By G.W. Schulz

If top-promoted San Francisco Examiner columnist Ken Garcia was a graffiti artist, his moniker might be “Myopia,” or perhaps, “Screed.”

He often serves as a bullhorn for the city’s conservative and wealthy elite. I should state for the record that there are times when I feel he’s genuinely insightful and informative. He can occasionally present a complex issue in a way that’s relatively easy to digest; a challenge every reporter struggles with.

But when he becomes rhetorical and stretches a theme or idea in order to attack the city’s “wacky” Board of Supervisors, I grow uncomfortable. In a July 25 piece, he managed to connect the phrase “social crusade” to the board amid a disjointed analysis of a settlement the city had arranged with a particularly aggressive 20-year-old graffiti artist named Carlos Romero.

Casey Mills in beyond Chron has a nice little tidbit on how Gavin Newsom's press release endorsing the little-known Rob Black for District Six supervisor conveniently omits any mention of the Tenderloin.

By Tim Redmond

Now here's a brilliant idea: The Pentagon could subcontract the invasion of Iran and Syria to the Candians.

By Steven T. Jones
Just when San Francisco starts setting an example on justice for workers, the evil corporate bastards in DC or Sacto find ways to knock us back a few notches. Have you caught the debate over the legislation to increase the federal minimum wage? This thing is a poison pill mess that will do more harm than good. Well, as the Examiner discovered the other day, it also has particularly heinous impacts on San Francisco and other states and cities that have their own minimum wage standards, striking them down in favor of the paltry fed minimum (which, for tipped employees would actually drop to the downright criminal level of just a couple bucks an hour). I was over at the Young Workers United office yesterday (they rent space for the Hotel and Restaurant Workers Union Local 2), which was all abuzz with concern about this. And they say even the usually greedy and anti-worker Golden Gate Restaurant Association is opposed to this. Yes, it's just that bad.

By Steven T. Jones
It was good to see the Sentinel today amplifying our story about how the mayor's office gave us seven contested e-mails that Sup. Chris Daly has been trying to get for months. But Pat Murphy is a bit off mark to imply that Daly got snubbed or that our obtaining the documents was anything more than solid reporting work by reporter Amanda Witherell (who confronted the mayor on a Saturday with facts that supported the release of the documents, an action that he then ordered). The mayor's office told us Daly would also be receiving the e-mails. For his part, Daly was happy about our successful efforts to pry loose the docs, calling it "a great victory for sunshine in San Francisco." He also told me, "It was always unclear to me, unless the administration was trying to cover something up, why they were unwilling to release the e-mail, whether or not they were compelled to do so under the Sunshine Ordinance." And it turns out the e-mails do show an effort by the Mayor's Office of Communications to bury news of Newsom's veto of an eviction notification measure, who was so popular that voters approved it as Prop. B in June.

Fear not, ghouls and goblins. You're still welcome in the Castro, at least one day a year. That's right: Halloween's back on. We got the word Wednesday night while we were celebrating all that is the Best of the Bay. Check out our Guardian's San Francisco blog-all-about-it, and the Examiner ran a bit on it today as well. Sharpen your fangs, only three months away!

By Tim Redmond

John Conyers, ranking minority member on the house judiciary committee, has released a massive report detailing a long list of violations of law by the Bush Administration, from the Downing St. Memo to Iraq war coverups to assaults on civil liberties at home. It clocks in at more than 350 pages, but it's great stuff. You can download it here

By G.W. Schulz

I cracked open the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday genuinely excited to read it. I like going to the local section first, even if local sections across the country are seeing fewer and fewer available column inches; the Bay Area, and indeed, California, happen to be places that produce interesting local news.

What I found was hardly fulfilling.

By G.W. Schulz

As jaded as it sounds, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to be surprised when news accounts surface yet again of U.S. soldiers terrorizing civilians in Iraq, or anywhere else for that matter. We’re told they’re isolated incidents. We’re told they were initiated by twisted individuals.

That’s what we heard after My Lai. That’s what we heard after Abu Ghraib. And that’s what we’ll hear if four soldiers from the B Company, 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment are found guilty of raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl in Iraq.

By G.W. Schulz

Remember that "isolated" incident we discussed below? Uh, yeah. My Lai returns.

