Joe and  Benjamin quite literally wrote the definitive series of articles on San  Francisco government incompetence and unaccountability.  But even we are stunned to see the "No on C" campaign steal our bit - because when the  mayor and leading members of the Board of Supervisors say "Don't tax tech companies because we can't be trusted with their money," that is a crisis in the making. I mean - if the city they run can't be  trusted with hundreds of millions of dollars (out of a $10 billion  budget), WHY DON'T THEY DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT, instead of actively promoting cynicism and learned helplessness in the face of bad government.  And if they won't, maybe we should impeach them and find elected officials who we can trust?

News & Booze 8, Part 1 - London Breed Says You Can't Trust The Mayor To Handle Money

Gavin Newsom is running against a pile of human garbage.  Can you tell which is which?  Joe and  Benjamin face one of the most difficult choices of their political  lives:  can they vote for Gavin Newsom when the alternative is a living alt-right meme with a smarmy smile?  One of us can and one of us ... is  not so sure.

News & Booze - Gavin's Choice

Oh fuck, pipe bombs.  You know where this is going.  We all know where this is going.  (Note:  this was recorded prior to the capture of a suspect, and prior to the Tree of Life synagogue shooting.)

New & Booze - Pipe Bombs?  Pipe Bombs

New & Booze - What's The Difference Between Props C And D?

News & Booze - Do Voters Even Know What They Want?

The amount of money pouring into campaigns has gotten so obscene that having a billionaire backer has become the price of entry.  Money doesn't guarantee you'll win - it can't buy everything - but these days, without a billionaire backer, you can't play at all, and many ballot measures and candidacies seems like they are simply the gladiatorial contests between billionaire backers.  That ... can be good for democracy.

News & Booze  - Don't You Wish  You Had A Billionaire Too?

We started by asking a simple question:  how should the media cover such terrible-but-bullshit stories as Donald Trump's proposed attack on birthright citizenship?  But it turns out Joe and Benjamin have a fundamental disagreement on what's happening here.  Joe says that Facebook and FOX News have driven people mad, causing a social breakdown, while Benjamin says that a social breakdown has driven people mad, leading them to be vulnerable to Facebook and FOX News.  Does this sound trivial?  It isn't.  Because Joe is suggesting that if you fix the media you fix the fundamental problem, while Benjamin is saying that "fixing" the media is putting a band aid on a heart attack.

News & Booze - How Responsible Is The Media For The Shitstorm We're In?

The city is moving forward with neighborhood crime units based  upon how they performed in the Taraval and the Mission. But the problem  is: at a time when crime across San Francisco is down, in the Mission, neighborhood crime went up.  The pilot program failed to show that neighborhood crime units actually reduced crime in a heavy crime area.  So ... why are we implementing this program city wide?  And why even bother having a pilot program, if we're not going to use the results?

News & Booze - The Neighborhood Policing Pilot Program That Nobody Listened To

Okay, that's a really unfortunate metaphor given how bad things have gotten, recorded before the horror of the worst fires in California history had sunken in.  We tend to joke about things that are too horrible to look straight at.  

The point is that London Breed played a  good hand badly, as nearly every measure and candidate she supported  went down in flames, and every measure and candidate she opposed got the  voter's seal of approval.  She's still popular, but she's also now  facing a progressive supermajority on the Board of Supervisors.  Did it  have to be this way?

News & Booze (Election Wrap - Up) - London Breed Got Smoked

Anything to talk about there?  Anything happen?  Anything interesting?   Can anybody think of something interesting that happened in the  midterms?

BenjaminWachs