Rebuilding San Francisco?

San Francisco is moving to alter certain requirements and political priorities in order to increase residential housing construction. San Francisco even has changed some actual rules so developers can build market-rate apartments with fewer requirements to provide affordable housing. One project coming out of these moves is this one:

In what would be the city’s most ambitious residential development in several years, local property developer Bayhill Ventures last month announced plans for a 71-story rental tower in San Francisco’s ailing financial district.

“Silence is Violence”

That’s been the mantra of the Left for some years. It’s an extreme rendition of the obligation of folks—especially those with public influence—to speak and act against bad behavior, especially atrocities. It’s a mantra that was born in objections to the rise of, and increasing publicity surrounding, violence against women and children, increases (in publicity, at least) roughly coinciding with the time of the Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein exposures.

“Context”

Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R, NY) asked a question of three university presidents, Claudine Gay of Harvard, Elizabeth Magill of Penn, and Sally Kornbluth of MIT, a simple, straightforward question at last week’s House Committee on Education and the Workforce hearing regarding campus antisemitism:

Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn’s rules or code of conduct, yes or no?

Magill’s answer, smirk on her face:

It is a context-dependent decision, Congresswoman.

Gay repeated the claim:

It can be, depending on the context.

Kornbluth tried to dodge the question altogether:

Distinctions

A letter writer in The Wall Street Journal‘s 4 December Letters section drew a distinction between Israel’s treatment of civilians during Hamas’ war on Israel and Hamas’ treatment of civilians.

Just like Israel warned Gaza City residents to leave before its airstrikes, Hamas tried repeatedly to get Israelis to avoid the concert near the border and leave the nearby kibbutzim, right? Wrong, of course, and therein lies a fundamental distinction. Israel would have been glad to see Gazan civilians evacuated to safety to avoid its airstrikes, but Hamas would have been bitterly disappointed if those Israeli civilians hadn’t been around to be slaughtered.

Oil Buyback

Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden now plans to buy 2.7 million barrels of oil to put back into our oil strategic reserve.

Couple things about that.

We had 630 million barrels of oil in our strategic reserve before Biden took office and started selling it to the People’s Republic of China while claiming he was doing it to slow the gasoline price inflation his spending was causing. As recently as 24 November last, our reserve was down to 351 million barrels. According to my second grade arithmetic, that means Biden had reduced our reserve by 279 million barrels in just those two years and 10 months. My third grade arithmetic tells me that those 27 million barrels he’s buying for the reserve is just 1% of what he’s taken out of it. Which makes buying that oil an insulting effort to distract us with his pretense of refilling our reserve after his dangerous reduction.

Federal Intimidation

The Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden now is trying to cow school districts into pushing Progressive-Democratic Party gender identity and sexual orientation ideology by threatening to withhold Federal funding from the districts’ free and reduced-price school lunch programs.

This is Party using children as hostage in its push for that destructive claptrap. Those programs often provide the only healthy meal those children get in a school day, and denying those children is a blatant attempt to intimidate those districts into compliance with Party ideology. Party’s ransom demand is the surrender of those children to Party diktat.

It Needs Disrupting

It seems that the US Navy’s USS Gabrielle Giffords, a littoral combat ship, sailed too close to Second Thomas Shoal to suit the People’s Republic of China, and the PLA’s Southern Theater objected.

The US deliberately disrupted the situation in the South China Sea, seriously violated China’s sovereignty and security, seriously undermined regional peace and stability, and seriously violated international law and basic norms governing international relations, fully demonstrating that the US is the biggest threat to peace and stability in the South China Sea[.]

Take Appropriate Action

In response to Iran’s proxy Houthis’ attacks on US Navy combat ships and on commercial freight shipping in the Red Sea, Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden, through his National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, said that

The United States is going to take “appropriate action[.]”

Sure we will. Biden will have the Navy go drop a bomb, or two, on or toss a couple of missiles at a couple of unimportant Houthi buildings in the Yemeni desert, just like he did in the Syrian desert in pseudo-response to Iran’s Syria proxies’ dozens of attacks on US facilities there.

I’ve Written It Before

House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R, KY) says there’ll be no special treatment of Hunter Biden; if he ignores the Committee’s subpoena, Comer will take him to court to force his appearance.

“We’re going to treat this investigation like every congressional investigation in recent memory has been treated: you come in for a deposition, then you do the public hearing. All of our depositions are transparent. We released the transcripts. … He is the key witness to all of the Biden crimes. So the subpoena called for him to show up in this office on December 13 for a deposition. I expect to see Hunter Biden in this office for a deposition.”
Asked if he was prepared to go to court if the first son does not show up, Comer answered. “Absolutely.”

Healthcare Systems On Edge

They’re on edge from a plethora of cyber attacks against them.

According to the Institute for Security and Technology, about 300 hospitals have suffered ransomware attacks this year alone. Cyber experts say hackers typically see health care organizations as a prime target because hospitals are likely to pay ransom to keep critical health services up and running.

Two problems are buried in that simple characterization. One is the continued vulnerability of the hospital systems’ IT systems. Why does this vulnerability continue to exist? Charlie Regan, Nerds On Site CEO: