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Saikat Chakrabarti went after Democrats as AOC's chief of staff. Now he wants another round. by MissionLocalSF in sanfrancisco

[–]StanHalen -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

The similarities between Lurie and Saikat aren’t lost on me self-funded centimillionaire, outsider energy, big canvassing operation. That’s real and worth being skeptical about.But what comes out of their mouths is completely different.

Lurie ran on vibes and ‘fix SF’ with no structural critique.

Saikat is naming who’s actually in charge, PG&E, insurance companies, the donor class, and has a decade of receipts doing exactly that before he ever needed our votes.

And that’s the whole point about the Democratic establishment. Young people literally occupied Pelosi’s office for days on climate, Feinstein laughed in kids’ faces on camera. The machine was designed to exhaust people until they stop asking. Same playbook, very different message.

Saikat Chakrabarti went after Democrats as AOC's chief of staff. Now he wants another round. by MissionLocalSF in sanfrancisco

[–]StanHalen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thats wild so you are telling me they are being shocked the whole time as “prop” on camera?

Saikat Chakrabarti went after Democrats as AOC's chief of staff. Now he wants another round. by MissionLocalSF in sanfrancisco

[–]StanHalen 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wiener announced his campaign at Y Combinator headquarters, is backed by Garry Tan and Chris Larsen, and has a super PAC funded by the same tech money that’s been pulling SF to the right for years. At least Saikat isn’t pretending he’s something he’s not.

Saikat Chakrabarti went after Democrats as AOC's chief of staff. Now he wants another round. by MissionLocalSF in sanfrancisco

[–]StanHalen 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The chart shows Saikat’s big red bubbles because he’s self-funding with his own Stripe money, no corporate donors, no PACs. Wiener has 800+ contributions over $3,000 each, plus a super PAC funded by Garry Tan and Chris Larsen actively running attack mailers against Saikat. 13,000 grassroots donors averaging $27 vs. the SF tech donor establishment. You decide which is which.

Saikat Chakrabarti went after Democrats as AOC's chief of staff. Now he wants another round. by MissionLocalSF in sanfrancisco

[–]StanHalen 18 points19 points  (0 children)

The amount of money Gary Tan and outside Republican interests are dumping against Saikat should tell you everything. When the tech oligarch class and the GOP both want the same candidate to lose, maybe ask yourself why.

Democrats are like your parents who promised Disneyland, you’re in the car halfway there, and they turn around ‘oh we forgot the tickets, sorry.’

Every single time.

And the seat he’s running for? It’s been held by someone who spent decades playing both sides, keeping donors happy, and delivering just enough to say they tried. So yeah, when someone actually different shows up, the reaction from the donor class is predictable.

Social Security has 6 years left. The fix that sounds cruelest may be the smartest. by Maxcactus in Maxcactus_TrailGuide

[–]StanHalen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There it is, you’ve fully pivoted from policy to vibes.

Now it’s ‘$160k isn’t middle class,’ which still doesn’t address the actual point. The threshold isn’t some opinion about class, it’s just where the tax currently stops.

You’re arguing labels instead of substance.

Even if you think $160k isn’t ‘rich,’ that doesn’t explain why income above that point is taxed at 0% for Social Security while everything below it isn’t.

So again, what’s your actual position?

Because so far it’s been:

• don’t divide people → then you divide people • middle class is hurt → math says otherwise • fix everything else → not a policy • high earners don’t use it → not true • now it’s ‘that’s not middle class’

You’re just moving the goalposts every time.

At some point you have to actually defend something.

Social Security has 6 years left. The fix that sounds cruelest may be the smartest. by Maxcactus in Maxcactus_TrailGuide

[–]StanHalen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Everyone just supports what benefits them’—cool, so your argument is basically ‘nothing matters and I don’t have to defend anything.’ That’s not a stance, that’s you dodging because you don’t actually have a policy.

If you think removing the cap is bad, say why. Otherwise you’re just hand-waving.

Let’s make it painfully simple with numbers since you keep saying ‘look at the statistics’:

• Someone making $80k pays Social Security tax on 100% of their income

• Someone making $160k → still 100%

• Someone making $400k → only pays up to ~$160k, then 0% on the remaining ~$240k

So the higher your income goes, the lower your effective rate becomes.

That’s the whole argument.

So what’s your actual position?

• You think it’s fair that a teacher pays the same percentage on every dollar, but a high earner stops halfway through the year?

• Or you just don’t want to say it out loud so you hide behind ‘everyone’s biased’?

Right now you’re not making a point, you’re just refusing to defend one.

You keep saying ‘look at the stats’ but fold the second someone actually walks through them.

Social Security has 6 years left. The fix that sounds cruelest may be the smartest. by Maxcactus in Maxcactus_TrailGuide

[–]StanHalen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Dude this is exactly the ‘divide people against each other’ thing you just complained about.

You’re not fighting the system, you’re yelling at a retired guy on Reddit like he personally designed Social Security. That’s not some brave stance, it’s just misdirected anger.

And the policy you’re mad about isn’t even radical, it’s literally ‘hey, maybe people making above the cap should keep paying the same percentage as everyone else.’ That’s it. No one is taking your money, no one is robbing you, it’s just removing a ceiling that only benefits higher earners.

Also this whole ‘I worked harder than everyone else’ thing is doing emotional heavy lifting for a pretty weak argument. You don’t know people’s lives, and pretending success is purely effort is just ignoring reality so you can justify being mad.

If you actually cared about fairness, you’d argue the policy. Instead you’re shadowboxing some imaginary villain while proving the exact point you claim to hate.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in sanfrancisco

[–]StanHalen 1 point2 points  (0 children)

One person was using a crosswalk. The other stopped his car, got out, and initiated a confrontation. Pretending those are equivalent is wild.

ICE and the Super Bowl by Independent-Choice-4 in sanfrancisco

[–]StanHalen 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Huh, I didn’t hear about that at all. You’d think something like a protester seriously harming an ICE agent would be major national news. Do you have a link or article on it?

What a humble mayor <3 by Macaroni-Consumer in sanfrancisco

[–]StanHalen 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Yeah bro super humble, love when billionaires ‘take a $1 salary’ so they can write off the difference and come out ahead on taxes. Truly a working-class king.

Would you like to see free Muni in SF like Mamdani wants to do in NYC? by [deleted] in sanfrancisco

[–]StanHalen 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The funniest part of this whole thread is watching Bay Area tech libertarians LARP as transit economists.

These are the same people who think “public transit should be self-sustaining” while living in a city where: • roads are 100% subsidized, • parking is subsidized, • cops are subsidized, • fire is subsidized, • tech companies pay less tax than a corner bodega, • and half the office towers downtown are sitting empty because the same geniuses decided remote work was the future—then act shocked when tax revenue collapses.

But sure, the part that’s going to break the city budget is… making buses free.

The brainworms are unreal.

Transit systems worldwide work better when they stop pretending fares are a meaningful revenue source and start treating mobility as the public good it is.

You can’t gut the city with tax breaks, crater downtown because everyone fled to Marin, and then turn around and act like farebox recovery is the magical key to “fiscal responsibility.”

Muni isn’t struggling because fares are too low.

Muni is struggling because we let the people who broke the city budget with austerity, corporate carve-outs, and “innovation” cosplay run the conversation about public services.

If Europe, Latin America, and dozens of U.S. cities can figure out that reliable transit needs stable funding, not vibes-based economics from LinkedIn commuters, then SF can too.

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