Joe and Bernie and Donald and Gavin and Wiener… The Friday Grab Bag!
Random thoughts and epiphanies… Bernie Sanders doesn’t like sharp-tongued Neera Tanden, Joe Biden’s nominee for budget czar. But Bernie sure loves Joe, whom he sees as the second coming of FDR. Sanders, who now wields his own power not only as the leader of the Capitol Hill left but as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, says he’s pals with Joe, who keeps his White House door open for him. “He sees the progressive movement as a strong part of his coalition,” enthuses Bernie. NY Times pundit Paul Krugman also applauds the way that President Biden is going big with economic relief and infrastructure rebuilding. In fact, the only voices on the left who are critical of Biden so far seem petty and marginalized. Keep going big, Joe, and keep channeling your inner Bernie (or FDR) and you’ll keep the left wing of your party happy…
As Senate Republicans prepare to again absolve Donald Trump of his crimes – even after he incited a mob to hang his vice president and bludgeon their Congressional colleagues – the GOP can now officially be designated a domestic terrorist organization. As he broods in Florida exile, like other deposed dictators over the years, Trump insists he is still leader of the Republican Party. And Senate Republicans weirdly agree, even though it ensures their party’s continued collapse. Let them keep embracing their corpse of a leader. Their necrophilia will be their doom…
I’ve been ranting lately about the crazy cancel crusade of the San Francisco Board of Education. I’ve also not been happy with California Governor Gavin Newsom’s feckless leadership, which the pandemic brought into stark relief. Gavin is at his best when he’s playing to the crowd and he’s not plagued by crises. But New York Times editorialist Ezra Klein is right – the Golden State’s political leaders too often talk a good game but don’t deliver. Klein, however, is under the neoliberal delusion that State Senator Scott Wiener is somehow a political hero, because he keeps trying to push through legislation in Sacramento that would create denser housing around public transit stations. Yes, the Bay Area and the entire state have a serious NIMBY problem that blocks housing development and other big projects. But Wiener’s legislative “solution” to the state’s severe housing crisis is actually a giveaway to the real estate lobby, his major corporate sponsors. Sorry Ezra, but Scott Wiener – who always wants windfalls for wealthy developers, even as he talks about “housing for the people” – is as big a dick as they come in California politics. And his pro-developer legislation keeps getting defeated for good reason…
Speaking of Klein’s editorial, here’s a depressing statistic about my hometown. Nearly half of San Francisco is white, Klein observes, but only 15 percent of students enrolled in the city’s public schools are white. Yes, that means that a vast majority of white San Franciscans are sending their kids to private schools. I’ve known some of these parents over the years. They justify spending $30 or $40,000 (or more) a year to educate their son or daughter in privileged cloisters by criticizing the quality of public schools or by talking about their kids’ needs for special (read entitled) treatment. But these otherwise enlightened fathers and mothers are nothing less than moral hypocrites — and often veiled racists. The only way to improve public education in America is for more white middle-class and upper-middle-class families to commit to this path. My kids went to public schools and they are better equipped for life in the real America than the private-schooled young adults I know. Elite private schools are an affront to American democracy. And any liberal or progressive parents who send their children to these bastions of snobbery are sellouts. Pure and simple…
And speaking of reimagining post-pandemic San Francisco (one of my regular themes), Tim Redmond of excellent 48 Hills takes up this theme…
Check in tomorrow for my Movies of the Week.
That’s all, folks!
