Articles Posted in the Opinion Category
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Did Sarah Palin Play a Role
in Giffords Assassination Attempt?We have all no doubt heard that gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, 22, shot Congresswoman Giffords as she met with constituents outside a grocery store, killing Arizona’s chief federal judge John M. Roll, and five others including a five-year old, and leaving Ms. Giffords fighting for her life with a bullet through her brain.
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“What a difference one week makes”
in San Francisco PoliticsLt. Governor-elect Gavin Newsom? He did his job well. He was handed the mayoralty torch from Brown in 2003 on a silver platter. Though he screwed up with the 49ers leaving town (generating the ire of Brown), he repaid his benefactors in full by agreeing to delay his swearing in (today at 1:00 pm) so that Brown and Pak could remain in control of the mayor’s office, the Board, the District Attorney’s office and, next, perhaps, the police department.
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Time To Re-examine Proposition 13
Proposition 13 unfairly treats commercial property like residential property. In San Francisco, for example, according to Assessor Phil Ting, prior to Proposition 13, commercial property owners paid 59 percent of property tax revenues and residential property owners paid 41 percent. In 2008, commercial property owners paid just 43 percent of property taxes, while residential property owners paid 57 percent. I believe voters would approve reversing these 2008 ratios.
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Thanks Gavin, Willie and Rose
For Saving Us From DemocracyNewsom is the reason there’s an interim mayor. He got himself elected lieutenant governor in November. Then he decided he’d postpone his swearing-in so he could appoint his own replacement. Brown is the former mayor who used to call the Board of Supervisors his “mistresses.” And Pak is Chinatown’s longtime wheeler and dealer.
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Swan Song on the Eve of Mayoral Transition
While Dufty can pretend that his brain is no more powerful than that of Forest Gump, it is this kind of political wheeling and dealing that makes most common people sick to their stomach and uninterested in actively participating in the political process. Earlier in the evening while the four outgoing Supervisors said their goodbyes and received a combination of sincere and half-hearted honors from their colleagues, Bevan Dufty admitted what everybody already knows, that he has been a constant swing vote. But with the way the voting process had been laid out and in the fast moving political eddies of the successor mayor tidal pool there simply wasn’t enough time to “hold out” effectively so Dufty was forced to unceremoniously flip-flop instead.
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Newsom: Get Your Sorry Butt to Sacramento!
A moderate who has fought often with the current Board, Newsom wants a caretaker mayor who will not run for election in November when voters get to choose the city’s next chief office holder. He doesn’t want a progressive appointed to the position who will then have an advantage in getting elected in eleven months.
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Overheard in Fog City: Interim Mayor Michael Hennessey?
Following discussions with progressive and centrist Board members today, what is becoming clear is no sitting Board member can get to six votes (supervisors cannot vote for themselves). Attention is now centered on a compromise “caretaker” candidate, someone who does not intend to exploit their interim-mayoral status to run for mayor, who will focus on closing the city’s projected $350 million budget shortfall and, more importantly, someone who is respected on all sides of the political aisle, including Mayor Gavin Newsom.
The Hunger Site
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