever notice that when there's disagreement in an interview, it becomes yelling and rudeness? It's to teach people to treat people they disagree like this, and not to listen to even consider the may have a valid and possibly correct opinion. Sean Hannity used to do this all the time, I don't know about now, I've not seen him in over 15 years.

I know how it's controlled at this point. Our media is basically just a bunch of assholes to incite violence. There's no nuanced discussion at all. Tucker Carlson is no different, go watch a segment of his, and turn off the sound, and just watch his facial cues:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9eN19qkZRk

He often squints his eyes to indicate disgust at a concept or an idea. Rachael Maddow is no different. I only consume information by reading or listening at this point (well for the most part), I know I can be manipulated even when I know the mechanisms of the manipulation.

On the View for example, audience is queued to clap and cheer. That's a sign that lights up. Nothing is authentic about it. People turn in to be a PART of that audience, not to listen to these women really.

I hate television. People ape behavior from it all the time.
549   Ceffer   2023 May 15, 12:24pm  

AmericanKulak says


Funny you should mention Social Conformance via Late Nite (Un)funny Men.

Absence makes the heart grow scornier. When you are on hiatus from the hypnotist propagandists for a while and then watch them, they can fill you with peak revulsion, they are so contemptible. I realize that my Santa Cruz liberal friend does this to me, as pointed out in the Oliver article, a reflex derisive laughter, but then he will listen afterward. The article points out the programming of the derisive laughter element, a form of brainwashing feedback. Interesting.
550   richwicks   2023 May 15, 12:31pm  

Ceffer says

Absence makes the heart grow scornier. When you are on hiatus from the hypnotist propagandists for a while and then watch them, they can fill you with peak revulsion, they are so contemptible. I realize that my Santa Cruz liberal friend does this to me, as pointed out in the Oliver article, a reflex derisive laughter, but then he will listen afterward.


Can you make a bet with him not to watch any television, either on television or the Internet, and to stay away from all printed forms of news, and radio, for one month?

I guarantee he will be a changed person in a month. Here's what he will feel at first, depressed, alone, unguided, and in withdrawal. I bet he can't do it.
551   Patrick   2023 May 15, 8:27pm  

https://sfstandard.com/community/crime-homelessness-and-commercial-vacancies-sjs-doom-loop-mirrors-sf/


Crime, Homelessness and Commercial Vacancies: SJ’s Doom Loop Mirrors SF


I wonder if they will ever figure out that it is Democrat policies which are killing them.
556   Patrick   2023 May 21, 4:03pm  

https://spectator.org/san-francisco-does-detroit/


San Francisco Does Detroit

Nordstrom’s closure marks the beginning of the end for the City by the Bay.

May 6, 2023

I left San Francisco just in time — at the end of 2016.

Sure, I saw the occasional junkie shooting up in public when I still worked in the city. And yes, I saw men use the sidewalk at the intersection of Fifth and Market streets as a toilet.

But I never saw swarms of shoplifters emptying pharmacy shelves. If I needed new shoes, I could pop over to Nordstrom at the Westfield San Francisco Centre at Fifth and Market.

Market Street is an obstacle course of used free needles and damaged souls.

The number of friends who had stopped going into the city entirely — and switched to shopping in suburban malls — was unsettling, but tourists could help fill the gap.

This week, sadly, Nordstrom announced that it won’t renew its lease at the Westfield Centre.

The chief stores officer, Jamie Nordstrom, explained in a statement that “the dynamics of the downtown San Francisco market have changed dramatically over the past several years, impacting customer foot traffic to our stores and our ability to operate successfully.”

That’s corporate-speak for: Our customers are afraid to go there.

I had almost gotten used to dodging panhandlers and homeless people as I went to and from work.

In 2015, I started writing about how much the city smelled. “Stench and the City” became a recurring theme.

Then-Mayor Ed Lee blamed the drought for the sour smells. ...

If a foreign power — or Republicans — had done to the City by the Bay what the ruling class has allowed to occur, voters would be outraged. Instead, they save their ire for Donald Trump, for all the good that does.

That liberal sense of moral superiority will be the death of the Special City. Years from now, when downtown feels like Detroit, San Franciscans will look at the closure of Nordstrom’s downtown store as the day the music died.
557   Ceffer   2023 May 26, 11:35pm  

This is fine.
558   HeadSet   2023 May 27, 9:15am  

Ironic that "Banana Republic" is leaving downtown SF.
559   RayAmerica   2023 May 28, 11:55am  

Another San Francisco Retailer Closes-Old Navy to Shut Down Flagship Location After Almost 30 Years

“Since our Market Street store opened in the 1990s, the way we leverage flagship locations has changed,” the company announced. “As a result, we have taken the difficult decision to close our Market Street store when the lease expires, and we are already working to identify new locations in downtown San Francisco that will better serve the needs of the business and our customers.”

