Martin O’Malley, commissioner of the Social Security Administration, talks with Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) on September 11, 2024.
(Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
“The ultra-wealthy are avoiding nearly $2 trillion in taxes every 10 years,” said Sen. Ron Wyden. “That’s where we ought to go to start making progress.”
The Democratic chair of the Senate Finance Committee said during a hearing Wednesday that instead of tossing Social Security’s sacred guarantee “in the trash” by cutting benefits, lawmakers should crack down on mega-rich tax dodgers as a way to keep the New Deal program fully solvent for decades to come.
“The ultra-wealthy are avoiding nearly $2 trillion in taxes every 10 years,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said during a Senate Budget Committee hearing. “That is enough to keep Social Security whole till the end of this century.”
“That’s where we ought to go to start making progress,” Wyden added.
The senator’s remarks came during a hearing titled “Social Security Forever: Delivering Benefits and Protecting Retirement Security,” which featured testimony from Social Security Administration Commissioner Martin O’Malley and several expert witnesses.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who presided over the hearing, used his opening remarks to blast GOP proposals to raise the retirement age, a change he said would “especially hurt low-income retirees.”
Whitehouse, the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, acknowledged that some Republicans have pushed back on the notion that the GOP wants to cut Social Security benefits. But if Social Security benefit cuts “really are off the table,” the senator said, “that leaves only one other option to prevent insolvency: raise revenue.”
“There is no third option. And that means it’s time to get to work identifying smart, fair ways to raise revenue, fund the Social Security Trust Fund, and preserve and protect benefits,” Whitehouse continued. “Fortunately, there are solutions that would both extend Social Security solvency indefinitely with zero benefit cuts and make our tax system fairer, like my Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act.”
At today's @SenateBudget hearing, @SenWhitehouse slams Republican plans to slash $1.5 trillion from Social Security.
Whitehouse plans to strengthen Social Security by requiring the wealthy to pay their fair share! pic.twitter.com/nWRJt3hUWp
Wednesday’s hearing came in the heat of a presidential race in which Social Security has featured prominently, with Democrats warning that GOP nominee Donald Trump would push for deep benefit cuts if he’s elected to another White House term.
During Tuesday night’s debate, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris made the only mention of Social Security, vowing to protect the program that lifted 28 million people out of poverty last year.
Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said in a statement following the debate that while Harris reinforced “her commitment to Social Security and Medicare,” Trump “was mum on the topic.”
“At least when Trump has nothing to say, he cannot compound his many conflicting and confusing statements about Social Security and Medicare—from calling Social Security a ‘Ponzi scheme’ to saying he’s ‘open’ to ‘cutting entitlements’ and proposing to eliminate some of the taxes that fund Social Security,” said Richtman. “Tonight’s debate underlines the fundamental reality that one candidate in this race will truly protect Social Security and Medicare—and that is Kamala Harris.”
According to the latest trustees report, Social Security is positioned to fully pay all benefits and administrative costs until 2035 and is 90% funded for the next quarter century.
Progressive lawmakers and advocacy groups have argued for years that the best way to ensure Social Security’s long-term solvency is clear: make the wealthy pay their fair share into the program. Due to the payroll tax cap, millionaires stopped contributing to Social Security just 60 days into 2024.
“Warren Buffett stops paying into Social Security 30 seconds into the new year,” O’Malley said during his testimony at Wednesday’s Senate hearing, “and the people that clean these buildings pay in all through their paychecks.”
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Artillery shells in Sderot, Israel, on Oct. 9, 2023, labeled D528 — the US Department of Defense Identification Code for “white phosphorus-based munitions,” use of which Amnesty International said could be evidence of war crimes. Photo: Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu/Getty Images
WHEN KAMALA HARRISsat down with CNN’s Dana Bash last month, Bash asked a question: “Would you withhold some U.S. weapons shipments to Israel? That’s what a lot of people on the progressive left want you to do.”
Harris sidestepped the question, talked about a ceasefire, and ultimately said that she would not change course from the Biden administration’s policy of arming Israel as its war on Gaza enters its 11th month.
But polls of the American voting population show that she’s ignoring more than just the “progressive left”: A majority of voters support ending arms transfers to Israel, and support for an arms embargo is growing.
“The reality is that the public is far more in favor of stopping arms sales to Israel than opposed,” Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine/Israel Program at Arab Center Washington D.C., told The Intercept. He pointed to a June poll from CBS that showed 61 percent of all Americans said the U.S. should not send weapons to Israel, including 77 percent of Democrats and nearly 40 percent of Republicans.
Poll results have been consistent for months.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, a majority of Americans have expressed support for some form of restrictions on the U.S. sending weapons to Israel in repeated public surveys. Americans are even more overwhelmingly in favor of a ceasefire.
Among the most consistent string of polls on the issue of weapons transfers to Israel has come from CBS News, which partnered with YouGov to carry out its survey. About two weeks after the October 7 attacks by Hamas, as Israel’s bombardment had already killed more than 2,000 civilians in Gaza, a CBS poll of more than 1,800 Americans found that 52 percent of American adults said the U.S. should not send weapons to Israel. The totals included large majorities among both Democrats and independents, and 43 percent of Republicans.
In April, CBS News/YouGov asked the same question in a new poll and found that an even larger number of Americans (60 percent), including 68 percent of Democrats, said they felt the U.S. should not send arms to Israel. The poll was conducted days after an Israeli strike killed seven aid workers in a clearly marked World Central Kitchen convoy.
And in June, when more than 30,000 Palestinians were killed and as Israel continued its operations in Rafah where many of Gaza civilians had been sheltering, spurring the “All Eyes on Rafah” social media campaign, a third CBS News poll seemingly solidified Americans’ opposition to military aid to Israel with 61 percent of American adults calling for a halt on weapons transfers to Israel, including 77 percent of Democrats.
STOPPING ARMS TRANSFERS also polls highly in key swing states, according to recent polls.
A poll published this week by the libertarian think tank Cato Institute found that the majority of likely voters in some Rust Belt swing states are in favor of conditioning military aid to Israel or are against sending aid altogether. The tallies showed 61 percent in Wisconsin expressing support, along with 56 percent in Michigan and 51 percent in Pennsylvania.
