Every time Madame Mayor opens her mouth, I want to tear out what little hair I have. If she hired SNL writers to help her say infuriatingly asinine things, she couldn’t do any better than she’s doing now.
When it comes to crime—the city’s #1 problem—she doesn’t have a clue. Not a f*****g clue. She’s so addicted to her social-justice and racial fantasies, and so owned by Big Unions, that she’s not capable of perceiving things that, to the rest of us, are obvious.
Read this shortish article from the Chronicle. It details just how perilous is the situation regarding one pillar of Oakland’s economy, restaurants. “Restaurateurs in the city say that break-ins are dominating public conversation and sending their businesses into a tailspin.” Oaklanders and out-of-towners are reluctant—no, make that scared to come into Oakland for a meal. Between car break-ins, carjackings, muggings, getting shot and all the other associated perils of our city, diners are giving up visiting. Fewer and fewer people are willing to risk coming to this trash heap—which means they’re not spending their money here. Which means an already near-broke city is headed towards bankruptcy.
And what does Thao, the prom queen, have to say? “It’s a national challenge.” Thank you for that penetrating insight, Madame Mayor, but it’s worse in Oakland, far worse, than almost any place else. Thao’s brilliant solution? She’s come up, she boasts, with “a new $400,000 event sponsorship program in an effort to bring people back to Oakland’s commercial corridors and provide a ‘safer’ city.”
This would be funny were it not so pathetic. Can you imagine what Thao’s “event sponsorship program” will look like? AI hacks will create cutie-pie pictures of happy diners (brown, yellow, white and black) laughing at outdoor tables with glasses of wine while smiling waiters bring them their delicious food. Oakland’s marketing geniuses will come up with a peppy slogan. The $400,000 will contain, no doubt, an “equity” provision, because Fife/Bas/Kaplan/Kalb won’t fund it otherwise. They’ll hire a diversity consultant to make sure nobody’s offended by the campaign. The P.R. firm that promotes the campaign will be owned by people of color because, well, because this is Oakland. After the “event sponsorship program” launches, a diner will get killed when a stray bullet comes her way from a gang shooting—and Thao will abandon her little campaign and start another one, with a brand-new, even peppier slogan. And so it goes.
Let’s get real. As the local NAACP is demanding, Oakland needs a minimum of 1,000 fulltime cops. I say “a minimum” because former Chief Armstrong—who I hope and trust is coming back—says the true number is between 1,100 and 1,200.
Store owners need to be able to defend their property. If this means using personal firearms, so be it. While we’re at it, how about arresting the parent or guardian of thieves below the age of 18? Clearly child abuse is going on; these parents or guardians have proven themselves unfit to raise children. There are more interventionist approaches I won’t mention now, but which might become necessary if things get worse. If you think all this is going too far, you haven’t figured out that we’re at war—a war that’s just as real as anything we fought in Afghanistan or Iraq.
And we must, we simply must get rid of the wokes who have been allowed to desecrate this town for far too long. That includes, not just electeds, but radical maniacs such as Cat Brooks, who wish to overturn our society. Did you see her on TV last night at the City Council meeting? She repeated every dumb lie: We don’t need more police, we need to sink more money into “the community,” i.e., put her cronies on the public payroll. Every time the Chronicle or KTVU gives Brooks publicity, we must inundate them with complaints. And then there was Dan Kalb—poor, befuddled, blinkered Kalb. After years of bashing the police and trying to defund OPD, he’s finally had a come-to-Jesus moment, as he gears up to run for the State Senate. Such hypocrisy isn’t unknown in Oakland politics, but it’s particularly pathetic coming from Kalb.
Look, the bad guys have begun a revolution in Oakland—and with the help of the City Council, they’re winning. It’s time for us to launch the counter-revolution.
Steve Heimoff