California
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1:23 a.m.
Contains only posts that are ID'd as local content. An explanation. Want to help improve our local content filter? Add keywords here.
Links: Patty Berg is officially out of the Insurance Commissioner Race. She hadn't been really campaigning, and her campaign account shows less than $3,000 . Her listed consultants are now informing reporters that she is officially out of the race. CalBuzz suggests Steve Poizner go blue-collar populist against MoneyBags Whitman. CaliforniaWatch tells us that Meg Whitman dumpe...
Calitics - Mon 7:46 p.m. - 2 clicks 
By Tim Redmond Willie Brown thinks it's a good idea . And you can tell Newsom wants to consider it , since he knows there's nothing else obvious for him to do once his term as mayor is up -- and there are going to be a lot of options not too far down the road. Sen. Dianne Feinstein isn't getting any younger, and at some point she'll retire. If Jerry Brown doesn't get elected governor, the ...
SFBG Politics Blog - Mon 4:10 p.m.
I'm no fan of the current con-con initiative that's being circulated, but if this is true, it is deeply troubling: Repair California, the Bay Area-based business group behind two initiatives that would convene a Constitutional Convention, has accused five firms of blacklisting their petitions, shouting down their volunteers, destroying valid signatures and intentionally submitting fake signature...
Calitics - Mon 3:33 p.m. - 3 clicks
Editor: This is a response by Seth Connolly to Danny Morales' "Ragster Rant: the OB Planning Board In Crisis". Seth currently sits on the Board representing District 4. by Seth Connolly Danny Morales, I noticed that you were able to portray the Board as a bunch of 420-unfriendly, anti-environmentalist, corrupt, anti-local business yet somehow still rubber-stamping folks who frequent Starbucks. ...
OB Rag - Mon 2:55 p.m. - 3 clicks
Text, videos and photos by Sarah Phelan Destined to Dance enlivens the corridors of power at San Francisco's City Hall. By the time I made it to the 2010 Black History Month kickoff ceremony at San Francisco City Hall, on Friday, Feb. 5, California Public Utilities Commissioner Tim Simon was talking about how the African American community can make sure it doesn’t ge...
SFBG Politics Blog - Mon 2:09 p.m. - 2 clicks
By Tim Redmond I guess the San Francisco Chronicle's big Sunday story on the backlog in police discipline cases was one of the paper's new "print-only" exclusives, because I can't find it on the web. So I can't link to it, and you have to take my word for what it says, which is: Chief Gascon wants to take authority away from the Police Commission and give himself the ability to fire bad c...
SFBG Politics Blog - Mon 1:11 p.m. - 4 clicks
Editors Note: And now for some real nostalgia. The following article appeared in the Sept-Oct 1953 issue of San Diego Magazine. Thanks go to Larry OB for retyping it and sending it to the OB Rag. Larry kept in the original typos. by Lois Schustra Hundreds of cars go roaring down West Point Loma Boulevard everyday, blissfully unaware that behind a certain high hedge, there nestles a little sp...
OB Rag - Mon 11:46 a.m. - 2 clicks
Every once in a while I write a screed against "instant run-off voting" (or as "ranked choice voting") as we call it in San Francisco. Here's a sample from 2007 that gets to the guts of my abhorrence of this voting method: Ranked choice voting has appealed to progressives as somehow "cleaner" or "nicer" than good old, ordinary, messy ugly politics. But it is just a gimmick -- we'll get ...
Happening-Here - Mon 9:01 a.m. - 6 clicks
There may be no better illustration of how corrupt our politics have become than the efforts of the Mercury Insurance Group to change a landmark consumer protection law that they are apparently violating on a regular basis. In 1988, California voters passed Proposition 103, a sweeping reform of the state's auto insurance industry. 22 years later, as insurance companies have become one of the natio...
Calitics - Mon 8:26 a.m. - 3 clicks
A Yolo County Man, Robert Ferguson is facing life in prison for a third strike in part for stealing cheese from Nugget Market. Prior to that he was convicted for petty theft at a 7/11 for stealing a woman's wallet. Sentencing will occur on March 1 to see if indeed he is given his third strike in which he would spend 25 years in prison, essentially a life sentence for a man in his mid 50s. Mr....
The People's Vanguard of Davis - Mon 5:27 a.m.
