On April 19, 1972, John B. Connally, Jr., then-U.S. secretary of the treasury, declared at the American Society of Newspaper Editors meeting in Washington, D.C.: “A democracy unsatisfied (by support of the people] cannot long survive…. We live in )robably the most turbulent and tormented times in the history of this nation. Criticize … disagree, yes, but also we have as leaders an obligation to be fair and keep in perspective what we are and what we hope to be.”
It has been a new year at City Hall where Supervisor Aaron Peskin from Telegraph Hill was elected president after 11 roll call votes by our district heroes, almost tying Congressman Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield for roll call votes. This columnist wishes President Peskin two years of leadership achievement. My hero, U.S. President Harry Truman, once reminded Americans: “America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, imagination and all the unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.”
“The phenomenon of corruption is like the garbage. It has to be removed daily.”
President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administrator of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) proclaimed in September 1938: “We are going to spend and spend and spend, and tax and tax and tax, and elect and elect and elect.”
Why are you giving Mr. Kopp a platform?
In a 1958 book about Sir Winston Churchill, the author described a woman who gushed to Churchill: “Doesn’t it thrill you, Mr. Churchill, to know that every time you make a speech the hall is packed to overflowing?”
John Adams observed: “Public business must always be done by somebody. It will be done by somebody or other: if wise men decline it, others will not; if honest man refuse it, others will not.” Someone else proclaimed: “Nothing intoxicates some people like a sip of authority.”
Crime seems to be the only San Francisco big business that escapes city government meddling, which is why District Attorney Chesa Boudin must be recalled. Like his predecessor, George Gascon, currently the subject of a recall campaign in Los Angeles County, Boudin acts as if it’s not among his responsibilities to prosecute criminals as he protects lawbreakers rather than criminal victims.
As the beat goes on at City Hall, the “City Family” has already begun to arrange office exchanges. Lack of professional experience is no impediment.
Why is the commentary of an aged politician allowed on a monthly basis? I know there are persons who will protest that the monthly commentary represents alternative opinions to “leftist” extremism, but seriously, what value or substance comes from these monthly scribblings?
Quentin Kopp shares his dismay over government investment in education and corruption among government officials.
Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon 