Yee Campaign Releases Real Ed Lee Exposé

October 31, 2011 | 5 Comments

Produced and published by the campaign to elect Senator Leland Yee to Room 200, the 55-page paperback is intended to erode public support for Lee by serving as a hard-hitting counterpoint to a gushing 132-page unauthorized Lee biography entitled, “The Ed Lee Story: An Unexpected Mayor,” penned and produced by political consultant Enrique Pearce and financed by an independent expenditure committee supporting Lee.

Modest Proposal for Occupy Wall Street

October 29, 2011 | 8 Comments

Occupy Wall Street and its local offsprings might consider intervening in political campaigns. Presidential primaries will begin early next year, with the Republican National Convention on August 27 and the Democratic National convention on September 1. Occupy Wall Street might consider dogging these presidential primaries, House and Senate campaigns, and conventions, to demand the candidates address America’s income inequities and corporate greed. What if at every campaign stop, a political candidate was confronted by Occupy Wall Street members demanding what the candidate was going to do about reigning in Wall Street and about America’s income inequities? The confrontations would let candidates know that failure to address protestors’ concerns will have adverse consequences in future elections.

Alameda County Sheriff’s Deputy Suspected
in Lobbing Tear Gas at Protesters
Rendering Aid to Scott Olsen

October 28, 2011 | 2 Comments

Alameda County is the designated mutual aid coordinator for the Bay Area region and called in reinforcements from San Francisco and Santa Clara counties to assist the Oakland Police Department in controlling a peaceful protest turned restive following the early Tuesday morning dismantling of Occupy Oakland, a tent city erected two weeks ago outside Oakland City Hall.

National Writers Urge End
to Oakland “Crackdown on Free Speech”

October 27, 2011 | No Comments

Dear Mayor Jean Quan:

The violent crackdown on peaceful, nonviolent “Occupy Oakland” protesters by your city police department is an outrage and a disgrace. As writers, authors, editors, filmmakers and artists from across the country, we believe free speech and assembly are paramount to democracy. We urge you to cease the police crackdowns immediately, and stop trampling on protesters’ First Amendment rights. As Mayor, you are ultimately responsible for the actions of your police department, and by all accounts they have behaved shamefully—attacking, beating, and tear-gassing people who were assembled peaceably in nonviolent protest. Mayor Quan, let free speech and assembly have its day, and its night, and stop your police from these terrible and entirely unnecessary attacks. The country is watching. Let the protesters speak and assemble, and end the attacks—now.

Dark Cloud Hangs Over Lee Campaign

October 25, 2011 | 36 Comments

With hundreds of thousands of unregulated special interest dollars on the line, not to mention Lee’s reputation and poll numbers, Lee’s campaign announced Lt. Governor and former Mayor Gavin Newsom would be joining Lee to “make an announcement about Mayor Lee’s campaign” following a walk-thru at a tech startup in SOMA.

The press turned out in force, not to focus on Newsom’s late endorsement of Lee, but to question Lee about his involvement in the allegations of vote tampering by an independent group of campaign volunteers wearing Ed Lee for Mayor T-shirts in Chinatown on Friday, allegations first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, the Bay Citizen and the Epoch Times.

The reports allege Lee supporters working for SF Neighborhood Alliance for Ed Lee for Mayor 2011, the same independent expenditure committee that financed Lee’s unauthorized biography, “The Ed Lee Story: An Unexpected Mayor”, were actively engaging in vote tampering at makeshift polling tents erected in Chinatown on Friday at the intersection of Stockton and Pacific streets.

Behind the Protest Signs:
The Voices of Occupy San Francisco

October 21, 2011 | 6 Comments

The clarion call of “We are the 99 percent” has driven home a blaring message about what protesters argue is a host of inequalities — of wealth, income, education, housing, economic opportunity, political clout, access to decent food and healthcare, and much more. Some protesters want to see corporate economic and political power reined in and others call for capitalism to be reformed, transformed or replaced. Proposals include enforcing existing regulations on corporate finance, breaking up corporate bank chains, creating a city-run municipal bank or expanding off-the-grid barter economies and alternative currencies.

Bay Citizen Poll: The Mayor’s Race is Over, Ed Lee’s Your Next Mayor

October 17, 2011 | 76 Comments

That’s the takeaway message one gets a from the latest poll published by The Bay Citizen and the University of San Francisco in the early hours of Monday morning, the results of which has Lee winning after 9 rounds of ranked-choice ballot tabulations.

New Jersey-based Maximum Research, Inc conducted the poll of 551 likely registered voters between October 7 and October 13. The poll was commissioned and paid for by the BayCitizen at a cost of $10,000, confirmed newly minted BayCitizen managing editor Steve Fainaru.