In reply to Kay.

But the far left is not running the show. The moderate mayor is. If the far left had its way we would have safe consumption sites which has lowered overdose rates in other places that have them.

I wish Mission Local would write about the merits of the candidates rather than trying to tarnish those they don’t agree with.

Had the progressive policies that governed this city not created crime, encampments, and intolerable conditions, people would not be voting for change. This sentiment is not created by billionaires— it’s because so called progressive policies and elected officials have FAILED.

In reply to Bill Maggs.

Bill,

To cut out drug dealers just follow the European model and decriminalize drugs.

You want housing for the masses ?

Put a Moratorium on construction of Market Rate Housing until the rich are forced to live in tents on the sidewalks in front of your homes and businesses.

You want the Homeless encampments out of sight ?

Move them to the Harding and Lincoln golf courses, the former of which is controlled through a PGA sellout to the Prince who beheaded that Washington Post journalist.

h.

In reply to Charles.

Charles,

You’re brainwashed.

Last time Progressives held power in SF was under Art Agnos.

I started to write, ‘At least they didn’t shoot him.”

But, they did.

h.

Campers,

I’d say that Mission Local itself has had a change of tone over the last couple of years with writers going to ‘expert’ sources who have spent their careers working paid gigs supporting ‘Downtown’s Agenda’.

Jaye went door to door at publications in 2003 complaining to owners about their not being friendly enough to Gavin Newsom.

Ross shut down Chesa Boudin’s key computer apps on the eve of the election Boudin eventually won and demanded $50,000 to turn them back on because he had a policy difference with the candidate.

David Latterman’s entire career has been spent as an advocate for the Super rich.

These are the people dominating ML reporters’ rolodex searches.

Along with Marcos I’m probably the most prolific voice for Progressive candidates and their causes over the last several decades and Jaye and Sam Lauter have managed to enforce a ban on my comments and columns across the local spectrum since a friend constructed my first computer from spare parts in 1997.

On Mission Local itself some of my best work has disappeared into Spam Filters when addressed to writers like Jarrett and Barros and Balakrishnan.

Eskenazi dug out and finally posted a few while assuring me these were glitches.

I felt forced to bring back my old ‘Bulldog blog’ to insure my ideas at least had a chance of being published and distribution hacks have cut readership from 2000 during the period in which the Class of 2000 was cutting Mayoral power to a few dozen presently.

As a believer in Musk’s ‘Simulation Theory’ I don’t care much as long as I personally do everything I’m able to do to get ‘my side’s’ word out.

All things considered, Mission Local is the Alamo for Marcos and myself and a few others like Oceanview Momma in this thread.

More and more ‘Moderate’ voices are filling the comments section with anonymous digs at the Prog World.

Now while I rail against ML management’s move to solicit corporate advertising, it seems inevitable.

Reminds me of the attacks on Pat Murphy and Luke Thomas for publishing my work in the San Francisco Sentinel which eventually banned my work (I never worked for them anyway and only allowed them to publish my writing) …

Murphy became so overwhelmed with the pressure and propaganda that he even changed his religion !

I’m surrounded by this network of Manchurian candidates.

My original ‘SFBulldog’ call sign was usurped by a higher bidder and became a Real Estate site last I looked.

Even Willie Brown called the carefully executed 5% margin that Recalled Chesa in an off year ballot count …

Willie said that it was impossible to, “run against yourself” as Boudin was forced to do a farce and that Chesa would have won had he entered the election that came in the following year.

Will Jarrett came down on side of Bill Olbendorf and called Boudin’s loss “decisive”.

Conservatives long ago bought the Major Media in San Francisco from the Chron to SF Examiner and drove Betsey Culp’s SF Call out of existence.

Now, they’re shooting at life rafts like Mission Local.

Check out my dawg voice at:

SFBulldogblog.com

I got a bad feeling about this one, Vern.

Go Niners !!

h.

In reply to Bill Maggs.

Progressives lost political power 15 yr ago. Conservative Democrats have held the strong mayor’s office since 1996 and governed without whining that the charter’s checks and balances were holding them back. Until Breed.

I think that the billionaire assault is happening now because they, the landlords, the real estate speculators and what’s left of the downtown corporate crowd have forced enough poor and working class people out of town to allow them to consolidate an electoral base of rich and well-to-do elites, and give them a good shot at allowing them to take full control.

In reply to Marie.

Every single word that wafts out from this overfunded menagerie of rage farmers could have been uttered by Archie Bunker, an abundance of reactionary hysteria.

“Just Say No” == “Recovery.”

In reply to Cynthia.

The current policies that have led to almost 800 people dying of overdose last year. If push comes to shove, I would rather they be in jail or forced rehab than dead. The far left lacks compassion.

In reply to Marie.

Right? These are two factions of Democrats that are fighting. Some people really do live in a bubble.

In reply to Cynthia.

Characterizing efforts to close the all-night open-air drug market and enforce laws against selling stolen goods as “casting aside” anyone is ridiculous.

Jim Ross’ assertion that “You take social issues off the table, and that’s a Republican agenda,” is just bonkers. A statement like that is a reflection of the myopia of the political class in SF, which hasn’t faced an actual opposition party in decades, so it demonizes any perspective that isn’t a mirror reflection of its own.

