A View From The Brink ... the beach is backwards

Republican Party suckles at the breast of Big Business

 

 

David Horsey of the Los Angeles Times newspaper opines that if money is the mother’s milk of politics, then America’s big corporations are Big Mama and Big Baby is the Republican Party suckling at the enormous bosom of business. Democrats, meanwhile, are abandoned brats scrounging for nourishment wherever they can find it.

During the long decades the Democrats held a solid majority in Congress, campaign donations from the corporate world were spread around among incumbents in both parties – not evenly, but at least the D's got their share. Since the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 1994, however, corporate dollars have increasingly flowed in one direction.

This happened, in part, because Republican leaders like Tom “The Hammer” DeLay instituted a program to punish corporate lobbyists who were too bipartisan with their donations. Even more significantly, the evolution of the GOP into a militantly anti-tax and anti-regulation party has made Republican policy goals and the political aims of big corporations indistinguishable. 

Now, in 2012, the discrepancy in campaign contributions is stark. Where once big business favored the GOP by 2 to 1, a survey by the Center for Responsive Politics has found Republicans enjoying a 7-1 advantage in some sectors. Energy companies, in particular, are giving heavily to Republican candidates, but so are financial institutions, insurance companies, real estate firms and agribusiness.

In addition to direct contributions, corporate givers -- unleashed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling allowing unlimited contributions to independent political action committees – are dumping massive amounts of money into conservative "super PACs." And those super PACs are certainly not coming to the aid of any Democrats. 

Even as an incumbent, President Obama is having a tough time attracting corporate dollars. Hedge fund managers who gave big to his campaign in 2008 are putting their political investments elsewhere in 2012. He may have saved Wall Street from its own excesses and provided the bailouts that allowed the financial moguls to hold on to their fortunes, but they are not showing Obama any gratitude. They would prefer to have one of their own, Mitt Romney, in the White House.

Go here for the full article at the Los Angeles Times newspaper's website   --->>>

San Francisco union sends members to picket Fresh & Easy market

 

(Originally published in the April, 2012, issue of the Richmond Review newspaper, a community news source serving the Richmond District of San Francisco.) 

 

By Thomas K. Pendergast

 

People living around the Lincoln Park and Seacliff neighborhoods of San Francisco have probably noticed a few picket signs in front of the new Fresh & Easy market at Clement Street and 32nd Avenue. 

The store has about 25 employees and none of them belong to a union, which the United Food and Commercial Worker's Union (UFCW) Local 648 takes issue with. The union represents retail clerks throughout the City in stores like Safeway, Luckys and Mollie Stone's.

According to a flyer handed out on the picket line, the union is asking the public to boycott the store. It says Fresh & Easy's parent company, the United Kingdom's Tesco, "is pulling money out of our community, state and country. It's bad enough that good American jobs are being outsourced to other countries, but now this global giant from the U.K. is taking advantage of American workers."

 

Go here for the full story at the Richmond Review newspaper's website   --->>>

San Francisco mayor optimistic despite $482 million deficit

 

(Originally published in the May, 2012, issue of the Sunset Beacon newspaper, a community news source serving the Richmond District of San Francisco.) 

 

By Thomas K. Pendergast

 

Despite a projected $482 million deficit over the next two years, city officials told people at a recent Town Hall Meeting at the San Francisco Zoo that the city's budget situation is improving compared to the last few years.

The City recently switched from using an annual budget to a bi-annual budgeting process. This coming fiscal year the deficit is expected to be about $170 million, while next year it is projected to be almost twice as much, at $312 million. 

Nevertheless, revenues are up this year to $6.8 billion, the most the City has ever taken in. 

Cindy Czerwin, a budget analyst in the city Controller's Office, said about half of the City's $6.8 billion in revenues are from dedicated sources that can only be used for certain expenses. This leaves the other half, about $3.4 billion, for everyone else tethered to city coffers.

"We are seeing some amount of recovery in our economics this year, which is really exciting and a very different story than we've dealt with the last few years. We're no longer in a downturn. We're actually seeing our revenues improve," said Czerwin. "However, our expenses are really increasing faster than our revenue stream. It's as if we were to get a small boost in our paychecks and then go home to get letters from our landlords with an increase in rent; letters from our health insurance company telling us that our health insurance premiums are going up; going to the gas station and knowing that the price of gas is rising. It's more than eating up that little boost in the paycheck that you're getting."

 

Go here for the full story on the website of the Sunset Beacon newspaper   --->>>

Alaska's governor pulls oil taxes from special session

 

Reaction from lawmakers ranges from disappointment to elation

Lisa Demer of the Anchorage Daily News newspaper reported that Gov. Sean Parnell made an abrupt reversal that astonished legislators Wednesday evening, when he said that he was abandoning his top priority for the special session -- big oil tax cuts -- because he saw no hope of getting a bill through the Legislature.

