Sherman R. Frederick/Properly Subversive
Well, the Chesa Boudin reign of injustice didn’t last long. After 30 months of what he called judicial progressivism, the voters in San Francisco resoundingly recalled the public defender who became District Attorney during the heady phenomenon of Black Lives Matter.
What happened, exactly?
It’s pretty simple.
When you re-imagine a criminal justice system without accountability, you get soaring crime rates, cascading misery and no justice. After the initial recall returns, Boudin grappled with his fate and, as usual, demonstrated zero grasp of reality.
Amid beer foam and tears, he told his stunned supporters:
“Our cause is righteous and we have already won. We are part of a national movement that understands we can never incarcerate our way out of poverty.”
Hoo-boy! In one sentence, Boudin tripped over why San Franciscans ended the nightmare.
The district attorney doesn’t exist to end poverty. The DA exists to help administer justice in a complicated and ever-screwed-up society. Chesa Boudin tried it his way and crime soared. It was a 30 month-long sequel to the Purge movie franchise. Justice was mugged and left for dead until that house full of voter common sense fell out of the sky.
Ding-dong, baby, ding-dong.
CROSSING MY MIND:
A SHORT JOURNEY
– Population Drain: Amid post election hand wringing, Bay Area leaders should not forget this little story that ran on Election Day in the San Francisco Chronicle.
The biggest percentage drop in population among major U.S. cities during the first part of the pandemic, took place in San Francisco. The city lost 54,813 people, or 6.3% of its population, from July 2020 to July 2021. As the SFChron reports: “One pandemic year erased a decade of tech-fueled population boom: San Francisco’s 815,201 residents as of July 2021 was the lowest since 2010, according to census data.”
Will big city office spaces ever come back?
– Gall-Damn-Bladder: I spent a week in the hospital because of a disagreement with my gallbladder. Eventually, surgeons released that little devil back into the wild. I’m feeling better now and hope to reduce my intake of daytime teevee advertising very soon.
– Roe Ruling: Once again demonstrating my firm grasp of the obvious, the Supreme Court ruling that could overturn Roe should be coming down the pipe soon. Stand by, boys and girls, this is going to be wild.
STILL A JERK
While Democrats pull out all the stops to vilify former President Donald Trump over the Jan. 6 “insurrection” (as they want people to call it), a couple thoughts come to mind.
If this were an “insurrection,” why’d nobody bring guns? This looked like a collection of Trump sycophants to me, not a planned coup. Democrats are spittin’ in the wind making that case.
But, a recounting of the details does show that Donald Trump remains a Class A jerk. As I said on Jan. 7, he could have – and should have – done more to tamp this thing down. The fact he didn’t goes to his full-blown ego and his lack of grounding in American democracy. Let’s hope he never runs for office again.
ICYMI
In case you missed it, federal authorities arrested a man attempting to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The New York Times buried the story inside and most of the big networks (save Fox News) downplayed it. The man looks like a deranged kook, for sure. He Ubered to Kavanaugh’s home dressed in black and armed with a handgun and other tools that indicated he wanted to torture the justice live on the internet. But, the first thing he did was call the police and turn himself in. But these are the kinds of kooks we need to watch. They are out there.
WHAT I’M WATCHING
I finally finished Ozark. One of the best series of the last few years. After I was done, I went back and watched Season 1, Episode 1, just to remind me how far the series progressed.
ONE MORE THING
– I swear people go to Starbucks just to say random words …” Lemme git a grande iced mocha no foam quad soy hexagon vortex hypothesis with steamed ice.”
– Accordion to scientific studies, 90% of people do not realize that I replaced the beginning of the sentence with a musical instrument. They have my symphony.
– To be sincerely honest in my humble opinion without being sentimental of course without offending anyone who thinks differently from my point of view and without hiding any thoughts in my mind and without lies, to the actual truth with my clear open mind and clean heart, expressing whatever is embedded inside me for a long time which I didn’t say just because I was nervous. But Today, by gathering all the courage and motivation, I just want to say that I actually feel and think that I have absolutely nothing to say.
– Remember when you first started driving and everything was scary? Now you’re doing 80 on the 101, putting salsa on your taco, driving with your knees.
OK, that’s more than enough for this week. Until next week, avoid soreheads, laugh a little and always question authority.
(“Properly Subversive” is commentary written by Sherman R. Frederick for the Novato Advance, San Rafael News-Pointer, Mill Valley Herald, Ross Valley Reporter, Twin City Times and the Sausalito Marin Scope. Frederick is a long-time journalist and co-founder of Battle Born Media, a news organization dedicated to the preservation of community newspapers. You can reach him by email at shermfrederick@gmail.com.)
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