By Sarah Phelan
News that former San Francisco Sup. Sue Bierman died Monday afternoon after her car crashed into a dumpster in the Cole Valley, got the current supervisors sharing memories of her at the August 8 Board of Supes meeting.
Sup. Gerardo Sandoval said "volumes could be written about the accomplishments" of this woman, who was "probably a grandmother/sister figure to many of us."
Sup. Aaron Peskin called her "an incredible person, an FDR-type Democrat," who was behind the demolition of the old Embarcadero freeway."Said Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, "she was a hero in so many battles in San Francisco..most recently, when we were trying to bring attention to excessive, disproportionate closure of schools, Sue Bierman and her daughter were on the front line. She was very disarming, but very strong. I will miss her dearly."
Sup. Sean Elsbernd acknowledged that "should she and I have served on the board together, we would have had a few disagreements. I'll miss her look."
Sup. Tom Ammiano recalled how,"When Carole Migden put on lipstick, Sue would follow, You knew something was going to happen, as if a secret handhske was involved...I don't know if there's a highway to heaven, but thanks to Sue it ain't a freeway."
Sup. Dufty remembered how she had a lot of influence over Mayor Willie Brown. "If you heard him cussing at Sue, you knew she'd won one over him."
Sup. Alioto-Pier, noting how she and Bierman often did not agree when they were both on the Port Commission said, "She very eloquently told you, she was very forceful, she was always the first person to call, it was dismaying to hear her voice on the machine, saying, "michela," in a shaky voice.
Sup. Daly said she was the champion of young adults--and renters.
'She understood what made San Francisco great."
And Gloria Young, clerk of the board, recalled trying to get Bierman, who served on the board from 1992-2000, to vacate her office at noon on the day she was termed out, so to tidy up before the new supe [Peskin] arrived.
"Absolutely not," bierman is said to have said. "I'll be working until the end of the day, It's immportant to acknowledge thew constituents who put us in office."
"And she left me with a big stack of books," added Peskin. "They're still on the shelf."

By Sarah Phelan
The San Francisco Board of Supes Rules Committee voted 2-1 to send a resolution opposing federal meddling in local police investigations and calling for support of California's reporter's shield law, as well as support of similar bills at the federal level that are currently working their way through Congress.

By Steven T. Jones
Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin helped engineer the placement of some solid progressive measures on the fall ballot yesterday -- and unsuccessfully tried to derail one that would give sick days to all SF workers. The Golden Gate Restaurant Association had been trying to weaken the measure with fewer sick days (five, rising to 10 after an employee works three years in the same job, which few in this category of worker do) and exemption of part-time employees (which, again, is most workers who don't get sick days). Measure advocates say they were willing to compromise a little on the former request, but not the latter. So Peskin at the last minute not only said he won't support the measure (after advocates say his aides said he probably would), but he also convinced Sup. Sophie Maxwell to pull her support, even though she'd already signed on the dotted line. That might have left advocates without the four supervisors needed to place the measure on the ballot, but they convinced Sup. Jake McGoldrick to lend his support. But in the end, election law requires all sponsoring supervisors to agree to let a colleague withdraw, and since Sup. Tom Ammiano couldn't be found as the 5 p.m. deadline neared, the measure ended up going to the ballot with supervisors Chris Daly, Ross Mirkarimi, Ammiano and Maxwell as sponsors.
So what happened here? Well, it's more than meets the eye.

Things improved at the Chronicle with yesterday's weekend edition, compared to some of the fluff that graced its pages last week.

Congrats to cops-and-crime reporter Jaxon Van Derbeken for snagging the story on an out-of-control snitch named Marvin Jeffery Jr. that the San Francisco Police Department used to arrest a suspect in the 2004 shooting death of Officer Isaac Espinoza. An identity-theft master, Jeffery was repeatedly released from jail in exchange for information he’d provided to the department. And each time, he went right back to formulating fraudulent monetary schemes making somewhere around $3 million in the process. Now the department is not sure where he is.

By Sarah Phelan

Sixty-six took out papers. Forty-one filed, meaning that over one-third of the potential candidates in local races in the Nov. 7 election, bailed before the train even left the station.

So who’s in the running?

On the Board of Supes front, there are five races.
District 2 incumbent Michela Alioto-Pier, who has not accepted the voluntary expenditure ceiling and does not intend to participate in the public financing program, faces one lone challenger: business management consultant Vilma Guinto Peoro, who has accepted a voluntary expenditure ceiling and intends to participate in the pubic financing program.

