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Politics Blog

Hell to the chief

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By Tim Redmond

The president’s state of the union speech doesn’t start for another few hours, but already anyone who cares already knows what he’s going to say. But it’s not going to be easy to talk about Iraq the same day that his new commander in the region calls the situation “dire.”.

And it’s not going to be easy to talk about reforming health insurance policy when his plan has a already been busted for fraud.

The NY Times — much to my continued annoyance — won’t let you see its best stuff on the web unless you’re a paid subscriber, so let me quote for you from Paul Krugman’s latest column:

On the radio, Mr. Bush suggested that we should “treat health insurance more like home ownership.” He went on to say that “the current tax code encourages home ownership by allowing you to deduct the interest on your mortgage from your taxes. We can reform the tax code, so that it provides a similar incentive for you to buy health insurance.”

Wow. Those are the words of someone with no sense of what it’s like to be uninsured.

Going without health insurance isn’t like deciding to rent an apartment instead of buying a house. It’s a terrifying experience, which most people endure only if they have no alternative. The uninsured don’t need an “incentive” to buy insurance; they need something that makes getting insurance possible.

Most people without health insurance have low incomes, and just can’t afford the premiums. And making premiums tax-deductible is almost worthless to workers whose income puts them in a low tax bracket.

Of those uninsured who aren’t low-income, many can’t get coverage because of pre-existing conditions — everything from diabetes to a long-ago case of jock itch. Again, tax deductions won’t solve their problem.

The only people the Bush plan might move out of the ranks of the uninsured are the people we’re least concerned about — affluent, healthy Americans who choose voluntarily not to be insured. At most, the Bush plan might induce some of those people to buy insurance, while in the process — whaddya know — giving many other high-income individuals yet another tax break.

No wonder the guy’s poll rankings are at about the level Richard Nixon’s were just before he resigned.

How to Make a Pigeon Burrito

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By Sarah Phelan

No, this isn’t my secret recipe for surviving life in the city on a tight budget. Instead, this is my not-so-secret recipe for helping get wild birds out of spaces they’d rather not be in—like trapped in the bay window of Farley’s coffee house on Potrero Hill, which is what happened last week when I was having lunch in the famed establishment and a pigeon flew through the door, then tried to escape, but hit the window, instead.

Understandably, everyone panicked at the sight of a pigeon flying into a window. People screamed, customers ducked and it looked like things could rapidly turn nasty, especially for the pigeon.
At which point I surprised even myself by standing up, picking up my ratty old black jacket which was hanging on the back of my chair, instructing those sitting in the bay window to “Move!” and swiftly throwing ratty jacket over the bird so it was completely engulfed.

Immediately, the bird stopped moving, and I was able to roll it up, in one gentle move, thereby transforming bird and coat into a pigeon burrito, in which the bird was the filler and the coat was the soft shell. With the bird firmly secured, I walked to door, opened my coat and, the bird immediately spread its wings and flew up and away, over the rooftops of Potrero Hill and towards the Bay, like my soul escaping its body.

To my embarrassment, everyone clapped and a man, who was sitting on the bench that wraps around the tree outside Farley’s, shouted, “You’re a hero!”

So, next time you see a bird trapped, surprise yourself by stripping off your coat, sweater, shirt, or whatev, and making a bird burrito. You’ll be glad you did.
ps In case you’re wondering, what’s this doing on the politics blog, I figure bird rescue is a political statement of sorts…
pps I learned this trick from the fine folks at Native Animal Rescue in Santa Cruz

Newsom loves the poor. Huh.

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By Tim Redmond

I’m a little late on this; somehow, I missed it when it came out. But Leftinsf picked it right up: Mayor Newsom is against municipal Wi-Fi because he doesn’t want to hurt the poor:

“I’m not going to take $10 million from poor people to pay for something that a private company has offered to pay for,” [Newsom said], suggesting money for a system owned or part-owned by city government would take money from social programs.

Three things, Mr. Mayor (if you are bothering to read this from Davos, Switzerland, where all those needy poor people hang out):

1. Broadband infrastructure is a public-works project, like streets and sewers. It’s the sort of thing that governments spend tax dollars on.

2. Why do we have to take money from the poor? Are you utterly opposed to taxing the rich?

3. You’ve managed to put money into all sorts of other projects in the city. Sasha at leftinsf nicely notes that the mayor was prepared to put a 50 cent tax on everyone’s monthly phone bill to pay for his 311system. Sasha explains::

Now here’s the thing: Did he send out an RFP for the 311 system asking companies to do it for free? I’m sure that if every 311 call could have a 15 second ad at the beginning he could have gotten some company to pay for it!

If Newsom had proposed to make some private company responsible for the system that is supposed to be the one stop shop for San Franciscans looking for city information, with no standards for service, no guarantee that it would always be available, and allowing people willing to pay extra priority access to the number, San Franciscans would rightly react very badly. Instead, we are paying for it ourselves, because the quality of that information and the idea that everyone should have equal access to our government is a core San Francisco value.

Ayup.

The Migden-Daly axis

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By Tim Redmond

The prospect of Mark Leno running against Carole Migden has set off an intriguing little internal political tiff in the progressive community. Chris Daly has a lovely little hit piece in BeyondChron about Barnes, Mosher, Whitehurst, Lauter and Parnters, the nasty political consulting firm, and in the process, he goes after Leno for his association with the frim and suggests that the Leno challenge could be primarily driven by the consultants’ desire for more cash.

That appears to put Daly in the Migden camp on this one, which isn’t surprising, since he’s been friendly with her in the past. But it makes the potential race all the more interesting.

Jon Carroll Chronicle tales

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By Tim Redmond

Everyone knows how power works and how daily newspapers are part of it, but it’s always nice to have an insider give you the actual goods every now and then.

Jon Carroll, who is often the Chron’s best columnist (although I also like Ray Ratto) weighed in today on the Yalie scandal that he’s calling “Gleegate.” He has little to add to the debate (actually, Ken Garcia, who is normally an idiot, actually had a more interesting hit on this.

But what Carroll said that made me smile was the following:

When I started [at the Chronicle], every editor had a list of names. If any of those names should pop up in police reports, divorce suits or on party guest lists, the publisher was to be notified before any story ran. Photographs of certain important members of society were always airbrushed (or, as you might say today, Photoshopped), sometimes quite heavily — the artists posted a small collection of the most egregious examples on the back wall.

Again: We all knew this was happening. I’m sure it still does, at some level, at some papers. But it’s refreshing to see someone actually spell it out.in print.

Another Team Newsom screw-up

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By Tim Redmond

Does Newsom’s press secretary, Peter Ragone, really think it’s helpful to launch personal insults at members of the Board of Supervisors? Or has this whole Yalie thing gotten so out of hand that he’s lost his mind?

Check this out from the LA Times:

Some supervisors have suggested that Newsom should spend more time trying to lower the city’s high unsolved-murder rate than talking about a high-profile assault case.

“His outrage needs to be re-proportioned toward the most severe crimes and less to those that affect his own political image outside San Francisco,” said Supervisor Ross Mirkirimi, who represents a high-crime district.

Responded Ragone: “Ross Mirkirimi can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. What he doesn’t understand is that the mayor of a major American city has to be able to focus on more than one thing at once.”

Newsom’s political team shits the bed

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By Tim Redmond

Gavin Newsom has always had sharp, well-paid political advisors, starting with consultant Eric Jaye. His public-relations operation has been well-honed, his every move designed to keep those popularity ratings soaring and keep him on the fast track to higher office.

But the wheels are starting to fall off this train.