It is always true both that every era requires a new politics and that every new politics comes about through a real break with its own tradition. But on the other hand, it may not always be politically valuable to put emphasis upon this break. Source: www.khukuritheory.net ...
yaman's amateur ramblings - Sun 11:23 p.m.
Saturday's my birthday. I was born in New York City but I've now lived in California longer than I did in New York. Doesn't matter; I'll always been from NY. When I was 21 I spent a winter in a tiny hamlet in the Hindu Kush where no one spoke Farsi, let alone English. In fact no one had ever heard of the United States or experienced electricity. When I got back to Kabul in the spring my frie...
Down With Tyranny - Sun 7:05 p.m. - 29 clicks
If you’re not a big fan of online news media, you probably haven’t heard that our own Voice of San Diego just turned five years old. In an age where we read about the dinosaurs of the old media dying daily, our home town of San Diego hosts one of the bright shining lights of what many consider the future of news reportage. The Voice is a non-profit organization, meaning that, like National Public...
OB Rag - Sun 1:11 p.m. - 5 clicks
The financial news in recent weeks has been dominated by concerns about the possibility of "sovereign default" in several key Eurozone countries. Often known as the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain, sometimes called PIIGS when you throw Italy into the mix), their high levels of unemployment and debt are claimed to be a ticking time bomb for the euro currency and the European Union as a w...
Calitics - Sun 11:50 a.m. - 5 clicks
Journalists and government normally are seen as antagonists, but in reality the news business very much has relied financially on public support. Government at all levels — federal, state and local — spent more than $1 billion last to support commercial news publishers, according to a recent report the University of Southern California’s Center on [...]...
The Democratic Daily - Sun 10:21 a.m. - 5 clicks
Fresno Judge Halts Protection Plan For Winter Run Chinook by Dan Bacher (Fresno) Federal Judge Oliver Wanger on Friday afternoon put a temporary hold on a federal plan (biological opinion) protecting salmon from the fish-killing California Delta pumps that deliver water to corporate agribusiness and southern California. The ruling, in place for 14 days, allows for unlimited pumping, at l...
Sacramento For Democracy - Sat 5:06 p.m. - 10 clicks
That's the report coming out of a meeting yesterday in Southern California with Diane Watson, who currently represents the 33rd District in Congress. A Swing State Project user diary from someone who attended the meeting, augmented by our own BruinKid who also was at the meeting and wrote about it in the comments to yesterday's open thread , explains the story: Just left a CA delegation mee...
Calitics - Sat 5:06 p.m. - 7 clicks
If all goes right, this video window will allow you to watch the California Young Democrats Bay Area Regional Statewide Candidate Forum that's starting at 1 pm today. I'm tweeting at http://twitter.com/Brian_Leubitz Enjoy, press release over the flip... Watch live streaming video from vidsf at livestream.com CALIFORNIA YOUNG DEMOCRATS (BAY AREA REGION) HOST NEARLY EVERY STAT...
Calitics - Sat 12:44 p.m. - 8 clicks
Due to some complaints by OB residents, channeled by 10NEWS, San Diego Police have begun to crack down on wayward youth, rampaging across our community. Here, four officers, two on bikes, are seen handing out citations to a half-dozen young people on the seawall. Is this the response the community wants? ...
OB Rag - Sat 11:02 a.m. - 7 clicks
While the economy across the nation and even in California to a lesser extent seems to be very slowly turning the corner, one has to wonder if it's too late. The news on the local level is devastating. We have focused much of our attention on the follies of the Davis City Council. The news there is not great, plans are underway to cut spending should the sales tax measure not pass in June. T...
The People's Vanguard of Davis - Sat 5:42 a.m. - 4 clicks
I'm still, after about 40 years, enough of an east coast transplant to think Spring ought not to show up on the first day of February. But it sure was happening on San Bruno mountain just south of San Francisco. I offer these cellphone photos of flowers (and one hazard) as evidence of the local oddness. If the slideshow doesn't work, the set is here . ...
Happening-Here - Sat 3:02 a.m. - 9 clicks
By Anna Widdowson The reelection of Milton Marks III as President of the City College of San Francisco’s Board of Trustees ruffled some feathers during last week’s board meeting, but it signals a real shift in the balance of power in the governance of this troubled district. Dissent came primarily from longtime board member Natalie Berg, a fairly conservative and consistent (and crabby)...