Old Navy’s closure comes on the heels of many other downtown San Francisco retailers shuttering their doors.

Williams Sonoma, Nordstrom, and Saks Off 5th have all announced store closings in San Francisco in the month of May.

As did Coco Republic, an upscale home furnishing provider that is leaving its three-story storefront at 55 Stockton Street after opening last fall.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/05/another-san-francisco-retailer-closes-old-navy-shut/
560   1337irr   2023 May 29, 10:15am  

I drove by a BART passenger car on I-35 going northbound on a semi. It's just more proof that California is moving to Texas.
562   RC2006   2023 May 29, 11:29am  

Population of SF and LA.




563   1337irr   2023 May 29, 11:36am  

What are you all thoughts on renting in downtown SF?
564   richwicks   2023 May 29, 7:59pm  

1337irr says

What are you all thoughts on renting in downtown SF?


Renting OUT to people? Down. It's no longer the "cool city". It's the city of shit now.

Renting yourself? Well, probably cheap, but I'd recommend a security door.

Local government is doing what governments back in NY used to do - ruin an area, deprive it of police, make it a shithole, and when everybody gives up, buy it on the cheap, then re-introduce police and "tough on crime", housing prices go up, make a shitload of money. I've seen this is many areas. It's a scam.

SF won't be a shithole forever, but it stops only when enough people fold their cards, when they give up and move. It depends on how stubborn the population is. Gentrification is sort of artificial. Governments purposely destroy an area so the mafia (which is the government and wealthy investors who control the government) can profit. This is why you're severely punished for protecting yourself against a criminal, but the criminal is not. They are purposely creating criminality to drive out the population and sell low.
565   Patrick   2023 May 31, 8:46am  




Pelosi's district.
567   RayAmerica   2023 Jun 4, 8:03am  

Victimized immigrant store owner has had it with San Francisco: ‘Worse than Afghanistan’

Fed up with rampant crime in the lawless City by the Bay, an Afghani immigrant whose cigarette store was ransacked by thugs who made off with $100,000 in cash and merchandise likened San Francisco to the wartorn country that the Biden administration handed over to the terrorist Taliban.

The storeowoner, a man named Zaid said, “The politicians need to get a grip on this because It’s worse than Afghanistan or Iraq,” referring to the city’s Democratic party leaders who have presided over what was once one of America’s most pristine cities but is now a crime-ridden hellhole with streets lined with human feces and drug needles with the squalor in some areas being reminiscent to some of the world’s worst third-world slums.

“At least in Afghanistan the Taliban will cut your hand off and people are afraid to commit such a crime,” said Zaid.

“We have drugs issue, we have homeless issue, and on top of this these idiots come in here and take whatever they want,” he added.

“We might have to shut it down,” he told Fox News Digital. “Our safety is more important than making a living in this city.”

Go here for video:
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2023/06/03/victimized-immigrant-store-owner-has-had-it-with-san-francisco-worse-than-afghanistan-1364688/
568   RayAmerica   2023 Jun 4, 8:08am  

Office Vacancy Rates at Historic Highs in San Francisco, Potentially 40 Percent: Experts



Office vacancy rates in San Francisco continue to climb, with new records being set monthly as businesses continue to flee and office workers resist a return to the city, according to experts.

Vacancy rates reportedly surpassed 31 percent in May, the highest ever recorded in the city—historically known as an attractive location for businesses, ranking as one of the most expensive commercial real estate markets in the world.

Statistics vary based on source, but several brokers told The Epoch Times that the rate is higher than reported in San Francisco.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/office-vacancy-rates-at-historic-highs-in-san-francisco-potentially-40-percent-experts_5311053.html?utm_source=share-btn-copylink
“The vacancy is really upwards of close to 40 percent,” Hans Hansson, president of Starboard CRE—a commercial real estate firm located in San Francisco—told The Epoch Times. “The collapse is only beginning, and it’s going to get far worse. There’s going to be a lot of pain.”

Work-from-home routines that accelerated during the pandemic are to blame for a significant decline in office space demand, and tech layoffs have hit the city hard, with Meta—the owner of Facebook and Instagram among others—and Salesforce accounting for millions of square feet sitting empty, according to experts.
569   Patrick   2023 Jun 6, 1:01pm  

https://slaynews.com/news/san-francisco-enters-doom-loop-as-owner-of-citys-two-biggest-hotels-abandons-properties-to-lender/


The owner of two of San Francisco’s biggest hotels has thrown in the towel and announced it was leaving the city.

Virginia-based REIT Park Hotels & Resorts is abandoning the hotels to the lender because it lost faith the Democrat-controlled city can recover.

The company has opted to cease payments on a $725 million loan, surrendering over 2,900 hotel rooms and hospitality facilities to its lender.

They are walking away from the 1,921-room Hilton San Francisco Union Square, which is San Francisco’s largest hotel, and the 1,024-room Parc 55.