There was, for example, the drinking issue, and his fight with Dan Noyes. That was just stupid: Newsom should have just laughed off the whole thing. Most San Francisco politicians drink; I would, too, if I were the mayor. (Well, I’m not the mayor, and I still drink.) Willie Brown, Newsom’s predecessor, as known to enjoy an occasional glass of wine, even with lunch, and lord knows — lord knows — what kind of partying he was doing in the evenings. But he didn’t care what people said about it; hey, whatever. This is a guy who impregnated his chief fundraiser and shrugged it off so quickly that it never became a political issue.

You get defensive about this stuff and it looks like you have a problem. That’s where Newsom is right now.

Then there’s the whole “question time” issue, which has become even more of a political embarassment.

I don’t know which political genius on the mayor’s staff told him it would be best ot ignore a vote of the public and refuse to comply with Proposition I. And I don’t know if that same genius told him to hold a “town hall meeting” instead. But it wasn’t a banner day for Team Newsom; in fact, the whole affair was a political disaster.

Steve Jones had fun with it. The SF Party Party had fun with it. Even the Chronicle story made Newsom look like a fool.

Randy Shaw thinks Newsom is acting on his own: “No political consultant would advise a Mayor to get on the wrong side of the popular foot patrol and question time issues, or to start battling with the media when facing re-election.”

But I’m not so sure. Newsom doesn’t do much of anything without political advice. I think he is, indeed, losing it — but so is his hot-shot political team.

Newsom’s infomercial

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By Steven T. Jones

Listen to a wav file of the Mayor’s January 13 Town Hall meeting here.

newsomchixa.jpg
Newsom, with another new chick

I didn’t have high expectations of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s “town hall meeting” in the Richmond this morning — and I was still disappointed. What he had billed as an alternative to monthly policy discussions with the Board of Supervisors during its regular meeting in City Hall — which voters had asked by approving Proposition I in November — was instead ridiculous political theater on his signature issue: homelessness. As we said he would in our cover story, “Mayor Chicken,” Newsom brought along a cadre a city employees and political appointees who work on the issue and they all hit their cues and sang the mayor’s praises while he did his Phil Donahue shtick.

The first hour passed without taking any questions, which the audience had to submit in writing on cards. During the second hour, Newsom sorted through the stack of hundreds for the questions he liked and then asked them in his own words of his employees and panelists. After two hours, they had discussed homelessness from every possible angle and covered every detail — and the audience was bored to tears. It was deadly dull, except for how frustrating it was. He refused to answer any questions on other topics, and while I chided him on his way out for failing to chose anything but softball questions, he had the gall to criticize the Board of Supervisors for failing to come, an angle that his press secretary Peter Ragone has also been flogging for weeks, convincing absolutely nobody.

The only bright spot in the event were the six people dressed in chicken suits who showed up, who Newsom’s board liasion Wade Crowfoot tried to prevent from entering the public building unless they removed them, which they refused to do. It was a good thing they did because the only saving grace of this whole fiasco was watching Newsom get handed a written question (that he never answered) and pretend not to notice the guy was in a chicken suit. The chickens remained respectful through the whole event (not clucking or heckling), but would pop up in windows occasionally or just walk around. Hilarious!

newsomchix3a.jpg
Peek-a-boodle-doo

If you think I’m overstating what a joke this forum was — or if you want to hear Newsom and others (like Angela Alioto, who disgraced herself by sucking up to the mayor) blather on …. click the link at the top of this blog entry. Some buried treasures in the depths of this recording are my heated discussion with Ragone about halfway through and the tough question that I asked (I’m the somebody referred to in Beyond Chron) of those frustrated by the event: Is this a filibuster or an infomercial?

Pics courtesy of Luke Thomas, Fog City Journal

Mr. Sensitive

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By Steven T. Jones
How brittle will Mayor Gavin Newsom be at his town hall meeting tomorrow, when he’s expected to be confronted about ducking real political debate? If this interview that aired on KGO-TV last night is any indication then watch for him to flee under fire again. Are we watching a full-blown meltdown of a big city mayor?

