San Francisco Bay Guardian

I like Darrell Steinberg's idea: The people protesting cuts in education should sign on to the oil-severance tax bill, and then force the Republicans to decide whether they want to protect the oil companies or fund public education.Read more »

The Guardian is joining the Northern California ACLU and the Asian Law Caucus in seeking records of the FBI’s investigation of Muslim communities.

We’re asking the federal government to turn over documents related to the FBI’s use of informants and infiltrators (reportedly used in gyms, community centers and mosques, investigations of Muslim leaders and imams in Northern California and attempts to recruit Muslim and Arab American children.

From a press release announcing our FOIA request:Read more »

Story and photos by Jobert Poblete

I thought I was keeping a safe distance, observing Day of Action protesters as they went onto Interstate 880 to block traffic rather than participating, until a line of riot cops came barreling towards where I stood by the side of a freeway offramp. But my flight instinct took over, and I found myself running along northbound 880 with my notebook and pen still in my hands. What had been an impressive but otherwise peaceful protest was taking a surreal turn. But maybe I should start from the beginning.

As a recent UC Berkeley grad, I had been on campus many times in the last few months, invited by friends to support the occupations and protests that were fueling an extraordinary movement to defend public education. So I was excited to go out on March 4^th to cover the Day of Action in the East Bay. This was a new experience for me. Like any good Berkeley grad, I've participated in my share of protests, but now I was a Bay Guardian news intern and this was the first time I was going out as a reporter.

Read more »

Gavin Newsom's got a plan: He's going to stop those damn district-elected progressives from appoining a new mayor even if it takes some wacky legal footwork. According to the Chron's Matier and Ross:

For the past two weeks, Newsom's political team has been combing the state Constitution to determine if the mayor, assuming he's elected statewide, could legally push back his Jan. 3 swearing-in for the new job until after Jan. 8.Read more »

One of the things that irritates people most about Mayor Gavin Newsom is his Orwellian doublespeak, in which he makes claims that conflict with his actions, and that was on vivid display with his recent decision to lay off 15,000 city workers and then hire most of them back for shorter workweeks.Read more »