The news comes as crime rates continue to run red hot in San Francisco, Democrat Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) district.
570   HeadSet   2023 Jun 6, 5:16pm  

Patrick says

The company has opted to cease payments on a $725 million loan, surrendering over 2,900 hotel rooms and hospitality facilities to its lender.

Hey, just take a play from the NY mayor's playbook. Just have the city rent the rooms to house illegals. Win-win!
572   Patrick   2023 Jun 7, 8:15pm  

https://abc30.com/car-robbery-sf-traffic-thief-jumps-out-of-robs-driver/10318674/


SAN FRANCISCO -- A driver captured video of a brazen robbery while driving through traffic in San Francisco on Friday afternoon.

The driver, Alex, says he was about to get on an onramp, heading east on I-80 around 4:30 p.m. There, he witnessed someone jump out of a Honda Accord and smash a window of a Prius in front of him.

The thief grabbed a bag and drove off.


573   Ceffer   2023 Jun 7, 10:29pm  

Patrick says

The news comes as crime rates continue to run red hot in San Francisco, Democrat Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) district.

As long as Paul Pelosi can keep sucking dicks on Union Street, it's all good.
574   HeadSet   2023 Jun 8, 1:05pm  

Patrick says

SAN FRANCISCO -- A driver captured video of a brazen robbery while driving through traffic in San Francisco on Friday afternoon.

That thief knew exactly what he was going for. It seems the cops would find the thief by checking out people who knew that couple were photographers with their gear in the back. Also, not so easy to smash a rear window to make a hole, that guy knew what he was doing.
575   EBGuy   2023 Jun 8, 2:03pm  

Patrick says

SAN FRANCISCO -- A driver captured video of a brazen robbery while driving through traffic in San Francisco on Friday afternoon.

In all fairness, this was two years ago during Chesa Boudin's reign of terror...
576   Patrick   2023 Jun 8, 4:37pm  

https://sfstandard.com/business/bay-area-home-depot-stores-cage-laundry-soap-power-tools-after-rampant-theft/


Home Depot stores in the Bay Area have started to lock items behind cages due to rampant theft.

Workers told The Standard that the stores locked high-value items such as power tools behind the cages starting around January, but since then, even laundry detergent has been locked up.

"It used to be big-ticket items, but now even the detergent is locked up," said one worker at the Emeryville Home Depot store, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

Items behind lock, key and cage vary, from expensive power tools, spools of copper wire and lawn mowers to more mundane items like phone chargers, work gloves and shower drain covers.

READ MORE: Downtown San Francisco Target Plagued by Thefts, Workers Say

The workers said the cages are an effective deterrent for most thieves, but more savvy criminals can work around the cages, especially to access more lucrative scores, like items in the power tools section.

"A month ago, I saw these two guys just muscle off one of the cages, bare hands," the worker said. ...

Home Depot tells its staff not to confront suspected shoplifters but does employ trained asset-protection guards to challenge thieves. In April, a Home Depot employee was fatally shot in a Pleasanton store after confronting shoplifters. ...

A Homeland Security Investigations report published in June 2022 said the average U.S. family will have to pay more than $500 a year extra for goods due to the impact of organized retail theft.


This is entirely the fault of far-left Democrat policies.
577   Patrick   2023 Jun 9, 5:14pm  

https://chainstoreage.com/california-senate-passes-bill-stop-employees-confronting-shoplifters


California Senate passes bill to stop employees from confronting shoplifters...

“This bill goes way too far, number one, where I think it will open the doors even wider for people to come in and steal from our stores,” said Rachel Michelin, CRA president and CEO, in a report by Fox KTVU.com.

The California Chamber of Commerce also expressed reservations about the bill.
578   RC2006   2023 Jun 9, 5:39pm  

Was talking to a cop here about CA. He told me he pulled a guy over that was wanted for a murder in CA. CA did want to extradite him so they had to let him go.
579   HeadSet   2023 Jun 9, 6:03pm  

RC2006 says

Was talking to a cop here about CA. He told me he pulled a guy over that was wanted for a murder in CA. CA did want to extradite him so they had to let him go.

That sounded so outlandish that I looked up the law on interstate extradition. Your cop friend is right.
580   richwicks   2023 Jun 9, 6:10pm  

RC2006 says

Was talking to a cop here about CA. He told me he pulled a guy over that was wanted for a murder in CA. CA did want to extradite him so they had to let him go.


Who was the victim? Notify the family. Blow the fucking whistle.
581   RC2006   2023 Jun 9, 9:29pm  

I didn't get any details. I asked another cop buddy and he believed that it could happen. Just seems outrageous, there was a time we would get people around the world. I've just never heard of that happening.
585   Eric Holder   2023 Jun 12, 11:54am  

Patrick says






I'm old enough to remember p.net members ranting agaist "the war on drugs". Now it seems like the mood has flipped 180.

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