The canary in the coal mine just keeled over!
The first duty of government is to protect its citizens. Was the shocking failure to do so in Uvalde TX fallout from the nation’s war on cops? The Federalist poses this unique perspective: “Democrats yell ‘Do Something!’ on guns while their prosecutors and policies create our culture of crime.”
Now we’re going … to San Fran-cis-co. No more flowers in our hair! That progressive bastion ended its liberal love-in by recalling Chesa Boudin, the district attorney who learned from his criminal parents and their 1960s radical circle that crime isn’t the problem, it is the inevitable response to an evil America. That canard remains social justice gospel.
Progressives lose War on Cops
The Werkes took the nation’s temperature by scanning news media coverage; here’s what we found as of 8:45 this morning:
New York Times: “California sends Democrats and the nation a message on crime.”
Voters in California delivered a stark warning to the Democratic Party on Tuesday about the potency of law and order as a political message in 2022, as a Republican-turned-Democrat campaigning as a crime-fighter vaulted into a runoff in the mayoral primary in Los Angeles and a progressive prosecutor in San Francisco was recalled in a landslide.
CNN: “Rising concerns about crime and homelessness burst to the forefront Tuesday as San Francisco voters recalled … a progressive who had ended cash bail and sought to reduce the number of people sent to prison.”
In the Los Angeles mayor’s race, where public safety concerns have also taken center stage, billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso, a former Republican who vowed a tough-on-crime approach, is headed to a runoff against California Rep. Karen Bass.
Politico: “… a blow to a national movement toward more lenient prosecution.”
Former prosecutors from his office had publicly joined the recall push, lending credibility to the recall effort.
National Review: Voters in progressive San Francisco on Tuesday overwhelmingly supported the recall of … the city’s radical left-wing district attorney, two years after he was elected on a platform that emphasized reducing the jail population and prioritizing “restorative justice.”
Wall Street Journal: “… a blow to the progressive prosecutors movement.”
Political consultants and law-enforcement officials say the recall of Mr. Boudin in this left-leaning city signals a broader voter backlash against the movement amid rising violent crime over the past two years.
New York Post: “Woke San Fran DA removed from office over soft-on-crime policies.”
National Public Radio: [Pretty much ignored San Francisco]
The Nation: [Nothing! Not even the logorrheic John Nichols!]
Democracy Now! “‘We can’t jail our way out of poverty’: San Fran. DA Chesa Boudin defends record ahead of recall vote.” [Story from 06-03-22; no update as of mid-morning.]
Chris Hayes at MSNBC: “The forces driving the nationwide rise in crime are larger than any one prosecutor. But blaming Boudin and the left at large has become useful for those who want to take us back to mass incarceration and broken windows policing.”
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Got that right, Mr. Hayes! Which is why a Republican — be it Becky Kleefisch or Tim Michels — will defeat Tony Evers for governor of Wisconsin this November. They’ll play and replay the governor’s condolences to Jacob Blake, justifiably shot in the commission of a crime, and Tony’s tardiness in sending the National Guard beleaguered Racine.
Blaska Policy Werkes 
19 responses to “San Francisco was a wake-up call for the Woke folk”
we ought to do the same thing in Dane county. Our DA is a joke.
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Normwegian,
Amen to that brother. Amen to that.
When you let two people go on low amount signature bonds for the death of a baby, you have lost all credibility as a D.A.
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You also have to look at judges. In today’s paper person gets 1 year in jail and 5 years without driving for death of passenger because of drunk driving. Anyone think he won’t drive for 5 years? Isn’t it time to vote some of them out?
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I worry about who will be appointed to Boudin’s place. It should be interesting.
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Boudin didn’t just have the door held open for him on the way out.
He had his punk, Lefty @$$ punted through it, and summarily drop-kicked all the way down 16th Street and into the Central Basin by > 60% of the votes….MESSAGE_SENT!
Like his Dear late Father always said: “Li’l Gotchie; it couldn’t have happened to a nicer fella!”
The Gotch
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L’il Gotchie had good parenting, which lead to clear thinking as an adult. Not many get the opportunity in these days of Wokeness and White Guilt. I salute your Dear late father.
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Thanks, g’ss!
With one GLARING EXCEPTION, the regular commenters here appear to have benefited from proper parenting, especially on the Paternal side.
One Father Is More Than A Hundred Schoolmasters George Herbert
The Gotch
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Fact-check: I believe it was Kenosha where Evers blew off sending the National Guard in to quell CNN’s infamous “mostly peaceful protesters.”
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Good. I go to San Francisco often enough and it has become hellish in the last few years. Human waste in public areas, open air drug use, aggressive homeless population that harrassess you for money, and brazen property crimes. There’s a lot more to do, but giving this moron the boot is a step in the right direction. Hopefully a sign of better things to come and a return to sanity.
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Calling San Francisco residents progressive is a stretch in my opinion. It’s one of the most expensive cities in the country, and being rich and progressive are mutually exclusive. They may act out “progressive” talking points but when the rubber hits the road the rich aren’t rich because they really care about the lower classes – by and large one only gets rich by exploiting other peoples’ labor (obviously there are exceptions). That’s not progressive in my book.
Crime is high everywhere. If you all think we’ll arrest and jail our way out of it I hope you’re opening up your pocketbook. Police are the most expensive public servants (high pay, union representation, overtime, early retirement, generous pension) and keeping people in prison costs a ton as well. And crime clearance rates are terrible, it’ll take more than additional bodies to get our police departments off their stupid and ineffective prevention focus and relearn how to solve crimes.
