Election Archives — Page 50 of 67 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Scary movie

September 9, 2008

REVIEW The scariest movie of 2008 so far is, quite possibly, Dorothy Fadiman’s Stealing America: Vote by Vote, a stomach-turning look at election irregularities that stretch back as far as 1996, with a special emphasis on the über-fishy goings-on in Ohio circa 2004. A thorough array of charts, graphics, news clips (including, yes, some from The Daily Show), and credible talking heads examine the troubling facts: discrepancies between exit polls and actual vote tallies; suspicious situations involving voting machine software (including an interview with a computer expert who claims he was hired by Republicans to write a "vote-switching" program — oops, you just voted for George W. Bush!); inexcusably long lines at polling places; uncounted votes and purged voter lists; and the unwillingness of the mainstream media (and, according to the film, the John Kerry campaign) to seriously consider the anomalies to be the result of Republican fraudsters. Some twinkly uplift in the film’s last moments suggest hope, or at least the hope of accountability, for future elections — but are paper ballots that can actually be hand-counted (and re-counted) a practical solution? Stern narrator Peter Coyote suggests there’s more to it than that: "If this film does anything, it will make you take yourself, and your vote, and your country seriously enough to get engaged and go to work — and together, we’ll take our country back." Let’s just hope that vote you cast for change this November actually gets counted.

STEALING AMERICA: VOTE BY VOTE opens Fri/12 at Bay Area theaters.

McCain’s speech gets an Ammianoliner

September 6, 2008

Yesterday’s Ammianoliner:

McCain’s speech runs the gamut of emotion from A to B.

(From the home telephone answering machine of Sup.Tom Ammiano on Saturday, Sept. 5, 2008, the day after the acceptance speech of Sen. John McCain at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.)

Good going, Tom. You enunciated much better. Editorial aside: Tom was in the office on Friday for an editorial interview on the November election. Instead of being a standup comedian who happens to be a politician, he becomes a sitdown comedian who happens to be a politician. He complained wryly that, because his jokes were appearing regularly on the Bruce blog, that he was under a lot of pressure. Under pressure, he explained, to not only come up with pithy, topical jokes but to do it daily and and to enunciate clearly. We assured him that it was well worth the effort because he was getting his Ammianoliners out on deadline, getting enormous international viewship on the almost famous Bruce blog, and doing it all from the comfort of his Bernal Heights home. Moreover, it would be good training for his move next year to Sacramento as a San Francisco assemblyman.

While the Nation magazine has Calvin Trillin as its Deadline Poet, we have Tom Ammiano as our
Deadline Ammianoliner. B3

Stiglitz: Learning the Lessons of Iraq

September 5, 2008

Here is the first column in a series we will be running regularly from Project Syndicate. Project Syndicate, based in Prague, is an international association of newspapers devoted to bringing distinguished voices from across the world to local audiences everywhere, strengthening the independence of printed media in transition and developing countries and upgrading their journalistic, editorial, and business capacities. To learn more about Project Syndicate visit: www.project-syndicate.org

Learning the Lessons of Iraq

By Joseph E. Stiglitz

NEW YORK – The Iraq war has been replaced by the declining economy as the most important issue in America’s presidential election campaign, in part because Americans have come to believe that the tide has turned in Iraq: the troop “surge” has supposedly cowed the insurgents, bringing a decline in violence. The implications are clear: a show of power wins the day.

It is precisely this kind of macho reasoning that led America to war in Iraq in the first place. The war was meant to demonstrate the strategic power of military might. Instead, the war showed its limitations. Moreover, the war undermined America’s real source of power – its moral authority.

Recent events have reinforced the risks in the Bush administration’s approach. It was always clear that the timing of America’s departure from Iraq might not be its choice – unless it wanted to violate international law once again. Now, Iraq is demanding that American combat troops leave within twelve months, with all troops out in 2011.

To be sure, the reduction in violence is welcome, and the surge in troops may have played some role. Yet the level of violence, were it taking place anywhere else in the world, would make headlines; only in Iraq have we become so inured to violence that it is a good day if only 25 civilians get killed.

And the role of the troop surge in reducing violence in Iraq is not clear. Other factors were probably far more important, including buying off Sunni insurgents so that they fight with the United States against Al Qaeda. But that remains a dangerous strategy. The US should be working to create a strong, unified government, rather than strengthening sectarian militias. Now the Iraqi government has awakened to the dangers, and has begun arresting some of the leaders whom the American government has been supporting. The prospects of a stable future look increasingly dim.

That is the key point: the surge was supposed to provide space for a political settlement, which would provide the foundations of long-term stability. That political settlement has not occurred. So, as with the arguments used to justify the war, and the measures of its success, the rationale behind surge, too, keeps shifting.

Meanwhile, the military and economic opportunity costs of this misadventure become increasingly clear. Even if the US had achieved stability in Iraq, this would not have assured victory in the “war on terrorism,” let alone success in achieving broader strategic objectives. Things have not been going well in Afghanistan, to say the least, and Pakistan looks ever more unstable.

Moreover, most analysts agree that at least part of the rationale behind Russia’s invasion of Georgia, reigniting fears of a new Cold War, was its confidence that, with America’s armed forces pre-occupied with two failing wars (and badly depleted because of a policy of not replacing military resources as fast as they are used up), there was little America could do in response. Russia’s calculations proved correct.

Even the largest and richest country in the world has limited resources. The Iraq war has been financed entirely on credit; and partly because of that, the US national debt has increased by two-thirds in just eight years.

But things keep getting worse: the deficit for 2009 alone is expected to be more than a half-trillion dollars, excluding the costs of financial bail-outs and the second stimulus package that almost all economists now say is urgently needed. The war, and the way it has been conducted, has reduced America’s room for maneuver, and will almost surely deepen and prolong the economic downturn.

The belief that the surge was successful is especially dangerous because the Afghanistan war is going so poorly. America’s European allies are tiring of the endless battles and mounting casualties. Most European leaders are not as practiced in the art of deception as the Bush administration; they have greater difficulty hiding the numbers from their citizens.

The British, for example, are well aware of the problems that they repeatedly encountered in their imperial era in Afghanistan. America will, of course, continue to put pressure on its allies, but democracy has a way of limiting the effectiveness of such pressure. Popular opposition to the Iraq war made it impossible for Mexico and Chile to give into American pressure at the United Nations to endorse the invasion; the citizens of these countries were proven right.

But back in America, the belief that the surge “worked” is now leading many to argue that more troops are needed in Afghanistan. True, the war in Iraq distracted America’s attention from Afghanistan. But the failures in Iraq are a matter of strategy, not troop strength. It is time for America, and Europe, to learn the lessons of Iraq – or, rather, relearn the lessons of virtually every country that tries to occupy another and determine its future.

Joseph E. Stiglitz, professor of economics at Columbia University, and recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, is co-author, with Linda Bilmes, of The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Costs of the Iraq Conflict.

Man in the middle

September 2, 2008

>>More: For the Guardian’s live coverage of the Democratic National Convention 2008, visit our Politics Blog

› steve@sfbg.com

As the Democratic National Convention was drawing to an explosive close Aug. 28, Barack Obama finally took center stage. In an address to more than 70,000 people, he presented his credentials, his proposals, and his vision. Most in the partisan crowd thought he gave a great speech and left smiling and enthused; some bloggers quickly called it the greatest convention speech ever.

I liked it too — but there were moments when I cringed.

Obama played nicely to the middle, talking about "safe" nuclear energy, tapping natural gas reserves, and ending the war "responsibly." He stayed away from anything that might sound too progressive, while reaching out to Republicans, churchgoers, and conservatives.

He also made a statement that should (and must) shape American politics in the coming years: "All across America something is stirring. What the naysayers don’t understand is this isn’t about me — it’s about you."

Well, if this is really about me and the people I spend time with — those of us in the streets protesting war and the two-party system, people at Burning Man creating art and community — then it appears that electing Obama is just the beginning of the work we need to do.

As Tom Hayden wrote recently in an essay in the Guardian, Obama needs to be pushed by people’s movements to speed his proposed 16-month Iraq withdrawal timeline and pledge not to leave a small, provocative force of soldiers there indefinitely.

After a 5,000 mile, 10-day trip starting and ending at Black Rock City in the Nevada desert with Denver and the convention in between, I’ve decided that Obama is a Man in the Middle.

That creature is essential to both Burning Man and the Democratic National Convention, a figure of great significance — but also great insignificance. Because ultimately, both events are about the movements that surround and define the man.

THE BIG TENT

Nominating Obama was a historic moment, but the experience of spending four days at the convention was more like a cross between attending a big party and watching an infomercial for the Democratic Party. It was days of speeches followed by drinking — both exclusive affairs requiring credentials and connections for the biggest moments.

This year’s convention saw a new constituency come into full bloom. It was called the Big Tent — the literal name for the headquarters of bloggers and progressive activists at the Denver convention, but it also embodied the reality that the vast blogosphere has come of age and now commands the attention of the most powerful elected Democrats.

The tent was in the parking lot of the Alliance Building, where many Denver nonprofits have their offices. It consisted of a simple wood-frame structure two stories high, covered with a tent.

In the tent were free beer, food, massages, smoothies, and Internet access. But there was also the amplified voice of grassroots democracy, something finding an audience not just with millions of citizens on the Internet, but among leaders of the Democratic Party.

New media powerhouses, including Daily Kos, MoveOn, and Digg (a Guardian tenant in San Francisco that sponsors the main stage in the Big Tent) spent the last year working on the Big Tent project. It was a coming together of disparate, ground-level forces on the left into something like a real institution, something with the power to potentially influence the positions and political dialogue of the Democratic Party.

"When we started doing this in 2001, there just wasn’t this kind of movement," MoveOn founder Eli Pariser told me as we rode down the Alliance Building elevator together. "The left wing conspiracy is finally vast."

The Big Tent constituency is a step more engaged with mainstream politics than Burning Man’s Black Rock City, an outsider movement that sent only a smattering of representatives to the convention, including me and my travel mates from San Francisco, musician Kid Beyond and Democratic Party strategist Donnie Fowler, as well as the Philadelphia Experiment’s artistic outreach contingent.

It’s an open question whether either constituency, the Big Tent bloggers and activists or the Black Rock City artists and radicals, are influencing country’s political dialogue enough to reach the Democratic Party’s man in the middle. Obama didn’t mention the decommodification of culture or a major reform of American democracy in his big speech, let alone such progressive bedrock issues as ending capital punishment and the war on drugs, downsizing the military, or the redistribution of wealth.

But those without floor passes to the convention represent, if not a movement, at least a large and varied constituency with many shared values and frustrations, and one with a sense that the American Dream is something that has slipped out of its reach, if it ever really existed at all.

These people represent the other America, the one Obama and the Democratic Party paid little heed to during their many convention speeches, which seemed mostly focused on bashing the Republican Party and assuring heartland voters that they’re a trustworthy replacement. But that’s hardly burning the man.

Photo by Mirissa Neff

AMERICAN DREAM

It’s been almost a year since Burning Man founder Larry Harvey announced that the art theme for the 2008 event would be "American Dream." I hated it and said so publicly, objecting to such an overt celebration of patriotism, or for setting up a prime opportunity for creative flag burning, neither a seemingly good option.

But I later came to see a bit of method behind Harvey’s madness. After announcing the theme, Harvey told me, "There was a cascade of denunciations and maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. It pricked people where they should be stimulated." He asks critics to read his essay on the Burning Man Web site explaining the theme: "It says that America has lost its way."

But he also said that the disaffected left and other critics of what America has become need to find a vision of America to fight for, something to believe in, whether it’s our Bill of Rights (pictured on Burning Man tickets this year) or some emerging manifestation of the country. "Americans need to find our pride again," Harvey told me. "We can’t face our shame unless we find our pride."

I was still dubious, since I tend toward Tolstoy’s view of patriotism: that it’s a bane to be abolished, not a virtue to be celebrated. Harvey and I have talked a lot of politics as I’ve covered Burning Man over the past four years, and those discussions have sharpened as he has subtly prodded participants to become more political, and as burners have reached out into the world through ventures such as Black Rock Arts Foundation, Burners Without Borders, and Black Rock Solar.

I’ve become friends with many of the event’s key staffers (some, like BWB’s Tom Price, through reporting their stories). This year, one employee (not a board member) I’m particularly close to even gave me one of the few gift tickets they have to hand out each year, ending my five-event run of paying full freight (and then some). I’m also friends with my two travel mates, Kid Beyond, a.k.a. Andrew Chaikin, and Fowler, who handled field organizing for Al Gore in 2000, ran John Kerry’s Michigan campaign four years later, and was attending his sixth presidential convention.

Kid Beyond and I arrived at Black Rock City late Friday night, Aug. 22, and found the playa thick with deep drifts of dust, making it a difficult and tiring bicycle trek into the deep playa where San Francisco artist Peter Hudson and his crew were building Tantalus. But it was worth the ride, particularly if seeking a great take on the American Dream theme.

Like most creations at that early stage of the event, it wasn’t up and running yet, but it would be by Aug. 24, when the event officially began. Still, even in its static state, it was an art piece that already resonated with my exploration of how the counterculture sees the national political culture.

Tantalus looks like a red, white, and blue top hat, with golden arms and bodies around it. And when it spins around, totally powered by the manual labor of visitors working four pumper rail cars, the man — a modern American Tantalus — reaches for the golden apple being dangled just out of his reach and falls back empty-handed.

It’s a telling metaphor for such a big week in American politics.

There were plenty of political junkies on the playa, including two friends who let me crash in their RV for two nights and who left the playa for Denver after a couple of days. Fowler’s sweetie, Heather Stephenson, is with Ideal Bite (their logo is an apple minus one bite) and was on an alternative energy panel with Mayor Gavin Newsom, Denver’s mayor, John W. Hickenlooper, and Gov. Bill Ritter of Colorado.

"The American Dream to me is not having barriers to achievement," Stephenson told me. It is Tantalus getting some apple if he really reaches for it. Fowler said that it is "the freedom to pursue your own dream without interference by government or social interests." But, he added, "the American Dream is more a collective dream than an individual dream."

Bay Area artist Eric Oberthaler, who used to choreograph San Francisco artist Pepe Ozan’s fire operas on the playa, hooked up with the Philadelphia Experiment performers years ago at Burning Man — including Philly resident Glenn Weikert, who directs the dance troupe Archedream. This year they created "Archedream for America," which they performed at Burning Man and the Democratic National Convention. Weikert told me the artistic and collaborative forces that Burning Man is unleashing could play a big role in creating a transformative political shift in America.

"These are two amazing events that are kind of shaping the world right now," Weikert said. "A lot of the ideas and views are similar, but people are working in different realms."

Tantalus. a Burning Man installation
Photo by Steven T. Jones

MEDIA, 15,002 STRONG

Kid Beyond and I arrived in Denver around 8 a.m., Aug. 25, after a 16-hour drive from Black Rock City, cruising through Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado, a couple of which Obama will probably need to win in November if he’s to take the White House.

We headed into the city just as a gorgeous dawn was breaking, arriving with a few hours to spare before our Democratic National Convention press credential would have been redistributed to other journalists, who reportedly numbered more than 15,000. After arriving at my cousin Gina Brooks’ house, we showered, got settled, and jumped on our bikes to pick up our press credentials.

All week, we and others who rented or borrowed the thousands of bicycles made available to visitors used the beautiful and efficient Cherry Creek Bike Trail to get around. It cut through the heart of Denver, passing the convention and performing arts centers, which boasted a great sculpture of a dancing couple, and ran close to the Big Tent in downtown on one side and the convention hall, the Pepsi Center, on the other.

It was a great way to travel and a marked contrast to the long car trip, which felt as if we were firing through tank after tank of gas. Bike travel also proved a smart move — most of the streets around the convention were closed off and patrolled by police in riot gear riding trucks with extended running boards, with military helicopters circling overhead.

The massive Pepsi Center was less than half full a couple hours after the gavel fell to open the convention, but it filled quickly.

The broadcast media had it good, with prime floor space that made it all the more congested for the delegates and others with floor passes. Most journalists were tucked behind the stage or up in the cheap seats, and we couldn’t even get free Internet access in the hall. But journalists could get online in the nearby media tents, which also offered free booze and food.

Even though Hillary Clinton announced she was releasing her delegates to vote for Obama, those I spoke to in San Francisco’s delegation — Laura Spanjian, Mirian Saez, and Clay Doherty — were still planning to vote for Clinton on that Wednesday, although all said they would enthusiastically support Obama after that.

"It’s important for me to respect all the people who voted for her and to honor the historic nature of her candidacy," Spanjian said. "And most of all, to respect her."

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi tried to rally the faithful for the "historic choice between two paths for our country." She belittled the view that John McCain is the most experienced presidential candidate. "John McCain has the experience of being wrong," she said, emphasizing his economic views and his instigation of the "catastrophic" Iraq War.

There were only a smattering of protesters outside the convention center, the most disturbing being anti-abortion activists bearing signs that read, "God hates Obama," "God is your enemy," "The Siege is Here," and one, wielded by a boy who was maybe 12, that read "God hates fags." Family values indeed.

THE ROLL CALL

San Francisco Sup. Chris Daly was giddy when I joined him in the two-thirds full California delegation during the nominating speeches for Obama and Clinton. It was partly because he was finally an official delegate, having been called up from his role as alternate a couple of hours earlier. But an even bigger reason for his joy was that he’s a serious political wonk and just loves the roll call, the only official business of the convention.

"This is the best part of the convention, roll call. It’s cool," Daly, the consummate vote counter, told me as we watched the chair ask each state for their votes. "The speeches are OK, but this is what it’s about."

And pretty soon, this kid in the candy shop was losing his mind as we watched a series of genuinely newsworthy developments in an otherwise scripted convention: California Democratic Party Chair Art Torres was saying "California passes" rather than reporting our votes, states like New Jersey and Arkansas were awarding all their votes to Obama and causing the room to go nuts, and a series of states were yielding to others.

As the chair worked alphabetically through the states, Obama’s home state of Illinois became the second state to pass. Very interesting. Indiana gave 75 of its 85 votes to Obama. Minnesota gave 78 of its 88 votes to Obama, then erupted in a spirited cheer of "Yes we can." Daly and San Francisco delegate London Breed were on their feet, cheering, chanting, and pumped.

With Obama getting close to the number of delegates he needed to win the nomination (there was no tally on the floor and I later learned Obama had 1,550 of the 2,210 votes he needed), New Mexico’s representative announced that the state was "yielding to the land of Lincoln." Anticipation built that Illinois would be the state to put its junior senator over the top.

Then Illinois yielded to New York, and the screens showed Clinton entering the hall and joining the New York delegation. "In the spirit of unity and with the goal of victory," Clinton said, "let us declare right now that Barack Obama is our candidate."

She made the motion to suspend the vote count and have the whole hall nominate Barack Obama by acclamation. Pelosi took the podium and asked the crowd, "Is there a second?" And the room erupted in thousands of seconds to the motion on the floor. She asked all in favor to say "aye," and the room rumbled with ayes. To complete the process, Pelosi said those opposed could say no, but simultaneously gaveled the motion to completion, causing the room to erupt with cheers. I heard not a single nay.

The band broke out into "Love Train" and everyone danced.

NEWSOM’S STAGE

Mayor Gavin Newsom threw a big party Aug. 27, drawing a mix of young hipsters, youngish politicos, and a smattering of corporate types in suits and ties. Although he didn’t get a speaking slot at the convention, Newsom is widely seen as a rising star in the party, far cooler than most elected officials, and maybe even too cool for his own good.

Comedian Sarah Silverman did a funny bit to open the program at the Manifest Hope Gallery (which showcased artwork featuring Obama), then introduced Newsom by saying, "I’m honored to introduce a great public servant and a man I would like to discipline sexually, Gavin Newsom."

Apparently Newsom liked it because he grabbed Silverman and started to grope and nuzzle into her like they were making out, then acted surprised to see the crowd there and took the microphone. It was a strange and uncomfortable moment for those who know about his past sex scandal and recent marriage to Jennifer Siebel, who was watching the spectacle from the wings.

But it clearly showed that Newsom is his own biggest fan, someone who thinks he’s adorable and can do no wrong, which is a dangerous mindset in politics.

Another slightly shameless aspect of the event was how overtly Newsom is trying associate himself with Obama (the party was a salute to the "Obama Generation") after strongly backing Clinton in the primaries. And then, of course, there’s the fact that his party was sponsored by PG&E (a corrupting influence in San Francisco politics) and AT&T (facilitators of the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping policy).

I was able to interview Newsom about Clinton before the party. "People can criticize her, but I do think that you’ve never seen a runner-up do so much to support the party’s nominee," Newsom told me. "She’s done as much as she could do, privately as well as publicly."

Clinton’s dramatic roll call moment
Photo by Mirissa Neff

OBAMA NIGHT

Amid all the excitement, there were scary moments for the progressives. For example, Joe Biden, accepting the vice-presidential nod, urged the nation to more aggressively confront Russia and send more troops into Afghanistan.

During one of the most high-profile points in the convention, halfway between the Gore and Obama speeches, a long line of military leaders (including Gen. Wesley Clark, who got the biggest cheers but didn’t speak) showed up to support Obama’s candidacy. They were followed by so-called average folk, heartland citizens — including two Republicans now backing Obama. One of the guys had a great line, though: "We need a president who puts Barney Smith before Smith Barney," said Barney Smith. "The heartland needs change, and with Barack Obama we’re going to get it," he added.

Of course, these are the concerns of a progressive whose big issues (from ending capital punishment and the war on drugs to creating a socialized medical system and fairly redistributing the nation’s wealth) have been largely ignored by the Democratic Party. I understand that I’m not Obama’s target audience in trying to win this election. And there is no doubt he is a historic candidate.

Bernice King, whose father, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech 45 years to the day before Obama’s acceptance speech, echoed her father by triumphantly announcing, "Tonight, freedom rings." She said the selection of Obama as the nominee was "decided not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. This is one of our nation’s defining moments."

But there is still much work to do in convincing Obama to adopt a more progressive vision once he’s elected. "America needs more than just a great president to realize my father’s dream," said Martin Luther King III, the second King child to speak the final night of the convention. Or as Rep. John Lewis, who was with King during that historic speech, said in his remarks, "Democracy is not a state, but a series of actions."

BACK TO THE BURN

We left Denver around 1:30 a.m. Friday, a few hours after Obama’s speech and the parties that followed, driving through the night and listening first to media reports on Obama’s speech, then to discussions about McCain’s selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

The Obama clips sounded forceful and resolute, directly answering in strong terms the main criticisms levied at him. Fowler said the Republicans made a very smart move by choosing a woman, but he was already getting the Democrats’ talking points by cell phone, most of which hammered her inexperience, a tactic that could serve to negate that same criticism of Obama.

We arrived back on the playa at 5:30 p.m. Friday, and a Black Rock Radio announcer said the official population count was 48,000 people, the largest number ever. The city has been steadily growing and creating a web of connections among its citizens.

"That city is connecting to itself faster that anyone knows. And if they can do that, they can connect to the world," Harvey told me earlier this year. "That’s why for three years, I’ve done these sociopolitical themes, so they know they can apply it. Because if it’s just a vacation, we’ve been on vacation long enough."

Yet when I toured the fully-built city, I saw few signs that this political awakening was happening. There weren’t even that many good manifestations of the American Dream theme, except for Tantalus, Bummer (a large wooden Hummer that burned on Saturday night), and an artsy version of the Capitol Dome.

Most of the people who attend Burning Man seem to have progressive values, and some of them are involved in politics, but the event is their vacation. It’s a big party, an escape from reality. It’s not a movement yet, and it’s not even about that Black Rock City effigy, the Man. Hell, this year, many of my friends who are longtime burners left on Saturday before they burned the Man, something most veterans consider an anticlimax.

It’s not about the man in the middle, either; it’s about the community around it. And if the community around Obama wants to expand into a comfortable electoral majority — let alone a movement that can transform this troubled country — it’s going to have to reach the citizens of Black Rock City and outsiders of all stripes, and convince them of the relevance of what happened in Denver and what’s happening in Washington, DC.

Larry Harvey can’t deliver burners to the Democratic Party, or even chide them toward any kind of political action. But the burners and the bloggers are out there, ready to engage — if they can be made to want to navigate the roads between their worlds and the seemingly insular, ineffective, immovable, platitude-heavy world of mainstream politics.

"As hard as it will be, the change we need is coming," Obama said during his speech.

Maybe. But for those who envision a new kind of world, one marked by the cooperation, freedom, and creativity that are at the heart of this temporary city in the desert, there’s a lot of work to be done. And that starts with individual efforts at outreach, like the one being done by a guy, standing alone in the heat and dust, passing out flyers to those leaving Black Rock City on Monday.

"Nevada Needs You!!!" began the small flyer. "In 2004, Nevada was going Blue until the 90 percent Republican northern counties of Elko and Humboldt tilted the state. You fabulous Burners time-share in our state for one week per year. This year, when you go home please don’t leave Nevada Progressives behind! ANY donation to our County Democratic Committee goes a long way; local media is cheap! Thanks!!!"

Change comes not from four days of political speeches or a week in an experimental city in the desert, but from the hard work of those with a vision and the energy to help others see that vision. To realize a progressive agenda for this conservative country is going to take more than just dreaming.

Ed Note: The Guardian would like to thank Kid Beyond, who traveled with Jones and helped contribute to this report.

American Dreamer: Man in the Middle

August 28, 2008

Steven T. Jones and Kid Beyond are driving to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, stopping by Burning Man on the way there and back, reporting on the intersection of the counterculture and the national political culture.

By Steven T. Jones

Barack Obama finally took center stage as the Democratic National Convention drew to an explosive close tonight in a packed Mile High Stadium. Most on hand thought he gave a great speech and left smiling and enthused, but I and some other progressives had a few cringing moments that left us slightly unsettled.

While Obama and the Democrats made a clear and compelling case for how much better for the country they are than McCain and the Republicans, there were also many points of concern for progressives and the alienated Left. Obama did little to address their issues while reaching out to Republicans, churchgoers, and conservatives.

“All across America something is stirring. What the naysayers don’t understand is this isn’t about me, it’s about you,” Obama said in one of his biggest applause lines of the night.

If this is really about me and my people – those in the streets protesting war and the two party system, people at Burning Man creating art and community, those of us on the coasts frustrated by the political influence of heartland voters – then it appears the election of Obama is just the beginning of the work we need to do.

God bless Larry Bensky and KPFA

August 28, 2008

By Bruce B. Brugmann

It was a near perfect political moment. I was driving last night across the Bay Bridge and into Berkeley for the first anniversary dinner of the Chauncey Bailey investigative reporting project. I turned on KPFA radio and started listening to the on-the-street coverage that Amy Goodman and Larry Bensky were doing for KPFA on the Democratic convention.

They were covering what CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and other mainstream broadcasters weren’t: a dramatic anti-war demonstration in the streets of Denver. I could hear the staccato military commands as the Iraq Veterans Against the War marched in uniform to the Democratic convention gates, backed by hundreds of demonstrators.
The City of Denver had not approved the protest and trucks of armed police in riot gear were dispatched to watch for any eruptions of violence, but there were no reported arrests.

Whether or not there were incidents, the event was newsworthy and certainly more important than the pundits desperately looking for somebody to interview and something to say. But KPFA was there. And KPFA, unlike much of the broadcast media, covered the convention by allowing the convention speakers to speak and not doing lots of aimless interviews and adding mostly pithy and relevant comments. God bless Amy Goodman, Larry Bensky, and KPFA. They are a national treasure we can enjoy as a local radio station.

Here are two of the best print stories on the demonstrations:

The protest was not approved by the City of Denver.

Click here to read the Guardian UK story, US election: Hundreds of anti-war demonstrators march on the Democratic convention hall.

Click here to read the L.A. Times’ article, Obama camp meets with Iraq war veterans protesting at Democratic convention.

PG&E: the best politicians we can buy!

August 27, 2008

By Bruce B. Brugmann

For a complete list (2.35 MB) of everyone who signed on to a PG&E-paid ballot argument and a full list of all of the individuals, companies, and nonprofits that got PG&E money in 2007, click here (Excel).

Click here to read Amanda Witherell’s story, PG&E’s blank check: Who is the utility buying off? Start with Newsom, Feinstein, and Willie Brown.

And so there they are, up on the website of PG&E’s front group (www.closeitcoalition.org), in their blizzard of mailers and doorhangers, and on PG&E’s ballot arguments against the Clean Energy Initiative (Prop H):

The best politicians that PG&E can buy!

For starters, as Amanda Witherell lays out in the current Guardian (“PG&E’s Blank check, who is the utility buying off?”) note that the list is headed by two former mayors who churned away for PG&E during their terms in office (Diane Feinstein, of the sellout Turlock/Modesto contracts fame, and Willie Brown, of the “stolen election” and missing ballot box tops fame) and our current Mayor Gavin Newsom, who with PG&E funding and sponsorship is throwing a big expensive party tonight called “Unconvention ’08” at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Stop the presses: Guardian city editor Steve Jones sends the following blog item on Newsom’s refusal to allow him to come to tonight’s PG&E party with this email note: “’Due to the high volume of submissions, we were unable to process your request at this time. If tickets become available we’ll send you an e-mail and SMS text with details,’” it said. Unable to process my request? And this is the guy who wants to be governor? I plan to go anyway and see if I can crash the party, backed by my publisher’s promise to bail me out of jail if I get arrested. Wish me luck.”

Alas, maybe Steve’s problem is that he doesn’t qualify for the PG&E donor list or the permitted press list of press people and bloggers who don’t write critically of PG&E or write supportively of Prop H and clean energy and renewables. With Steve, it’s a story whether he gets in or gets kicked out. Watch for it on the Bruce blog.

I am putting up two instructive lists on who PG&E is buying. One is the list of everyone who signed on to a PG&E-paid ballot argument, plus those who paid for the argument themselves. The other is a full list of the hundreds individuals, companies, and non-profits that PG&E gave tens of millions of dollars to in 2007, according to a financial statement PG&E filed with the California Public Utilities Commission.

The key point: go through the lists so that you can pose the right questions: Why did they sign on with PG&E to take chunks of money from PG&E? Why did they sign ballot arguments retailing PG&E lies? Why did they take money for PG&E, what did they do for PG&E (example: what did Willie Brown do for his $200,000 in “consulting services’)? Are they getting money during the campaign and if so, how much and what services are they providing?
I think you will be surprised at who is getting what from PG&E and how embarrassed they will be when you start asking questions. Let me know what you find out.

B3, watching from my office window today’s smoggy fumes from the Potrero HIll power plant, courtesy of PG&E, Mayor Newom, Willie Brown, and Hearst journalism

Ballot Arguments paid for by PG&E:

SF Firefighters Local 798, POA, and David Wong
Professional Property Management Association and Coalition for Better Housing
SF Republican Party
Doug Chan
Anni Chung, senior activist
FDR Democratic Club, under August Longo
Elsa Cheung
SF Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
Nadine Weil and Rev. Sally Bingham
Bay Area Council
Citizens for a Better San Francisco, Michael Antonini, Edward Poole, Harmeet Dhillon
Golden Gate Restaurant Association
Lorena Hernandez and Joe Manzo, residents of Potrero Hill
Asian Pacific Democratic Club
Thom Lynch and Don Cecil
Nancy Lenvin and Claire Pilcher, former PUC commissioners
Mel Lee, Library commissioner
Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 38 and IBEW Local 6
SF Small Business Network
Sandy and Jeff Mori
Amos Brown and Calvin Jones
Rudy Asercion

Not paid for by PG&E:

Jeff Brown
Chamber of Commerce
BOMA SF PAC
Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods
Plan C
IBEW Local 1245
James Fang
Harold Hoogasian

Stage names

August 27, 2008

› a&eletters@sfbg.com

SEPT. 2

Estelle The British soul femme gets a chance to sing to the subjects of “American Boy.” Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. (415) 771-1421, www.theindependentsf.com

SEPT. 8–9

Built to Spill Pulling off Perfect from Now On (Warner Bros., 1997) from start to finish. Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. (415) 522-0333, www.slims-sf.com

SEPT. 10

Robert Forster Two years on from Grant McLennan’s unexpected death, the dandified half of the Go-Betweens’ now-fabled songwriting duo returns to the stage with an album that includes three songs cowritten with his old bandmate. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. (415) 885-0750, www.musichallsf.com

SEPT. 19–20

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Mellow with age? No way, say the Grinderman and crew. Warfield, 982 Market, SF. (415) 421-8497, www.ticketmaster.com

SEPT. 19

Al Green and Gladys Knight The Reverend is riding high on the acclaim for his latest recording, Lay It Down (Blue Knight), while Aaliyah’s aunt has kept her voice healthy and powerful in a manner that certain other divas must envy. Sleep Train Pavilion, 2000 Kirker Pass Rd., Concord. Also Oct. 7, Mountain Winery, 14831 Pierce, Saratoga. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

SEPT. 19

My Morning Jacket Southern men channel their Evil Urges (Ato). Greek Theatre, UC Berkeley, Berk. (510) 809-0100, www.anotherplanetent.com

SEPT. 20

Herbie Hancock Loved the fusion maestro’s bon mot to Joni Mitchell. Nob Hill Masonic Center, SF. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

This Land Is Your Land Songsmiths and word slingers Sheryl Crow, Cat Power, Henry Rollins, Mike Ness, and Son Volt pay homage to John Steinbeck, who’s been dubbed “the Woody Guthrie of American authors,” and Woody Guthrie, who has been described as “the soundtrack to Steinbeck.” Guthrie’s granddaughter Sarah Lee and husband (and Steinbeck nephew) Johnny Irion round out the bill of this event — a portion of the proceeds go to the Steinbeck and Guthrie family foundations. Sleep Train Pavilion, 2000 Kirker Pass Rd., Concord. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

SEPT. 20–21

Treasure Island Musical Festival Stunning views, equally awesome sounds — who could ask for anything more? Try a full day of dance beats (Justice, TV on the Radio, Goldfrapp, Hot Chip, et al.) followed by another of all-out indie rock (the Raconteurs, Tegan and Sara, Vampire Weekend, and the gang). Treasure Island, SF. www.treasureislandfestival.com

SEPT. 22–24

Spoon Can’t get enough of Britt Daniel and company? Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

SEPT. 24

Journey, Heart, and Cheap Trick Feathered-hair flashbacks in full effect. Sleep Train Pavilion, 2000 Kirker Pass Rd., Concord. Also Sept. 27, Shoreline Amphitheatre, 1 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com. Also Oct. 7, Mountain Winery, 14831 Pierce, Saratoga. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

SEPT. 25

Silver Jews With a likely gentle assist from Why?’s Yoni Wolf, David Berman flashes his sterling songwriting once more. Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

SEPT. 26–27

Mission of Burma The Boston life-changers play 1982 post-punk classic Vs. (Ace of Hearts/Matador, 1982) in its entirety. Independent, 628 Divisadero, SF. (415) 771-1422, www.theindependentsf.com

Rancid Up from Gilman and back on the ginormous Warfield stage, alongside the Adolescents and the Aquabats! Warfield, 982 Market, SF. (415) 421-8497, www.ticketmaster.com

SEPT. 26–28

San Francisco Blues Festival The 36th annual throwdown kicks off with a blues film series at the Roxie Theater and continues at the Great Meadow with Hot Tuna, the Delta Groove All Star Blues Revue, Johnny Winter, and Gospel Hummingbirds. Various locations. www.sfblues.com

SEPT. 28

Beach House Baltimore’s Alex Scully and Victoria Legrand — the niece of Michel — rewards the devotion of listeners who’ve discovered that the endlessly resplendent Devotion (Carpark) is a contender for album of the year. Swedish American Hall, 2174 Market, SF. (415) 861-5016, www.swedishamericanhall.com

Earth, Wind & Fire, Angie Stone, and Michael McDonald A slab of ’70s soul fantasy, a little stab at post–Celebrity Fit Club redemption, and a whole lotta distinctive yacht-rock vocalization, all under one roof. HP Pavilion, 525 W. Santa Clara, San Jose. (415) 421-8497, www.hppsj.com

SEPT. 30

My Bloody Valentine The moment has finally arrived for MBV fans. Will they stretch the distorted bridge of “You Made Me Realize” into infinity? Here’s hoping the answer is yes. Concourse, 620 Seventh St., SF. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

OCT. 3–5

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 8 Dang, bluegrass, country, and roots fans are in for one of the most diverse lineups yet: Earl Scruggs, Emmylou Harris, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss with T Bone Burnett, Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys, Hazel Dickens, the Gourds, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Tift Merritt, and Greg Brown mix it up with Gogol Bordello, Odetta, Elvis Costello, Iron and Wine, Richard Thompson, the Jayhawks’ Mark Olson and Gary Louris, Heavy Trash, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, and MC Hammer. A free downhome massive in every sense. Golden Gate Park, SF. www.strictlybluegrass.com

OCT. 3–NOV. 9

San Francisco Jazz Festival Lovers of singing can go straight to the source: the indomitable Jimmy Scott. Lovers of song can sit by the piano of one of the American songbook’s best-known authors: Randy Newman. Lovers of soul can pick up their prescriptions when Dr. Lonnie Smith leads a groove summit. Lovers of revolution can break free from election propaganda with the Brecht-tinged jazz of Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra. And lovers of the late Alice Coltrane can pay respects to the music of her son and bandmate Ravi. Various venues, SF. 1-866-920-JAZZ, www.sfjazz.org

OCT. 3

Sigur Rós All hail the Icelandic etherealists. Greek Theatre, UC Berkeley, Berk. (510) 809-0100, www.anotherplanetent.com

OCT. 4

Lovefest The dance music massive and procession is a-twirl with beatmakers à la Armin Van Buuren, Above and Beyond, Kyau and Albert, Deep Voices, Colette, Hil Huerta, and Green Velvet. Various locales, SF. www.sflovefest.org

OCT. 5

Cut Copy The spirit of ELO is a living thing that chugs through the stadium disco of these DFA-affiliated Aussies, and the swoon of OMD isn’t too far away. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. (415) 625-8880, www.mezzaninesf.com

OCT. 11–12

Santana The pater familias teams with his scion’s Salvador Santana Band. Shoreline Amphitheatre, 1 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, and Sleep Train Pavilion, 2000 Kirker Pass Road, Concord. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

OCT. 13

The Black Kids The Wizards of Ahhhs initiate the Virgins. Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

OCT. 14–15

Brightblack Morning Light For those about to rock in a manner that makes Spiritualized seem like meth heads, we salute you. Café Du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. (415) 861-5016, www.cafedunord.com

OCT. 18

Mary J. Blige Mary, Mary, quite contrary to … smoothie opener Robin Thicke. Sleep Train Pavilion, 2000 Kirker Pass Road, Concord. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

OCT. 23–26

Budget Rock Seven Magnifico garage-rock from folks who mean it — and love it. Don’t you dare miss Mummies’ Russell Quan’s 50th birthday with Hypstrz and the Rantouls; Ray Loney and the Phantom Movers with Apache; Hank IV with the Lamps and Bare Wires; and Thee Makeout Party with the Pets. Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph, Oakl. www.storkcluboakland.com.

OCT. 27–28

Girl Talk Master of megamix mayhem Gregg Gillis returns to SF, albeit without the pay-what-you-like system offered to those who purchase his latest album. Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

OCT. 31

Yelle The French electro vixen pops up again. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. (415) 625-8880, www.mezzaninesf.com

NOV. 1–2

Madonna Break it down, New York magazine-style. Tabloid sensation dissipates, while ageless sex appeal, hardcore show-womanship, and — please remember, your Madge-sty — good songs are a girl’s real best friend. Oracle Arena, 7000 Coliseum, Oakl. (415) 421-8497, www.livenation.com

>>More Fall Arts Preview

Connect four

August 26, 2008

Photos by Jeffery Cross

GUILLERMO GÓMEZ PEÑA

SFBG Who is inspiring — or revolting — to you, in terms of art and performance, including political performance?

