I’m still trying to figure out what the progressives really believe concerning rent and housing. Their actual agenda, I’m convinced, is a mystery wrapped in ambiguity, surrounded by a bodyguard of lies.

The radicals in the woke movement speak a great deal of gibberish about “holistic justice,” making it sound like a valid scientific concept when, in fact, it’s just a get-out-of-jail free card for criminals. Pamela Price talks about it all the time, as if “a holistic approach to justice” is the solution to all the crime and misery in Oakland and Alameda County. But, of course, once you get past the gobbledegook and double talk, you’re left with Price’s real agenda: letting criminals under the age of 25 go free, paroling dangerous predators, firing dedicated prosecutors, and—of course—going after cops with the vengeful hatred of the true Oakland wokester.

On Grand Avenue, there’s a store with a sign in the window that says, “SHINING BLACK PEOPLE! We are retrieving all that would be stolen by our ridiculous foes.” With all this chatter about reparations going on, I fear the feeling is increasingly widespread, in the Black and progressive communities, that America owes Black people a lot of money.

A lot of people really don’t like the reparations plan that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors just unanimously accepted. Five million dollars per Black resident above the age of 18; a guaranteed annual income of $97,000; relief from taxes; wiping out all personal debt, and a home in the city for $1. Of course, people think this is insanity, and they’re saying so.

If there’s any good news in reports that Oakland will have a budget deficit of $350 million over the next two years, it’s this: Thao says that she’s freezing hiring in the Department of Violence Prevention.