West
Kamala Harris' San Francisco is a dystopian nightmare. Is this what she has planned for America?
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From 2004 until 2019, the responsibility to enforce law and order in San Francisco fell to District Attorney Kamala Harris and her protégé George Gascon. The result? By any estimation, it has been an ignominious disaster.
Even as you drive from the airport to downtown in this once great city, the sight that greets you off the highway is streets with empty storefronts — like broken teeth, jagged and sad.
In the Tenderloin District it gets worse, far worse, and it isn’t getting any better, in fact, much the opposite. The last time I was in the City by the Bay was in 2021, and I struggled then to describe the craven brutality of the homelessness and drug addiction. Let me try again.
Next week, at her convention, the hand-picked Democratic nominee — whom nobody voted for — will try to convince us that her record of failure is not her record of failure. But the chaotic streets of San Francisco tell a different story. ((AP Photo/Patrick Semansky))
SAN FRANCISCO POLICE OFFICERS FORCED TO WORK OVERTIME DUE TO STAFF SHORTAGE: REPORT
Just off Union Square, I wandered down to the nice coffee house where I spent my mornings three years ago. It’s gone now. Boarded up. Out in front, addicts assembled under the amused eyes of security guards who seem to think this is normal.
Just up the block, the smell hit me first. It didn’t last time, but now, a fetid stench of human degradation that New Yorkers know only from an unfortunate subway car choice, simply hangs in the air. You can’t even smell the weed.
A person lies on the street in San Francisco in August 2024.
Dogs abound, barking in the midst of this misery. At least they know something is amiss. In tents, the poor forgotten of this city languish, selling drugs, not joints, not a bag of weed, but life-threatening heroin and fentanyl right out in the open.
The scale of human tragedy is laid bare by the proximity of wealth to squalor, of healthy and beautiful minds and bodies to squandered lives doped out and laid out beneath signs for Saks Fifth Avenue and Tiffany & Co.
HARRIS DOES ABOUT-FACE ON SEVERAL FAR-LEFT POLICIES, DISTANCES HERSELF FROM BIDEN
The well-heeled set headed for the Apple Store seem to pretend it isn’t happening. But to an outsider, it is as clear as the summer sun.
You can’t buy beef jerky here. You can try, but at the Walgreens near my upscale hotel, the dehydrated travelers treat is behind lock and key. The customer service button might as well be connected to some remote outpost in Antarctica. After 5 minutes you just leave.
Open air drug dealing in San Francisco in August 2024.
During COVID, I used the analogy of pointillist painting to describe the ever-encroaching rules. It’s just a mask, it’s just six feet, it’s just remote learning, each was a point on a canvas, but when you stepped back, you saw a picture of a prison. So, too, in San Francisco, the little horrors add up to a city of nightmares.
Anyone from any city in the northeast of our great country will say after five minutes that San Francisco is a dystopian disaster, but many of the people here, like frogs slowly boiling, think it’s normal. Is this what Vice President Kamala Harris, one of the architects of this misery, has in mind for all of us?
Next week, at her convention, the hand-picked Democratic nominee — whom nobody voted for — will try to convince us that her record of failure is not her record of failure. But the chaotic streets of San Francisco tell a different story.
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This is real. It is horrible. And no amount of well-off liberals posting photos next to the Golden Gate Bridge can truly hide the depravity of it all. And yeah, maybe the cops and the spaghetti strainer of a District Attorney’s office wrought by Harris keep their wealthy enclaves safe, but everyone else is in dire straits.
One of the finest street clocks in all of America is in San Francisco. It also is broken.
No matter how big your britches get, you can’t hide from your hometown. There, people know you, they know your story, and the story of Kamala Harris and San Francisco is a warning bell that America needs to hear.
Not far from the Tenderloin I found a curious object; one of the finest street clocks in all America. At one point, it was insured by Lloyd’s of London. You can view its gears and workings. It is a beautiful clock, reminiscent of the one that graces New York’s Grand Central. It also doesn’t work.