HAILING ALL MEDIA NERDS

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by Amanda Witherell

If you didn’t make it down to Memphis for the Third National Media Reform Conference, there was a great show on Democracy Now this morning about it. Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez are broadcasting from Tennessee for the duration of the conference and had a conversation this morning with Robert McChesney of the Free Press and Jonathan Adelstein, one of the two Democratic FCC commissioners. Here’s the show.

And here’s the conference, where you can find the latest and greatest on media, which is supposed to be giving you the latest and greatest of what’s going on in the world.

Bush skewered

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By Tim Redmond

Watching the speech in replay tonight, and Jesus, Bush looks terrible. I see none of the old confidence and swagger. He’s stumbling over words. He looks like he’s aged dramatically (like Carter did after the Iran hostage crisis). The wheels are coming off.

And it was fun to watch Anderson Cooper just skewer the plan …..

Bush hands the Dems a big favor

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By Tim Redmond

By now you’ve all heard or read about the exceptionally uninspiring speech, but if you want to read the full text, it’s here. Beyond thinking that Bush is delusional — 20,000 new troops in Baghdad? This really is becoming Vietnam again — I can only say that he has handed the Democrats the best opportunity in many years. This strategy will fail — and the Dems who come out loud and clear now, and say it ‘s bound to fail, and call for a quick withdrawal — will be well poised to run for president in 2008, when the GOP is in free fall .

Where to protest Bush’s “surge”

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By Tim Redmond

There’s a website up from Democracy in Action that lists all the protests set for today and tomorrow against the Bush “surge” in troops. Click here to enter your zip code and use this handy-dandy guide to where to go.

map.jpg

Stacking an already stacked deck?

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By Steven T. Jones
We’re getting several calls — but no callbacks from the Mayor’s Office yet — from people interested in attending Mayor Gavin Newsom’s townhall meeting this Saturday who are being told by the mayor’s Communications Office that the event is RSVP only. That’s a surprise to us, those who have followed the issue of how Newsom is refusing Prop. I’s request that he appear for a dialogue with the Board of Supervisors once a month, and those who read our cover story on the issue this week. To make matters worse, the mayor’s people reportedly sent an e-mail to his supporters urging them to RSVP and attend the event, thus ensuring a supportive audience. As I said, I haven’t confirmed this yet because the mayor’s people haven’t returned my calls and e-mails for three days. So much for wanting to make himself more accessible to the public, as Newsom argued the town hall would done when you opted to substitute that for real political dialogue in City Hall. I plan to be there on Saturday anyway. How about you?

P.S. I just got the e-mail that Newsom sent out to his friendlies. It seems the fix is in:

Subject: Re: invite to Sat Public Hearing

Subject:

Join Mayor Gavin Newsom for the first Policy Townhall – space is limited…

Dear Community Members,

Please join Mayor Gavin Newsom & members of the City’s elected family
at the first monthly Policy Townhall for a community discussion on homelessness

This is an opportunity to learn about the City’s efforts to end chronic homelessness and a
chance to lend your voice – and share your ideas – to help solve this problem.

Saturday, January 13, 2007 at 10:00 a.m.

Richmond Recreation Center 251 18th Avenue (between California & Clement)

San Francisco, California 94121

Space is limited so please RSVP to 415 554 6110 or send an email to mons@sfgov.org

New Year’s Eve letter from Josh Wolf:

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12-31-06
Dear Sarah
Thanks for sending me information about the latest on the BALCO leak. I remember the morning that this bit of news broke quite well as the information itself arrived to me from a number of convict sources who had just seen it on the news. Everything from telling me that the reporters had come forward with their sources to the nonsensical take that the FBI had come forward to tell the journalists who their source was. Needless to say, I spent the next 40 minutes glued to the morning news waiting for the story to come back around. When it did air again, I was still somewhat confused but at least had some idea what was going on.