In District 4, seven candidates are vying to fill the vacancy Sup. Fiona Ma created as Democratic nominee for Assembly District 12, (where she is running against the Green’s Barry Hermanson.) Mayor Gavin Newsom has endorsed Doug Chan, who lent his name to PG&E’s anti-Prop. D campaign, has not accepted voluntary expenditure ceiling and does not intend to participate in public financing campaign. Chan, who also got Ma’s endorsement and has served on the San Francisco Police Commission, Board of Permit Appeals, the Rent Board and the Assessment Appeals Board, has promised to return SFPD to its legally-required numbers (it currently operates 15 percent below voter-mandated leval), and upgrade policies, practices and technology, and would likely become the establishment conservative on the Board,

Other contenders are business consultant Ron Dudum, who lost against Ma in 2002 and against then Sup. Leland Yee in 2000, anti-tax advocate Edmund Jew, who would also be popular with the district’s conservative base, and San Francisco Immigrant Rights Commissioner and Fiona Ma-supporter Houston Zheng, David Ferguson, Patrick Maguire and Jaynry Mak, though Neither Maguire nor Mak, who has already raised $100,000, had filed papers as of Aug. 11, perhaps because District 4 has a Aug. 16 filing extension, thanks to departing incumbent Ma.

District 6 incumbent Chris Daly, who has accepted voluntary expenditure ceiling and intends to participate in public financing campaign, appears to face the biggest fight—at least in terms of numbers, with seven challengers hoping to fill his shoes. Of these Mayor Gavin Newsom has portrayed former Michela Alioto-Pier aide Rob Black, who has accepted voluntary expenditure ceiling and intends to participate in public financing campaign, as “the best contender to lessen divisiveness in the district.”
Fellow challengers are Mathew Drake, Viliam Dugoviv, Manuel Jimenez , Davy Jones, Robert Jordan and George Dias.

District 8 incumbent Bevan Dufty faces stiff opposition from local resident and Oakland deputy city attorney Alix Rosenthal, who was instrumental in turning around the city’s Elections Department, has worked on turning the former Okaland Army Base over to the Redevelopment Agency and has helped rebuild the National Women’s Political Caucus. Rosenthal, who is running on a platform of affordable housing, sustainability and violence prevention, also wants to keep SF weird.

In District 10, Incumbent Sophie Maxwell, who says a November ballot measure opposing the Bayview Redvelopment Plan is based on fear and unfairness, has five challengers: Rodney Hampton Jr., Marie Harrison, Espanola Jackson. Dwayne Jusino, and former Willie Brown crony Charlie Walker. Of these, the most serious are Harrison, helped shut down the Hunter’s Point PG&E plant and has worked for decades to fight all the pollution that’s being dumped on southeast residents, and Espanola Jackson, who has fought for welfare rights, affordable housing, seniors and the Muwekma Ohlone.
In other races, Phil Ting runs unopposed as Assessor-Recorder.
18 challengers are fighting over three seats on the Board of Education, one of which is occupied by incumbent Dan Kelly, and six candidates are vying for three seats on the Community College Board, one of which is occupied by incumbent John Rizzo.

By Sarah Phelan
A memorial will be held for Sue Bierman on Sunday, Sept. 3, 2-4pm at Delancey St, 600 Embarcadero.
News that former San Francisco Sup. Sue Bierman died on the afternoon of Monday August 7 after her car crashed into a dumpster in the Cole Valley, got the current supervisors sharing memories of her at the August 8 Board of Supes meeting.
Sup. Gerardo Sandoval said "volumes could be written about the accomplishments" of this woman, who was "probably a grandmother/sister figure to many of us."
Sup. Aaron Peskin called her "an incredible person, an FDR-type Democrat," who was behind the demolition of the old Embarcadero freeway."Said Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, "she was a hero in so many battles in San Francisco..most recently, when we were trying to bring attention to excessive, disproportionate closure of schools, Sue Bierman and her daughter were on the front line. She was very disarming, but very strong. I will miss her dearly."
Sup. Sean Elsbernd acknowledged that "should she and I have served on the board together, we would have had a few disagreements. I'll miss her look."
Sup. Tom Ammiano recalled how,"When Carole Migden put on lipstick, Sue would follow, You knew something was going to happen, as if a secret handhske was involved...I don't know if there's a highway to heaven, but thanks to Sue it ain't a freeway."
Sup. Dufty remembered how she had a lot of influence over Mayor Willie Brown. "If you heard him cussing at Sue, you knew she'd won one over him."
Sup. Alioto-Pier, noting how she and Bierman often did not agree when they were both on the Port Commission said, "She very eloquently told you, she was very forceful, she was always the first person to call, it was dismaying to hear her voice on the machine, saying, "michela," in a shaky voice.
Sup. Daly said she was the champion of young adults--and renters.
'She understood what made San Francisco great."
And Gloria Young, clerk of the board, recalled trying to get Bierman, who served on the board from 1992-2000, to vacate her office at noon on the day she was termed out, so to tidy up before the new supe [Peskin] arrived.
"Absolutely not," bierman is said to have said. "I'll be working until the end of the day, It's immportant to acknowledge thew constituents who put us in office."
"And she left me with a big stack of books," added Peskin. "They're still on the shelf."

