Napolitano: Trump guilty of obstruction of justice

Napolitano starts at 4:42

Wiener/Breed: Simple-minded on housing

#SB50 is about tackling our housing crisis, plain & simple. It has nothing to do with urban renewal, & suggesting it does is deeply offensive to communities like mine that are still living with the consequences. @Scott_Wiener is an ally to the African-American community in SF. https://t.co/LMSmMNUyTS

— London Breed (@LondonBreed) April 18, 2019

 The urban renewal analogy may be inaccurate, but the gentrification now underway is even worse in that it affects everyone who can't afford to live in San Francisco.

The London Breed/Scott Wiener idea of what's needed: have the state compel local governments to build housing along transit corridors, which is simple-minded and wrong-headed. 

A comment to the Chronicle story that has Breed's tweet:

Price theory works for manufactured goods and commodities but less so for housing. Real estate involves a fixed amount of land within city boundaries. Increasing demand for this land will not increase the supply, so the price must rise with demand. As demand increases for a limited supply of land, the price will increase as long as there is anyone anywhere that can pay the price. Building higher increases the value of the land and building higher raises the cost of construction. Increasing density raises the price of housing.

The problem with housing in San Francisco: the demand side of the equation dwarfs any possible supply solution. Scott Wiener's bill will essentially get more market-rate housing built, since housing is provided by profit-oriented developers, regardless of how much "affordable" housing the law requires.

And "affordable" when talking about housing in San Francisco should always be in quotes, since it's a term that's defined by an area's median income (AMI), which in the Bay Area is approaching $200,000. And high-density housing is more expensive to build.

Not surprising that Mayor Breed gets this wrong. See also Supervisor Breed swings and misses again.

Anybody but Biden

Photo: Jose Lopez

In today's NY Times:

...But, she[Anita Hill] added, she cannot support Mr. Biden for president until he takes full responsibility for his conduct, including his failure to call as corroborating witnesses other women who were willing to testify before the Judiciary Committee. By leaving them out, she said, he created a “he said, she said” situation that did not have to exist...

In recent interviews, Ms. Hill and others involved in the confirmation fight portrayed Mr. Biden’s handling of the hearing as at best inept and at worst deeply insensitive. They fault his refusal to seriously investigate her accusations and take public testimony from other potential witnesses who said the future justice had acted inappropriately with them...

One of those potential witnesses, Sukari Hardnett, a lawyer in Silver Spring, Md., said in an interview that she decided to come forward while watching the hearing when she “saw what they were doing to Anita Hill and how they were literally trying to trash her.” 

Ms. Hardnett wrote a letter detailing her own experiences and submitted it to the committee through the dean of her law school, expecting to be called to testify. But she said she was not.

Another woman who sought to testify, Angela Wright, called Mr. Biden “pretty much useless” last year in an interview.

Ms. Wright, Ms. Hartnett and one other woman, Rose Jourdain, who died in 2010, were ready to back up Ms. Hill’s account before the committee, but Mr. Biden ended the hearings before they were heard from in public. Over the years, Mr. Biden has suggested they either backed out or were reluctant.

Ms. Hill said there was not “any evidence” of that. But if it is true, she said, there is a possible explanation: “They saw a flawed process where they weren’t going to be heard and they might end up being destroyed.”

Some say Mr. Biden was more sensitive to the fact that Justice Thomas was African-American than to issues of gender; others say he was loath to investigate Ms. Hill’s accusations in part because he wanted the confirmation hearings to focus on legal issues, not personal ones.

Rob's comment:

In short, we have Biden to thank for not only failing to treat Anita Hill fairly, but as a consequence we have had Clarence Thomas, a right-wing moron, on the Supreme Court since 1991.

Biden won't survive the primaries, since there are so many other good candidates already in the race without his baggage.

As a Democrat, I say anybody---any Democrat, that is---but Biden for president.

See also The biggest threat to Biden is Biden himself and Joe Biden Is Running to Be the Nominee of a Party That Has Left Him Behind.

Senator Grassley voted 7 times to repeal Obamacare