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Charles Barkley is in the Basketball Hall of Fame, but he is going to be notably absent from the NBA All-Star Game on Feb. 16. That’s because the game is going to be played in San Francisco, and even though Barkley is now a generally consistent leftist after flirting with common sense and patriotism in his earlier years, he doesn’t want to spend even a minute in Nancy Pelosi’s city. Barkley is unwilling to play along with the left’s charade by affirming its claims that San Francisco is just as scenic and safe as it always was; he sees it for what it is and is unafraid to break out of the left’s lockstep and say so.
Fox News reported Saturday was speaking on TNT’s “Inside the NBA” about the Detroit Pistons’ Cade Cunningham. “He’s going to make the All-Star Team,” said the Hall of Famer, adding: “I’m not going. I’m not going to that rat-infested place out in San Francisco.”
Barkley said much the same thing last year, referring to the undesirability of “being around a bunch of homeless crooks in San Francisco.” WNBA player Candace Parker answered that by saying, “We love San Francisco,” but Barkley stuck to his guns, responding: “No we don’t. You can’t even walk around down there.” Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors, who play in San Francisco, came back “Yes, you can walk around,” but Barkley shot back: “Yeah, with a bulletproof vest.”
This time, Fox noted that as Parker and Green had done the previous year, one of Barkley’s colleagues (left unnamed for some reason) affirmed his leftist bona fides by disagreeing with Barkley’s accurate assessment and calling San Francisco “beautiful.”
Barkley, however, was having none of it and declared: “San Francisco is not a beautiful city. Rats. Cats.” Cats? “Y’all are not gonna make me like San Francisco. No. Nope, nope, nope.” If Republicans had been governing San Francisco for the last few decades and were responsible for its destruction, Barkley wouldn’t have had to dig in his heels and get defensive about disliking the city: the establishment media all over the country would be running breathless feature stories about how much the once-great city had deteriorated under Republican misrule.
Barkley was right, of course. San Francisco, with its steep hills and streetcars and glorious vistas, was once a gorgeous little jewel of a city, but that was a long time ago. Leftist politicians, including but by no means limited to Nancy Pelosi, made it Exhibit A of how far-left policies can destroy what was once a beautiful place to live. In the Paris of the West, people die of drug overdoses on the street virtually every day, and out-of-control theft is now dismissed as a “basic city experience.”
San Francisco’s Mayor Daniel Lurie has promised that San Francisco will once again become livable as he confronts “our drug and behavioral health crisis” and oversees the construction of “enough housing to turn around our affordability crisis.” The problems he faces, however, don’t have any easy solution.
Nancy Pelosi has been San Francisco’s representative in the House since 1987 when San Francisco was far less dirty and dangerous than it is now. The fact that she is now 84 years old and in her ten gazillionth term is an indication of San Francisco leftists’ taste for bad governance. San Francisco residents will cheerfully vote for a sinister corruptocrat who affirms the transgender madness over an honest and upright public servant who would set things right in the city, but who refuses to pretend that men can become women.
And so Charles Barkley is one hundred percent correct in his assessment of what San Francisco is like today, but no help is on its way. Like California as a whole, San Francisco is a one-party state, and that party destroyed the city, so it is not likely to start implementing policies that would rebuild it. The left will go down with the ship, remaining in San Francisco will everyone who is willing to admit reality flees. Ultimately, the only people left will be brigands and addicts, along with the leftist true believers, and the entire city will look as if it, rather than Los Angeles, had just been ravaged by fire. And even then, the remaining local leftists will find some way to blame it all on the Republicans.
Excellent article.
I spent two days in San Francisco some fifty Years Ago before the Freaks took over and when Height Ashbury was the Drug Center of the City
Hippies took over the Haight 1965-66. 60 years ago.
The city is toxic waste land of filth the beach alone is scary scenario of ineptness the pride of the city it’s Pacific Ocean coastal vista looks like miles of unkept destruction even the Clouser, of the Great highway and epitome of corrupt and green agenda gride lock creation. The EV bikes that are Strone throw-out the city hundreds of taking up hundreds of parking spaces most of the beach front properties are HUD low-cost housing, the new building standard creating increased density to the cities already challenged ability to provided competent infrastructure sewage and electrical gride. The traffic control is insidiously out of control improper, closure of the main thurifers designed by our for fathers, logical corridors are closed, Idiots run the city. Take one look at fishermen’s wharf, car window breaking capital of the nation fill with Junk stores with astronomical Parking fees and crappy food.
My Great Grandparents came to SF in the early 1900’s. My Great Grandfather helped build one of the towers downtown (a stone mason). They lived on Potrero Hill before AND after the 1906 earthquake, built a beautiful house with 2 stories in front and 4 in the back. Great Grandpa even used the leftover wood to make a parquet floor for the main floor which was still beautiful when I saw it in the 1990’s. My Grandmother and father were born and raised in SF but left in the 1950’s. for a smaller town. We USED to travel up there from time to time to visit the “old house”, walk along the Embarcadero, drive down Lombard Street and once took a cruise that started from SF. You could not pay me enough to visit SF these days (or much of CA where I no longer live). A beautiful state has been RUINED by the politicians. I fled. I wish the rest of my family would do the same.
We REAL San Franciscans live across the bay, venturing into the city only very carefully and selectively, like when I go to the cove of beach just below Ghirardelli and sit on those great stone steps and watch/listen to the waves roll in. I always take a sandwich. We who know the city can still find its gems of enjoyment but must absolutely decry the horrid mess it has overall become.
And we should ask: How much Soros money was dwindled into the SF coffers of the DA’s office to let criminals off the hook? This was the worst, watching blatant thievery among the once fine merchants on Market Street (the police and the city have managed to hold them back from Union Square) and get away scot free with bold stealing we had never seen or imagined before. How much money given to protect thieves from arrest?
Thank you Charles.
SF used to be a cool place to hang out. But the last time I spent a weekend in the City nearly 20 years ago, you could already see signs of decay and deterioration.
Lived in the City most of the 1980s, loved the place and my Wife was from LA and she now lives in Berkeley and thinks Trump is THE main danger to the country and the world at large and America would be better off with Elizabeth Warren as President…
Did I mention she is my EX Wife…
She even has some purple shit in her hair at 66 years old…