Guillermo Gómez-Peña The best and — most inspiring performance I’ve experienced took place in the Mexico City zocalo. A group of 100 indigenous men from the Coordinadora de los 400 pueblos, tired of waiting for the mayor to listen to their claims, decided to take off their clothes, each drink a liter of water, and pee in unison against the walls of the Palacio Nacional. The power of this action was not in the collective pissing ritual but rather in the exposure of the nude indigenous body, marked by the scars of hard labor and history. The image has been haunting me.

SFBG What do you hope will happen in the US presidential election?

GGP In the realm of symbolic politics, the best thing that can happen is for the United States to elect an articulate mulatto president, the son of a Kenyan immigrant, whose second name is Hussein. But in reality, it worries me that Obama’s project of hope sounds more and more like Hallmark humanism.

SFBG What is your favorite time of year in seasonless San Francisco?

GGP I love it when the sun comes out in earnest and tropicalism hits the streets for a few days. I love to bar hop in the Mission and watch the myriad subcultures show off their self-styled fashion, muscles, tattoos and nalgas palidas. But I also love certain neighborhoods under heavy fog. I feel I am walking in the middle of a British gothic novel. My worry is that this gorgeous city is slowly becoming a bohemian theme park.

I FEEL THAT I AM FREE BUT I KNOW I AM NOT

Oct. 2, 5–8 p.m.; Oct.11, 3–5 p.m.; and Oct. 21, 5–8 p.m.; free, $5

SF Camerawork

657 Mission (second floor), SF

(415) 512-2020

www.sfcamerawork.org

MAPA/CORPO 3

Oct. 23–25; times and prices TBD

Project Artaud Theater

450 Florida, SF

(415) 863-9834

www.odctheater.org

www.litquake.org

———-

MATTILDA BERNSTEIN SYCAMORE

SFBG What are your plans for this fall?

MATTILDA BERNSTEIN SYCAMORE I’m going on a crazy cross-country book tour, starting with the book launch Oct. 8 at City Lights — check my Web site (www.mattildabernsteinsycamore.com) for details.

SFBG Your novel, So Many Ways to Sleep Badly, is published by City Lights. A recent review in Publishers Weekly seems to think the book’s protagonist is a woman. What did you learn from that review?

MBS I learned most people are even more confused about gender than me. But guess what — the book is already available in Bay Area stores, so readers can rush to figure it out, just like the latest John Grisham.

SFBG So, are you allergic to oxygen?

MBS These days, who isn’t?

SFBG Where’s your favorite sex place in SF, or maybe better, where in SF needs to be turned into a sex spot?

MBS City Hall would be fun. So much elegance and charm, as long as they get rid of everyone who’s usually there. The 38 Geary would be perfect: I always get horny on that bus. Anywhere on my late-night walks — I usually walk up Leavenworth and Hyde from O’Farrell to Bush or so. Feel free to stalk me!

SFBG What do you want to happen in the presidential election?

MBS Do we still call that an election?

SFBG What is your favorite time of year in seasonless San Francisco?

MBS Anytime when the fog rolls in and I can breathe.

SO MANY WAYS TO SLEEP BADLY RELEASE PARTY

Oct. 8, 7:30 p.m.

City Lights Bookstore

261 Columbus, SF

(415) 362-8193

www.citylights.com

———–

JOANN SELISKER

SFBG Your new show, Off Leash: Who’s a Good Girl?, ponders the canine-human continuum. What have you learned?

JoAnn Selisker In terms of interspecies relationships, I find human behavior and motivation to be much more strange and unfathomable (and sometimes disturbing) than that of the canine. I speak human, so I ought to understand where humans are coming from. If dogs weren’t so helpless, misunderstood, disregarded, and maltreated, I would prefer to be a dog.

SFBG What do you think of Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer?

JS I think he makes some nice dog beds. You can get anything he thinks your dog needs with his "brand" on it. You could call him the Martha Stewart of the dog world. She reaches us through Wal-Mart, and he reaches us through PETCO. They both give us simple how-to instructions and affordable, quality products. All we have to do is buy the videos, magazines, supplies, and accessories, follow step-by-step instructions, and … voilà! The perfect dinner party; the well-mannered pet.

SFBG In your earlier show, Begin with a Box, you put creative instructions by Twyla Tharp to the test. What did you discover?

JS Well, how interesting — Twyla Tharp is a lot like the Dog Whisperer and Martha Stewart! Each of these masters generously shares secrets to success, in simple, step-by-step format. We can all become Twyla Tharp, the Dog Whisperer and/or Martha Stewart.

I discovered that I will never become Twyla Tharp. I started the Begin with a Box project with a box, just like she says, and proceeded step-by-step to completion. I should now be a MacArthur genius, with name recognition and a project with Prince.

OFF LEASH: WHO’S A GOOD GIRL?

Oct. 8, 8 p.m.; Oct. 9, 7:30 p.m.; $15–$18

Project Theater Artaud

450 Florida, SF

(415) 863-9834

www.odctheater.org

www.litquake.org

———-

TIM SULLIVAN

SFBG What are your plans for this fall?

TIM SULLIVAN I traveled all summer, so I’m going to try my best to stay put. I have two shows opening this fall, one at SF Camerawork and one in Dallas. I’ll be teaching a class at San Francisco Art Institute and continuing to make things.

SFBG Your contribution to SF Camerawork’s fall exhibition, "I Feel I Am Free But I Know I Am Not," involves a rowboat. What should people expect if they step into the boat?

TS Everyone who gets into the boat will be instantly transformed into a movie star in a recreation of Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat (1944). I really need people to come out and participate to make this work.

SFBG You’ve collaborated with George Kuchar before. Do you have a favorite Kuchar quote, or Kuchar story?

TS A few years back I was in Kuchar’s class film, Kiss of Frankenstein. On the first day he handed us the script, I was rolling on the floor laughing. The entire script is hilarious and quote-worthy! It was definitely the best reading I did in graduate school. The last line (spoiler alert!) always gets me: "Kiss me sloppy."

SFBG What is your favorite time of year in seasonless San Francisco?

TS Fall is always my favorite season. In my home state of Wisconsin I love it because the leaves fall off the trees. Here in SF I love it because the tourists leave and the streets thin out.

I FEEL I AM FREE BUT I KNOW I AM NOT

Sept. 4, 5–8 p.m., free; Sept. 13 and 27, 2–5 p.m., $5

SF Camerawork

657 Mission (second floor), SF

(415) 512-2020

www.sfcamerawork.org

>>More Fall Arts Preview

Editor’s Notes

-

August 26, 2008
0

› tredmond@sfbg.com

Suppose you don’t care about the war in Iraq. Suppose you have a secure job, and you aren’t in trouble with your mortgage, and don’t spend much time worrying about climate change. You’re thinking about No. 1, and that’s how you plan to vote.

Let me ask you a question:

Who’s more likely to cut your taxes — Barack Obama or John McCain?

If you figure that the heir to the Bush mantra — cut taxes, cut regulation, cut government programs (except for wars) — is the guy who will reduce your tax burden, try again.

I refer you to a very intelligent article by David Leonhardt in the Aug. 24 New York Times Magazine. Leonhardt is not a radical leftist, and he’s not an Obama campaign operative. He’s an economics columnist who has spent a lot of time trying to understand what both of the candidates are really proposing, and here’s his conclusion:

"Obama would not only cut taxes for most people more than McCain would. He would cut them more than Bill Clinton did and more than Hillary Clinton proposed doing."

Obama is offering big middle-class tax cuts, reductions that would actually put a lot more money in the pockets of the people who are most likely to need, and spend, that money. And he’d do it by raising taxes on the very tiny percentage of people who make very high incomes.

McCain loves to talk about tax cuts, but what he has in mind is cutting taxes on the 0.1 percent of earners who have average annual incomes of $9.1 million. Those people would pocket an additional $190,000 a year, which, frankly, would make absolutely no visible difference to their lives or lifestyles.

Obama would raise that group’s taxes by about $800,000 annually — which would also make absolutely no visible difference to their lives or lifestyles. As the Times notes, "The bulk of Obama’s tax increases on the wealthy — about $500,000 of that $800,000 — would simply take away Bush’s tax cuts. The remaining $300,000 wouldn’t nearly reverse their pretax income gains in recent years."

So when it comes to putting more money in your pockets — as the free-marketeers like to say, giving the middle class more cash to spend as it wants, thus stimuutf8g the economy — the Democrat is far, far ahead. And all he’s going to do is put the very rich back where they were a few years ago, which was, well, very rich.

This message isn’t getting out.

Part of the problem is that tax policy is complicated (Jesus, just look at all those numbers in the past few paragraphs); analyzing the competing tax plans can make my head hurt, and I love this stuff. Part of the problem is that the Obama campaign is leery of sounding too populist a note; class warfare makes people like me happy, but it doesn’t tend to win national elections. (Part of the problem is that a large percentage of middle-class Americans seriously believe they’ll be stinking rich someday, which is why lotteries make money.)

But the economy is gong to be the issue that decides this election, and the Democrats have to sell two messages. One, we’re better than the Republicans at managing economic policy (not hard, when you look at how the last GOP chief has handled things). And two, we know you’re hurting (Bill Clinton became president by feeling people’s pain) — and we’re going to make it better.

Do the math: under Obama, around 90 percent of the country would get an immediate raise. That might be worth mentioning in his acceptance speech.

PG&E’s blank check

-

August 26, 2008
0

› amanda@sfbg.com

For a complete list (2.35 MB) of everyone who signed on to a PG&E-paid ballot argument and a full list of all of the individuals, companies, and nonprofits that get PG&E money every year, click here (Excel).

It’s Saturday morning, Aug. 23, and at the plumber’s union hall on Market Street, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. employees are leading a rally in opposition to San Francisco’s Clean Energy Act. A table at the back of the room sags with urns of coffee and uneaten pastries. To the side are towers of glossy black "Stop the Blank Check" window signs. E-mails sent by event organizers said Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Mayor Gavin Newsom were expected to attend, but so far, there’s no sign of either.

"On behalf of the men and women at PG&E, thanks for giving up your Saturday," PG&E vice president John Simon tells participants, who will be spending the afternoon walking San Francisco’s streets passing out No on Proposition H propaganda.

But the audience isn’t listening.

Most of the people packed into the room are Asian kids, giggling and chatting and ignoring the English-only presentation. One group of boys playfully pushes each other, accidentally bumping into some stage lighting and earning a reprimand from a rally organizer. The kids ignore him. I ask some of the young people if they’re with a school or club, or if they’re part of JROTC, which has an informational booth in the vestibule. They look at me blankly and turn away, muttering in Cantonese. I question a few others and get similar responses.

Outside, I find a young man who speaks English. He tells me the kids aren’t really here for the rally. "It’s just a job," he says. They’re getting $15 an hour to hang flyers on doorknobs — flyers that read "hand-delivered by a Stop the Blank Check Supporter."

The Committee to Stop the Blank Check is the official campaign committee fighting the Clean Energy Act, which will appear as Prop. H on the November ballot. The group, however, is funded by a blank check from PG&E.

"They’ve pledged enough to educate every voter in San Francisco," the committee’s campaign manager, Eric Jaye, told the Guardian at the Saturday rally.

It’s no surprise that the campaign workers are paid for by PG&E — in fact, just about everyone who has come out against Prop. H seems to be getting money from the utility.

The Clean Energy Act sets ambitious goals for moving the city into renewable energy — goals that go far beyond current state mandates. It also calls for a study into San Francisco’s energy options and authorizes the city to issue revenue bonds to buy or build energy facilities.

An investigation into the elected officials, committees, and groups that oppose Prop. H shows cash from PG&E in nearly every coffer.

The official ballot argument against the Clean Energy Act is signed by Feinstein, Newsom, and three supervisors initially appointed to the board by the mayor: Michela Alioto-Pier, Carmen Chu, and Sean Elsbernd.

Feinstein’s loaded with PG&E money. Since 2004, Feinstein has received $15,000 in direct contributions from PG&E, according to OpenSecrets.org. More significant, perhaps, is that Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum, serves as chairman of the board of CBRE, a real estate firm that did $4.8 million in business with PG&E in 2007, according to an annual report the utility files with the state of California.

Campaign finance disclosure statements from Feinstein state that her husband receives fees and income from CBRE, and has $250,000 and $500,000 in investment holdings.

Feinstein’s spokesperson, Scott Gerber, said there was no conflict of interest. But Citizens for Responsibility in Ethics spokesperson Naomi Seligman added, "The ethics rules are so incredibly narrow that unless Senator Feinstein was pushing or voting for something that would impact only Mr. Blum, it doesn’t count as a conflict."

Still: Feinstein’s getting cash directly from PG&E, and then doing the company’s political bidding.

NEWSOM’S PG&E PARTY

Newsom, who has won campaigns with PG&E’s financial support in the past, is hosting a party called "Unconventional ’08" in Denver this week. Guess who’s one of the three listed sponsors? PG&E. (The other two are AT&T and the carpenter’s union.) And, of course, the person running Newsom’s campaign for governor is PG&E’s main man, Eric Jaye.

Sups. Alioto-Pier and Elsbernd? Both had PG&E money shunted through independent expenditure committees. Sup. Chu is currently running to keep her seat in District 4.

Former Mayor Willie Brown tops the list of endorsers on Committee to Stop the Blank Check’s Web site. PG&E paid Brown $200,000 in consulting fees during 2007.

Neither Brown nor PG&E returned calls for comment and clarification on what exactly Brown’s consulting involves, or how much he’s getting this year.

Of the 30 paid ballot arguments that will be listed in November’s Voter Information Pamphlet, PG&E bought 22 of them — many for well-funded organizations like the Bay Area Council, Golden Gate Restaurant Association, and the Republican Party that could presumably pay for their own $2-per-word screeds against the measure.