The face of this storied clock is set to the advertiser’s time of 10:10, and twice a day it is right as the saying goes. But why is it broken? How much would it cost to make this piece of history tick again? Why isn’t anyone doing it?
These are all questions for the presumptive Democratic nominee, who takes no questions. But she cannot hide from San Francisco. This is her legacy. And like the broken clock, it just flat out doesn’t work.
David Marcus is a columnist living in West Virginia and the author of “Charade: The COVID Lies That Crushed A Nation.”
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Montana
Your guide to local sports events, plus what’s on TV
Nevada
How the strikes on Iran could impact gas prices in northern Nevada
The United States and Israel launched targeted attacks on Iran on Saturday. The move brought new uncertainty into global energy markets, as northern Nevadans could be paying more at the pump in the coming weeks.
Following the strikes, oil prices increased. Brent crude, the international benchmark, jumped to roughly $73 a barrel, while the national benchmark, West Texas Intermediate, traded above $67.
Much of the concern centers around the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman. which carries about a fifth of the world’s oil supplies.
Patrick de Haan, head of petroleum analysis with GasBuddy, a price tracking company, spoke on the current questions in the region.
“The known would reduce oil prices if there becomes clarity, but it’s the unknown that is stoking fears…. If there is some sort of clarity in the days ahead, whether from Iran, the United States, or Israel, on how long this would last. We’d be able to put potentially an end date for the potential impacts that we’re seeing,” said de Haan.
Experts say for every $5 to $10 increase in oil prices, drivers could pay 15 to 25 cents more per gallon.
According to Triple-A, the average price of a gallon of gas in Nevada on Sunday comes in at $3.70, which comes in above the national average of roughly $2.98.
Over at the Rainbow Market on Vassar Street, prices sat just below four dollars a gallon on Sunday. Reno resident Abran Reyes talked about gas prices potentially going up.
“Whether it’s to work, to maybe run errands, to do stuff that helps you, gas is essential…. That gas price really hits, especially in today’s economy, where gas prices are extraordinary…. I just hope everyone’s safe. I hope our soldiers and all of our troops can be okay,” said Reyes.
New Mexico
3 thoughts: New Mexico 81, SDSU 76 … Kudos for the local kid, mid-majors getting the squeeze and European bigs
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Three thoughts on San Diego State’s 81-76 loss at New Mexico on Saturday afternoon:
1. Kudos
No loss is a happy occasion within SDSU’s basketball program, but it was mitigated somewhat by the how and who:
The how: A 3-pointer from the left wing with 43 seconds left that broke a 74-74 tie.
The who: Luke Haupt, a sixth-year senior from St. Augustine High School and Point Loma Nazarene University who is one of those classy, genuine guys you can’t help but root for.
Aztecs coaches know him and his family well, his father Mike being the longtime head coach at Saints who sent Trey Kell to them. Aztecs players know him from the Swish summer league and open gyms during the summer.
Coach Brian Dutcher: “Kudos to Luke, known him a long time. Coaches are a little different than fan bases, where sometimes (fans) get too hard on the opposition. I wanted to win in the worst way, trust me when I tell you that. But … tip your hat to guys who make important and timely plays.”
Junior guard Miles Byrd: “Credit to Luke Haupt. He’s a San Diego kid. He’s going to (get) up for these type of games. You respect that. Players show up in games like this, and he showed up.”
There’s respect for the moment and respect for what it took to get there.
Haupt grew up, like most kids in San Diego, watching the Aztecs and dreaming of maybe one day playing in Viejas Arena. He went to Division II PLNU instead and toiled in relative anonymity for five seasons, one of which was abbreviated by the pandemic and 1½ of which was wiped out by knee surgery.