SFBG Politics Blog - Fri 5:42 p.m. - 11 clicks
Most of the statewide Candidates will be coming to the California Young Democrats Bay Area candidate forum on Saturday at 1PM in SF. Here's the Facebook event . If you can't make it in person, you can watch it online on VidSF or right here at Calitics. Pretty sweet. Anyway, I (Brian) will be there, so it's sure to be a blast. Here are some links for your weekend: Jerry Bro...
Calitics - Fri 5:15 p.m. - 8 clicks
Carly Fiorina defended and promised more of the wildly popular (and widely-mocked) "demon sheep" advertisements. In a video released on the web, Meg Whitman received flack from the conservative base for disavowing a supporter that said they were a "proud racist." Whitman released a television ad that begins airing today. Fresno Bee: Steve Poizner backed a voter [...]...
Matt Ortega - Fri 4:32 p.m. - 10 clicks
From today's Sacramento Bee: Controversy erupts over California GOP chairman's private life By Charles Piller cpiller@sacbee.com Published Friday, Feb. 05, 2010 A long-simmering controversy about the private life of California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring has erupted into a divisive conflict within the party. This week the San Diego Republican Party executive committee, led by Tony K...
San Diego Politico - Fri 3:27 p.m. - 18 clicks
An interesting scandal is unfolding over in the California Republican Party, involving its chair, Ron Nehring. As the SacBee reports , a San Diego Republican official is the target of a removal effort for asking questions about charges Nehring was "brutalizing a former romantic partner": This week the San Diego Republican Party executive committee, led by Tony Krvaric, chair of the San Diego pa...
Calitics - Fri 3:26 p.m. - 7 clicks
You know how the Republicans are all super excited to block "ObamaCare"? Which, to be honest, more resembles McCain's plan during the election than Obama's own plan. Well, this is what the tea partiers are fighting to preserve here in California: Anthem Blue Cross is telling many of its approximately 800,000 customers who buy individual coverage -- people not covered by group rates -- that...
Calitics - Fri 11:05 a.m. - 3 clicks
Dave Johnson, Speak Out California . Remember last year when the Republicans laid out the price of a budget deal and it was a giant tax cut for the biggest corporations ? So in the middle of a revenue crisis they forced ... less revenue. Well, imagine that you are a struggling small or medium business in California, and the Republicans gave your nemesis even more power to crush yo...
Calitics - Fri 9:45 a.m. - 13 clicks
I don't normally post vague, unsourced rumors, but I think this is a general sense of those around the Capitol. Specifically, the rumors of Dianne Feinstein entering the governor's race are heating up once again. It's hard to keep genuine interest, especially from somebody as noticeable as DiFi quiet very long. However, as Robert noticed , DiFi does seem to want people to keep noticing her. I'm ...
Calitics - Fri 9:45 a.m. - 8 clicks
This week's Capital Notes Podcast is all about this week's most talked about job seekers: a guy who wants the state's #2 ranking job and two folks who want to be top dog. First up: the high drama of Wednesday's confirmation hearing for Abel Maldonado to be California's next 'lite guv.' Capitol Weekly's Anthony York [...]...
Capital Notes - Fri 12:05 a.m. - 6 clicks
By Steven T. Jones CPMC has long sought to build this Cathedral Hill hospital at the corner of Van Ness Avenue and Geary Boulevard. Against the backdrop of plans by Sutter Health’s California Pacific Medical Center to build a new hospital on Cathedral Hill and rebuild its seismically vulnerable St. Luke’s Hospital , CPMC has been at a contract- negotiating impasse with its nurses...
SFBG Politics Blog - Thu 6:14 p.m. - 4 clicks
Appeals court rejects move to keep Sacramento strong-mayor proposal on June 8 ballot Published Thursday, Feb. 04, 2010 http://www.sacbee.com/latest/story/2514372.html A request to delay a Sacramento judge's decision to block Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson's strong-mayor initiative from the ballot has been denied, effectively ensuring the initiative will not appear before the voters in Jun...
Sacramento For Democracy - Thu 6:01 p.m. - 5 clicks
ailed to deliver. Big government spender. Weak leadership. Those are some of the things being said about Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as this election year kicks off… not by Democrats, but by his fellow Republicans. And it may be just the beginning. A great case in point comes today with the first of what will likely be [...]...