Another poll from August, commissioned by the Institute for Middle Eastern Understanding Policy Project and conducted by YouGov, showed that a majority of voters in Pennsylvania (57 percent), and a significant share of voters in swing states Arizona (44 percent) and Georgia (34 percent), said they would more likely vote for Harris if the U.S. withholds arms to Israel.
An additional swing-state focused poll earlier this year, commissioned by Americans for Justice in Palestine Action and conducted by YouGov in May, also found 2 in 5 Democrats and independents in Wisconsin, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota said that an immediate and permanent ceasefire and conditioning of aid to Israel would make them more likely to vote for then-candidate Joe Biden.
“This is not a ‘progressive left’ issue — the vast majority of Democrats support ending arms sales to Israel,” Munayyer said. “This is a mainstream position, as I think it should be for any sensible person watching what is happening in Gaza, that we should not continue funding this, we should not continue supporting this.”
Despite the popularity of cutting Israel off from American weapons, the Biden administration has continued to pump billions in military aid, including thousands of 2,000-pound bombs, to Israel, approving a $20 billion weapons package just last month. His administration has ignored calls from Democratic senators to halt aid, as well as credible evidence of human rights violations committed by the Israeli military. Biden briefly halted transfer of munitions in May as Israel prepared for an offensive in Rafah where 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge, but later reversed his position after pressure from the pro-Israel lobby within the party. At the Democratic National Convention, party officials denied a main-stage speaker slot from more than 200 “Uncommitted” delegates and ceasefire delegates committed to Harris who are in favor of an arms embargo. Harris’s CNN interview seemingly dampened the cautious optimism of those who hoped for her to depart from her boss’s policies.
Even with the renewed energy from across the Democratic party since Biden dropped out of the race, Harris continues to be in a dead heat with former President Donald Trump. This week’s New York Times and Siena College national poll had 47 percent of likely voters supporting Harris, with Trump garnering 48. Both candidates are expected to be asked about their approach on the war in Gaza during Tuesday’s highly anticipated debate on ABC.
The most commonly cited U.S. law by proponents of an arms embargo has been the Leahy law, enacted in 1997, which prohibits the State Department from sending military aid to any foreign security force that is found to violate human rights law. Also, in March, a group of Democratic senators, including Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., cited the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, which prohibits military aid to countries that block humanitarian aid. They were responding to evidence and allegations that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet had been interrupting U.S. humanitarian aid from entering Gaza.
The polling data has accumulated for many months. A poll from left-wing think tank Data for Progress, showed in December that 63 percent of voters agreed that military aid should be conditioned on whether Israel meets the U.S. standard for human rights. In March, 52 percent of Americans said that Biden should halt weapons transfers to Israel, according to a poll by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
In June, another Data for Progress poll found that a majority of Americans (53 percent) supported withdrawing military aid from Israel if the country does not accept a ceasefire deal. Seventy percent of Democrats and 53 percent of swing voters supported the measure. The poll was conducted about one month after Netanyahu had rejected a ceasefire deal, even after Hamas had accepted its terms.
A poll of more than 2,000 Americans taken by the Arab American Institute in the period between the Republican and Democratic national conventions in late July and early August showed that support for Harris would grow from 44 to 49 percent if she were to suspend arms shipments and withhold diplomatic support for Israel until there was a ceasefire and withdrawal of forces from Gaza.
More recently, an August poll from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found that a majority (53 percent) of Americans, including 68 percent of Democrats, believe the U.S. should restrict military aid to Israel so it cannot use the aid in military operations against Palestinians. An earlier July poll from the Chicago-based think tank found that such support for restricting military aid was more favorable among people of color, including respondents who were Black, Hispanic, Asian, or Hawaiian/Pacific Islander. The August poll did however find that 60 percent of Americans would support military aid to Israel until the hostages taken by Hamas are freed.
SUPPORT FOR A CEASEFIRE was considered a controversial demand among U.S. lawmakers for months but has now become a regular talking point among Democratic leaders, though critics say it’s often used to deflect from U.S. responsibility for the ongoing war on Gaza. Since the beginning of the year, it has also been consistently popular among Americans. As early as January, an Associated Press poll found that half of Americans felt Israel had gone too far in its war, including 63 percent of Democrats.
The June Data for Progress poll showed the majority of Americans (64 percent) supported a permanent ceasefire deal and an Economist/YouGov poll in May found that same number in support of a ceasefire. The August Chicago Council on Global Affairs poll said the majority of Americans should pressure Israel into a ceasefire deal, with a plurality of respondents saying the U.S. should reduce arms shipments to do so.
A series of Gallup polls that showed Americans’ attitudes toward Israel’s military operations in Gaza also show a gradual progression toward disapproval for the war. While in November, 50 percent of Americans said they support Israel’s war in Gaza, among that total were 63 percent of Democrats who expressed disapproval. About four months later, Americans had shifted with the majority (55 percent) saying they disapproved of Israel’s operations, according to a March Gallup poll. Although a June Gallup poll showed disapproval dropping to 48 percent, opposition to the war stood firm among Democrats (77 percent) and independents (66 percent).
An outlier among polls that asked Americans about sending arms to Israel was a March survey from the Pew Research Center, which found that only 35 percent of Americans were opposed to military aid. However, the poll also showed a plurality of Democrats (44 percent) opposed military aid to Israel and a majority of liberals (54 percent).
Earlier this month, the United Kingdom broke from the U.S. and announced it would ban some of its weapons transfers to Israel. However, the number is minimal, suspending 30 of its 350 arms licenses. Other countries to suspend military support to Israel include Italy, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, and Spain, which also banned ships from carrying weapons to Israel from docking in its ports.
After Harris’s CNN interview, Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and former foreign policy adviser for Sanders, told The Intercept that the issue of restricting arms to Israel did not begin with October 7 but has been a popular move within the party for much longer.
“This is not new, this is not a radical departure — this is a consistent trend we’ve seen for years among Democratic voters,” Duss said.
