Oakland has long manufactured demagogues from the left: Carroll Fife, Pamela Price, Cat Brooks and Nikki Bas in recent years, or Desley Brooks, Angela Davis and the Black Panthers from days gone by. In a town as “progressive” and racially mixed as Oakland, this is not surprising.

First, I need to apologize to the people who thought that my post yesterday was serious. It was pure satire. A lot of people took it literally, and some got quite upset.

On Monday, just hours after City Councilmember Carroll Fife’s new tax on restaurants went into effect, the last restaurant in Oakland announced it was immediately closing. Sam’s Burgers, on East 13th Street, which has been a beloved staple in the neighborhood for more than 20 years, said in a statement they could no longer afford to remain in business.

“Is the county going to step up or is the county going to get in my way if I have to evict some of these tenants?” asked Tom Silva, a San Leandro landlord quoted in Steve Tavares’s East Bay Insiders Newsletter.

The anti-cop Left is all freaked out about an Oakland Police Department proposal to fully encrypt all of its radio and dispatch feeds so that the public can’t listen them.