Capital Notes - Thu 6:00 p.m. - 6 clicks
Text by Sarah Phelan The San Francisco Elections Department is reporting that the petition to recall Sup. Sophie Maxwell has failed. "The Department of Elections verified the validity of a randomly selected sample of 500 signatures from the 8,008 signatures submitted," a Dept. of Elections press release stated. "This statistical sampling shows the petition to have a valid total of 3,026 s...
SFBG Politics Blog - Thu 4:33 p.m. - 8 clicks
By Tim Redmond So Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier wants credit for the really dumb idea of extending the payroll tax waiver for biotech companies. I guess she'd rather look like an idiot than let Newsom grab that dubious spotlight. Because as I pointed out in a column this week, the biotech tax break won't create a single private-sector job in San Francisco, not one -- and because it will re...
SFBG Politics Blog - Thu 3:04 p.m. - 4 clicks
Some Republicans, including some legislators, are doing their best to repeal one of California's landmark pieces of legislation: AB 32. The climate change bill is now finally being put into action. Arnold, while getting off to a rough start with the implementation, has allowed Mary Nichols and the team at the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to do their jobs. But, businesses and the right, w...
Calitics - Thu 2:25 p.m. - 6 clicks
This post originally appeared at Speak Out California. Remember last year when the Republicans laid out the price of a budget deal and it was a giant tax cut for the biggest corporations? So in the middle of a revenue crisis they forced ... less revenue. Well, imagine that you are a struggling... ...
Seeing the Forest - Thu 11:26 a.m. - 6 clicks
This morning there's word some folks downtown are trying to change how we elect the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco (again). This time, there's a proposal to elect some via district and some city-wide . As with any "reform" in San Francisco, this is less about making government work better for all, and is instead another attempt to game the system for one side over another. That's not...
Greg Dewar's Disinfo Rehab - Thu 10:23 a.m. - 5 clicks
You don't have to believe me. Here's Jon Taplin, a Professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication, suggesting there could be Life After Empire. He presents this chart: Then he asks In what way does this have to be the world's reality? Who named us the unpaid cop of the planet? ... We need to put all of this on the table politically. Just who in Congress has the guts to...
Happening-Here - Thu 3:02 a.m. - 5 clicks
According to the Los Angeles Times and Capitol Weekly, leaders of our state Democratic Party are “putting pressure” on our legislative leaders to reject Abel Maldonado’s nomination for LG. First of all, I hold Chairman Burton, Alex Rooker and the entire CDP team in the highest personal regard. Under their field-and-finance-focused leadership, the CDP is in extremely a...
California Majority Report - Wed 4:24 p.m. - 7 clicks
By Tim Redmond This is one of the strangest things I've seen in politics in a while. Check out the ad, attacking Tom Campbell for not being anti-tax enough. You got sheep falling off a pedestal, sheep with weird glowing red eyes, sheep crawling around with a man's legs .... who makes this stuff? ...
SFBG Politics Blog - Wed 3:54 p.m. - 7 clicks
By Rebecca Bowe Repair California, a nonprofit organization leading the charge for a California constitutional convention, is preparing a lawsuit against signature gathering firms that it claims are illegally boycotting the campaign. The nonprofit hasn't divulged exactly which firms it is going after. In a letter sent yesterday to a signature-gathering company whose name was redacted, an...
SFBG Politics Blog - Wed 2:30 p.m. - 12 clicks
Here's a good one from the California Democratic Party. The CDP today launched a website to introduce U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina to California voters. The site, www.carlyfailorina.com <http://www.carlyfailorina.com>, highlights the worst business failures of the candidate that Portfolio Magazine named the “19th Worst CEO of All Time” after a disastrous run at Silicon Val...
California Majority Report - Wed 12:44 p.m. - 8 clicks
Offered without comment. Update The web video was mercilessly and almost universally mocked and derided online as the "wildest," "weirdest," and perhaps "worst political video ever." And they probably paid $15k for it. Need more evidence that the video is an epic failure? National Review loved it, calling the ad "genius." Tom Campbell, seizing on the opportunity [...]...
Matt Ortega - Wed 11:07 a.m. - 5 clicks
In an op-ed on the San Francisco Chronicle's website, former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez is urging legislative Democrats to support the Governor's nomination of Abel Maldonado for the LG spot. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/opinionshop/detail?& ...
California Majority Report - Wed 9:23 a.m. - 9 clicks
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2010/0120_p On Page 75 is the profile of Sacramento. There are a handful of good statistics including how much the poverty rate has increased in the suburbs. The profile is pasted below. Shamus The Suburbanization of Poverty: Trends in Metropolitan America, 2000–2008 Metro Area Profile for Sacramento-Rosevil...
