What if San Francisco turns out to be a malignant tumor in the body of California?
Monica Showalter "What would it be like if Hugo Chávez and Bill Ayers ran the city prosecutor's office?
"San Franciscans are about to find out, now that Ayers's stepson, Chesa Boudin, son of Weather Underground terrorists and translator to none other than Hugo himself, has made his first move as San Francisco district attorney.
"He's kicked off his term with purges for insufficient revolutionary fervor, taking a page from Andrei Vyshinsky, Stalin's famous show trial prosecutor who enforced ideological purity.
Just two days into his tenure as San Francisco's District Attorney, Chesa Boudin fired at least seven prosecuting attorneys. Boudin said the actions were necessary to carry out the progressive policies he campaigned on.
"I had to make difficult staffing decisions [Friday] in order to put in place a management team that will help me accomplish the work I committed to do for San Francisco," Boudin said in a statement.
It's not unusual for a newly elected district attorney to restructure the management team, said Lara Bazelon, a law professor at the University of San Francisco. The attorneys are at-will employees, which means they can be fired without reason.
. . .
"Stalin's society was all about keeping secrets, too, especially ideological secrets. San Francisco will now be the same. That must be some atmosphere they've got going in the San Francisco DA's office right now. Imagine being too afraid to express your thoughts as is no doubt the situation now with Chesa at the helm, that you refuse to say anything.
"Now that word is out that prosecuting crooks and targeting gangsters is a firing offense, San Francisco is all set for a great crime wave. Apparently it takes an iron-fisted Stalin or a Chavez to create that much chaos."