By Steven T. Jones
Mayor Gavin Newsom and his administration are so intent on following through with their promise to deliver free wireless Internet to SF residents that they've basically dispensed with seeking input from the public or Board of Supervisors, locked into private and protracted negotiations with Google and Earthlink, and simply decided not to do the board-approved study of Sup. Tom Ammiano's plan for a municipal broadband system. The unilateral, secretive approach has driven journalists and activists nuts. But there is an opportunity tonight at 6 p.m. to weigh in during a hastily called and little noticed hearing before the Department of Telecom and Info Services. Media Alliance has been raising hell over the issue and this week the group is releasing a study showing that the city could make $2 million per year with a municipal Internet system, as opposed to going with Newsom's so-called "free" system, which wouldn't make the city any money and would subject citizens to targetted advertising. The tradeoff might be worth it, but there are still too many unknown details to know that, so show up this evening to talk about it.

The City Attorney’s Office announced today that it’s suing one of San Francisco’s biggest landlords, Skyline Realty, aka CitiApartments.

Some of you may remember our three-part series on the company, published in March, in which current and former rent-controlled tenants claimed either in lawsuits or during interviews that they were victims of a patterned attempt to oust them from their apartments.

G.W. Schulz

The state Dems staged a media event yesterday as part of their ongoing attempts to link incumbent Schwarzenegger to the Bush White House. A commentator from CSU Sacramento called it a flawed strategy, and he’s right to the extent that campaigns shouldn't be filled with everything but healthy political discourse.

Asking for a clean fight, however, is a bunch of wide-eyed, quixotic bullshit.

By Sarah Phelan

An amicus brief filed this week in support of jailed freelance reporter Josh Wolf argues that federal common law already recognizes a reporter's privilege, that it should be applied to Wolf's grand jury case, and that before a journalist be compelled to divulge unpublished material in response to a subpoena, the requesting party must demonstrate "a sufficiently compelling need for the journalist's materials to overcome the privilege."
'At a minimum, that requires a showing that the information sought is not obstainbable form another source," argues the brief, which points out that , "it appears that the US Attorney has not even attempted to make a showing that alternative sources have even been consulted, let alone exhausted, or that Mr. Wolf's videotape is unique. As the district court repeatedly pointed out, the events Mr. Wolf filmed took place on a public street and the published portions of his video show numerous participants and onlookers, (some with cameras) and dozens of police officers."
Observing that, " the record reveals a veritable treasure trove of alternative sources, including possible eye witnesses from law enforcement," the brief concludes that, "The government seems to want Mr. Wolf's video not because it is the only source of information about what happened to the police car, but because it speculates that it might be the best and most convenient source of information."
The full text of the amicus brief which was filed by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the national Society for Professional Journalists, the WIW Freedom to Write Fund, and the California First Amendment Coalition can be viewed at http://www.cfac.org
P.S.! A fund-raiser for Josh Wolf happens this Saturday, Aug. 19, 7 to 9:30 p.m., at Dance Mission, 3316 24th st., San Francisco. Free Admission, donations appreciated. Entertainers include Diamond Dave Whitaker of Enemy
Combatant Radio and musician John Staedler. Chuck Gonzalez is the DJ.
Speakers include Josh's mother, Elizabeth Wolf-Spada; Wolf's uncle Harland Harrison, Libertarian candidate for Congress from San Mateo County;Krissy Keefer, Green Party candidate for Congress from San Francisco's east side, and Rick Knee of the National Writers Union. Or consider donating online at http://joshwolf.net/grandjury/donate.html