His decision came on the eighth day of the 30-day session and leaves only a bill for a natural gas pipeline, a priority of House Speaker Mike Chenault, on the legislative agenda. Lawmakers already passed one bill in the special session related to sex trafficking.

House Democrats were elated. Chenault took the about-face in stride. Senators were perturbed.

The governor blamed the state Senate as unwilling to dramatically cut taxes to boost declining oil production, but some senators said the governor called it off when there was still hope of compromise.

"It was way too early to pull the plug," said Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, the influential co-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee who had pronounced the governor's proposal "nonsensical."

 

 

Go here for the full story on the Anchorage Daily News website   --->>>

Protesters air grievances at Wells Fargo meeting

 

Carolyn Jones, Vivian Ho, Jill Tucker and Kevin Fagan of the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper reported that protesters enraged about the country's economic miasma disrupted Wells Fargo's annual summit Tuesday, as shareholders celebrated the bank's record profit and awarded its chief executive a pay package of nearly $20 million.

Hundreds of activists - including union members, Occupy activists and people whose homes have been foreclosed - surrounded the Merchants Exchange Building in downtown San Francisco, where about 250 shareholders gathered on the 15th floor to hear details of the bank's 28 percent profit increase last year.

Shareholders meetings are seldom tense affairs, but people attending this one had to pass through metal detectors and several layers of security. Afterward, San Francisco police ordered them to stay inside the chandelier-laden Julia Morgan Ballroom for 45 minutes as protesters outside dispersed.

Fifteen protesters, allowed into the meeting because they own stock in Wells Fargo, shouted over CEO John Stumpf as he presented a PowerPoint slide show about the bank's $15.9 billion profit last year.

Police escorted out the protesters, who were cited for disrupting the meeting and released.

 

Go here for the full story on SFGate.com   --->>>

Happy 4/20!

 

 

Photographs by Thomas K. Pendergast

 

April 20, 2012 @ 4:20 p.m., Pacific Time, on "Hippy Hill" in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. Every year there is a gathering of a certain tribe, to celebrate a certain plant. There are many rumors as to why they do this. Nobody really knows for sure. Who can remember? They apparently don't much care either.

 

Go here for the full photo essay   --->>>

 

 

Task Force Backs Off District 7 Land Grab

 

(Originally published in the April, 2012, issue of the Sunset Beacon newspaper, a community news source serving the Richmond District of San Francisco.)

 

By Thomas K. Pendergast

 

A proposal to slice a significant chunk from District 7 and stitch it onto District 4 died in March, although one member of San Francisco's Redistricting Task Force thinks the idea might make like a zombie and rise again sometime before April 15, when the task force is expected to submit its final plan.

On March 12, a proposed map of new district lines being considered by the task force put the Lakeshore Acres and Merced Manor neighborhoods of District 7 into District 4.

During a meeting at the West Portal Elementary School, a who's who of past presidents from the West of Twin Peaks Central Council and other neighborhood organizations showed up to oppose the plan.

"They've been part of District Seven for a long time, in fact, really since the neighborhoods were built, they have been part of the West of Twin Peaks Central Council, which is an organization of 20 neighborhoods," said Matt Chamberlain, the current president of the West of Twin Peaks Central Council. "Most of the neighborhoods, from the top of Twin Peaks down towards the west, were built as planned developments. Many of them have little pillars in the front where they'll have the name of the neighborhood on them. 

"We have so much in common with those two neighborhoods, the other 18 that make up West of Twin Peaks Central Council, I would strongly urge you to consider keeping those together with the rest of the West of Twin Peaks Central Council organization."

At a meeting on March 22, however, it did not go unnoticed that the map displaying the proposed merger of Lakeshore Acres and Merced Manor with District 4 had been removed from immediate consideration by the task force. 

"I just want to thank you all for listening to our comments in the last several meetings about how important it is for Lakeshore and the Merced Manor group to be retained in District Seven," said Nancy Crowley, a resident of Lakeshore Acres. "We're very pleased that your current map reflects this and we hope that going forward it will continue to reflect this."

Task force member David Pilpel admitted that the proposal was no longer on the table for debate, although with the caveat that it could come up again before they are done.

"I wouldn't conclude anything right now. It's still a draft working map," said Pilpel. "(Task force members) were apparently persuaded by the testimony from District Seven residents, including those in the West of Twin Peaks Central Council, to keep those neighborhood organizations in District Seven."

 

Go here for the full story on the Sunset Beacon newspaper website   --->>>

Advisory board in disarray after member's firing

 

(Originally published in the April, 2012, issue of the Richmond Review newspaper, a community news source serving the Richmond District of San Francisco.)

 

by Thomas K. Pendergast

 

Was it something Christopher Rillo said? Was it the way he said it? Why did the Richmond Police Station's new captain dismiss the attorney, making him the first member of the three-year-old, all-volunteer Community Police Advisory Board (CPAB) to be removed?