The arguments all make the same points and parrot the same PG&E lines.

Jaye said that ballot arguments were routinely paid for by other entities, and of the groups that have healthy bank accounts, he said, "We’d rather those groups invest their money in capacity building for November."

The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, the Building Owners and Managers Association, and Plan C all paid for their own ballot arguments. In 2007 the Chamber received more than $350,000 from PG&E in the form of dues and grants. BOMA got a $26,500 grant from the utility company, which also hired the outfit for almost $100,000 worth of consulting work. Plan C’s Political Action Committee regularly receives deposits from PG&E during election season.

Other entities that signed arguments paid for by PG&E include: the San Francisco police and firefighter unions, which are constantly asking the city for more money (and now oppose a potential revenue source); the Asian Pacific Democratic Club; the Small Business Network; the Rev. Amos Brown, and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Paying for their own No on H arguments: former San Francisco Public Defender and California Public Utilities Commission member Jeff Brown, the Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods, BART board member James Fang, and prominent small businessowner Harold Hoogasian.

PG&E spends millions each year on consultants — and at campaign time, that money turns into political support.

"PG&E’s philanthropy has been paying off into manipuutf8g a network of supporters who believe [Prop. H] is going to do something adverse to their interest when in reality it’s not," said Sup. Ross Mirkarimi.

Money isn’t everything for some organizations. Oakland’s Ella Baker Center for Human Rights received a $10,000 grant from PG&E in 2007. Cofounder Van Jones has endorsed the Clean Energy Act.

There’s no paper trail for how much PG&E has spent to date on this campaign and the utility will be free to spend money without scrutiny until Oct. 6, when the first financial statements related to the November election are due at the Ethics Commission.

THE OTHER SIDE

But PG&E can’t buy everyone — and the coalition supporting the Clean Energy Act is large, broad, and growing.

Prop. H has been endorsed by eight of the city’s 11 supervisors, Assemblymembers Fiona Ma and Mark Leno, and environmentalist and author Bill McKibben. Groups with a variety of different interests, like the League of Conservation Voters, the SF Democratic Party, SEIU 1021, the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, and the Senior Action Network also have given it a green light.

"I think the coalition for it is a much broader coalition than has been for it in the past," said Susan Leal, former head of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, who supports Prop. H. "Because of that, PG&E has ramped up the campaign and put a lot more money into it than in the past."

Mirkarimi, who authored the measure, called the early phone banking, mailers, and door knocking a "signature blitzkrieg campaign," similar to what he witnessed as the manager of the 2001 public power measure that also raised PG&E’s ire — and which lost by about 500 votes. "That’s why PG&E is working so hard now. We were so close in 2001."

John Rizzo of the Bay Chapter of the Sierra Club said his group has already committed money and people to walk districts. But he noted that he has already seen Committee to Stop the Blank Check signs posted in windows on the west side of the city. "We expected it," he said of the resources PG&E has spent to date. "The only thing they have is money."

Rizzo said the Sierra Club has endorsed past public power measures and considers this an environmental issue. "We are finding it’s a pretty broad coalition of folks who might not be together on an environmental issue. The San Francisco Women’s Political Committee PAC just recommended endorsing it to their membership, and that’s not normally an environmental group — though they are a good group."

Leal says the Clean Energy Act really transcends arguments against public power. "I’m mystified why people would not be on board for something that’s cleaner and cheaper," said Leal. "I think I know why a number of others have gotten on board. They recognize that this is the path to clean energy for power."

Jaye wouldn’t assign a specific dollar amount to how much the company is willing to spend to defeat the measure — but he made it clear that there are no limits: "It could take $1 million, it could take $5 million." In 2006, when public power was on the ballot in Yolo County, PG&E spent almost $10 million keeping the 77,000 customers they would have lost to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. The measure lost by one percentage point.

Jaye, who also manages Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign, is quick to point out that the committee has already received 12,000 signed cards of support. Still, he said, they weren’t asking for money from these potential campaign donors "because we have significant and sufficient resources pledged from PG&E."

Extra! Hearst blacks out the word progressive

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August 26, 2008
8

“Ultra liberal?” “Far left political factions”? In San Francisco? Hearst, Mayoral Press Secretary Nathan Ballard, and an “ultra liberal” supervisorial candidate from the Excelsior District comment on this astounding election development

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Audrey Cooper, assistant metro editor of the Chronicle/Hearst, has admitted that the Chronicle “has decided to stop using the word ‘progressive’ to describe the more liberal of San Francisco’s political factions.” (See my previous blog).

Does this mean that supporters of the Clean Energy Initiative are suddenly and unexpectedly given the derogatory terms “ultra liberal” and “far left.” Does this mean Aaron Peskin and a majority of the board of supervisors? Assemblyman Mark Leno? Former PUC General manager Susan Leal? Former Mayor Art Agnos? A majority of the Democratic County Central Committee? A batch of supervisorial candidates? Labor leaders? The Sierra Club?

Here’s the email Cooper sent me this afternoon responding to questions from the Bruce blog and the Guardian. Cooper, let us stipulate upfront, has one of the toughest jobs going, trying to explain why Hearst suddenly banned the word progressive in the middle of a PG&E offensive against the Clean Energy Act. More: Hearst banned the word progressive in one of the world’s most progressive cities, in a city that spawned the famous progressive Hiram Johnson and his successful fight against the Southern Pacific Railroad, and on the newspaper founded by a publisher who called himself at one time a progressive and ran for mayor of New York on a platform of municipal ownership of utilities. In San Francisco, Hearst campaigned vigorously on a pro-Hetch Hetchy public power, anti-PG&E platform until he reversed himself in the late 1920s because of a PG&E loan from a PG&E-controlled bank. Hearst’s pro-PG&E, anti-public power position has remained in effect to this day. (See previous Bruce blogs, Guardian stories, and David Nasaw’s authoritative biography, “The Chief.”)

Cooper wrote:

“Hi Bruce.
I’m Wyatt Buchanan’s editor — he passed your e-mail along to me. Sorry that it took me a day to get back to you. In general, feel free to ask anything about our coverage. I’ll always answer as quickly as I can (that is, when it’s an issue I have control over).

I’ve also sent versions of this explanation to others who have inquired. (I’m only telling you that in case you get a similar e-mail forwarded to you — it’s just easier for me to explain it the same way to everyone.)

In short, just because a label is embraced by a political group does not mean it’s the best way to report a story. As you’ve probably noticed, we generally eschew political labels when possible. In some stories (such as the fight for the DCCC and Board of Supes), this is not as easily done. In those cases, we choose adjectives we think are as politically neutral as possible.

We decided to stop using the word ‘progressive’ to describe the more liberal of San Francisco’s political factions because it is a politically loaded term that doesn’t mean much to our readers. And while ‘progressive’ may be the preferred term of some politicians — and, of course, they are free to use it to describe themselves — it doesn’t describe where they sit on the traditional political spectrum.

We believe using adjectives such as ‘far left’ and ‘ultra liberal’ more accurately describe city politicians and policies in that broader context.

Thanks for your time. Feel free to call me if you have any questions.

Sincerely,
Audrey”

Reliable sources told us that the mayor’s campaign had complained to the Chronicle about the use of the word progressive and that means Eric Jaye, who runs the Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign at the same time he works for PG&E as a paid consultant to PG&E.

Cooper and Nathan Ballard, the mayor’s press secretary denied this. Cooper said:

“Also, I should tell you that we did not make this change in response or after complaints from anyone in the mayor’s office. The mayor’s office does not dictate what words we use.

“Nobody from the mayor’s office has ever contacted me about this issue as far as I can honestly remember. And I can’t recall them saying anything about it over the last two weeks, either.”

Ballard said:

“Personally I’ve never really complained to the Chronicle about this subject. It just wasn’t very high on my to-do list. In fact I don’t recall ever having any conversations about this topic with anyone from the Chronicle until after Heather Knight’s article about the far-left takeover of the DCCC ran.

“I have to admit that I’m pleased to learn from you that the Chronicle will no longer be using the term ‘progressive’ to describe politicians who aren’t. It always struck me as Orwellian doublespeak to describe somebody who wants to legalize sex trafficking and force lobbyists to wear badges as ‘progressive.'”

Executive Editor Tim Redmond responded to Ballard:

“Well, it’s true that the progressives of the early part of the century tended to be against prostitution and drugs and were prohibitionists, a description that I don’t think would accurately describe, say, Aaron Peskin. But over time the term has evolved, and most progressives today are at least open to the idea that sex work should be legalized. Almost all progressives support the legalization of marijuana (and I think Mayor Newsom does, too.)

“I don’t think far-left even remotely describes people like Peskin, whose economic views are pretty close to the mainstream of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Jake McGoldrick clearly isn’t ‘far left.’ I’m not sure even Tom Ammiano could accurately be called ‘far left.’

“I say this as someone who has been called all sorts of names, including Communist, because I advocate higher taxes on the rich and government spending on social services for the poor. At one time, that was pretty much the mainstream opinion of the Democratic Party.

“So who in SF government do you really believe is ‘far left?'”

Ballard responded back to Tim:

“Tim, do us all a favor and count me out of this dorm-room style debate. I never really cared that much whether the Chronicle called these guys progressives, just like I never really cared that much that CW Post calls them Grape Nuts even though they are neither grapes nor nuts.”

George Avalos, a supervisorial candidate in the Excelsior District, also asked Cooper about her designation and sent us her answer and then his comment to her answer. Question: how did Avalos and other progressive candidates in other districts suddenly become “ultra left” and part of a “far left faction?”

Subject: Dude, the preferred nomenclature is . . .

Dear Audrey:

“Thank you for your reply. I was throwing in a little humor here, albeit obscure — a reference to the Big Lebowski.

“Having said that I do believe the Chron’s use of ‘ultra left’ and ‘far left’ is completely biased. After all, who’s the arbiter here about what ‘ultra left’ and ‘far left are?’ What standard are you using and where did it come from? Seems pretty made up to me. Very rarely or better yet, never do I hear progressives talk about themselves in these terms. The Chron’s making it up out of whole cloth.

“It’s unbelievable, that you would even try to justify your use of this language.

“Lastly, if any term is completely meaningless it’s ‘moderate.’ I don’t recall there being a moderate political movement or ideology. A Classical Greek philosophy maybe, but not a political movement like the Progressive Movement. Progressives established labor laws, the women’s right to vote and regulations of our workplaces and food production.

I don’t believe Moderates can claim any such movement or transformation of our government institutions. If there’s something they can champion it’s ameliorating the effects of change or fighting against perennial progressive issues such as single payer health care, taxing high profits and rent control.

Thank you for your response. I really appreciate your sharing with me the Chronicle’s rationale, however shakey it may be.

Sincerely,

John Avalos”

B3 sums up this historic announcement:

So there you have it: a timely snapshot of Hearst double standard ethics: Let Willie Brown do a featured political column on Sunday without disclosing that he is a paid PG&E lobbyist ($200,000 last year alone). Brand all clean energy politicians opposed by PG&E as “ultra liberals” and “far left factions.” And for God’s sake, don’t cover the election in an honest and professional manner and tell us who PG&E is buying off. (See Amanda Witherell story, “PG&E’s blank check, who’s the utility buying off Start with Newsom, Feinstein, and Willie Brown.”) Question: so what will Hearst call the politicians who PG&E buys off? We call Willie PG&E’s Secret Agent Man.

B3, who insists to Cooper he is still a Rock Rapids (Iowa) liberal, and she says she will not challenge it.

Lights out on Labor Council endorsement

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August 26, 2008
1

by Amanda Witherell

Graph from San Francisco Chronicle, July 26, 2007

Literally.

Last night while the San Francisco Labor Council was meeting to vote on endorsements for the November election, the power cut out.

“I immediately started chanting public power, public power,” said Robert Haaland, who was there on behalf of SEIU 1021. He was referring to the Clean Energy Act – Prop H on the ballot.

Haaland called the experience surreal. “It was literally in the dark and the people counting votes were doing it by flashlight.” Because voting was by delegates, with people standing up for or against it in a dark room it was impossible to see who exactly voted for each side. “Maria Guillen, the COPE chair for 1021 gave a very impassioned speech for public power and also addressed how the campaign against public power has been attacking city workers,” said Haaland. SEIU’s Joint Council voted in favor of endorsing the measure.

Despite the PG&E power outage, the Council chose to go neutral. PG&E has more power outages than any other utility company in the state, according to a July 26, 2007 article in the Chron.

Apparently representatives from some of the trades urged neutrality on the issue, and expressed concern about how retirement and pension benefits would be affected should the city go into the retail power business and buy out PG&E’s infrastructure. According to the Clean Energy Act’s website, “any PG&E employees who become City employees as a result of this Act will not suffer any reduction of compensation or seniority.

If passed, the Clean Energy Act would force the city to establish a long-term energy plan with renewable power benchmarks more aggressive than current state mandates. The city will study how best to achieve this and if it’s determined that a municipally owned electricity system is the most efficient and expeditious way to achieve 100 percent renewable power by 2040, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission will have the authority to issue revenue bonds to purchase and construct the infrastructure to do that.

The full list of Labor Council endorsements can be found in this PDF.

Hearst: Here come the ‘far left factions’

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August 26, 2008
0

Extra! Extra! Hearst suddenly finds “far left factions” at work all over town

And now Wyatt Buchanan in his otherwise fine story on supervisorial candidates and public financing (8/25/2008) came up with a new derogatory term for progressives: “far left political factions.”