Sacramento For Democracy - Wed 12:21 a.m. - 10 clicks
If there was any ambiguity about where California's lieutenant governor designate stands on a current controversial oil drilling proposal, then the politician himself seems to have settled the issue — for now — by putting himself on the same side of opponents who say the plan's benefits are unenforceable. Abel Maldonado, the state senator who tomorrow [...]...
Capital Notes - Tue 5:44 p.m. - 8 clicks
[Poster's note: Wow! Go Humberto!] humberto Peraza Raises More Than $45,000 for council race O utraises all other candidates combined Chula VISTA -- H umberto Peraza’s campaign for Chula Vista City Council has reported raising $45,595 in contributions in 2009, according to the semi-annual campaign finance report filed yesterday. Peraza rais...
San Diego Politico - Tue 2:43 p.m. - 14 clicks
By Tim Redmond If I owned a bicycle shop in San Francisco, I'd be putting a big poster in my window right now saying something like: $840 a year to ride Muni? Save your cash -- buy a bike! Seriously -- you can get a decent new bicycle for $350, a good used one for half of that. Which means if you switch from riding Muni to riding your bike, you pay for your new ride in about six mont...
SFBG Politics Blog - Tue 2:27 p.m. - 5 clicks
By Steven T. Jones Anyone who still thinks that Mayor Gavin Newsom is a liberal who has been unfairly maligned by the Bay Guardian and other wild-eyed San Francisco lefties should watch his appearance on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News show last night, in which Newsom praises O’Reilly (a right-wing reactionary if there ever was one) as a political moderate, correctly calls himself an econ...
SFBG Politics Blog - Tue 1:41 p.m. - 4 clicks
Yesterday, President Obama released his first real federal budget. Although the FY 2010 budget was released after President Obama took office, it as largely just an edited version of what the Bush Office of Management and Budget prepared. One early issue of note to California is that President Obama requested $330 million for SCAAP funding. SCAAP reimburses states and localiti...
California Majority Report - Feb 1 - 7 clicks
Westlands Water District, the "Darth Vader of California water politics, is requesting a federal judge to order lifting restrictions on the operation of huge delta water pumps and canals from February through May, according to a news release from the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations and Water4Fish. The move takes place as Westlands Water District, southern Calfornia water a...
Sacramento For Democracy - Feb 1 - 16 clicks
By Just A Guy Editors note: Just A Guy was recently released from a California prison, where he wrote regular reports for us. He continues to comment on prison and criminal-justice issues. You can read his most recent post here. So it’s finally happening: The early releases are to begin very soon, and the furor of public officials trying to protect their collective asses by decrying ...
SFBG Politics Blog - Feb 1 - 5 clicks
By Nima Maghame As supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage await closing arguments and a verdict in the federal lawsui t challenging Prop. 8’s legality, California State Senator Mark Leno has introduced a new bill that protects clergy who don’t want to perform marriage ceremonies that conflict with their beliefs. “We so often heard from members of clergy that if Prop. 8 doesn't pas...
SFBG Politics Blog - Feb 1 - 8 clicks
By Steven T. Jones Critical Mass photo by Tim Daw . San Francisco Police Chief George Gascón said Friday that he has ordered a review of policies related to Critical Mass, offering veiled threats of an impending crackdown to the unpermitted monthly mass bike ride. As SFPD learned from a 1997 crackdown, that won’t work, and will more likely make the event even more popular and provocat...
SFBG Politics Blog - Feb 1 - 3 clicks
Freshman member of Congress, Jackie Speier, confirmed she is contemplating a run for attorney general in California. The buzz that Speier, a freshman congresswoman and 20-year veteran of the state Legislature, was weighing a run was first reported by The San Francisco Chronicle's Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross and confirmed by Speier at [...]...
Matt Ortega - Feb 1 - 5 clicks
To those who know her best, Carly Fiorina just isn't U.S. Senate material. The political action committee for Hewlett Packard donated the $10,000 maximum to Barbara Boxer's re-election campaign. The chaser: HP's PAC didn't donate a single dime to Fiorina. It is a stunning (second) rejection of Fiorina's leadership. Similarly, Chuck DeVore received $2,400 from the granddaughter [...]...
Matt Ortega - Feb 1 - 4 clicks