I’ll echo Bob’s point about judges and add in prison wardens as well. People come out and go right back to crime – when will we hold prison wardens responsible? We have total control over every aspect of prisoners’ lives for years at a time and we can’t figure out how to change their thinking? We just let them watch tv all day because that makes it easier on the guards. Prison isn’t functioning as punishment and it isn’t functioning as rehabilitation; I don’t know what it’s functioning as…
Too much politics and not enough practical thinking on the crime issue.
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Being well off financially may not be a prerequisite to progressivism but the two conditions are often mutual.
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“being rich and progressive are mutually exclusive.”
Not being accusatory, but serious question: Are you implying that just because these rich Lefties don’t give a $#!t about the great unwashed (something with The Gotch would unequivocally agree), they can’t possibly be Progressives? And if they can’t, does that make them de facto Righties, or just despicable Lefties?
Curious; how do these people refer to themselves, and how do you think the City By The Bay got the way it did?
A window into breathtaking Bay Area Lefty hypocrisy (forgive the redundancy); excerpted from a 10/05/2013 Mercurynews.com article:
(bolds/caps/italics mine throughout)
“Cindy Vinson and Tom Waschura are big believers in the Affordable Care Act. They vote independent and are proud to say they helped elect and re-elect President Barack Obama.
“(T)hey were floored last week when they opened their bills: Their policies were being replaced with pricier plans (San Jose’s Vinson, $1,800 more/year; Portola Valley’s Waschura will pay $10 large more/year) that conform to all the requirements of the new health care law.
Waschura: “ ‘I was laughing at (Republican House Speaker John) Boehner (who led the charge to defund Obamacare)— until the mail came today,’
“ ‘I really don’t like the Republican tactics, BUT AT LEAST NOW I CAN UNDERSTAND WHY THEY ARE SO PISSED ABOUT THIS‘; both said they anticipated their rates would go up, they didn’t realize they would rise so much.
And the ever-LUVin’ coup de grâce:
Vinson: ” ‘Of course, I want people to have health care, I JUST DIDN’T REALIZE I WOULD BE THE ONE WHO WAS GOING TO PAY FOR IT PERSONALLY.’ ”
Oh the deeply viscid irony through which the career Lefty must slog, am I right?
The Gotch
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Yes, to me if you are rich it’s unlikely that you are Progressive, because I define Progressive primarily by economic philosophy. If you’re making money off other peoples’ labor you are not Progressive, but others are free to disagree with me – I won’t get mad 🙂 And of course there’s a spectrum, and of course ideals are never actually reached, just strived towards.
“does that make them de facto Righties, or just despicable Lefties?”
I wouldn’t argue with either description. The tragedy/genius of our 2 party system is that money-power always wins. It’s like a good cop bad cop routine. Our politics are an internal battle among the rich, one side who has some level of concern for how they are perceived and the other who doesn’t care one bit about how they are perceived. I’ll vote for the good cop, who at least can be guilted into throwing the unwashed a bone occasionally, but not under the false impression that anything fundamental would change. Our “democracy” allows us little choice.
Then the culture war topics are thrown into the mix to make things more sporting; give the unwashed some stuff to get worked up about (things that have nothing to do with the state of money-power) so they get all charged up and will support and self-identify with the parties. The rich don’t actually care about abortion, gun rights, BLM, LGBTQ issues, etc. those are just perfect things to occupy the masses with so we don’t start to question why a bunch of swindlers sitting in comfy chairs make all the money around here. Many self-delude themselves to think they do care and rationalize their role in our hierarchy, but like that example, when there’s a financial or comfort threat they jump right in the boat with every other rich person.
This is why it’s so funny/sad to hear the American Right call Democrats radical Marxists. Sure, there are a few in the mix but that’s just because they have nowhere else to go. The party is keeping them away from anything that matters (to money-power). In a broad view that considers the full spectrum of political philosophy Democrats are moderate conservatives. But that too is on purpose: to move the Overton window a side has to exaggerate others’ positions to a point where perception of the 50 yard line is now quite close to the end zone. Republicans have focused on that for decades, Democrats have not.
The reason actual progressive policy positions are not more widespread among voters is because the media does not allow those ideas. Again, the media is branded “liberal” but that makes zero logical sense; it’s a tactic in the Overton window battle. The media is completely funded and owned by the rich, and the vast majority of the rich by definition aren’t meaningfully liberal (or they wouldn’t be rich in the first place). They just throw a bunch of culture war stuff into the news to keep the unwashed frenzy going.
This type of thinking is branded “class war” and is forbidden speech – forbidden because it is speech that could actually move towards influencing current money-power dynamics.
People like to say that money doesn’t solve all problems, but I believe it does solve most of them. When people have more money things magically start going better in their lives. Full circle to the original topic of crime: if people had more money they’d commit less crime. Easy.
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You’re blithering Rollie.
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And blathering! Good lord, pick a side and cut to the chase, Rollie. Describing both side of the coin from the sidelines is pedantic and annoying.
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And you both are vacuous – I’ll try to keep my thoughts to 140 character tweets, thanks for the tip. Try a substantive response.
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Also significant…
From SFist – San Francisco News, Restaurants, Events, & Sports.
“Turnout in Tuesday’s primary election, which was also the decisive day for the Boudin recall, was around 25% — with a solid 10% fewer voters even caring enough to cast a ballot than who voted in the February special election that included the recall of THREE SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS. That February recall ended in a LANDSLIDE, with each school board member voted out with upwards of 70% of the vote and one of them outsted with 78.5% of votes. And Tuesday’s recall also was decisive, though less of a landslide, with Boudin recalled by 60% of the vote.”
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They say that history is the best teacher. I know this is somewhat off topic but it goes to the larger point of what we are facing in America today.
This is a far bigger picture than we can see.
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Bill, I always have time to watch this. Thanks !
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