Yup, first it was “ultra liberals” in the Heather Knight story of Aug. 15. That didn’t seem to fly after the Guardian and others raised the obvious questions about the definition of an “ultra liberal” and where the term came from and the fact that it tied in with the Mayor Newsom operatives who want the term “progressive” for Newsom and the PG&E/downtown operatives who want to bash progressives pushing clean energy and other progressive measures on the November ballot.

So now it’s “far left factions,” even according to Buchanan “far left factions” suddenly operating in, surprise, surprise, the Richmond, Mission, Bernal Heights, and Excelsior Districts. I sent an email to Buchanan and his metro editor, Ken Conner, and asked what they meant by “far left factions.” No answer.

Impertinent questions to the Chronicle’s political reporters and editors: Can you define “ultra liberals” and “far left factions?” If not, why not? Why not just cover this critical election honestly and professionally and tell us what PG&E is really doing to kill the Clean Energy Act? It’s quite a story. I know, I know, this is not the fault of the Chronicle’s reporters and editors. It’s Hearst DNA at work again.

B3, a Rock Rapids (Iowa) liberal who is tired of watching the fumes from my office window of the Potrero Hill power plant, courtesy of PG&E, Mayor Gavin “the Green” Newsom, and Hearst journalism.

Pelosi: is she punting on SF Clean Energy Act?

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August 25, 2008
0

Is Pelosi for clean energy in Washington and Denver but standing with PG&E and punting on supporting the Clean Energy Act in San Francisco? Is she investing with T. Boone Pickens and his Clean Energy Fuels Corp. in Texas and punting on clean energy in San Francisco?

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Paul Hogarth, the agile staff writer and columnist for the Beyond Chron website, asked a key question of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at a press conference this morning on the first day of the Democratic Convention in Denver.

Hogarth reported on Beyond Chron that he had asked Pelosi that, “because she endorsed Al Gore’s ambitious goals of energy independence by 2019, does she support San Francisco’s Clean Energy Act (Prop H)–which calls for energy independence by 2040.”

“I haven’t see the text,” she told Hogarth, but I support going in that direction. This timetable of energy independence is a path we hope to go on.”

Hogarth made the proper point: Maybe, he noted, she should have sent a proxy to the Democratic County Central Committee endorsement meeting, referring to the recent vote by the DCCC approving the Clean Energy Act. She did not send a proxy to vote and her quote to Hogarth is her only known public response to the measure. The head on Hogarth’s story made his point more direct: “Pelosi Schools Traditional Media; Punts on SF Clean Energy Act.”

Meanwhile, the punting question was raised again for Pelosi by a major story in the Wall Street Journal (8/23/08). The Journal reported that Pelosi and her husband Paul invested between $50,000 and $100,000 in T. Boone Pickens’s Clean Energy Corporation in Texas. The Journal said the investment “could benefit from legislation the California Democrat favors to boost U.S. use of natural gas.”

“The investment is a small fraction of the Pelosis’ net worth. But it highlights the unlikely alliance evolving between Mr. Pickens, an old man with a long history of support for Republican causes, and powerful Democrats who have welcomed Mr. Pickens’s recent campaign for developing alternatives to oil.” (B3: Pickens was a major funder of the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, which helped defeat John Kerry in the last presidential election.)

Drew Hammill, a Pelosi spokesperson, told the Journal that the investment “does not raise any direct conflict of interest issues” or violate any ethics rules of the House of Representatives. “The speaker has been an advocate for increasing our country’s energy independence and for renewable energy for years, long before this purchase.”

Pelosi has always been a PG&E ally in San Francisco and Washington, notably in her move to help PG&E and the development gang privatize the Presidio and set the precedent for privatizing the national park system.

So the question for her is even more tantalizing: will she go for clean energy in Washington, Texas, and Denver but stand with PG&E and punt on the Clean Energy Act in San Francisco? We’ll try to get the questions to her. But I suggest that others work on it as well. She’s tough to pin down when it comes to PG&E, clean energy, and renewables back in her home district. B3

PS: How much are the Pelosis worth? Anywhere from $15 million to $156 million (including real estate), according to the The Journal. The investment amounts to less than one per cent off the Pelosis’ total 2007 public and private investment assets, which, not including real estate, are estimated at between $15 million and $52 million, based on the Speaker’s disclosure record, according to the Journal. Including real estate and bank account assets, the Pelosis’ net asset value is estimated at between $35 million and $156 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Ethics? PG&E, Willie Brown, and Hearst

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August 22, 2008
0

What is there in the Hearst DNA that keeps it honoring the shameful deal that William Randolph Hearst made with PG&E in the late 1920s to reverse his long standing pro-public power and anti-PG&E position?

By Bruce B. Brugmann

And so when our Guardian reporter Amanda Witherell flashed the word that ex-mayor Willie Brown is still on the PG&E payroll, I sent the following note to Hearst corporate in New York City (which owns the San Francisco Chronicle):

“PG&E has disclosed a $200,000 payment to Willie Brown for ‘consulting services’ for 2007 in its annual report to the California Public Utilities Commission. Now that Willie is doing a featured top-of-the-page political column each Sunday in the Chronicle, I’m curious if he is doing a Chronicle column while still providing ‘consulting services’ for PG&E?

“If so, does Hearst have an ethics policy that covers this apparent conflict? Would it at minimum require disclosure of PG&E payments to Willie in this year and previous years and what was the nature of these ‘consulting services?’ I would appreciate a comment.”

Chronicle Editor Ward Bushee to his credit called me promptly to respond to my questions. (Let us just say his predecessors adopted a variety of stonewalling techniques to avoid answering such questions from the Guardian.)

As attentive Guardian readers know, there is a long history here between Hearst and PG&E and the Willie/PG&E incident is but the latest example of a geologic outcropping of some shameful Hearst history. Hearst was a powerful influence in pushing the original Hetch Hetchy public power project through Congress and beyond, then reversed his policy in the late 1920s as a condition to get a major loan from a PG&E-controlled bank. The pro-PG&E/anti-public power policy continues to this day and nobody I’ve talked to from Hearst through the years can explain why the policy is still in effect to this day.

There is also a juicy history with then Mayor Willie Brown and Hearst. Willie as mayor helped secretly orchestrate for Hearst the deal that allowed Hearst in 2000 to buy the Chronicle, give away the Examiner to the Fang family, and dissolve the Ex/Chron joint-operating agreement with the approval of the Justice Department. Remember all those horse-trading charges in which then Examiner publisher testified under oath that he had used the Examiner editorial pages as a bargaining chip with Willie. (“The Truth Hurts,” by Tali Woodward and Tim Redmond, Guardian 5/10/2000.)

Chronicle editor Ward Bushee to his credit promptly called me to respond. This was a refreshing change from his predecessors who went to creative lengths to stonewall on such questions. I asked Bushee if he knew about the PG&E payment to Willie and if Hearst considered this a conflict with its ethics policy for Willie to be on the PG&E payroll while, among other things, attacking the progressives who voted for the Clean Energy Act that PG&E is opposing with mighty muscle and many millions.

Bushee did not see a conflict nor think that disclosure of Willie’s clients was necessary. Bushee said that Willie is widely known, is “a man about town,” has a popular column, is subject to “strenuous editing,” but is “a freelance columnist who is free to pursue his business interests as any other person who is not a part of the staff.” He said that, if Willie were on staff, he would be subject to Hearst’s “ethical standards.”

Since this issue is of such journalistic importance, I summarized Bushee’s positions and sent him an email and asked if I had properly and fully reflected his and Hearst’s position. I also asked how he could reconcile his and Hearst’s position with the Ethics Code of the Society of Professional Journalists which states that “journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know…should avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived…disclose unavoidable conflicts. (The Guardian and many media use the SPJ code.)

Bushee responded by email by my deadline (missing it by two minutes). He wrote, and I quote in full,

“I’m not going to cover the same ground that we did this morning. However, I will say that since Willie Brown’s column was introduced into the Sunday Chronicle, it has been very well received by readers because it is amusing, topical, controversial and informed. Willie has special connections to the Bay Area. That Wiliie Brown has outside interests and income was well noted when he undertook the column and was no secret to anybody who has followed his career.

“A summary of his political career was published when the column was launched.

“You well know that Willie is one of the most quoted San Franciscans in the Chronicle and other media outlets around the Bay Area. He is a sought-after guest for local, regional, and national TV shows. I’m told that you have been a guest of his radio show with Will Durst. Willie is not a journalist or a member of the news staff of the Chronicle, but his column goes through extensive planning with one of our most experienced journalists and then then same rigorous editing processes as any staff produced article. Our freelance agreements give the newspaper complete control of the content we use including his column. So if you question is that Willie is somehow avoiding ethical scrutiny, that’s not correct.

“Look, Bruce. If we ever found that Willie had knowingly used his column to benefit his clients, we would end the relationship. As with any agreement, trust is implicit.

“The Chronicle news staff always has aggressively—and fairly—covered Willie Brown as a newsmaker. And I have told our editors that I expect nothing less when Willie Brown makes news in the future.

“Besides that, Willie writes a great column. I’m delighted he is in the Sunday Chronicle.”

Well, I am still unable to crack the Hearst corporate fortress that has protected and promoted PG&E all these years and is now protecting and promoting Willie Brown as PG&E’s Secret Agent Man in this critical Clean Energy election. PG&E is conducting the most massive and nasty campaign ever against clean energy and public power, with huge Lies, and Hearst is once again refusing to cover the story, correct the lies, or give any indication it is not going to once again back PG&E all the way. Why?

This enduring Hearst position of more than eight decades raises some of the most tantalizing questions in American journalism: What is there in the Hearst corporate DNA that forces its editors and reporters in San Francisco to keep in effect honoring, against early Hearst history, against all evidence, and against all ethical standards, the shameful deal that William Randolph Hearst made with a PG&E- controlled bank in the 1920s to reverse his pro-Hetch Hetchy/anti-PG&E stand and go forever after with PG&E and against public power? (For details, see previous Guardian articles, Bruce blogs, and the authoritative David Nasaw biography of Hearst called “The Chief.”) Repeating for emphasis:

Why does Hearst allow a key PG&E lobbyist to write a featured political column in its Sunday paper without proper disclosure by either Willie or Hearst? Will the Chronicle today, in August of 2008, with a non-Hearst publisher and non-Hearst editor (meaning Frank Vega and Ward Bushee, both experienced executives who came new to Hearst with solid Gannet credentials) be allowed to cast off this terrible yoke and start covering PG&E, clean energy, public power, and the Raker Act scandal in a professional manner? Will Hearst and the Chronicle cover this critical Obama/Clean Energy election honestly?

Meanwhile, I am waiting anxiously to see what Willie and Hearst will report on the big Newsom party that PG&E is helping pay for at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Newsom is gearing up to run as the “green progressive” candidate for governor, but there is no way in the world he can be Gavin the Green when he fronts for PG&E against the Clean Energy campaign in San Francisco and then lets PG&E stamp its logo on his forehead and derriere before a national political audience in Denver.

Newsom and Willie want to be known as real progressives but alas they are “PG&E progressives” and their opposition to the Clean Energy Act only illustrates the difference in 96 point Tempo
Bold between a real progressive with real green credentials and a PG&E progressive taking money to help with PG&E greenwashing and progressive bashing. Guardian City Editor Steve Jones will be at the Newsom event in Denver and will keep you posted. On guard, much more to come, B3

P.S. 1: The Hearst and Willie horse-trading story is my favorite example of Hearst ethics. (See our “The Truth Hurts” story.) Just a few hours into the Clint Reilly antitrust trial challenging the Hearst monopoly deal, Examiner publisher Tim White admitted, in no uncertain terms, that he had used the paper’s editorial pages as a bargaining chip with then Mayor Willie Brown shortly before Wille’s reelection bid in November of l999. White testified that at the Aug. 30, 1999 lunch with Willie, he suggested that the Examiner would give Willie more positive coverage if he’d get behind Hearst’s plan to take over the Chronicle and create a daily monopoly.

“You were doing a little horse trading of your own, weren’t you?” asked Reilly attorney Joseph M. Alioto.

“I was,” White said calmly.

The day after White’s testimony, Hearst issued a press release saying the company had “reaffirmed its policy that the content of news and editorial pages may not be negotiated or compromised in any way.”

And then came many pious denunciations from Hearst of White’s “horse-trading” with Willie and many solemn promises from Examiner and Chronicle editors that their news and editorial coverage wasn’t for sale. The ethics problem for Hearst was that, despite several news stories critical of Willie, the paper wound up two months after the lunch giving Willie a glowing endorsement for mayor with no reservations or discouraging words whatsoever. Willie had earned the endorsement by working with the ranking local and national Democrats to orchestrate the deal and knock out any official opposition. He even told Hearst that he had called then U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and gotten assurances that the U.S. Justice Department would not intervene to stop the deal.

As we put it at the time: “The bottom line: it appears, based on all available evidence, that White was doing exactly what he had been sent out here to do–buy the Chron, shut down the Ex, and create a monopoly–and if he offered to trade positive coverage in the pages of the paper for the political clout it took to make that deal, that was just fine with the people at Hearst headquarters back in New York.”

However, we put some questions to Hearst and found that if such an ethics policy really existed at Hearst, nobody from Hearst could produce it, then or later, either at corporate in New York or at the Examiner in San Francisco. The Hearst spokesperson in New York told us that each Hearst publication had independent editorial policies and that we should contact the Examiner.

