WITH DNC IN MIND, CITY BANS CARRYING URINE, FECES:

An NBC Bay Area Investigation reveals a dangerous concoction of drug needles, garbage, and feces lining the streets of downtown San Francisco. The Investigative Unit surveyed more than 150 blocks, including some of the city’s top tourist destinations, and discovered conditions that are now being compared to some of the worst slums in the world.

The “now” is a nice touch.

As Harry Stein quipped in his 2000 book, How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (and Found Inner Peace), you can tell if you’ve already joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy when “Someone’s going on about how fantastic San Francisco is, and it suddenly hits you that’s one place on earth you never want to live.” When I was visiting both San Francisco and Manhattan during the pre-de Blasio era, I often thought how much cleaner and safer New York seemed to be. But Manhattan seems increasingly eager to to go head to head with San Francisco in their Red Queen’s Race to the bottom.

San Francisco’s last Republican mayor left office in January of 1964.

(Classical reference in headline.)