Carl Chan reports good news! The paperwork for the Recall has finally cleared the Alameda County Registrar’s office, where it had been stalled for a while. This means that signature gathering can now begin! Not immediately, though. Carl will be organizing training workshops for the signature corps; I will share the details when he releases them. Meanwhile, I urge everyone to please volunteer to gather signatures. The task will be formidable: we need around 76,000 valid signatures to get the Recall on to the ballot. I’ll be out there, and if I can do it, so can you!

Here is the Amicus Curiae (“friend of the court”) brief from Gov. Newsom to the U.S. Supreme Court, filed on Sept. 22, 2023, supporting the City of Grants Pass, Oregon, in asking for a Writ of Certiorari, or a request for SCOTUS to review a ruling by a lower court.

One thing I’ve learned in a fairly long life is that there are certain people who refuse to play by the rules. Every human society seems to have stumbled across these common-sense strictures. They include things like “Contribute to your society or tribe.” “Learn how to do useful, constructive things.” “Work hard.” “Be nice.” “Don’t do bad stuff.” “Respect the ground you stake out for your home. Don’t pollute it with filth.”

For some years, San Francisco has been trending away from the extremity of wokeism and toward a more moderate, sane policy regarding policing and homeless encampments.

Dallas mayor Eric Johnson, a Democrat, caused shock waves in Texas and beyond when he announced he’s switching parties to become a Republican. “Next spring [2024], I will be voting in the Republican primary. When my career in elected office ends in 2027 on the inauguration of my successor as mayor, I will leave office as a Republican.” Johnson, who previously served in the Texas State Legislature, has been a lifelong Democrat. He’s also a Black man. Dallas, with 1.3 million people, is the nation’s ninth largest city. It is also, as the N.Y. Times notes, “a solidly Democratic city, and backed President Biden in the 2020 presidential election and the former congressman Beto O’Rourke in his failed bid for governor last year.”