New in PJ Media:
Charles Barkley is in the Basketball Hall of Fame, but he is going to be notably absent from the NBA All-Star Game on Feb. 16. That’s because the game is going to be played in San Francisco, and even though Barkley is now a generally consistent leftist after flirting with common sense and patriotism in his earlier years, he doesn’t want to spend even a minute in Nancy Pelosi’s city. Barkley is unwilling to play along with the left’s charade by affirming its claims that San Francisco is just as scenic and safe as it always was; he sees it for what it is and is unafraid to break out of the left’s lockstep and say so.
Fox News reported Saturday was speaking on TNT’s “Inside the NBA” about the Detroit Pistons’ Cade Cunningham. “He’s going to make the All-Star Team,” said the Hall of Famer, adding: “I’m not going. I’m not going to that rat-infested place out in San Francisco.”
Barkley said much the same thing last year, referring to the undesirability of “being around a bunch of homeless crooks in San Francisco.” WNBA player Candace Parker answered that by saying, “We love San Francisco,” but Barkley stuck to his guns, responding: “No we don’t. You can’t even walk around down there.” Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors, who play in San Francisco, came back “Yes, you can walk around,” but Barkley shot back: “Yeah, with a bulletproof vest.”
This time, Fox noted that as Parker and Green had done the previous year, one of Barkley’s colleagues (left unnamed for some reason) affirmed his leftist bona fides by disagreeing with Barkley’s accurate assessment and calling San Francisco “beautiful.”
Barkley, however, was having none of it and declared: “San Francisco is not a beautiful city. Rats. Cats.” Cats? “Y’all are not gonna make me like San Francisco. No. Nope, nope, nope.” If Republicans had been governing San Francisco for the last few decades and were responsible for its destruction, Barkley wouldn’t have had to dig in his heels and get defensive about disliking the city: the establishment media all over the country would be running breathless feature stories about how much the once-great city had deteriorated under Republican misrule.
Barkley was right, of course. San Francisco, with its steep hills and streetcars and glorious vistas, was once a gorgeous little jewel of a city, but that was a long time ago. Leftist politicians, including but by no means limited to Nancy Pelosi, made it Exhibit A of how far-left policies can destroy what was once a beautiful place to live. In the Paris of the West, people die of drug overdoses on the street virtually every day, and out-of-control theft is now dismissed as a “basic city experience.”
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Bexarkat says
I am sorry, I am confused. Was Barkley speaking of the vermin that ooze out of the gutters and underworld and hold political positions in local, state, and national governments, or his he speaking of the four legged-furry rodents?
WPM says
The turd invested city by the bay .I am sure they are good people who live there ,but like NYC where I live the majority of people there keep voting in idiots who follow an insane woke suicide to stable society agenda ..I have seen crime ,filth, homeless insane people infest much of Manhattan streets and spread to the outer boroughs (where I live)in the last 12 years starting with the election of the tall dope from Park Slope Brooklyn DeBlasio. Now with an equally insane governor running the state and city this insanity has grown. I will be moving some where else in the next year. businesses are leaving the city and state at record numbers. Our insane governor just passed a bill for prisoners to be able to get trans surgery on the taxpayers dime when locked up. Men who are not trans ,but “feel” like a woman can go and do their time in woman’s prison if they want. The budget under her for the state has increased 59 percent in the last 3 years ,what will they do when all the taxpaying businesses and people leave. She makes new regulations that makes it harder to open or run a business in the state every day. She thinks up new tolls ,fines, and taxes every month ,but hey she built a stadium in Buffalo NY that is open to the elements no dome and can not be used for 5 months of the year with all the snow that fall in that city ? Seems California and New York are in a race for the most expensive, ,highest taxed ,greatest amount of regulation ,nanny states to live in .The people who run these states into the grown do not have a clue that it is a reaction to their policies and expensive agendas.
Troybeam says
Grew up in bay area, today it is nothing like when I knew it, so sad that it has declined into a third world city.
WPM says
I can relate I grew up in NYC it is going down the same path .It had a re-birth between 1993-2013 ,been down hill from 2013 onward. It will come to a point when Wall Street ,the Insurance and finance industry will move out and the tax base will be gone With people working from home ,everything done on line, with taxes, fees, the hassle why not move out ?
gravenimage says
I was born here and still live here–I know how you feel.