And on the 2020 election night, J Street, a liberal Jewish lobbyist group, conducted a poll that showed 57 percent of American Jews would want to restrict military aid to ensure it cannot be spent on annexation. In 2021, J Street also backed a Democrat-backed bill that would have prevented aid to Israel to be used on human rights abuses of Palestinians, destruction of Palestinian property, or displacement of Palestinians from their land.
“I’m not saying everyone should just make their policy decisions based on what the polling says on any given date,” Duss said. “But this is a consistent trend, this is what Democrats clearly think.”Share
West Portal Avenue, one of the Westside’s main commercial corridors, looks very much like it did 70 years ago. A Muni line still runs through its center. The buildings are the same height as the facade of the Empire Theater, which operated on West Portal Avenue for some 96 years until 2021.
Housing production is slow: Between 2019 and 2023, only 37 of the city’s 16,822 new units were built in the Inner Sunset and Ingleside planning districts, 0.2 percent of the total. When city officials proposed redesigning a major West Portal Avenue intersection after the deadly crash in March that killed a family of four, merchants and others erupted in protest.
But the district is evolving, at least politically. Through the years, the area has generally elected more moderate supervisors. But, in 2012, residents elected a progressive when Norman Yee won by a slim margin. In 2020, Myrna Melgar replaced him, promising more housing, more density and more investment in public transit.
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The question now: Have enough residents become tired enough of change to oust the incumbent?
“The group of challengers mirrors the typical historical candidates that have represented the district,” said David Ho, a San Francisco political consultant, who led the campaign for Melgar’s predecessor, Yee, and was raised in District 7. Those previous supervisors, who were generally considered more moderate, include Sean Elsbernd, who is now Mayor London Breed’s chief of staff, and Tony Hall, who is retired.
Melgar’s opponents include Matt Boschetto, heir to a $830 million janitorial business and a political newcomer who has not voted in previous local elections, and Stephen Martin-Pinto, a firefighter and Marine veteran who was a registered Republican until 2023.
(From left) District 7 candidates Matt Boschetto, Stephen Martin-Pinto and Myrna Melgar. Photo by Xueer Lu, June 27, 2024.
While they might seem unlikely to unseat an incumbent, it’s not impossible: Melgar, like Yee before her, won in 2020 “by a hair,” said Ho. She received 18,561 votes, compared to 16,370 for her opponent, Joel Engardio; Engardio actually won more first-place votes, but Melgar beat him in subsequent rounds.
Melgar will have to overcome the same challenge once again, Ho said, pointing to a staunch moderate base which has partly helped Boschetto outraise her by $89,464.
“Myrna has her work cut out for her,” Ho added.
But so do her opponents.
It is very difficult to oust an incumbent, particularly one without a tarnished record or scandal while in office: Engardio was the first San Francisco supervisor in two decades to do this when he ran in District 4 in 2022. (Engardio, whose home was redistricted into District 4 along with three moderate-voting precincts, beat out then-Supervisor Gordon Mar by 460 votes.)
Boschetto “can say a lot of things about Myrna, but I don’t think he can say she’s incompetent or corrupt,” said Jim Ross, a veteran political consultant and Gavin Newsom’s former campaign strategist. The question for Melgar’s chief opponent is: “Why should he replace Myrna?”
Boschetto and Martin-Pinto have tried to criticize her for past comments, like a 2020 statement about needing to “disband the police,” but Melgar has since hewn more closely to her constituents: Last year, Melgar supported a $25 million bill to secure more funding for police-officer overtime, and in a weekly Q&A with Mission Local, Melgar said she supports increasing police staffing levels.
When it comes to similar bread-and-butter issues, Melgar has been able to appeal to her suburban voting base. “A lot of that district connects more to the peninsula than it does to the rest of San Francisco culturally, socially — politically, even,” said Ross. “They go to the Westlake Joe’s, not the Joe’s in North Beach.”
Melgar, who was born in El Salvador and moved to San Francisco as a child, has leaned into the duality of her district’s voters, finding allies across the political spectrum: From Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin to Mayor London Breed, and from groups including the San Francisco Tenants Union and San Francisco YIMBY.
Mayor London Breed speaks at Myrna Melgar’s re-election campaign launch. July 27, 2024. Photo by Kelly Waldron.
Her experience has given her credibility. A graduate of San Francisco State University, which is in District 7, Melgar moved to Ingleside Terraces in 2011. She is an urban planner by training and, before becoming supervisor, sat on the Planning Commission for nearly four years.
Even Melgar’s staff is a political mixed bag. Her team includes legislative aide Emma Heiken, a member who was elected as part of the moderate SF Dems for Change slate to the Democratic County Central Committee, and Jen Low, a progressive and Norman Yee’s former chief of staff.
John Whitehurst, the political consultant who works for Melgar, said people try to characterize Melgar as either a progressive or a moderate. “I just say she’s Myrna,” he said.
“Her politics, overall, reflect that of the district,” said Eric Jaye, another campaign strategist in San Francisco. He added that Melgar has generally done well as a supervisor, and has not had any major hiccups nor given voters a reason to turn her out.
Hot-button election issues
Instead, Boschetto and Martin-Pinto have taken a stance against Melgar on what might appear to be innocuous proposals — and have found traction by escalating the discord surrounding them.
One is the proposed renovation outside the West Portal Muni Station. In April, Melgar, along with Breed, requested that the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency reorganize traffic flows in front of the station, shortly after a driver crashed through the adjacent bus stop, killing an entire family of four —Diego Cardoso de Oliveira, Matilde Moncada Ramos Pinto, Joaquin Ramos Pinto de Oliveira and Cauê Ramos Pinto de Oliveira.
The proposal sparked backlash from local merchants, and Martin-Pinto and Boschetto immediately sided with the merchants, who felt they had been blindsided, and spoke out against the changes. In a candidate forum hosted by Mission Local, Boschetto said that if he could make one bold or unpopular decision, he would stop the traffic proposals from happening. Ultimately, Melgar created a task force to review the proposal and a reduced version was approved.
Likewise, both Boschetto and Martin-Pinto have opposed Proposition K, a measure co-sponsored by Melgar to permanently close the Upper Great Highway to vehicles. As with the traffic changes in West Portal, the proposal has created backlash among some residents.
