About Last Week…

So I got an email from Gavin last night telling me who he’s going to tap to replace Dianne Feinstein.

Well, no, of course I didn’t but I have received fund raising emails from him in the past and it is always such a little thrill to block him.

While I will not be farm betting or reputation (such as it is) staking on it, I think I may have come up with the most likely pick (and if I’m wrong I’ll say he didn’t pick her because he didn’t want to make the Globe look right – and that’s your course in Media CYA 101 for today.)

California – get ready for Senator London Breed.

And why you ask? Well, first and foremost, she is a black woman – or at least appears to identify as one – so that checks Newsom’s most important box. And it should be the most important box, by the way – can you think of a better way to pick someone for one of the 100 most important jobs on the planet than based on their skin color and internal anatomy? (not even going to try to parse how trans would work into this.)

But she has a job, you say?  Not for long, if the polling out of San Franscisco is anything to go by.  Breed’s hope for re-election as mayor are growing dimmer by the day – strong opponents, a city that is an international object of scorn, pity, head shaking, and jokes, and the fact that she has tried on occasion to “talk tough” about fixing the whirlwind of filth the city has become.  That last one is a problem because it irked the city’s woke true believers and, since she didn’t accomplish what she promised, irked everyone else, too.

With Levi’s heir and uber-connected (think Gavin with his own money) Phil Lurie breathing down her neck, city supervisor and union guy Ahsha Safai also in the race, and longtime Asian community powerbroker Phil Ting waiting in the wings, Breed has already pretty much lost San Francisco’s three most important constituencies.

Couple that with San Franciscans realizing last year that they can actually remove horrible people from office – see successful DA and school board recalls – and Breed would be incredibly lucky to even get out of the primary.

So all of that makes her, shall we say, available – right now. 

A senate gig – even in caretaker form – would give Breed a graceful exit (“I love serving the city but the governor has called me and I must do my duty for the people, blah, blah, blah”) from the mayor’s office, rather than the red-headed rented mule pounding she is about to take.

Newson can keep his word (bwahahahaha!) and keep the seat in the Bay Area, London can go to Washington to glean a sheen of serious (and pick up the phone when Gavin calls,) and then step aside for the new person (bad, worse, and worst – you pick which candidate goes where) to spend the next six years ruining the country.

But wouldn’t that end a bright, rising political career?  Nope, at the very least not nearly as badly as her upcoming loss would.  Breed can use her time in the senate to rinse off the mayoral stink and then tottle off to a think tank for a while before returning in a blaze of glory to run for, um, state auditor or something like that in a few years.  She’s young enough to take a break.

And that’s that.  

Moving on to something more important, Newsom signed a bill raising fast food worker pay to $20 an hour.

And I support that.

I assume the bill said that since every other fast food place in the state must now pay their workers like In-N-Out does that every fast food place in the state will be converted to an In-N-Out, correct?

No?  Ooof…I change my mind.

While I’m not exactly sure In-N-Out already pays $20, I do know it has always paid – and treated – its employees far, far better than any other fast food – or most other chain restaurants, sit-down included – have ever done.  A person can legitimately make In-N-Out a really good career – store managers are paid very well – north of a $100K I understand – and they do promote from within.  The cooks and counter folks are still largely young, part-timers but if they decide to stay they can do very well (one program they have is if you worked there during high school, they’ll make sure to keep hours available for you when you’re home from college for the summer.)

Speaking of school, the Los Angeles Unified School District finally dropped its vaccine mandate for teachers, but not without a wonderfully terrifying piece of batshittery from the execrable school board president (and former pretty much everything else in LA) Jackie Goldberg.

As I’ve said before, I like it when people wear masks: you don’t have to wonder if they’re insane, they’re telling you from across the street.

After the board vote, Goldberg screeched into the camera her displeasure with the mandate end, saying she regrets nothing about how the District handled the pandemic and that lots and lots more people died in Florida because they didn’t, um, do exactly what LAUSD did, I suppose?

Do not watch this on an empty stomach:

🚨BREAKING🚨LAUSD , the 2nd largest school district in the nation finally voted to rescind the Covid vaccine mandate for its teachers and employees. Those who didn’t get the vaccine haven’t been allowed on campus.

Prior to the vote – LAUSD President Jackie Goldberg went on a… pic.twitter.com/bdIgoDlXx2

— Stella Escobedo (@StellaEscoTV) September 26, 2023

Thanks for reading the Globe!