We contacted then Editor Phil Bronstein who told us the Examiner had an ethics policy, but that it covered reporters and editors, not publishers. “It certainly doesn’t cover situations like this,” he told us. He promised to fax over a copy but it never arrived. Again: Why don’t Hearst ethics policies apply to Willie and PG&E?

Follow the Money, online, if you can.

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August 20, 2008
2

by Sarah Phelan

“Follow the money.” That’s what Deep Throat told reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward in All the President’s Men, William Goldman’s classic film about the investigation that led to President Nixon’s resignation.

It was good advice then and now, no matter what story you are investigating, no matter what city you live/work in.

But Deep Throat’s classic advice got a tad harder to follow in the city by the Bay, thanks to kinks in new software, plus the overzealous efforts of some interns who apparently got carried away with the black pen, while redacting campaign finance records down at the San Francisco Ethics Commission.

The SF Ethics Commission, just in case you are wondering, is where people running for elected office, and people running political campaigns, file their financial disclosure reports.

All of which makes Ethics a good place to start if you want to follow the money in a particular political race.

It’s a pathway that you need to keep watching for months, if not years, after a race, since many donations and expenditures are made at the last minute and aren’t recorded, until long after the victory champagne has gone flat.

These days, campaign filings can be made the old-fashioned way, with paper filings, or the new Internet-enabled way, with online filings.

If you file electronically, Ethics’ software automatically redacts the street addresses and signatures of campaign donors from these online records.

These redactions aren’t undertaken because of new redaction policies over at City Hall, Ethics officials say, but to put the department in compliance with the Secretary of State.

But when Ethics started contracting with private vendor Netfile this spring, Netfile’s software apparently began deleting donor’s zip codes, too.

As a result of these unsanctioned redactions, it became impossible to follow online, exactly which parts of the City, the money was flowing from, in the June 3 election.

Meanwhile, the address of the Ethics Commission itself got redacted from a couple of online reports. (You can view an example of this redaction classic, by clicking here:

“For them to redact the actual address of the Ethics Commission speaks volumes about the mood over there,” one City Hall insider told us.

But the way Ethics’ executive director John St. Croix explains it, this classic blooper occurred because Ethics was trying to expand the amount of information that available online.

“Some overzealous interns got carried away,” St. Croix said, as they tried to help Ethics redact donor street addresses from paper filings, before posting them online.

“This happened because we were trying to scan copies of paper filings and post them online, which has never been done before, “ St. Croix explained.

“We decided it wasn’t worth the effort to redo it, all over again, St. Croix added, noting that you can still view the original, non-redacted paper filings at the Ethics Office.

Provided, that is, that you have Ethics street address, which is at 25 Van Ness Avenue. But shh, don’t tell anyone!

Money for nothing

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August 19, 2008
0

› gwschulz@sfbg.com

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi seems to be feeling pretty confident in her reelection prospects this November, despite an independent challenge by high-profile peace mom Cindy Sheehan.

But that hasn’t stopped the San Francisco Democrat from raising big bucks from scores of interest groups who are contributing to her campaign committee and to the political action committee she controls, known as PAC to the Future.

Most of the money she’s raising is going toward assuring her continued power in Washington by giving it to the campaigns of other Democratic members of Congress, particularly those facing tough election battles that could threaten the party’s House majority.

Pelosi’s reelection committee has raised $2.36 million over the past two years, hundreds of thousands more than the average House member, according to federal campaign disclosure records and data maintained by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Her PAC raised an additional $585,000 during the current election cycle and spent $769,000, much of which has also gone to other candidate committees in payments of $5,000 and $10,000.

Many newly elected Democrats in the House represent conservative constituencies, and with her blessing they sometimes vote with Republicans to distance themselves from the party’s perceived liberal leaders like Pelosi, according to a new book published this month, Money in the House: Campaign Funds and Congressional Party Politics (Perseus, 2008). Democratic leaders in the meantime have continued a phenomenal fundraising spree to help protect those House members.

"Speaker Pelosi’s extraordinary financial commitment to her party, and especially to her party’s vulnerable members, illustrates the overriding emphasis congressional parties and members place on money," writes author Marian Currinder, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute. "And her encouragement of selective ‘opposition votes’ demonstrates the complexity of governing in a highly partisan and highly competitive political environment."

Even the day-to-day reelection expenses of Washington’s unrivaled leading lady are outsize, as Pelosi’s spending records show. In June 2007, she celebrated her 20th year in Congress with a glitzy fundraiser held in the capital’s Union Station that cost at least $92,000 and featured a performance by soul singer Patti LaBelle.

The bill included $25,393 for a slick video production; $61,105 on catering, rentals, and securing the site; $2,000 for hairstyling and wardrobe assistance insisted on by LaBelle; $2,824 on flower arrangements; and $1,396 for chocolates from a Pennsylvania-based confection maker.

Pelosi spent at least $650 from her campaign on makeup for the steady string of appearances she made after being sworn in as House speaker in January 2007. An annual fundraiser held this year at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco cost $23,454 for catering and other expenses.

As for the top contributors to Pelosi’s reelection committee, they include several members of the Gallo family, proprietors of the E&J Gallo Winery, who gave a total of $23,000 through maximum individual donations of $4,600. The Modesto-based company has long made contributions to both parties, particularly enriching candidates who show a willingness to scale back or even throw out the federal estate tax, which affects the inheritances of the wealthiest American families.

The Corrections Corporation of America gave $2,300 to Pelosi and $2,700 to her PAC. CCA is part of a storied group of for-profit privatization companies in Nashville, Tenn. that are closely tied to former Republican Senate majority leader Bill Frist and includes the Hospital Corporation of America and Ardent Health Services.

Just this year, the state of California hired CCA to house 8,000 inmates at six of the company’s facilities; a significant portion will go to a new $205 million CCA complex under construction in Arizona.

The nation’s largest private jail company suffered bad publicity during the 1990s due to a series of high-profile escapes and inmate killings inside its prisons. It teetered on the edge of bankruptcy after overbuilding jails without having enough inmates available to fill them, but the George W. Bush administration helped save the company with a new homeland security agenda that called for confining rather than releasing undocumented immigrants while they awaited deportation or asylum-request proceedings. The company’s revenue jumped nearly a half-billion dollars over the last five years and its lobbying activities in Washington, DC have increased similarly.

The entertainment industry has ponied up its share to Pelosi as well. The maximum $4,600 donation came from Aaron Sorkin, powerhouse writer behind the long-running TV series The West Wing and the 2007 film Charlie Wilson’s War. Christie Hefner, a regular donor to Democrats and heiress to Playboy Enterprises, contributed $1,000.

Steven Bing, a Hollywood producer who inherited a real estate fortune, and billionaire Las Vegas developer Kirk Kerkorian gave thousands to Pelosi over the last two years. Kerkorian has given to both parties, but he and Bing share a special relationship after having fought a nasty tabloid war.

Kerkorian allegedly hired private investigators to sift through Bing’s trash in search of DNA evidence that would link him to a child borne by Kerkorian’s ex-wife, whom he was divorcing, according to a lawsuit filed by Bing. Vanity Fair in July described Bing as part of a skirt-chasing entourage that ran with Bill Clinton and threatened to tarnish Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid with its freewheeling bachelor reputation.

The wealthy Herbert and Marion Sandler, major supporters of MoveOn.org and other social justice causes, gave Pelosi a combined $9,200. The couple presided over the meteoric rise of Oakland mortgage lender Golden West Financial, which sold to Wachovia for $24 billion in 2006. The housing crisis led Wachovia to post staggering multibillion-dollar losses this summer, and some business writers have attributed its declining fortunes to the Golden West purchase.

In June, George Zimmer of Fremont, founder of the Men’s Warehouse, gave $2,300. Notable husband and wife political team Clint and Janet Reilly, both active as candidates and donors, contributed a total of $19,200 to Pelosi’s campaign and PAC.

"Essentially, raising money for the party and its candidates is required of leaders," Money in the House author Currinder told the Guardian. "Pelosi wouldn’t have been elected speaker if she wasn’t a stellar fundraiser."

So where is Pelosi’s money going if not to television ads for her own campaign? She divided $250,000 among the campaigns of approximately 70 congressional candidates, and disbursed about $532,000 more to them through PAC to the Future. The beneficiaries included $14,000 to Democrat Chet Edwards of Texas, whose district includes President George W. Bush’s Crawford ranch. Pelosi has publicly recommended him to Barack Obama as a possible running mate.

In addition, about half of the money Pelosi has raised since the beginning of 2007, slightly more than $1 million, went to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in Washington, DC. She also gave to the Democratic parties of key battleground states including Indiana, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Ohio. She singled out Democrat Travis Childers of Mississippi for extra cash totaling $21,000. In May, Childers stunned observers by defeating a Republican in a special election held when a representative vacated his House seat to take over for conservative icon Sen. Trent Lott.

"She has had prodigious success raising funds for individual Democratic candidates, for the DCCC, and for her own campaign and PAC," Thomas Mann, a congressional scholar at the Brookings Institute, told us. "Most party leaders represent safe seats but nonetheless try to set a high standard for raising money to advance their party’s broader objectives."

Pelosi’s Capitol Hill and San Francisco offices directed our questions to her fundraising operations at the DCCC. Her political director there, Brian Wolff, called the war chest "another vehicle for her to communicate with constituents in California." But he conceded that the pressure is on, "especially now that we have so many candidates and incumbents that need help. It definitely falls on her to be able to have a very aggressive fundraising campaign."

Wolff insists, too, that the Democrats revolutionized fundraising by seeking out smaller donations from large numbers of people instead of returning to the same short list of affluent contributors they had in the past.

In general, top donations to Pelosi still have come from lobbyists and lawyers, the real estate industry, insurance companies, banking and securities firms, and Amgen, a major biotech researcher based in Thousand Oaks. Officials from the labor movement’s biggest new power broker, the Service Employees International Union, also gave substantial sums, as did other major unions. But they fell far behind the contributions of large business interests.

Art Torres, chair of the California Democratic Party, told us that health care reform failed in 1990s at least partly because of political spending by drug companies. But he said that Democrats winning the White House and expanding their majorities in Congress would create a greater mandate to overhaul the health care system.

"It’s always been about issues" rather than fundraising, Torres said. "When I’ve talked to her, it’s always been about ‘How can we get this or that legislation through?’<0x2009>"

It’s worth pointing out, however, that the nation’s largest drug wholesaler, McKesson Corp., is based in San Francisco, and donors from pharmaceutical companies gave Pelosi more than $85,000 this cycle. Drug companies have given freely to Democrats in the past, but Democratic officeholders "still voted against their interests every time," Torres said.

Pelosi’s campaign spending on everything but her own reelection shows she doesn’t regard Sheehan as much of a threat. But the antiwar candidate did make it onto the ballot Aug. 8 and the Sheehan campaign has raised approximately $350,000 since December in small contributions after refusing to accept money from PACs and corporations.

"We didn’t have the party infrastructure going into this," said Sheehan campaign manager Tiffany Burns, adding that Pelosi’s campaign expenditures are "just another example of how Pelosi believes she is entitled to this seat."

PG&E and a Rock Rapids, Iowa, liberal

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August 19, 2008
2

By Bruce B. Brugmann

I confess. I am an old-fashioned Rock Rapids, Iowa, liberal. For starters, that means I grew up in a little town in northwestern Iowa that has had public power since 1896 and so i know personally that public power is cheap, reliable, and accountable.

In San Francisco, where PG&E private power is expensive, unreliable, and unaccountable, I was startled to find that I am suddenly an “ultra liberal,” along with a host of other progressives and independents who support the Clean Energy Initiative and public power.

Yes, according to PG&E and the San Francisco Chronicle, we are all suspicious characters and ought to be kept under watch for the duration for advocating such “ultra-liberal” things as clean energy, renewables, public power, mandates for making San Francisco a world leader in renewables, and kicking PG&E out of the mayor’s office and the DCCC.

As Tim Redmond points out in his Editors notes (8/20/08), the term first appeared in Heather Knight’s Aug. 15th article on the changes in the Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC), for decades the unassailable bastion of the Burton/ Brown machine. Her lead, he noted, was “almost breathtaking ” in its drama. She wrote that the party “has veered dramatically to the left,” and that it would be telling voters to vote for a raft of “ultra-liberal politicians supervisorial candidates” and, among other things, to “embrace public power.” (The Clean Energy Initiative, as it is appropriately known, mandates aggressive goals for renewables but PG&E gallops swiftly by this point and loves to say without evidence that the initiative is a $4 billion takeover of PG&E, which is yet another Big PG&E Lie.)

Meanwhile, the new Chronicle columnist Willie Brown, who ran endless errands for PG&E as mayor and as a private attorney on the public payroll, and collected a nifty $200,000 in “consulting services” in 2007 from PG&E, wrote without gulping:

“It was quite a week for local politics, with the certified takeover of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee by outgoing Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin and Chris Daly…But what’s really going on here behind the headlines is a move by the ‘progressives’ to take over the central committee a la Tammany Hall or Richard Daley’s Chicago. The goal is to control the party money and endorsements–and that way be able to pick candidates for office as well.

“In other words the central committee will be Peskin’s shadow mayoralty, allowing Peskin to keep calling the shots even when he leaves office.”

Tammany Hall? Richard Daley’s Chicago? Why didn’t Wiillie just say what the facts are: that the Burton/Brown machine, and Mayor Newsom and PG&E et al, are no longer calling the shots on the DCCC and that a group of real progressives are cutting the umbilical cord to machine politics and calling the shots with real progressive issues and initiatives, such as the Clean Energy Act. Willie also couldn’t say of course that PG&E got much of its influence through his office as mayor and the Burton/Brown machine, which never put as much as a pebble in PG&E’s monopoly path. Thus, until now, the machine-dominated DCCC has been a safe haven for PG&E and even this time around the real progressives only won through a major organizing effort and tough battle.