The San Francisco Police Department's (SFPD) deputy chief will not give a specific reason, but he says the department stands behind Capt. Eric Vintero's decision to dismiss Rillo. Vintero began serving as captain of the station this year.

Now, five CPAB members who demanded an explanation for the removal have resigned in protest, while four others are confirmed to be remaining on the board.

There are more questions raised by Vintero's actions: Was the alleged offending behavior at a Jan. 17 community meeting at the Richmond police station? Was his dismissal really because he filed an appeal opposing the Entertainment Commission's decision to allow a Jack-in-the-Box restaurant to stay open until 4 a.m.? Was it his behavior at the Board of Appeals, in February, after they upheld the commission's decision?

Vintero did not respond to requests for comment.

According to the minutes of the CPAB meeting on March 13 - taken by the board member Edmund Lee - the board's chairman, David Lee, broached the subject of Rillo's dismissal and Vintero answered "because of his belligerent behavior during a community meeting on Jan. 17, where Supervisor Mar felt intimidated."

The minutes also show that board member Sue Fry was concerned that if members of the board were not informed as to what Rillo did, which was considered serious enough to warrant him being removed, "how would we know if we might do something that would also cause us to be removed in the future?"

Fry was the first to send the SFPD her letter of resignation. She says she does not understand why Vintero would dismiss Rillo.

"We were stunned," Fry recalls. "Chris Rillo is an attorney. He's got a reputation to defend and here the captain is suddenly saying 'well, he was so belligerent that he had to be fired from CPAB,' the only person to ever be fired."

 

Go here for the full story in the Richmond Review newspaper --->>>

 

S.F. suspect not alone in dodging deportation

 

Binh Thai Luc, 35, who was arrested Sunday, March 25, 2012 and is being held on suspicion of five counts of murder. Photo: Associated Press.

 

Kevin Fagan of the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper reported that Kestutis Zadvydas was the opposite of what most people would envision as an ideal immigrant to the United States. He was a convicted thief and cocaine dealer, and U.S. officials ordered him deported in 1994 to his native Germany.

But Zadvydas was never sent home.

Neither were, by some counts, thousands of other convicted criminals marked for deportation to their countries of origin in the past decade - including Binh Thai Luc, 35, who is accused in last week's slayings of five people in a San Francisco row house.

The potential deportees were all held in prison for up to six months, then set free under a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court ruling barring immigrants from being locked up indefinitely while awaiting deportation. The trouble in all these instances was that their home countries would not take them back.

In Luc's case, it was Vietnam in 2006. He'd just finished serving eight years in state prison for robbing a Chinese restaurant and trying to rob a car electronics store in San Jose, but after a federal judge ordered him kicked out of the country, his homeland refused to issue travel documents.

Six years later, he sits in San Francisco County Jail charged with five counts of murder with special circumstances. The victims - a couple in their 60s, their grown children and their son's girlfriend - were bludgeoned and attacked with an unspecified sharp weapon, police said.

 

Go here for the full story on the SFGate.com   --->>>

Interviewing Anonymous

 

The San Francisco Bay Guardian chats with one of the legion of hactivists using the Internet to organize allies and attack enemies

 

Anonymous protesters wore Guy Fawkes masks at the Scientology Center Los Angeles in 2008

PHOTO BY VINCENT DIAMANTE

 

Steven T. Jones and Yael Chanoff of the San Francisco Bay Guardian newspaper reported that there have always been journalists and activists devoted to safeguarding the free flow of information, but the age of the Internet has brought a new set of opportunities and challenges — and a new generation of loosely affiliated online enforcers collectively known as Anonymous.

This network of so-called "hacktivists" from around the world organize operations ranging from physical protests to cyber attacks on corporate websites, involving anything from small groups carrying out someone's idea to large groups using downloaded software to launch sophisticated attacks on high-profile villains or in defense of embattled heroes.

"We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us," is a common tagline members of the group use in announcing its campaigns, often through YouTube videos and accompanied by imagery of a suit with a question mark for a head or someone wearing the Guy Fawkes mask popularized by the film V for Vendetta, with its theme of the masses rising up against injustice, driven by the power of basic ideas about justice (see "Remember, remember the 5th of November," 11/1/11).

The idea of the online community rising up in collective action under the banner of Anonymous first appeared around 2003, but it really caught on and went viral in the last few years, first when Anonymous organized global protests outside Church of Scientology offices in 2008 and again at the end of 2010 when Anonymous defended Wikileaks' release of secret diplomatic cables, shutting down the websites of Visa, Amazon, PayPal, and other companies that cooperated with the U.S. government in trying to freeze Wikileaks' assets.

 

Go here for the full story on the SFBG website   --->>>