Several weeks later and after having read both your letter and the Chronicle’s coverage, I am still quite a bit confused. For starters, where does Larry McCormack fit in? What exactly would Troy Ellerman gain by leaking the documents and

January 13 is Kay Gulbengay Day

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January 13 is Kay Gulbengay Day
Who is Kay Gulbengay, you ask?
The most knowledgeable person, legislatively speaking, at City Hall, judging from the accolades she received at the Jan. 9 Board of Supervisors meeting, which was dedicated to Gulbengay in honor of the 35 years that the soon to retire deputy Clerk of the Board has served at City Hall, with Board Chair Aaron Peskin also declaring January 13 as Kay Gulbengay Day.
Gulbengay is also, “a wonderful karaoke singer,” according to Sup. Tom Ammiano.
“An awesome power-walker,” according to Sup. Bevan Dufty, who admitted to having crawled back to the relative safety and comfort of the gym after accompanying Gulbengay on one of her many high-speed forays up and down Market Street.
“You didn’t get to know what it’s like to get in her crosshairs and your stuff goes to the bottom of the pile, that’s the story that won’t get told,” Board Chair Aaron Peskin told Sup. Ed Jew, who, as the newest member of Board hasn’t yet had the opportunity to get his legislative knickers in a twist.

Turns out Gulbengay is also a very funny speaker, as witnessed by the crowd of wellwishers that filled the supervisorial chambers to pay their respects.
“I’m touched, but I’m not speechless,” began Gulbengay, adding, “It sounds like I’m dying,” as she began to recall her years at City Hall in the past tense.
“At times you made me feel like a Mother Superior,” said Gulbengay, who is threatening to launch a TV series called Desperate Retirees, along with Clerk of the Board Gloria Young, who is also set to leave City Hall very soon.
“I’ve seen the make-up of the Board got from 11 men, to 10 men and I woman to 9 men and 2 women, to 8 men and three women (which I consider perfect.”
Thank you—and I will be watching.”

Your tax dollars at work

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By Tim Redmond

Robert Byrd is 89 years old, and still truckin’ along. He lnterrupted the Senate’s opening prayer this week, shouting “Yes Lord” and “yes in Jesus’s name.” Ted Kennedy pantomimed tuppling from a bottle during the high points of the Byrd show.

The Star Trek mayor

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By Tim Redmond

Has anyone else noticed how much Gavin Newsom is starting to look like Lt. Commander Data?

Gonzalez on the fence?

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By Tim Redmond

I think Luke Thomas at FCJ is the first one to officially claim to have unofficially announced that Matt Gonzalez is really running for mayor. But everyone in town is talking about it, and the typical discussion is around not whether but when he will join the race.

There are two conflicting schools of thought here. Some think Gonzalez would need to get in soon if he’s going to raise money and be taken seriously. Others (including, I suspect, Matt himself) would rather wait until the end of the summer and get in at the last minute.

Personally, I think the late-entry plan is a mistake. Four yeas ago, nobody expected Gonzalez to enter the race; he wasn’t even a factor in the discussions. I was on a tv show with him about three months before he wound up entering the race, and we both agreed that it was unlikely there would be any candidates beyond Gavin Newsom, Tom Ammiano and Angela Alioto. There really was a last-minute draft-Gonzalez movement when it became clear that Newsom was headed for an easy victory; part of his appeal was the novelty of it all.

Of course, he pissed a lot of people off, especially in the queer community, but jumping in and effectlively shooting down Ammiano’s campaign. But I don’t think it was a sneaky pre-meditated strategy. Gonzalez can be an impulsive guy; he just decided one day to go for it.

This time, anything he does late in the game will be seen as nothing more than a political strategy. It will look as if he’s intentionally holding back to see who else runs, to let the race play out a bit, and to give himself an advantage. That won’t fly so well in 2007.