The 6-foot-7 wing finally got to Division I for his sixth and final year, lured to New Mexico by former UC San Diego coach Eric Olen, and has averaged 7.2 points per game with a career high of 30 against Boise State. He had 17 on Saturday against his hometown team, the final three coming with 43 seconds left in a tie game.
The play wasn’t designed for him. Fate sent the ball his way.
“It was a big shot, but it was everything I’ve worked on my entire career and basketball life,” Haupt said. “It’s all the people who have helped me get here and all the work that’s been put in.
“These are moments you dream about.”
2. Death of Cinderella
The Aztecs have slipped off the NCAA Tournament bubble with losses in three of their last four games, yet their metrics are comparable and in some cases better than a year ago, when they didn’t win the conference tournament and sneaked into the First Four in Dayton.
They are hanging tough at 42 in Kenpom and 44 in NET. Last year they were 46 and 52 on Selection Sunday.
The problem is that there might be historically few at-large berths available to mid-major conferences as the preposterous sums of money coursing through the sport accentuates the divide between the haves and have-nots. The latest field from ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has 11 teams from the SEC, nine from the Big Ten and eight each from the Big 12 and ACC.
The Big East, considered a power conference given its financial commitment to men’s basketball (although that is starting to wane), is expected to get only three, but do the math: Power conferences account for 34 of the 37 at-large invitations to the 68-team field.
Lunardi, and several other bracketologists, has only three mid-majors getting at-large berths: Saint Mary’s and Santa Clara from the WCC, and New Mexico from the Mountain West.
Only Saint Mary’s is in the main bracket. Santa Clara and New Mexico are in his First Four (and the Lobos are his last team in).
“It’s harder,” Dutcher said, “because there are only so many at-large bids that are going to go to non-power conference teams. When thrown up against the power conferences, the Selection Committee is finding ways to put the power conference teams in.”
Since the tournament expanded from 65 to 68 in 2011, mid-majors have averaged a combined 6.3 at-large berths. The high was 10 in 2013, but it’s been seven as recently as 2024. Last year it slipped to four, equaling the record low, and no mid-major teams reached the Sweet 16.
If teams like Utah State, Saint Louis and Miami (Ohio) win their conference tournaments, knocking out “bid stealers,” it could be three, maybe even two.
Money is talking. It doesn’t guarantee success, but it certainly increases the chances.
3. Euros
The Aztecs have not dipped into the European professional market for players, but maybe this season will change their perspective.
They have nine losses. Seven have come against teams with a European big.
The latest was New Mexico, which got 24 points and 18 rebounds from the 6-foot-9, 240-pound Tomislav Buljan, a 23-year-old Croatian pro granted one season of collegiate eligibility by the NCAA. He had 20 and 14 in the first meeting, when the Aztecs narrowly escaped with an 83-79 win after trailing in the final minute.
“He was a monster tonight,” Haupt said. “That was huge for us. Loved the way he played.”
The week before, the Aztecs lost to Colorado State and Rashaan Mbemba from Austria.
They’ve lost to Grand Canyon twice with 7-1 Turkish pro Efe Demirel, a 21-year-old “freshman” who has experience in the Euroleague, the continent’s most prestigious competition.
In the December loss to Arizona where the Aztecs were crushed 52-28 on the boards, 7-2, 260-pound Lithuanian center Motiejus Krivas had 13.
Michigan, which beat SDSU in November, has 7-3 Aday Mara of Spain.
Baylor beat the Aztecs two days later with 6-9 Michael Rataj of Germany, then a few weeks later added 7-0 James Nnaji from Spanish club FC Barcelona.
Only Troy and Utah State didn’t start a European big in wins against SDSU — although Mexican forward Victor Valdes had 20 points for Troy.
“Obviously, it’s changing the game,” Dutcher said. “The European pros are coming over because they can make more money over here than they can in Europe. They come over and they’re making good money, whether it’s Demirel at Grand Canyon or it’s Buljan at New Mexico.
“These are good players who come up through a club system and are basically professional basketball players.”
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