By Steven T. Jones
We knew that SFSOS and other front groups that shill for downtown and right-wing interests would go hard after Sup. Chris Daly, but even we were surprised at the shrill and misleading hit piece "The Case Against Daly," penned by Ryan Chamberlin, a former Republican political operative from the Midwest who did dirty tricks work for the Newsom campaign before becoming the errand boy and protege for SFSOS head Wade Randlett. And it was carried by the San Francisco Sentinel's Pat Murphy, who is unapologetic about aggressively trying to oust Daly, although he claims it's some kind of principled stand against incivility instead of the fact that downtown front groups make up the lion's share of his advertising (and therefore get full access to publish their screeds without abiding those pesky journalistic standards like fairness and accuracy -- such as the recent Committee on Jobs anti-government screed).
According to Chamberlin, Daly is bad because he is too hard on developers and because they're supporting him, he isn't nice enough to his political enemies, there are supposedly too many potholes in Dist. 6, he supports housing for the rich and the poor but not the middle class (despite Daly strengthening the inclusionary housing ordinance, which creates housing specifically for median income families), and that "he is manipulative and domineering."
And Chamberlin ought to know a little something about being manipulative, seeming to have no sense of either fair political play, logical arguments, or the campaign finance laws that govern producing documents like this.
"Any reasonable citizen reading this collection should find that each of its contents truly stands on its own merits," Chamberlin wrote. And on this point we agreed. This piece of garbage truly stands on its merits, or lack thereof. I don't want to get into a point-by-point refutation of this thing, but if you read it and see any points that seem irrefutable to you, drop me and e-mail (steve@sfbg.com) and I'll address them.

By Tim Redmond

The Democratic County Central Committee can sometimes be a zoo, but it's no joke: The endorsement of the panel gives tremendous credibility to local candidates and issues, since it represents the official position of the San Francisco Democratic Party. The Aug. 21st meeting was particularly crazy; Zak Szymanski has a good report in the BAR on the committee's almost non-endorsement of Community College Board member Lawrence Wong, who got blasted for appearing at a hotel that was under union boycott. That's a problem for any politician -- and although Wong apologized over and over again, the labor follks on the committee were having none of it.

In the end, Wong squeaked to an endorsement, which is wrong: There's a long list of reasons not to support Wong (starting with his support for the smelly deal that shifted bond money from a performing arts center to a new gym that will be used in part by a private school nearby).

And it was wrong -- and a kind of sorry statement about the local party -- that the DCCC refused to oppose Prop. 83, a tough-on-crime initiative that's aimed at sexual predators -- but has all kinds of problems, the way these things often do. San Francisco Sheriff Mike Hennesey is against it, saying it will cost a fortune for new jails; so is Assembly Member Mark Leno, who says it will drive ex-cons into rural areas, away from services -- making them more likely to get into further trouble.

The problem is that the state Democratic Party has endorsed it, fearing that the measure will be a wedge issue in swing districts, where moderate Democrats are facing Republicans -- and where Phil Angellides needs to be able to beat Arnold. Some local DCCC members were wary of bucking the state party.

That's embarassing: San Francisco isn't Stockton, and our local Democrats should be able to stand up to these dumb crime bills. The DCCC ducked, but thanks to Robert Haaland, the committee will vote again in September.

And check this out: The DCCC refused to back longtime incumbent School Board member Dan Kelly. Labor opposed him, and he lost. The unions are pissed about contract problems with the teachers and staff; I'm pissed at Kelly for his unwavering support of former Supt. Arlene Ackerman. Either way, it's pretty dramatic for the DCCC to snub an incumbent Democrat like that.

By Tim Redmond

Chris Bowers offers a pretty detailed analysis on the state of the battle for control of the House at MyDD.com. Hard to read without my glasses on, but worth checking out as the campaign continues.

By Tim Redmond

You learn something new every day. I just learned from The Philadelphia Inquirer that fuck has been part of the English language for more than 1,000 years.

I guess they worry about those sorts of things in Philly.

by Amanda Witherell

This week Wal-Mart cranked up the PR knob with a new bout of ads touting the company's social worth with the gloss of a dirty politician trying to spin some positive image. According to The New York Times the spots make a point of the $2,300 an average family saves shopping at Wal-Mart and paint Sam Walton as a red-knuckled entrepreneur of yesteryear.

Unfortunately, that image in no way resembles the $312.4 billion, Fortune 500 corporation of today.