“It’s more of a gotcha issue,” said Ho, who added that it is one that largely doesn’t impact District 7 residents, who don’t all live within the vicinity of the Great Highway. Still, he said, “It’s smart to capitalize on a hot-button issue.”
Indeed, Boschetto is doing just that. He and his family have contributed $65,000 to a ballot measure committee he controls called “Great Highway for All, a Matt Boschetto Committee.” The PAC in his name allows him to run on a wedge issue, but also to fundraise outside city campaign contribution limits and prominently feature himself in campaign material.
In a more general sense, Ho added, Boschetto is appealing to the idea of “everything seems to be changing now, can we go back to the old days?”
A slowly changing district
For most of District 7, those good old days never left. The area is, geographically, the largest supervisorial district in San Francisco, and covers a broad swath of the Westside: From the Inner Sunset down to West Portal and along 19th Avenue to Stonestown and Parkmerced.
Much of its housing stock is San Francisco versions of Levittown: Planned communities of low-density areas zoned for single-family homes. The district has more homeowners than renters, and more than half of its homes are occupied by their owners; in the city overall, that number is about a third of homes, according to the campaign data firm Political Data.
In June, Melgar said of a group of neighbors who were decrying new development that they were “not her people.”
After redistricting in 2022, the Inner sunset became part of District 7. Photo by Junyao Yang.
That tenor may serve her well come November: While District 7 has leaned more moderate than other parts of the city in the past, the redistricting of 2022 redrew the area’s boundaries, giving the district more progressive pockets. Namely the Inner Sunset, which was previously part of District 5, was grafted into District 7.
Even with that expanded base and the advantage of being the incumbent, however, consultants cautioned that her main difficulty may be the general political environment, locally and nationally.
“Voters are concerned that City Hall is not listening to them,” said Jaye, the campaign strategist. Polling shows San Franciscans think the city has been on the wrong track for going on two decades.
“Every incumbent is swimming against the tide,” Jaye added.
Whitehurst, Melgar’s consultant, agreed that is a challenge, as well as the fact that many in the district still aren’t open to change: “People want the date and time to stop when they arrive in San Francisco,” he said.
“The reality is that things always change,” he added.
Kelly is Irish and French and grew up in Dublin and Luxembourg. She studied Geography at McGill University and worked at a remote sensing company in Montreal, making maps and analyzing methane data, before turning to journalism. She recently graduated from the Data Journalism program at Columbia Journalism School.More by Kelly Waldron
Kamala Harris won huge plaudits for her debate performance last night although she avoided answering many of the direct questions and gave no indication how she would address the two most pressing issues of the day, climate change and economic inequality.
The New York Times (“Harris dominates,”) The Washington Post (“resounding win“), The UK Guardian (“Republicans dismayed“)and all of the talking heads on TV—including some folks on Fox News—agreed that Harris won the debate and that Trump’s performance was somewhere between dismal and embarrassing.
Harris got plaudits for her performance, but there were key issues that nobody addressed.
Harris did accomplish a key task: She looked in command, competent, and presidential. Trump looked as bad as he ever has in this type of setting.
Most polls showed overwhelmingly positive response by voters including swing voters.
Harris put Trump way on the defensive on abortion rights, which will be a key issue in November.
I get that progressive voters in California, New York, Oregon Washington, and Massachusetts don’t matter. Those states are going for Harris no matter what.
I get that western Pennsylvania is a key swing area, and a lot of the economy depends on oil and gas.
But voters in Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, Florida, Georgia, and Pennsylvania are worried about the cost of living, the cost of housing, the cost of education, the cost of health care … and they could be key to the election.
The inflation rate is coming down, and Biden and Harris can claim some victory on that, but there’s still a lot of anger and resentment about people who lack a college degree and can barely make ends meet.
Offering them a $25,000 down payment on a house may sound good, but in most of the country, that’s 10 percent of a $250,000 house, and there aren’t that many houses that cheap, and you still have to qualify for and pay a mortgage.
You want those swing voters, it seems to me you have to talk about some of the issues Sen. Bernie Sanders talked about when he won some of those states in the Democratic primaries.
And if Harris gets into office and does nothing about economic inequality, she’s going to be a one-term president—and more important, the nation is going to more divided, and the economy will become less and less stable.
And if she does nothing serious about climate change, fires and heatwaves will continue killing people, and crops will fail, and the globe will hurtle even faster toward catastrophe.
Tim Redmond has been a political and investigative reporter in San Francisco for more than 30 years. He spent much of that time as executive editor of the Bay Guardian. He is the founder of 48hills.
On April 15, Bay Area people of conscience staged a protest on the Golden Gate Bridge to demand an immediate ceasefire and an end to US military aid to Israel. 26 individuals were arrested and held in jail for days, where they faced discriminatory treatment.
Now, they are facing felony and misdemeanor charges for their civil disobedience.
District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, who just recently failed in her prosecution of a similar case in the Bay Bridge 78, has filed a series of trumped up charges against them, including:
-Felony conspiracy and
-38 counts of false imprisonment per person.
– Her prosecutorial overreach includes not only these charges, but the request of warrants to investigate their cell phones, and then re-arrest warrants once she announced the charges in August.
While the genocide in Palestine rages on, the District Attorney’s office is wasting public funds to harshly punish people of conscience for speaking out. The Golden Gate 26 are caught in the crosshairs of DA Jenkins’ heightened efforts to criminalize the very act of protest itself.
The #GoldenGate26 are part of a long lineage of people in the Bay Area and beyond who have used civil disobedience to help bend the arc of history toward justice. DA Jenkins has the power to drop the charges against all protestors and stand on the right side of history: against genocide, and with the Palestinian people.
TAKE ACTION! Tell DA Jenkins to DROP THE CHARGES AGAINST the GOLDEN GATE 26
CONTACT @BrookeJenkins_SF: (628) 652-4000
– You don’t have to leave your last name when calling.
Sample call script:
Hi, my name is _____________ , resident of [San Francisco County, if applicable]. [Optional: State the name of your organization (if any), any ties or relationships to the Golden Gate 26.]