There’s already too much talk; too many people have too much riding on this. We need a progressive candidate, and if it’s not Gonzalez, then perhaps someone else will enter (and Gonzalez will look like a spoiler at the end). If he’s going to run — and I hope he does — he should decide soon and get on with it.

I called Gonzalez today, and he insisted that he hasn’t made any announcement, prive or public, official or unofficial. “I’m not running for mayor,” he said. “I’ve made that point over and over again. I have said that I’ve thought about it, and I have. But I’m not getting in anyone’s way, and if another strong candidate wants to run, they should go ahead.”

I told him that I think he needs to make a final decision soon, and rule himself out if he isn’t going to run. “I agree with that,” he said.

Cops behaving badly

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By Tim Redmond

Three interesting items today that reflect on the state of the SFPD:

David Hill is convicted of second-degree murder in the killing of Officer Isaac Espinoza. That means he’ll get life without parole — but not the death penalty. From the start of this case, D.A. Kamala Harris refused to push for death, in part because she doesn’t support the death penalty but also because she insisted that it was very unlikely a jury would return a verdict of first-degree murder here. The cops went batshit on her. Guess what? She was right.

The feds put a 60-year-old woman in prison for cutlivating medical marijuana — with the help, Fog City Journal charges, of of a San Francisco cop. Yet another example of the SF cops working with the feds to contravene local law.

The Chron finally reports on the resignation of OCC director Kevin Allen but missed the larger point: The Police Officers Association apparently cheered Allen’s resignation, which was based in part on health issues. When will the chief tell her troops to stop acting like thugs?

The Grand Canyon and Noah’s flood

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By Tim Redmond

This one is really amazing, even by the standards of our current theocracy: The National Park Service is selling a book in the Grand Canyon bookstore that argues that the canyon was created by Noah’s flood. And “The Grand Canyon Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush Administration appointees,” the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility says.

For starters, after my long years in Catholic school, I think I can pretty safely argue that Noah’s flood didn’t take place in North America; most biblical scholars place it in the Middle East, and say he landed on Mt. Ararat.

But never mind that level of hokum; this suggests that the creationists have gotten so powerful that even basic geology is held hostage.

Rep. George Miller, soon to take over the committee that oversees the park service, might want to look into this.

Another (huge) test for Pelosi

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By Tim Redmond

The NY Times today has it about right on tax policy: The Democrats are ducking for cover while Bush continues to demand that his insane tax cuts be made permanent. Lyndon Johnson was forced to recognize in the 1960s that he couldn’t have both a Great Society and the Vietnam War at the same time without figuring out how to pay for it all, but back then, it wasn’t considered political suicide to raise taxes on the rich. (Let’s remember: Even under RIchard Nixon, the top tax rate for the very very rich reached 80 percent. Today it’s 34 percent.)

At some point, Nancy Pelosi, as the speaker, is going to have to make a choice: Start to cut spending on the war — by a lot — or talk about at the very least repealing the Bush tax cuts.

Of course, the third choice (and perhaps the most likely) is to continue to duck, continue to go into debt, continue to screw up the economy and continue to burden our kids with the results of our greed, fear and stupidity. Nancy?

OCC DIRECTOR KEVIN ALLEN RESIGNS

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By G.W. Schulz

The head of the city’s police watchdog agency announced at a San Francisco Police Commission meeting last night that he would be resigning his post in early February. The Office of Citizen Complaints is one of the few city entities in the nation that independently investigates charges of police misconduct from civilians and maintains the power to subpoena officers. While director Kevin Allen told the commission he’s stepping down for health reasons, the pace of said investigations has at times been slow during his tenure, and commissioner Joe Veronese told us just moments ago that the OCC’s full responsibilities weren’t effectively being carried out.

There she goes

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By Tim Redmond

Luke Thomas had the scoop first, and now SF Gate is reporting that indeed Annemarie Conroy has — as the report puts it — “resigned” from her $250,000 a year job in emergency services.

Of course, she really had no choice — the supes had eliminated the position weeks ago.

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