A Republican agenda would be to defund and scale back social services to the point that private entities, generally religious ones, become the primary provider of basic needs to those who cannot afford them, all but eliminate recovery services within their jurisdiction, all while the minor children of immigrants work hard labor jobs that American adults won’t touch. A Republican agenda would fire teachers that don’t promote Christian prayer in the classroom and put creationism alongside evolution in a curriculum. I’d provide more examples but it’s just too gross to think about.

The linked page in this article as the evidence of conservative agenda against drug dealers states:

“City departments need to work cross-functionally to make recovery the goal. Programs should be abundant, easy to access, and effectively held to goals and standards.”

And further states:
“Local law enforcement must prevent drug dealers from preying upon recovering users and creating new user by arresting and prosecuting dealers. The city should coordinate with the state and federal authorities to address cartels bringing drugs to the city.”

Making tools of recovery available and ensuring that those providing them are doing good work on behalf of the public is not conservative. Arresting those who put poison in people’s hands and exploit the most vulnerable is application of rule of law. These aren’t Republican principles, or even conservative ones. These are basics of the social contract.

I’m a middle class San Franciscan who comes from an immigrant family. I came to the city with little money and worked my way up. While I once supported progressive policies and politicians I saw over many years how they ill served the voters. The progressives had little concern for the interests of tax paying San Francisco residents. They ended up being more concerned about grand standing and little about providing practical solutions to San Francisco challenges. I welcome the input of anyone who will work to move the progressives out and vote in solutions oriented leadership.

I’m confused. You say that “The arrangements employed by the groups are all legal,” yet you link to an ethics commission finding that one of these groups was fined for violating city and state campaign finance laws twenty-five times . . .

The only way to beat concentrated capital in political contests is by organizing enough residents to support another path forward.

Progressive politics is in hospice care because those who got paid to hijack the movement to insulate the conservative Democrat machine refuse to organize residents.

The only thing that these three formations, conservative machine Democrats, professional progressives and alt right tech elites share in common is an utter contempt for San Francisco residents and participatory democracy.

Progressives have not offered up a framing narrative to contest the alt right takeover. There is no broad plan, like the contract on america, to sharpen the distinctions between the alt right and progressives. Preston aside, progressive electeds have deteriorated to technicians for funding agencies.

Such a plan drawn up by the hijackers would be limited to SFDPH, HSA and Homelessness contracts. There is nothing on Muni, Rec and Park, DPW, Housing and Land Use, SFUSD, SFPD, corruption/ethics because nonprofits are not paid to advocate in those areas of policy, to the contrary, they’ve kicked all such advocates to the curb and been paid for it.

Keeping the racketeers funded with tax dollars by an appeal to poverty charity is not a winning appeal.

Thus, the alt right frames–conservatives are “moderates,” crime and squalor are out of control, progressive Democrats as Trotsky reincarnated, the Archie Bunker worldview–remain uncontested and dominate.

In reply to Not a billionaire.

You monster!

In reply to Not a billionaire.

And yet your policies would lead to more crime and more drug dealing. It’s also duly noted the way you openly say that people who don’t have a stable place to live and who are dealing with addiction should just be … cast aside.

We want less crime, especially including an end to open-air drug dealing. And we want city leaders who prioritize law-abiding citizens over homeless drug addicts.

Why is that so hard to understand?

We really need to overturn Citizens United.

The rich kids who sought to make SF their playground a decade ago with their “move fast and break things” companies are now going to institutionalize their changes.

Don’t think for a second they have anyone else’s best interest at heart but their own. They will take your vote, but not give you anything in return.

Todd David has always seemed to try his very best to run with whomever he thinks are the “cool kids.”

(Todd, this is not a good look on you or your honestly, truly lovely family. You need to take a 15-year step back and remember who you were, and it was not this.)

Firstly, these types of “donations” should not be tax deductible. But more importantly, we cannot let a bunch of carpetbagging, Republican/Republican-leaning billionaires take over our city’s government.

Everyone seemed to look the other way when Ed Lee was Ron Conway’s puppet. Remember that while San Francisco voted for Sanders in the 2020 Democratic primary, beating Biden by 10 points, and Sanders won California, beating Biden by 8 points, our mayor London Breed was supporting Michael Bloomberg, who was barely a Democrat and who, as mayor of NYC implemented an illegal “stop and frisk” program and actually encouraged racial profiling. I am not pining for Sanders, but trying to show that the mayor is way out of touch with voters in San Francisco and California. The only reason she is mayor is because of her big-money backing scares-off anyone who isn’t a tycoon from running.

Don’t let the billionaires further ruin San Francisco. Vote against anything they touch and remember voting with them is voting Republican. And recognize that neither GrowSF nor Y Combinator have fired Garry Tan, so both of those entities must support violence-advocating speech.

It’s good to see at least some reference to the SF political machines that preceded the current billionaire-funded one. The problem with SF is that most voters have never cared about politics at all, and that suited the political class typified by people like Peskin just fine. The city used to be run by a combination of rich downtown developers who shared power with labor unions who in turn have controlled much of city government. The result is a serious decline in the quality of life for those of us that have raised families here. The Guardian article is ridiculously distorted; the mostly progressive political class that has taken over SF government in the last 15 years is angry that rich tech types actually care enough about life for ordinary people here that they are putting money into issues people like me care about, We’re not Republican; we just want to people to stop dying of overdoses or homelessness, we just want housing to be built and the public schools to not be run into the ground.