I’m calling to demand DA Jenkins to drop ALL the charges against all of the Golden Gate bridge ceasefire protestors. San Francisco residents widely support the international call for a ceasefire, as well as the April 15 civil disobedience on the Golden Gate bridge: we do not support our tax dollars being used for genocide OR the repression of local protest movements.
If DA Jenkins moves forward with this, it could cost the city tens of thousands of dollars per hearing. This is an unacceptable waste of public resources. I will be watching this case closely, as will thousands of SF residents, and again urge you to drop the charges immediately.
SEND EMAIL PETITON:
DA Jenkins – Drop the Charges Against Golden Gate 26
Copy/pasted below my name at the bottom is Dr. Vladimir Kozin’s latest report, Report # 318. Breaking news: THE KREMLIN DECLARED THAT IT WOULD REGARD DIRECT NATO WAR AGAINST RUSSIA for September 12.
The highlighting is his.
Dr. Kozin is a Moscow-based Russian military expert and researcher who publishes these reports.
[Note from JK: The verdict is in! (a different one than Omali Yeshitela’s book titled THE VERDICT IS IN). Starting @10:04, Mutaqee Akbar, one of the members of the legal team, explains the split verdict: NOT GUILTY of working as foreign agents and GUILTY of conspiracy to work as a foreign agent, and where this goes from there.]
[Note from JK: Wow! SB nails it. Kind of another way to describe karma.]
~ Janet
o>><<>>o<<>><<o
BEGIN KOZIN REPORT
o>><<<<<<<<><><><><><>o<><><><><><>>>>>>>><<o
Report # 318. Breaking news: THE KREMLIN DECLARED THAT IT WOULD REGARD DIRECT NATO WAR AGAINST RUSSIA
September 12, 2024
In the evening on September 12, 2024 Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly said that:
“Direct participation [of Western countries in the conflict in Ukraine] – this already significantly changes the very essence, the very nature of the conflict. This will mean that NATO countries, the United States, European countries are fighting with Russia,” the president announced. “And if this is so, then bearing in mind the change in the very essence of this conflict, we will make appropriate decisions based on the threats that will be created for us,” he warned. It would be a direct war against Russia launched by the USA and NATO, Putin stressed.
The statement has been circulated by TASS News Agency around 7.40 PM Moscow time.
It is the toughest and strongest statement made by the Russian leader in response to the USA and NATO decision to supply ultra-Nazi Kiev regime with long-range deadly weapons with pin-point accuracy supplemented by the permission to use them freely against densely populated areas deep inside continental Russia that are internationally recognized.
Many experts believe that it would really mean the direct war unleashed by the USA and NATO against Russia, and would be considered as the beginning of the WWIII.
More Russian politicians and military experts demand to enhance existing Russian nuclear strategy with stronger provisions and to provide the head of state with more options to use nuclear weapons against the attackers and providers of long-range deadly weapons to be used against Russia. There is an opinion that it makes no difference between who supplies such weapons and who will use them against Russian people. Both actors are killers, people insist.
Almost all citizens of Russia are very angry that Ukraine, the USA and NATO as a whole are persistently killing many Russians like Nazi Germany in 1941-1945 under prefabricated pretext that Russia was the first one who attacked Ukraine in February 2022. It is a gross lie. It was Ukraine who first began all-out war against Donbass since April 14, 2014, and later has proliferated it against Russia with more than $200 billion military and financial aid provided by NATO, and largely by current mentally weak U.S. leader.
“We, Russians will not forget the human losses we have suffered in these two aggressive wars against us”, Russian citizens underscore.
Kamala Harris needs to make an affirmative case for her climate policy, rather than accepting Trump’s framing.
SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to union workers during a campaign event at Northwestern High School in Detroit, on September 2.
Donald Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, have claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris is an extreme liberal who wants to ban fracking and cares more about climate change than the economy. There’s a good chance Trump will repeat this attack in the presidential debate on Tuesday. So far Harris has responded by saying, no, as president she would not ban fracking. She has also argued that climate action is good for the economy. On CNN last week, she pointed to her tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, President Biden’s signature climate legislation, as an action that has both increased leases for fracking and helped create record numbers of new clean-energy jobs.
But this is a very weak campaign message. As the cognitive scientist and political strategist George Lakoff notes, repeating your opponent’s language in order to deny it only reinforces their frame for the debate. Every time Harris says that she will not ban fracking, she keeps the idea of banning fracking in voters’ minds. And citing job statistics that don’t directly address voters’ top concern about prices is a missed opportunity. Harris should tie climate and energy not just to increased job opportunities but to her campaign themes of lowering prices, preserving freedoms, and leading America into a better future.
Instead of getting baited into a he said, she said dispute about a fracking ban, Harris should simply say that she’s for “freedom of energy choice.” Citing research showing that solar power is the cheapest energy in history, and will likely be free almost everywhere by 2030, Harris should say that she supports Americans being able to choose to save money with clean energy. This statement ties climate policy to inflation issues for voters who already have jobs but also frames climate action as a form of freedom.
If Trump claims that climate policy is making energy prices rise, Harris should point to research showing that other factors, including the growth of data centers and artificial intelligence, are straining the grid and driving up electricity rates. She should then repeat that this is why we need freedom of energy choice. Harris can also bait Trump by reminding Americans that energy prices rose after his friend Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, spiking the cost of crude oil and methane gas. Taunting Trump about Putin will likely push him off message, triggering him to say something alienating or aggressive that will turn off voters worried about his emotional instability.
Of course, Harris should not shy away from saying that freedom of energy choice leads to economic growth. She should certainly celebrate the jobs created by the climate investments she has already supported: over 330,000 jobs so far, primarily in Georgia, Texas, Michigan, and Nevada. And she should tell voters that this job creation has bipartisan support, highlighting a letter written by 18 Republican House members urging Speaker Mike Johnson not to repeal IRA, because its tax credits have “spurred innovation, incentivized investment, and created good jobs in many parts of the country—including many districts represented by members of our conference.”
