Category: Politics

As noted in this post, the WSJ recently published an op-ed by George Soros explaining why he has pumped money into the campaigns of progressive prosecutors and intends to continue doing so. This article naturally prompted many critical letters to the editor, and the WSJ has printed them over multiple days, which is somewhat unusual.

In today’s batch, the WSJ printed my letter, noting an example refuting Soros’s claim that the progressive policies are evidence based. The August 4 batch included letters from Thomas Hogan on recent research tying progressive prosecutors to increased homicides and from Hans Bader on the fallacy of Soros’s racial statistics (unfortunately chopped down in the editing process to omit essential support). Yesterday’s print edition has a letter from an LA police officer with anecdotal but significant evidence that criminals in LA believe they can commit crimes with impunity because of the LA DA’s policies.

The Los Angeles County Registrar has completed the process of validating and counting a random sample of 5% (i.e., 1/20) of the recall petitions. See this press release. The sample was 35,793 signatures, of which 27,983 were found valid. If exactly the same ratio holds for the total petitions, the number of valid signatures would be 27,983 x 20 = 559,660.  That would be agonizingly close but 7,197 short of the required 566,857. Continue reading . . .

Tab Berg has this article in the California Globe on last month’s district attorney elections in California. He notes some of the lesser known races in which “progressive” challengers were defeated. Continue reading . . .

SF Mayor London Breed has appointed Brooke Jenkins to be the San Francisco District Attorney, filling the vacancy created by the recall of Chesa Boudin. Eric Ting had this article yesterday in the SF Chronicle based on an insider tip, and the official announcement was made today, as reported in this article from Bay City News.

The appointment is a short one, as a special election will be held concurrently with the November general election to fill the seat until SF’s odd election cycle comes around again in 2023.

Ms. Jenkins was a prosecutor in the office until last year, when she quit over Mr. Boudin’s policies and joined the recall effort. Heather Knight had this article at the time on her departure. She considers herself a progressive (it is SF, after all), but what she means by “progressive” is clearly much different than what Mr. Boudin means.

Continue reading . . .

The committee working to recall LA DA George Gascón has this announcement:

For all the victims of George Gascon’s reckless policies. For all the families who have been robbed of justice. And for every law-abiding resident who just wants to feel safe.

George Gascon has got to go.

Today, we will take a major step towards making that a reality.

Join us TODAY at 1:45pm at the LA County Registrar of Voters. A large moving truck filled with all the signed petitions will be driven to the County Registrar, and delivered.

Continue reading . . .

We previously reported a result in the race for District Attorney for San Joaquin County in California’s Central Valley. It turns out that was premature because of a massive problem with misprinted mail-in ballots with faulty bar codes. Two days after the election, only a fifth of the total vote has been reported. I have temporarily unpublished the post and will republish it with any necessary corrections when we have a more reliable result.

See note at the end regarding publication status of this post.**

California has four “progressive”* prosecutors who refused to join the tough-on-crime California District Attorneys’ Association and instead formed a group called the Prosecutors’ Alliance. Three of them were on the ballot June 7. Two were defeated. We may see about the fourth in November. Continue reading . . .

Heather Knight reports for the SF Chronicle:

As [SF DA Chesa] Boudin faces a June 7 recall, it’s important for voters to understand what he promised and whether his office is delivering. And four former staffers and one current staffer in his Victim Services Division told me that victims are regularly not updated on progress in their cases, meaning their voices remain unheard as prosecutors work quickly to resolve them. Continue reading . . .

LA Times political columnist George Skelton has this column on the race for California Attorney General.

The state’s “jungle primary” is June 7. The top two vote-getters, regardless of party, will advance to the November general election.

The campaign to recall LA DA George Gascón has collected 400,000 of the needed 566,857 signatures with two months to go, Fox News reports. In practice, they need more than the minimum as some signatures will always be invalid.