Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the longest serving senator and the oldest in the chamber at 89, had yet to announce whether she will run for re-election next year. News outlets have run articles questioning her mental capabilities and she had a difficult year with the death of her husband, Richard Blum.
She won re-election in 2018 despite the state Democrat party endorsing her challenger, Kevin de Leon, former state Senate leader and current Los Angeles City Councilman. Now Schiff and others, Rep. Katie Porter of Southern California, already have declared assuming Feinstein will not stand for re-election. Bay Area Rep. Ro Khanna and long-time progressive Oakland Rep. Barbara Lee also are considering getting into the mix.
Schiff represents the LA area and, like Rep. Eric Swalwell, was a prosecutor before winning his Congressional seat. He’s in this 12th term. His announcement has Bay Area ties because he grew up in Alamo and graduated from Monte Vista High School.
Schiff led the unsuccessful impeachment effort against President Donald Trump and became known for consistently spouting that he had seen evidence of Trump’s collusion with the Russians. He said it for two years and never produced a shred of evidence. Of course, the complicit media, which should have quit quoting him years ago for his lies, never has held him accountable.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she will endorse him if Feinstein retires.
Schiff also was in the news because House Speaker Kevin McCarthy unseated him from the Intelligence Committee citing the leaks and lies for his decision. Good call by McCarthy.
For me, it’s likely an election where I will either be holding my nose and voting or simply passing because, in this deep blue state, it’s likely it will be a Dem against Dem showdown unless it’s such a free for all on the Dem side that a Republican can sneak into the November general election with a top 2 finish.
The raging New Year’s Eve floods ravaged Sunol Glen School and closed Niles Canyon and Foothill roads for weeks. CalTrans is rebuilding the bridge over Alameda Creek on Highway 84 in Sunol. Janis Mara, a CalTrans information officer, reported that the new bridge will both be higher than the existing structure and will have its abutments out of the creek—what she described as a key design feature that will lessen flood possibilities in the future.
Once those long-awaited improvements are in place, presumably Niles Canyon Road will stay open more often, although with the steep hillsides, mudslides are always a possibility.
Last December, I wrote about Operation Christmas Child through Samaritan’s Purse that delivers shoe boxes with gifts and Gospel messages to under-served children around the world. For the San Francisco Bay Area, 20,290 boxes were packed and donated to be shipped around the world. That’s a tiny number against the total of 10,559,907 shoeboxes delivered world-wide with more than 9.3 million coming from the United States.
The ministry reached a huge milestone with the 200th million box was given to an Ukrainian girl in January.