When Trump falsely claims that Harris and Biden have imposed an electric vehicle mandate, here too Harris can employ the strategy of invoking freedom and the future. Harris should not repeat her opponent’s frame by denying that the Biden administration imposed any mandate. Rather she should simply redirect the conversation by saying that she reasonably supports air pollution standards. Describing pictures from the 1970s of choking smog in American cities, Harris can say we need to keep American technology moving forward so that we can enjoy freedom not only from “the pollution that is fueling the climate crisis,” as she noted in her convention speech, but also from the pollution that causes hundreds of thousands of deaths in the United States every year, according to some estimates. Many of those killed each year by pollution-related lung infections are children.
And, again, she should tie this freedom from pollution to America’s leadership in the industries of the future. The vice president should speak of her pride in being endorsed by the United Autoworkers Union, which has called for a “a whole of government approach to ensure the next generation of vehicles are made in the United States.” Trump wants to keep us in the past, behind our competitors in Europe and China; that’s bad for America, she should say. We want to be at the forefront of next-generation automotive innovation.
Finally, Harris should tie Trump’s desire to take America backward to the threat of climate change itself. Harris already mocks Trump for calling climate change “a hoax.” She should do this in the debate too—and she should link his climate denial to his narcissistic self-interest, suggesting he doesn’t care about young people or the future. Eighty percent of young voters prefer a presidential candidate who prioritizes climate, and fully half of these young voters say that failing to prioritize climate is a “deal breaker.”
Harris need not fear that calling Trump out for his climate denial might alienate older voters. The center-right think tank the Cato Institute recently found that a majority of Americans in all demographics ranked climate change right after inflation, health care, jobs, and immigration as one of their top three issues of concern—even above taxes, guns, national security, or abortion. Trump likes to claim that concern about climate change is a far-left trait. But Harris should not cede the point, because it’s not true.
In contrast to Trump’s extremist and selfish climate denial, Harris must include climate in her fight to preserve America as a nation of endless possibilities, where we protect the futures of the children we love. The Republicans like to pretend that they’re the family party. Well, Harris must say, you can’t be the family party without caring about the future. In the end, this values-based message, appealing to Americans’ love for the children they work so hard to launch into the world, will do more than any wonky statistic to win voters’ support.
Genevieve Guenther is an author and founding director of End Climate Silence. Her next book, The Language of Climate Politics, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.
by Randy Shaw on September 9, 2024 (BeyondChron.org)
Ten Years for Mayor Breed?
San Francisco’s mayor’s race really comes down to one big question: does San Francisco need new leadership for the next four years or does the current mayor deserve more time to address the city’s problems?
The election is fundamentally a referendum on Mayor London Breed. After six years in office, should she be granted another four or make way for new leadership?
San Francisco suffers from downtown office, retail and residential vacancies, citywide public safety concerns, street homelessness, a longtime housing affordability crisis, neighborhood declines, open air drug markets and drug use and a disappointing convention business.
Let’s break down the mayor’s performance on these core issues.
Downtown’s Decline
San Francisco has a higher downtown office vacancy rate than other cities. Critics blame Mayor Breed for not doing more to respond to the post-Covid downtown downturn.
Is that fair? It’s not clear to me that Breed’s rivals have more effective strategies for revitalizing downtown. Are businesses not renting downtown office space because the mayor has allowed the city’s reputation for safety to decline? Or is the core problem that San Francisco has a higher percentage of those seeking to remain stay-at-home workers than other cities?
Downtown’s emptiness has become a symbol of the city’s failure to effectively reboot post-Covid. Many people feel less safe walking around downtown. But downtown’s revival likely depends far more on private sector investment decisions than on who is mayor.
Citywide Public Safety
The main reason Mayor Breed could lose this election is that she has kept a failed police chief in office throughout her mayoralty. I elaborated on this last week (“Market Street Meltdown,” September 3)
Crime statistics are down. But those statistics have never included drug dealing or illegal public drug use.
These are the problems that trouble many.
Crime statistics also do not reflect people feeling there’s no point calling in crimes. Do believers in crime stats really think people take the trouble to call 311 when they see open air drug markets on Market Street? Or drug sales and use in the Tenderloin or SOMA?
Asian-American seniors feel vulnerable to assaults and crime. They don’t care what the statistics say.
I called for Chief Scott’s firing in February 2022 (“Mayor Breed Must Replace Chief Scott,” February 28, 2022). The reason? Mayor Breed had declared a Tenderloin Emergency that the chief simply ignored. After Scott refused to dispatch additional officers to meet the mayor’s nationally publicized “emergency” his tenure should have ended.
The mayor has kept Scott despite his failure to permanently close drug markets. His eight years vastly exceeds the standard chief tenure. Rivals talk about a lack of accountability in her administration; Chief Scott personifies this.
The mayor’s use of street ambassadors like Urban Alchemy has been positive. But Urban Alchemy has not expanded to more drug market hot spots out of concern for its workers safety. Chief Scott never figured out how to allocate police officers to best leverage the group’s services.
Mark Farrell and Daniel Lurie are heavily campaigning on the lack of public safety. The mayor remains very vulnerable on that issue, which tops voter concerns.
The mayor’s appointment of District Attorney Brooke Jenkins was her most positive move to improve safety. Jenkins has taken major steps to help rebuild public confidence in the criminal justice system.
Street Homelessness
Every San Francisco mayor gets criticized for their response to homelessness. It’s a no-win issue.
Mayor Breed used a 50% state match to purchase buildings for the unhoused. This shift from leasing to owning hotels was strongly backed by the Coalition on Homelessness, but over 1000 more supportive housing units would have been created if the same funds were applied to leasing rather than purchase.
The mayor has had trouble getting HSH to fill vacancies in the city’s permanent supportive housing supply. The vacancy situation has improved but years went by with several hundred vacancies while thousands remained unhoused.
The mayor maintains a non-congregate shelter policy that actually encourages street homelessness. How? By offering unlimited stays and free meals in hotels with private bathrooms to drug tourists arriving in the city.
Why should these visitors to San Francisco pay rent when they can live for free with meals in a hotel with private bathrooms? This destructive homeless policy promotes drug markets and creates incentives for people to remain homeless.
The mayor also provides millions of dollars through the Department of Public Health to encourage drug use among the unhoused. J.J. Smith has provided videos on this on social media. The mayor has spoken out strongly against DPH’s harm reduction strategy but continues to fund it.