Tim wrote that he thinks Newsom’s political operatives are mad that “the progressives have seized control of the term ‘progressives.’ which is in fact an accurate and historically valuable term. They’d like to call Newsom a progressive mayor, which is inaccurate and historically invalid. But since they can’t get away with that, they’ve pushed the Chronicle to use another term for people like Chris Daly and Aaron Peskin and the best the editors could come up with is ‘ultra liberal.'” The Chronicle, which appears to be once again revving up for PG&E, tosses a juicy T-bone to PG&E and its campaign theme that only the loony left would support such dread issues as clean energy and public power.

Maybe we have a new insight into the term progressive. A real progressive supports the Clean Energy Act and public power, while a phony Willie Brown/Gavin Newsom ‘progressive,’ in quotes, supports PG&E and opposes the Clean Energy Act. In short, there is a big difference between a real progressive and a PG&E ‘progressive.’

And me? I’m still just an old-fashioned Rock Rapids, Iowa, liberal.

More to come on this illuminating subject, B3

P.S. 1:Hearst ethics policy: If Hearst wants to present Willie Brown as a “legitimate” journalist and featured political columnist, making value judgments and ethical pronouncements on who is and is not a real progressive and whether the DCCC has been taken over by clean energy progressives playing Tammany Hall/Richard Daley machine politics, the Chronicle ought at minimum to require disclosure of his “consulting services” for PG&E and other private interests that would conflict his column? What specific “consulting services” did he provide for PG&E in 2007? What is he doing now for PG&E and for how much in the November election? Is he writing a political column for the Chronicle and working for PG&E at the same time? Is he advising PG&E on how to “steal” another election?
(I left a message for Willie at the Willie Brown Institute and I put out an email to Hearst corporate for comment on Willie’s PG&E/editorial role.)

It was Mayor Willie, as the public power campaign was winning in the 2001 public power election, who ordered that the ballots be moved from City Hall to the Civic Auditorium because of an anthrax scare. I remember standing with Angela Alioto about l0:30 p.m. on election night when then Elections Director Tammy Haygood, announced the anthrax move. “Angela,” I said, “we’ve lost the election.” She didn’t believe me and kept saying, “No, no, we couldn’t lose the election now.” Alas, I was right.

We raced over to the Auditorium where there was only minimal security. There was no evidence then or later of an anthrax scare. PG&E came from behind and won by a bare 500 votes. Several days later, several tops of the election boxes were found floating in the bay. There was no explanation from Willie nor his election director and no real investigation. The gallows humor was that the campaign should hire divers to go into the bay and find the missing ballots.

PG&E’s big payments: PG&E discloses the $200,000 payment to Willie Brown for “consulting services” in 2007 in its annual report to the California Public Utilities Commission. In a key section of this report (called page 257), PG&E is required to list every payment that it made to an outside company or consultant. This amounts to billions year.
PG&E has the entire annual report posted on its Investor Relations website, but, significantly, page 357 is missing.
PG&E’s statement explaining the omission says: “Details of this page are filed with the California Public Utilities Commission.” Reporter Amanda Witherell formally asked the CPUC press office for it and they said they’re “trying to track it down.” But she did get a copy.

One elephant case bumps another

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August 15, 2008
0

By Steven T. Jones
The big Ringling Bros. elephant abuse trial that I wrote about in the current issue of the Guardian has been delayed by two weeks — for a politically interesting reason.
Federal District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, who is hearing the Ringling Bros. case, is also presiding over the political corruption trial of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who has asked for a speedy trial to try to clear his name before the fall election, when he will try to continue as the longest serving Republican in the U.S. Senate. To accommodate the Stevens trial, Sullivan moved the Ringling trial start from Oct. 7 to Oct. 20. Apparently he wants to dispose of one elephant case before dealing with the next.
Meanwhile, also in a Washington D.C. court, another big Ringling-related lawsuit is moving forward. Superior Court Judge Brook Hedge yesterday ruled on motions for summary judgment in the strange case of journalist Jan Pottker vs. Ringling owner Ken Feld, which involves allegations of using former CIA operatives to sabotage Pottker’s efforts to write about Feld. Judge Hedge granted motions removing National Press Books and other ancillary defendants from the case, but denied Feld’s motion and will apparently allow the nine-year-old case to move toward trial.
“The filings are voluminous, but the core facts relevant to the claims are set forth above and revolve around the admitted plan to divert plaintiff from authoring any more works on the circus,” the judge wrote in a 45-page opinion.
For more details, read my story.

Georgia: a neocon August surprise election ploy?

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August 13, 2008
0

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Robert Scheer, the journalist who did one of the first major early critiques of the Vietnam War,
today weighed in on the Georgia war.

His lead paragraphs make his point: “Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the U.S. presidential election?

“Before you dismiss that possibility, consider the role of one Randy Scheunemann, for four years a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government, ending his official lobbying connection only in March, months after he became Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s senior foreign policy adviser.” B3

Click here to read Scheer’s op-ed column in today’s Chronicle, Georgia war is a neocon election ploy. Scheer was most prescient on the Vietnam War. Is he as prescient on this one?

Black exodus emergency

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August 12, 2008
0

› sarah@sfbg.com

San Francisco is losing its black population faster than any other large city in the United States — and the trend is unlikely to stop unless the city takes immediate action.

So says a draft report from an African American out-migration task force put together by the Mayor’s Office last year. It wasn’t published in final form early enough to have an impact on the June 3 election, when voters green-lighted Lennar Corp.’s plan to develop thousands of luxury condos in Bayview/Candlestick Point, one of the few remaining African American neighborhoods in San Francisco.

Task force members didn’t get to present their draft recommendations, which include preserving and improving existing housing and producing new affordable housing, until an Aug. 7 public hearing called by Sup. Chris Daly.

The out-migration task force, which used 2005 US Census and state demographic data, places the city’s African American population at 1/16 of San Francisco’s total population in 2005, compared to its two largest minorities, Asians and Hispanics, which make up 1/3 and 1/8, respectively.

"We saw that the African American population has declined by 40.8 percent since 1990, and as a share of the population decreased from 10.9 percent in 1990 to 6.5 percent in 2005," the report states.

"That’s not enough people to fill Candlestick Park," observed Fred Blackwell, executive director of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, which has been faulted for deliberately displacing blacks from the Fillmore District during the 1960s and for not doing enough to protect blacks in its Bayview-Hunters Point redevelopment plans.

The task force further projects that the city’s black community will continue to decline to 32,300 in 2050, or 4.6 percent of the total population.

Blackwell cited the lack of affordable housing, as well as a lack of educational and economic opportunity, severe environmental injustice, an epidemic of violence, and lack of cultural and social pride, as the reasons blacks are leaving, or not moving to, San Francisco.

"A lot of people mentioned the notion of being an outsider looking in," Blackwell said. "People can see a Chinatown and a Little Italy, but there wasn’t an area of town that seemed to celebrate the African American community."

The findings were not exactly news to the task force or the black community.

"We could paper the walls of this building with reports that have been made on this issue," said task force chair Aileen Hernandez, citing similar studies in 1995 and 1972.

Fellow task force member Barbara Cohen said the draft recommendations "should have long ago been called the final recommendations."

The Rev. Amos Brown accused Daly of not bonding with the black community. "I’d like to see you coming to church on Sunday, to NAACP meetings, to be down in the trenches, walking arm-in-arm," Brown said. "Let me know next time there’s a NAACP meeting, and I’ll be there," Daly replied.

Calling the city’s black depopulation an emergency, the Nation of Islam Minister Christopher Muhammad urged the Board to take the issue out of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s hands.

"It’s time to begin to change the culture of redevelopment," said Muhammad, who wants to establish endangered community zones in BVHP and the Western Addition.

"It’s revolutionary, but doable," said Muhammad, who characterized the city’s Redevelopment Agency as a "cheap grant-hustling operation" after the agency admitted that it cooked a state grant application this May by claiming it needed $25 million so it wouldn’t have to mothball a project the city and Lennar are developing at Hunters Point Shipyard.

Blackwell defended the mayor.

"This is not a set of recommendations that have been sitting on the shelf," said Blackwell, claiming that Newsom is working to implement a violence prevention plan and rebuild public housing.

Blackwell also recommended expanding the agency’s certificate of preference program citywide, an idea that Sup. Ross Mirkarimi has already placed before the Board.

Goat Hill Pizza

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August 12, 2008
0

› paulr@sfbg.com

While the denizens of Washington, DC must nourish themselves with Capitol Hill Blue, we of the Blessed Realm have easy access to Goat Hill Pizza, and although there aren’t any goats on Potrero Hill any more, in blue or any other color, the views are still magical, the pizza is pretty good, and a longtime spirit of San Francisco abides, despite the passing of a third of a century and the ebb and flow of various funny-money economic tides.

Goat Hill is more than a pizzeria with a view (though a better view you won’t easily find), more than a place long famed for its Monday night, all-you-can-eat pizza dim sum extravaganza (though a better deal you won’t easily find): it’s a kind of community center, a locus of mingling, with the restaurant’s co-owner, Philip De Andrade, serving as mingler-in-chief as he moves from table to table, chatting and checking. The restaurant’s long walls are regularly hung with paintings for sale, and, on certain warm weekend afternoons, the place becomes a kind of art gallery that smells of linguica and cheap red wine — just the sort of environment in which to stumble across a surviving Beat writer or unheralded master painter.

Goat Hill is a still-glowing ember of a bohemian San Francisco where life’s riches were enjoyed but neither obsessed over nor paraded as status symbols. If, in a sense, it’s an ambassador from the past, it’s an envoy that’s survived a host of Bible-worthy plagues, from earthquake, disease, and fire to the dot-com boom-bust (in with the Porsches, out with the Porsches!) and the long adventure in misrule that began with a stolen election and will eternally bear the name of the unbearable George W. Bush. The little man will be gone soon, holding hands with Dick Cheney in one of their undisclosed locations while Mesopotamia burns, but Goat Hill will still be there, packing them in on Monday nights.

While a wait for a table is generally an annoyance for people who are hungry to eat dinner, the Monday-night wait at Goat Hill is rather festive, especially in mild weather. Clots of people loiter on the sidewalk and in the street near the door, chatting and flirting and occasionally taking the long view down the slope of Connecticut Street to the city’s luminous skyline, which seems close enough to touch. Of all the skyline views I’ve observed over the years, only those on the eastern slopes of Russian Hill are the equal of those on the north face of Potrero. With a view like that, who needs food? And yet, from time to time, the host does emerge from the restaurant to call out a name, and a party of people — maybe a twosome, but just as likely a sixsome or even more — eagerly marches inside.

The dim sum comparison is as old as time, but it isn’t quite apposite. (Visitors to Goat Hill’s arriviste location in the SoMa flatlands will find the all-you-can-eat deal in effect every day.) Whenever I’ve had actual dim sum at a Chinese place, the servers check off little boxes on a tab when we’ve chosen items to eat, so the final bill varies. At Goat Hill, you pay a flat fee (at the moment $10.95 per head), which buys you unlimited access to the salad bar along with unlimited access to the pies that emerge regularly from the kitchen. A pie arrives; its topping is announced, and, as at a Sotheby’s auction, you point or mumble or in some other way indicate an interest, and you are given a slice. But step lively, because the next pie could be just seconds behind. Or, minutes might elapse, an interval in which you can thoughtfully chew your crust rinds. Some of these can look a little scorched.

The toppings themselves show signs of being drawn from the culinary equivalent of an auto dealership’s parts bin. There’s pepperoni, of course, and also pepperoni with sausage, and sausage with mushroom. (No pepperoni with mushroom.) How about ground beef with green onions ("Italian hamburger"), or spinach with tomato and feta cheese, or chicken with sun-dried tomatoes? Green bell pepper makes repeated appearances, as does pineapple, with ham or with sausage, with or without chunks of jalapeño pepper.

Linguica — the garlicky Portuguese sausage — is underrated as a pizza topping; its flavor is every bit as potent as pepperoni’s, but (at least at Goat Hill) it’s richer and less salty. This last is always an important consideration for the pizza eater who is beyond 30 years of age. I love pizza, and I retain an affection for the sort of pizza gluttony Goat Hill enables, but the older you get, the more likely you are to be sorry the next day not to have exercised more restraint in enjoying your pizza. (The pizza crusts, incidentally, are sourdough and find a nice middle ground between crackery and bready, but the rinds nonetheless have a way of piling on paper plates around the tables. Only across the way, at a table filled with avid men in their 20s, did I notice the crust rinds being efficiently dispatched. It was like watching bright-eyed jackals polish off a wildebeest carcass, bones and all.)

The salad bar, amid all this crust, is not an afterthought. Although it has the look of something you’d find at Howard Johnson’s, complete with sneeze shield, it does offer a broad range of non-bloating items, including kidney beans and chickpeas, tomato slices, mushrooms, lettuce, grated cheese, beets, pepperoncini, and, of course, choice of dressing, to be ladled from big crocks. There’s even a view, at no extra charge.

GOAT HILL PIZZA

Sun.–Thurs., 11:30 a.m.–10:30 p.m.; Fri.–Sat., 11:30 a.m.–11 p.m.

300 Connecticut, SF

(415) 641-1440

www.goathill.com

Beer and wine

AE/DC/DISC/MC/V

Noise does not preclude conversation

Wheelchair accessible

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