I praised the mayor for funding the city’s first permanent drug-free housing site. But the $3.7 million allocated for that purpose in 2023-24 was never spent. Now the mayor has backed off from ensuring drug-free tenants get permanent housing and has issued an RFP for either transitional or permanent.
Only permanent housing gives tenants a home. And allocating funds to transitional housing would leave San Francisco without any permanent drug-free supportive housing.
Big-city mayors have never been given sufficient federal resources to meaningfully reduce homelessness. Mayor Breed has invested millions in new funding but voters angry about homelessness are unlikely to support her.
Housing Affordability
London Breed may well be the nation’s most outspoken YIMBY mayor. She has adopted nearly every policy pushed by the YIMBY movement. But here’s the problem: very little housing got built during her tenure.
It’s not the mayor’s fault that interest rates stayed high and construction materials skyrocketed. Nor is she to blame for the scarce supply of available single-family homes for sale driving up prices.
Pro-housing advocates see the mayor as a champion. But it’s not clear how many voters will back Breed based on her housing record.
Declining Tourism/Conventions
Convention hotel stays in San Francisco are down 50%. This while convention business in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and other cities has rebounded.
Covid showed how impactful the tourist industry is citywide. Conventions go beyond benefiting large hotels. They also boost hotels, retail stores, restaurants and entertainment venues throughout San Francisco. As well as the workers in all these establishments.
Is Mayor Breed to blame for declining convention attendance? I don’t think there is conclusive evidence either way. Hoteliers tell me that San Francisco’s reputation for public drug activities has hurt convention business. When I tell people while traveling that I work in San Francisco they respond, “What happened to your city”?
Social media may exaggerate San Francisco’s problems. We can denounce a “doom loop.” But ultimately people don’t feel as comfortable visiting San Francisco as they once did.
Voters will decide whether the election of a new mayor will improve perceptions of the city.
Improving Troubled Neighborhoods
The Tenderloin, Mid-Market, and parts of SOMA and the Mission are in a much worse place since Covid began. The first two neighborhoods were making major progress until Covid; their positive momentum has not returned.
The mayor has promoted entertainment zones and other positive measures. But what’s missing is a transformative economic revival strategy for any of these troubled neighborhoods. Voters may ask: why has the current mayor not already implemented such plans? Why have residents of the Tenderloin and Mission felt compelled to sue the city for not delivering equal protection?
Who Runs the City?
Breed backers often blame the Board of Supervisors for the city’s problems. Mayor Breed has promoted this view, which makes great political sense given polls showing the Board is unpopular.
But during the administrations of Art Agnos, Willie Brown, Gavin Newsom and Ed Lee one rarely if ever heard the mayor claim a lack of power. Mayors had conflicts with Boards of Supervisors. But they always made it clear who had the upper hand.
Does anyone think a Mayor Willie Brown in 2024 would be thwarted by supervisors? Brown used to regularly dine with Aaron Peskin. He knew how to get things done. Ed Lee made a point of building positive relationships on the Board. Lee also got a huge amount done.
London Breed has had the same power to impact San Francisco as prior mayors. Voters will soon decide whether she has earned four more years.
Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s latest book is Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. He is the author of four prior books on activism, including The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century. He is also the author of The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco
by Randy Shaw on September 9, 2024 (BeyondChron.org)
Making Housing Affordability a Top Priority
Kamala Harris would be the first president who has served as a local elected official in a major city. Although the Democratic Party’s base lies in major cities, its presidents have not previously served as local officials in these areas.
Barack Obama was never part of Chicago city government. FDR was never a local New York City official. Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter forged their political careers outside major urban centers.
Harris’s urban background clearly matters. Particularly on housing.
Promoting Affordable Housing
For far too long affordable housing has been wrongly treated as solely a local issue.
I was awarded Project Censored‘s 9th Most Censored Story of 2000-2001 for an article I wrote on how all of the major presidential campaigns in 2000 ignored the nation’s housing crisis.
I could have written the same story with the candidates in every presidential election until 2024. Housing was highlighted during the foreclosure crisis of 2008 but the nation’s affordable rental housing crisis remained off the radar.
Housing affordability persists as a “local” issue despite the 1949 Federal Housing Act. It mandates the federal government provide affordable housing for all Americans.
Harris’s political career was shaped around affordable housing. One cannot serve as District Attorney of San Francisco, Attorney General of California, and U.S. Senator from California without regularly confronting the affordable housing crisis.
Harris has a campaign ad describing her family’s experience as her mother struggled to buy a house. She says “I know what homeownership means, and sadly right now it is out of reach for far too many Americans.”
What does Harris talk most about in recounting her experience as Attorney General? Her renegotiation of the foreclosure settlement. Housing activists pushed for Harris’s tougher stance toward the banks and she got it done.
During her political career Harris lived in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Housing affordability and homelessness are top issues in both areas.
National Housing Policies
Democratic Presidents have a disappointing record on addressing housing affordability.
Bill Clinton was the first Democratic President after Ronald Reagan slashed the federal housing budget in 1981. Clinton responded to Reagan driving rising homelessness and underfunding public housing with a Hope VI program that eliminated 100,000 public housing units. San Francisco was one of the few if not the only city that implemented Hope VI—which modernized the nation’s public housing stock at the cost of demolishing housing—without reducing public housing units.
Barack Obama increased housing funding but not enough to make a noticeable difference.
Clinton and Obama only controlled Congress for two years before anti-housing Republican majorities took control. But neither president spent political capital on increasing housing funding.
Joe Biden did spend the capital. Taking office without talking much about housing during the 2020 campaign, Biden backed the most significant increase in federal affordable housing funding in modern United States history. President Biden’s original Build Back Better strategy would have added $213 billion in new affordable housing funding (See “Can Biden End Homelessness?,” April 6. 2021). It failed to get any Republican support and was then killed by Senator Manchin.
That bill should be the starting point for a Harris Administration
Harris’s Urban Agenda
Harris’s plan for the feds to help build 3 million new homes is the type of measure the Democratic Party should have prioritized years ago. And one reason this didn’t happen beyond the lack of urbanist priorities from Democratic Presidents is the criticism that followed Harris’s proposal.
Many are committed to stopping new housing and preventing new federally-backed housing subsidies. They reject Harris’s recognition that housing construction is an economic issue, driving jobs and local economies.
Should she win in November housing and tenant advocates will have to mobilize to ensure Harris gets her housing program through. Many are already calling Harris a YIMBY. Her housing platform offers a great opportunity for YIMBY’s and low-income tenant advocates to work together.
Has any major party presidential candidate before Harris pledged to “take on corporate landlords and cap unfair rent increases.”? I don’t recall it. Prior presidential candidates acted like tenant affordability was not part of their campaign. I see Harris’s commitment as directly related to Harris’s living in high-rent urban areas.
Some people in these high housing cost areas were not excited by Harris’s other major platform: $25,000 downpayment assistance. People argued that it won’t help much in high housing cost cities.
But $25,000 means a lot for families in the more affordable housing markets across the nation. The plan will increase neighborhood economic and racial diversity, and remind families how federal housing policies can positively impact their lives.
The Boston Globe ran a powerful story on the housing affordability crisis in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It’s among many cities where $25,000 downpayment assistance would make a big difference.
Donald Trump’s housing plan is centered on reducing demand by deporting ten million immigrants. He also pledges to cut construction regulations and to reduce mortgage interest rates to 3% (interest rates are set by the Federal Reserve, not the President). As President, Trump did not promote increasing federal rental housing subsidies.
We will soon find out which housing strategy prevails.
Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s latest book is Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. He is the author of four prior books on activism, including The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century. He is also the author of The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco
Intro Empathy Café: Find out how to listen to others and how it feels to speak without interruption or fear of interruption. Meet people from around the world. Mondays at 10 a.m. Pacific time. Zoom Room: https://zoom.us/j/9896109339 How-To: Basic Empathy Circle In a Circle of 3 to 5 Participants 1. The first... Continue reading →
True to Blue IN-PERSON Phone Bank for VA, OH, and CA: Saturday, September 23 (and every Saturday), 10:00–12:00 PM at 541 Castro Street. Join an in-person phone bank with the Bay Area Coalition to make calls to voters in key states for critical elections in 2023 and 2024. RSVP here.
THE SAN FRANCISCO PEOPLE’S DEBATE FOR MAYOR 2024 Hear from the candidates for San Francisco Mayor you haven’t heard from ASK THE CANDIDATES A QUESTION ↓ Who? ALL MAYORAL CANDIDATES ARE INVITED TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS When? EVERY SATURDAY 1 PM – 3 PM UNTIL ELECTION DAY NOVEMBER 5, 2024 Where? THE... Continue reading →
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GA is away. Come back next week for a say. Sun will shine – make hay. Down to Earth it came. Safely to New Mexico. Without its humans. Delayed: Trump’s sentence. Pure babble: Trump’s sentences. Probe: Trump sentient? So they will debate. Sound bites and cacophony. Broadcasted bombast. Darth Cheney... Continue reading →
We’re sending the Pissed Off Voter Guide to the printer shortly and we need your help to make it rain voter guides all over this city! Come through to our September meeting and find out how you can be a part of it! September Monthly Meeting Join us on Sunday, September 15th from... Continue reading →
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Intro Empathy Café: Find out how to listen to others and how it feels to speak without interruption or fear of interruption. Meet people from around the world. Mondays at 10 a.m. Pacific time. Zoom Room: https://zoom.us/j/9896109339 How-To: Basic Empathy Circle In a Circle of 3 to 5 Participants 1. The first... Continue reading10:00 am True to Blue IN-PERSON Phone Ban... @ 541 Castro StreetTrue to Blue IN-PERSON Phone Ban... @ 541 Castro StreetSep 14 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pmTrue to Blue IN-PERSON Phone Bank for VA, OH, and CA: Saturday, September 23 (and every Saturday), 10:00–12:00 PM at 541 Castro Street. Join an in-person phone bank with the Bay Area Coalition to make calls to voters in key states for critical elections in 2023 and 2024. RSVP here.1:00 pm PEOPLE’S DEBATE FOR SF MAYOR 2024 @ THE HIDALGO MONUMENT ATOP MISSION DOLORES PARKPEOPLE’S DEBATE FOR SF MAYOR 2024 @ THE HIDALGO MONUMENT ATOP MISSION DOLORES PARKSep 14 @ 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm
THE SAN FRANCISCO PEOPLE’S DEBATE FOR MAYOR 2024 Hear from the candidates for San Francisco Mayor you haven’t heard from ASK THE CANDIDATES A QUESTION ↓ Who? ALL MAYORAL CANDIDATES ARE INVITED TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS When? EVERY SATURDAY 1 PM – 3 PM UNTIL ELECTION DAY NOVEMBER 5, 2024 Where? THE... Continue readingSep15Sun3:00 pm Call 4 ChangeCall 4 ChangeSep 15 @ 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm
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Phone Bank Force Calls Virtual Phone Bank Time Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays 6:30 – 9pm EST Location Virtual event Join from anywhere About this event Sign up to make calls with the Our Revolution Phone Bank force. The calls can be for candidates or issues! Get involved in... Continue reading4:00 pm Online GA (General Assembly) @ Online via ZoomOnline GA (General Assembly) @ Online via ZoomSep 15 @ 4:00 pm – 5:00 pmGA is away. Come back next week for a say. Sun will shine – make hay. Down to Earth it came. Safely to New Mexico. Without its humans. Delayed: Trump’s sentence. Pure babble: Trump’s sentences. Probe: Trump sentient? So they will debate. Sound bites and cacophony. Broadcasted bombast. Darth Cheney... Continue reading4:00 pm SF League of Pissed Off Voters @ RSVPSF League of Pissed Off Voters @ RSVPSep 15 @ 4:00 pm – 6:00 pmWe’re sending the Pissed Off Voter Guide to the printer shortly and we need your help to make it rain voter guides all over this city! Come through to our September meeting and find out how you can be a part of it! September Monthly Meeting Join us on Sunday, September 15th from... Continue readingSep16Mon3:30 pm Our Revolution Phone Bank Force! @ Sign upOur Revolution Phone Bank Force! @ Sign upSep 16 @ 3:30 pm – 6:00 pm